John Huggan Talks To Acushnet CEO Wally Uihlein

Back in April, John Huggan was able to secure an interview with Acushnet CEO Wally Uihlein.  Uihlein is head man for Titliest, Foot Joy, and Cobra.  It is a multi-part interview, but the first part came out earlier this week.  John did a great job, and Wally was surprisingly forthcoming in his answers.  He didn't really deviate much from corporate talking points, but does say some things that spark discussion.

When asked by John about his thoughts on media coverage of technology, Uihlein doesn't admit to reading this blog, but instead says he is "not surprised that there is a media imbalance" in coverage of technology.

Now wait just one second.  We have been railing here for years about technology, and its negative impact on the pro and amateur game.  While my bias is very clear, I have also gone out of my way to commend the advances in technology.  I digress.

Uihlein and Huggan get into a great exchange about ball rollbacks.  Effectively, Uihlein says a rollback in percentage terms would not be opposed by Titleist - as long as there was "due process" done by the R&A and USGA.  He doesn't really define what that is, but I thought that the USGA had transparent due process in doing their research to get to their grooves findings.  As for if the research was complete or the initial policy was clear, that can be called into question.

Then Huggan goes into a line of questioning about the de-facto bifurcation that the grooves rule creates and why Titleist and the governing bodies could not agree on a tournament ball for professionals.  At one point, Uihlein gets perhaps too defensive about the impact of the ball on the great courses by saying, "There has been a lot of hyperbole written and spoken about us obsoleting all these courses."  Tell that to Augusta National.

The impact of the golf ball has been on the setup of golf tournaments with deep, testy rough that just ruins the fun of golf.  Perhaps ironically, Uihlein then says, "I’m not in favor of rough. I’m a minimalist. The disease of American architecture is the high cost of maintenance caused by some of these modern designs."

This is a must read interview.  I haven't gotten through all of part two yet, but part one is a blockbuster.  Huggan asked all of the right questions and pushed the right buttons with Uihlein.  The end product is a riveting discussion.  While I may be very biased toward Huggan's point of view, Uihlein represents himself very well and does bring up some interesting points and tidbits.