PGA’s wedge dispute will not go quietly

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Ping chairman John Solheim has reminded the PGA Tour that it can’t make a separate rule to ban the Ping Eye2 clubs, specifically wedges that led to accusations of cheating the first month of the season.

Hours after Scott McCarron said he wasn’t backing down from his comment that “it’s cheating” when Phil Mickelson and other players use Ping wedges with square grooves, golf’s situation became even more muddled with Solheim’s gentle reminder.

Solheim said Monday the PGA Tour is bound by a 1993 settlement that says the tour cannot create a special rule that differs from the USGA. The Ping chairman, however, says he’s willing to discuss a solution.

McCarron and Mickelson, meanwhile, struck no conciliatory tones.

McCarron issued a statement Monday in which he wanted to clarify that while he believes “it’s cheating” for Mickelson and anyone else to use the Ping wedges, “I never called Phil Mickelson a cheater.”

“That being said, I want my fans, sponsors and most importantly, my fellow players, to know that I will not be silenced and I will continue my efforts to get the groove issue resolved,” McCarron said.

Mickelson said over the weekend that he was “publicly slandered,” and he hinted at legal action if the PGA Tour does not discipline McCarron for his choice of words.

Square grooves no longer are allowed on the PGA Tour because of a new USGA policy effective this year that requires grooves in irons to be more a more shallow V-shape, which generate less spin.

However, the Ping-Eye 2 wedges made before April 1, 1990, are approved for competition because of a lawsuit that Ping settled with the PGA Tour and USGA some 20 years ago.

It has not been proven whether the grooves of a 20-year-old golf club — Mickelson played them in college at Arizona State and found this wedge in his garage — spin more than V-shaped grooves made with today’s technology.

John Daly and Dean Wilson were the first players to use the Ping wedges this year, at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Mickelson, who finished 19th at the Farmers Insurance Open, said he was not sure the Ping wedge was more effective than his new wedges from Callaway.

Mickelson, however, has been angry with the USGA since the groove policy was announced. He claims he submitted wedges under the new rules that the USGA did not approve, yet he was allowed to use a Ping wedge with square grooves that are not conforming.