MATT RAINEY/USGA PHOTO ARCHIVES
NEW LEADER, CONSISTENT PRINCIPLES
Things are relatively quiet at the center right
now. There are no grooves issues, no one
is too concerned about clubhead specifics,
and the ball world seems to be in order. In
fact, the most controversial equipment issue
of late, the upcoming ban of the belly putter, is not so much an equipment matter as
a Rules of Golf issue. The ban, effective in
2016, is based on anchoring a club to the
body and not as much how a putter is made
or performs.
This is not such a bad thing. In February
2012, Dick Rugge, the center’s senior
technical director, retired after 13 years of
service (he had previously held a variety of
positions at TaylorMade, including head of
research and development). Rugge steered the
USGA through many obstacle courses: limits
on clubhead size and the implementation
of adjustability, the elimination of square
grooves, the establishment of a precise
measurement to maintain an overall distance
standard for balls. He was able to hurdle said
obstacles partly by constantly communicating
with the equipment industry, but mainly by
sticking solidly to the idea of challenge. His
message to the business was that if something
might remove the challenge, then take it
somewhere else.
Now he has been replaced by a genial,
bearded, bespectacled gentleman by the
name of John Spitzer, who actually joined the
USGA before Rugge. Prior to that, Spitzer
gained a masters degree in mechanical
engineering from Villanova University,
in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and later
became a boffin in Princeton University’s
Plasma Physics Laboratory. There, he led
the thermomechanical engineering branch
and also worked on the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, as
well as on the linear accelerator for the
Superconducting Super Collider. Its job
was to mine the complexities of “nuclear
fusion,” which is the scientific phenomenon
of particles colliding and creating energy and
light. Think of the sun. Think of the atomic
bomb. You likely don’t think of golf.
One day Spitzer was paging through the
magazine Mechanical Engineering when he
saw an advertisement placed by the USGA.
The association was seeking a scientific mind
to join its research and development staff.
Spitzer loved engineering but he also had a
passion for the royal and ancient game. What
if he could put the two together? As George
Bernard Shaw once said, “Happy is the man
who can make a living from his hobby.”
w w w. v s g a . o r g
Master_VSGA_Sept13_MASTER2.indd 31
John Spitzer, the USGA’s managing director of equipment standards, oversees the team that examines and
adjudicates all matters of equipment technology for the national governing body.
PROVING PROCESS FOR PRODUCTS
T
oday Spitzer supervises a staff of almost two
dozen. His immediate aides-de-camp is Matt
Pringle, who has a bachelor’s in engineering
from Queens University and a doctorate
in engineering mechanics from McMaster
University, both in Ontario, Canada, and
Carter Rich, a lawyer by trade, who works
closely with manufacturers but who also
played on the golf squad at Florida A&M.
These three were also the major players on
Rugge’s team.
The current center opened in 1984 and
covers some 20,000 square feet. The upper
floor accommodates office space, me