USGA reverses Taylormade XFT Wedge Stance

The U.S Golf Association ( USGA ) recently reversed its original decision to not allow taylormade to sell the interchangeable U-Groove faces for its new TP XFT Wedge in 2010.

Taylormade’s Benoit Vincent their chief technical officer flew personally to the USGA headquarters in New Jersey to appeal their original ruling based on the case that the interchangeable wedge faces should be subjected to the same deadlines as normal wedges.

Just a couple of days ago the USGA’s equipment standard committee  made the decision to give the U-Groove face the green light until Jan 1, 2011 when all OEM’s are not allowed to produce or distribute non conforming grooves.

Golf Week Reports For 2010, here is what will be sold by TaylorMade:

• factory assembled TP xFT wedges with interchangeable faces that contain large U grooves (TaylorMade calls them Z grooves);

• factory assembled TP xFT wedges with interchangeable faces that contain smaller grooves that conform to 2010 PGA Tour standards (TaylorMade refers to them as ZTP grooves);

• individual interchangeable faces with Z grooves;

• individual interchangeable faces with ZTP grooves.

In 2011, no fully assembled wedges or individual interchangeable faces with Z grooves will be made or distributed by TaylorMade, although retailers will be allowed to sell their remaining stock of 2010 wedges.

I totally agree with Taylormade here, why should they be held to a different standard than other manufactures. Props to the USGA for becoming aware of this and changing the ruling.