Get out the crying towels for all golf “”sandbaggers.”” The U.S. Golf Association has decided to keep driver faces’ coefficient of restitution at .830 rather than increase it to .860. Clubmakers, seeking increased sales, had sought the higher “”spring face effect,”” thus lengthening driver distances. The heck with the negative effect to existing golf links around the country.

The quickest way to render golf courses obsolete is to alter golf equipment so golf balls go further. Par fives become fours. Par threes turn into pitch and putts!

Clubmakers, expecting the USGA to OK the change, sold 20,000 to 30,000 non-conforming drivers that are now being returned by some golfers who had supported the proposed change. The industry says it has developed a financial headache returning money for clubs. That can happen at times when the cart is put before the horse!

Industry points out that a percentage of golfers will choose to keep their non-conforming drivers because they don’t necessarily play by USGA rules. That’s a nice way of calling them sandbaggers! God bless euphemisms!

We certainly don’t need a landscape of obsolete golf courses made so by profit-blinded industry, selling trampoline effect drivers to golfers too lazy to better their games by lessons and practice.

The bottom line? Because the U.S. Golf Association had the guts not to cheapen the sport, through profit-motivated technology change, I’m sending in my application for membership immediately!

John W. Benoit, Rangeley