A little more than a week ago, we took a look at how Tiger Woods and Nike have completely turned the tables on critics of his Nike drivers, and recast the debate about golf equipment as one pitting Woods and the guardians of the game against a group of anonymous "cheaters" who are using technology to make a mockery of the game.
It's really an incredible case of marketing spin, one that the collective sports media has let Woods and Nike get away with -- and without asking any serious questions about Woods' ties with a company that may be paying him up to $100 million on his current endorsement contract.
This week we saw the fruits of the Tiger/Nike campaign, as the PGA announced that they would begin voluntary testing of drivers on the PGA Tour come January. For those of you unfamiliar with the issue, here's the crux of the physics involved:
At issue is a physics term called the "coefficient of restitution" (COR), which measures how quickly a golf ball springs off the face of a club at impact. When the face is ultra thin, it allows for more of a trampoline effect.Golf's ruling bodies last year set the limit at 0.83 for professional tours.
Currently, the only way to test a driver's springlike effect is to send the club to the USGA Research and Test Center, where it's taken apart and analyzed. The new test uses only a small, metal weight on a pendulum.
Woods, not unexpectedly, praised the news. Further, he also mentioned that he's confronted one golfer on the Tour that Woods claims is using a "hot" driver -- a golfer that Woods says claimed he was only using the driver that the club manufacturer (also unnamed) sent him.
But the real story here is how everyone covering the PGA Tour has accepted Woods' marketing spin uncritically. Even the AP's normally sane Jim Litke has fallen for it:
"This is my practice driver. I have it just to put on a show for the fans. I like to make people happy and I do that on the driving range."Pause and then look mournfully into the camera.
"I was getting ready for my round and I picked the wrong club. I feel sorry. I apologize to the tour, my fellow golfers and my fans."
It might not look like much of an alibi in print, but a slightly different version worked pretty well for Sammy Sosa.
Nowhere in Litke's piece were the words Nike or Callaway mentioned. And that's the real crime here. This is a story about sales and marketing of sports equipment as much as it might be about cheating, and most sportswriters are either missing the boat, or are just too afraid to challenge Woods' assertions.
UPDATE: Jason Scavone strikes the right tone with Woods. I wish somebody else would. And, as always, there's a discussion going on at Sportsfilter.
