Azinger disqualified at Travelers
Paul Azinger was disqualified from the Traveler’s Championship after shooting a first round 68 (-2) for using a ball that was no longer on the conforming ball list. For some reason the Calloway ball he was using was removed from the list at the start of this month. The Hartford Courant covered it here. There reasoning that the marking on the ball could make it too heavy is too funny to even comment on.
The reasons for its removal are not known, but it could be that Calloway or the USGA found a problem with it or that they just decided to make a change to that type of ball and are phasing out the version. Just because it is no longer on the list doesn’t mean it is illegal, just not being tested any more.
The USGA updates the conforming ball list monthly.
At the US Junior qualifier I ran on Monday we had a player penalized for violating the one-ball rule. The “one-ball rule” is an optional condition that is used at the highest levels of competition. It requires that every ball the player puts into play is identical in markings such that they all match exactly one entry in the conforming ball list. This means that two Pro-V1 balls may be different if the side markings are not the same.
Dear John,
Here is the information provided by Callaway in its web page some time prior to the removal of the one dot ball.
http://www.callawaygolf.com/Global/en-US/Articles/TouriInformation.html
The day before the ball came out of the list I went to one of our biggest golf shops and found out that every tour i ball over there was the non-conforming model, and the shop manager having no idea of the issue, until he contacted the Callaway representative at Spain when I told him about it.
I found it difficult to understand. But Azinger’s issue is much more diffcult to understand either.