The bumper-sized packages appearing at the door of Allan Robertson House, the R&A’s award-winning test centre on the outskirts of St Andrews, have nothing to do with Paul Sturgess, at 7 feet 7 the UK’s tallest man and an 8-handicapper when he played in the 2017 British Masters at Close House. Rather they are down to a sudden spate of flagsticks, some of which come in parcels which, at 8 feet, are as long as Sturgess’s specially made bed.
Professor Steve Otto, the R&A’s director of equipment standards and chief technology officer, says that in his first 20 years with the R&A, only two flagsticks were submitted to his department for testing. Yet since that new rule came into play at the start of 2019, the one allowing people to putt with the flagstick in, that number has soared to 39. In the United States, Janeen Driscoll, the USGA’s director of brand communications, reports that they are up to 20.
So where are they all coming from?
As far as Otto is concerned, they are coming from all around the world. “I think the first came from Japan,” he said.
And what kind of ideas are behind them?
“Some designers,” he continued, “are trying to enhance the number of times a ball will be holed, others are concentrating on ball retrieval.” As stated in the updated equipment rules issued in January of this year, a flag can have a cup attached to its base to enable a ball to be retrieved without doing any damage to the surrounding green. In which connection, a temporary rule currently applies in America in that in those areas where golf is still ongoing, people are asked not to touch the flagstick at all due to the possible transmission of the coronavirus. In fact, they no longer are required to hole out as per the Rules of Golf even for handicapping purposes. The hole liner can be raised above the putting surface by way of a deterrent, or a series of objects can be placed in the hole so that the ball can be more easily removed.
Plenty of us would not have thought there was much scope for creativity when it comes to what is essentially a stick with a flag at the end of it or, in the case of Merion, a basket.
It would appear that Otto does not greet the latest outsize delivery to the so-called Home of Golf with a weary, “Not another flagstick!” The truth is that he never ceases to be excited and astonished at the inventiveness of golf equipment manufacturers and, of course, those individuals who might work things out in a garden shed. At the same time, he could not be more appreciative of the respect they all show for the game and its traditions.
Plenty of us would not have thought there was much scope for creativity when it comes to what is essentially a stick with a flag at the end of it or, in the case of Merion, a basket.
Originally, there were no flagsticks and when, eventually, they were introduced, they barely got a mention alongside more romantically labelled members of the “stick” family – yes, people still talk about “golf sticks” – as mashies, jiggers, and niblicks. Rather did they rank alongside such boring etceteras as rakes and ball retrievers.
It did not need the combined efforts of the R&A’s and USGA’s PR machines to up the flagstick’s profile. Instead, that happened automatically at the start of last year.
The arguments as to whether it was better to putt with the flag in or out were in full flow from Day 1, and they have continued ever since, be it in clubhouses, online, or on the phone. Where Bryson DeChambeau, the golfer-cum-scientist, wasted no time in saying that keeping the flagstick in was “statistically proven to be the superior option in virtually every scenario,” professor Tom Mase, former associate chair of the department of mechanical engineering at California Polytechnic State University, opted for the reverse. In summarising his various tests, this particular expert – he has worked for Titleist and Callaway in his time – declared that keeping the flag in place “does more to hurt your chances of going in than help turn a bad putt into a made one.”
David Leadbetter, the world-renowned coach who kept a close watch on the situation throughout the past year, will tell you that he remains somewhere in the middle. Yet he clearly was impressed by what Adam Scott has to say about the extent to which leaving the flag in has helped with his distance control.
The aforementioned Otto points to how he, personally, has not researched the “leave it in” or “take it out” options; he leaves all that to people such as the above.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, he has his work cut out in staying in touch with the various manufacturers for whom flagstick making suddenly has become more of an exact science: “We’re reaching out to them all because this is new ground.”
The rules are pretty clear. In brief, a flagstick “must not incorporate features, including its material composition, designed to act in a shock-absorbing properties on impact with the ball.” Nor, for that matter, is there to be anything to allow a player to measure wind speed or direction.
Thank heavens for that.
Just imagine your average putting slowcoach adding that kind of up-to-the-minute information to his list of considerations.