Equipment

GolfWRX Interview – Dick Rugge USGA Senior Technical Director

Published

19 years ago

Sep 25, 2007

R Hetzel

During the past year the United States Golf Association came out with an updated ruling in regard to golf club adjustability.

We can already adjust weight on putters and many of the newer drivers. Many have speculated this is an attempt to bring increased club adjustability to the golfing masses and not just the elite tour pros. GolfWRX recently interviewed Mr. Dick Rugge, Senior Technical Director of the USGA and he gave me some insight into this updated ruling…

How will the club adjustability ruling assist the average golfer? Will they benefit from this proposal more so than a professional tour player?

PGA Tour Professionals have long had the opportunity to have their clubs modified and adjusted both frequently and quickly because they have access to the tour vans at virtually every tour stop. The average golfer cannot access this resource. Additional club adjustability features should give the average golfer access to some of the same type of club fitting possibilities available to tour professionals.

How does club adjustability impact the club fitting process?

I believe that additional adjustable features should give club fitters more opportunity to better fit golfers.

Could this ruling be viewed as an attempt by the USGA to appease the manufacturers by limiting their ability to create increased distance through technology, but allowing "manufactured" shot shaping, or ball direction?

The intention of this rule change is to bring additional benefits to golfers. There was no intention of “appeasing” manufacturers in this ruling.

Do you envision some OEM manufacturers creating adjustable center of gravity (inside the head itself) in drivers and fairway woods?

The revised ruling has no affect on adjustments for weight which were already permitted in the Rules of Golf.

Do you envision quick re-shafts now, as in no more epoxy to secure shafts to the clubs? If so, won’t this have an adverse affect on the club fitting industry as a whole? The ruling stipulates "firmly fixed" what does this mean? (Almost anything can come apart during the normal course of play.)

While changing shafts or heads may be one type of adjustability, I believe that there will be many different types of adjustable features that will become available. Club designers have great creativity and will likely use that to come up with very interesting products. I believe that the club fitting industry will have additional tools with which to fit players and that this should be good for golfers and fitters alike.

“Firmly fixed” means all parts fit together as one unit. Adhesive joining does not totally guarantee that a club wouldn’t come apart – shafts break and glue joints can fail. We expect that manufacturers will create adjustable features that are durable.

Wouldn’t the tour level golfer stand much more to gain by this ruling than your average recreational golfer who cannot consistently repeat their swing?

Tour players already have the opportunity to adjust and modify their clubs on a frequent and rapid basis. I don’t anticipate that the additional adjustability allowance will change that situation very much.

The proposed ruling change by the USGA appears to be ambiguous. Does that suffice to say that the USGA is going to keep a "short leash" on just what exactly qualifies as "adjustable?"

Rather than draw strict guidelines around the rule at this point, we thought it best to develop our interpretations of what is and what is not acceptable with actual experience. That is why we have requested that club designers communicate their ideas with the USGA as soon as possible – certainly long before beginning production.

Just out of curiosity, how long does it take for the USGA to officially test and approve (or disapprove) a submitted golf club design once it has been submitted for testing. Obviously the manufacturers want to get things into the manufacturing process as soon as possible.

The length of time can vary greatly. We average 15 to 20 days for a typical conformance decision. However, some new concepts may take much longer to fully evaluate. This could be a year or more. This is because some new features may be very complex and the evaluation of them requires careful and professional analysis. To do this work, the USGA has a very competent technical staff, including six engineers (three of whom are PhD mechanical engineers). In addition to the internal staff, the USGA employs university consultants from Lehigh University, New York Polytechnic University, and M.I.T.

Have you (USGA) implemented a defined set of internal or USGA standards when evaluating the manufacturer’s submissions for legality? Obviously, the USGA has the deciding go ahead with each submitted golf club, in short, do you have a "threshold" in mind"?

Regarding club adjustability, we have not developed a defined set of USGA standards for the reasons cited in the previous response.

The USGA has published other club-related guidelines in the USGA publication “A Guide To the Rules On Clubs and Balls” The USGA guide is available here.

The guidebook can also be obtained in printed form from the USGA here.

Since it is stated that the adjustable club should "NOT be readily adjustable", does this infer that the golfer may have to take their club in to a shop to have it adjusted? Or, in essence, could we (golfers) complete this adjustment ourselves?

The “not readily adjustable” Rule language is intended to make it less likely that a club would be adjusted while playing a round of golf. This language has been included in the adjustability section of Appendix II for many years and has been applied to adjustable weight features in irons and woods, as well as other types of adjustable features for putters. Therefore, mechanisms which can be adjusted by the hands or adjustment features that can be changed with items commonly used during the round (e.g., coin or ball-mark repair tool) would likely not be considered conforming to the Rules.

I believe that one of the most consistent things about golf are the rules themselves, however I would venture that your average, recreational golfer (not someone who is striving to lower a tracked handicap) probably doesn’t follow ALL the rules and will use this proposal to make changes during a stipulated round. Was this discussed prior to deciding on this ruling?

Golfers have a personal responsibility to play according to the USGA Rules of Golf or whatever rules they choose. With that in mind, I believe that golfers will not violate this rule any more than they violate the rules that do not permit kicking a ball out from behind a tree or improving the lie on the fairway. Some types of equipment adjustability have been permitted for quite some time and I believe that many golfers are already aware of the ban on adjustment during a stipulated round.

Irons remain an enigma, many top professional and amateur golfers are still VERY successful using (older) blade type iron technology. Do you believe that this proposal on adjustability will be a catalyst for the OEMs to create "higher tech" iron offerings?

I believe that question is best answered by the manufacturers.

Do you expect a FLOOD of new, adjustable equipment designs submitted to the USGA in early 2008?

Time will tell.

Do you view the putter as something that might have a lot of potential for adjustability? There are many putter designs that already have adjustable weights right now.

The Rules have permitted adjustable features (more than just weight) on putters for some time. The new adjustable club ruling applies to irons and woods.

How much of an effect did the advent of the interchangeable fitting systems have on this rule decision?

Not much. Some other types of adjustable equipment submissions that were potentially beneficial to golfers but were not permitted under the current rules structure were the main impetus for the adopted change.

How does this new rule differ from the previous iteration which allowed moveable weights in golf clubs?

The old rule only permitted adjustments for weight purposes on woods and irons. The revised rule allows other types of adjustability.

What impact do you see this rule change having on the way golf clubs are bought and sold?

That will likely depend on designers’ ability to create products that are interesting to golfers. Any new feature or technology can have an affect in the marketplace.

What has the response been from OEM’s and shaft companies to the rule amendment? It seems like they would sell fewer clubs this way if golfers can easily save and reuse club heads and shafts.

Most reactions to the rule change have been very positive. This will give club designers many opportunities – beyond changing heads and shafts – to create interesting golf clubs.

How soon do you see these changes becoming widely accepted among golfers?

That depends on the success of club designers and manufacturers to create products that are wanted by golfers.

Thanks again Mr. Rugge and the USGA for sharing their time with Golfwrx.com.

Equipment

Why Rickie Fowler is switching to a shorter driver at the PGA Championship

Published

2 days ago

May 13, 2026

Alistair Cameron

In a golf world where players are looking to eke out every yard possible, usually by lengthening their drivers to add clubhead speed, there’s one player at the PGA Championship who’s going in the opposite direction. In fact, for Rickie Fowler, his goal off the tee is not about gaining extra distance or yards north to south, but rather about shrinking the misses from east to west.

Ahead of the PGA Championship and the week prior at the Truist Championship. Fowler mentioned to Cobra Tour Rep Ben Schomin that the driver didn’t quite swing feel the same as everything in the bag. As a result, and with Schomin’s suggestion to try and sync everything up with the big stick, Fowler decided to test out a shorter length shaft.

“He’s been at 45 (inches), and he’d been at 45 for a few weeks, 44 1/8 (inches) is really is where he is been living really for the most part, for the last couple of years, and is where he is been comfortable,” Schomin told GolfWRX. “It just felt like it was a little long and loose on him.”

Interestingly, Fowler ranks 40th in Driving Accuracy this year on the PGA Tour. It’s his most accurate season with the driver since the start of the decade. But sometimes for players, feel is more important than statistics.

“It was really more of a trying to get the swing to feel the fluidness from club to club to club to try to get it to feel the same,” Schomin added. “And so we took it down to 43 and a quarter, and it was a touch of a ball speed loss, just based on that overall club head speed. But honestly, he squared it up probably a little better. The right miss wasn’t nearly as far. So really, overall down-range dispersion tightened up a fair amount, and he felt confident in swinging it.”

The change in length had Fowler’s caddie, Ricky Romano, beaming at how well he had driven during Tuesday’s practice round at Aronimink. So much so, he was asking Schomin not to suggest changes anymore.

Fowler’s shaft-shortening is one of a few driver adjustments he’s made this season, and to Schomin’s credit, it’s thanks to the fact that he and the rest of the Cobra team had Fowler fit very well into three of the four heads in the Cobra OPTM lineup.

“He had three distinct drivers and the biggest decision was trying to decide which worked best at that time,” Schomin told GolfWRX previously. “He’s played the majority of the season with OPTM X, but has also played a couple of tournaments with OPTM LS. His overall driving stats have been good.”

At the RBC Heritage earlier this spring, Fowler switched drivers, changing from his Cobra OPTM X and into the Tour, low-loft Max K model that Gary Woodland used to win just a few weeks prior.

Now for the PGA Championship, Fowler’s back in the X head, but still using the UST Mamiya LIN-Q PowerCore White 6TX shaft, just a little bit shorter.

“Will he stay there? I’m not sure,” Schomin added. “Could we end up say at like 43 and 7.5 (of an inch). If it’s giving him the same feel of consistency through the bag, then I think we might end up just a touch longer. But if he likes where he is at, he’s confident where he is at, that’s really all that matters.”

If there’s more testing, though, just don’t tell his caddie.

Equipment

GolfWRX Launch Report: 2026 Titleist GTS drivers

Published

2 days ago

May 13, 2026

GolfWRX Staff

What you need to know: As is customary for the Fairhaven-based company, Titleist officially announced today that its GTS drivers are headed to retail, following a successful tour release. The GTS2, GTS3, and GTS4 drivers will be available in golf shops June 11.

Since debuting at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, the new GTS lineup has quickly gained traction on the PGA Tour, with more than 50 players already making the switch to a GTS2, GTS3, or GTS4 driver. Among them are Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth.

Justin Thomas’ Titleist GTS2 driver (Greg Moore, GolfWRX)

According to Titleist, the GTS series builds upon the performance foundation established by the GT Series, while introducing several major technological advancements, including a new Split Mass Frame construction, refined aerodynamics, and an updated Speed Sync face design.

2026 Titleist GTS drivers: What’s new, key technology

Split Mass Frame and thermoform body

At the center of the new GTS lineup is a redesigned internal structure: the Split Mass Frame. This technology works with a full-thermoform body made from Titleist’s Proprietary Matrix Polymer (PMP), a lightweight composite that enables engineers to reposition mass more efficiently throughout the head. Compared to the previous GT generation, GTS drivers feature nearly double the PMP material, increasing from 13 grams to 26 grams, while maintaining the sound and feel preferred by better players.

The weight savings from the thermoform construction allowed Titleist engineers to strategically separate mass placement inside the head. Specifically, more weight is pushed rearward to improve stability and forgiveness, while additional mass is positioned low and forward to optimize speed, launch, and spin.

In short, golfers are able to maintain ball speed and consistency across both centered and off-center strikes.

Faster aerodynamics

Titleist also refined the aerodynamic shaping of the GTS heads to help players generate more clubhead speed.

The tails of the new GTS2 and GTS3 heads have been raised compared to previous models, helping airflow stay attached to the crown and sole longer during the swing. According to Titleist, the improved airflow reduces drag and increases speed without affecting launch conditions or center of gravity placement.

Typically, aerodynamic gains can compromise forgiveness or launch characteristics, but the weight savings from the Split Mass Frame allowed engineers to preserve preferred CG locations.

New Speed Sync face

The new Speed Sync Face design is engineered to improve ball speed retention across a larger portion of the face. A reinforced perimeter structure helps maximize face deflection and COR on centered strikes, while the upper portion of the support ring is opened up to increase speed on high-face impacts, a common strike location for many golfers. The face also features a variable thickness design to preserve speed and performance across a wider impact area.

Expanded adjustability

Each GTS model includes a dual-weighting system to fine-tune launch, spin, and shot shape more precisely than previous generations. GTS2 uses interchangeable forward and aft weights, while GTS3 and GTS4 combine a rear weight with an adjustable forward track weight system.

Tour-inspired face graphics

The new lineup features redesigned high-contrast face graphics to improve alignment and framing at address, according to Titleist. Sharp visual lines are designed to make it easier to center the golf ball and to perceive loft more easily at setup.

Additional model details

GTS2

The GTS2 is the most forgiving model, designed for golfers seeking maximum stability and consistent speed across the face.
It produces high launch with mid spin and features a larger, confidence-inspiring profile behind the ball.
Standard weighting includes an 11-gram forward weight and a 5-gram rear weight, with additional fitting configurations available.

GTS3

The GTS3 is aimed at players who want more control over launch, spin, and shot shaping.
Compared to GTS2, the GTS3 offers lower launch and spin while featuring a more compact profile and deeper face design preferred by many stronger players.
The head features an adjustable forward-track weight system to further fine-tune center of gravity placement.

GTS4

The lowest-spinning option in the lineup, GTS4 is built for golfers looking to reduce excessive spin and maximize total distance.
Unlike previous “4” models from Titleist, the new GTS4 features a full 460cc profile that improves forgiveness and stability while retaining its low-spin DNA.
Like GTS3, it includes a forward track weighting system for precise fitting adjustments.

What Titleist says

“When we talk about driver design, it’s never about the one feature or benefit — it’s about all of them,” said Stephanie Luttrell, Titleist’s Senior Director of Metalwood R&D. “Ball speed, forgiveness, spin stability, adjustability, exceptional sound and feel… these are all attributes that golfers care about. It’s our job to design a lineup that elevates performance across the board without sacrificing in key areas, and we feel we’ve done that with GTS.”

“We know that forward CGs drive speed with great launch and spin characteristics, but you need to be able to do that with an inertial stability that still preserves ball speed, launch and spin consistency on off-center hits,” Luttrell said. “We’ve never before been able to hit these CG positions and inertia properties at the same time, and we’re achieving that because of GTS’ construction.”

Club Junkie’s take

I feel like every time there is a new Titleist wood release, I figure they can’t outdo their previous driver. And every year, I am wrong and impressed with the performance. The GTS fits right into that narrative again, as I didn’t know where Titleist could go from GT, but they pushed the limits again, and my fitting proved the smart people there found ways to improve.

My past four Titleist drivers have been a 2 series as my swing typically requires a little height, spin, and forgiveness so I figured I would just get a new GTS2 and be on my way. During the fitting, I was impressed by the new GTS construction, its added PMP material, and the advanced adjustability on each model. My fitter, Joey, got to work putting together a GTS2 and we started there. The launch and spin were great, and the consistency on misses was very tight. My average ball speed with the GTS went up a little bit as the new Speed Sync face creates more speed away from the center.

Joey then built up a GTS3 in 11 degrees, but I figured this wouldn’t have the stability I needed for tight dispersion on my miss hits. That thought was quickly erased after a few shots, and I really liked the more center start line and reduced draw on the misses I was seeing. We tried a few different settings and shafts to dial in the details in order to get the best fit. Having a forward and rear weight in the head allowed Joey to set up the GTS3 with a heavier rear weight to keep the launch and spin up, while the Sure Fit hosel set flat created a more center start line for me. My misses were not nearly as far left, and I was really impressed with the consistency on the spin and launch when I didn’t hit it in the center.

Titleist again created a wood line in GTS that delivers improvements over previous drivers while keeping the traditional look and feel you expect. More adjustability, better off-center speed, and 3 drivers that are playable over a wider range of players should make these extremely successful in fittings.

Pricing, specs, availability

GTS2 lofts: 8, 9, 10, 11 degrees (RH/LH)

GTS3 lofts: 8, 9, 10, 11 degrees (RH/LH)

GTS4 lofts: 8, 9, 10 (RH/LH)

Featured shafts

Project X Titan Black
Mitsubishi Tensei 1K White
Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Blue
Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Red

Premium shafts

Graphite Design Tour AD DI
Graphite Design Tour AD VF
Graphite Design Tour AD FI

Available for fittings and pre-sale now.

In golf shops worldwide beginning June 11.

Price: $699 (standard), $899 (premium)

Equipment

Titleist launches new GTS2 and GTS3 fairways

Published

2 days ago

May 13, 2026

Gianni Magliocco

Titleist has today introduced its new GTS2 and GTS3 fairways.

Lower and deeper center of gravity (CG) positions, new adjustable heel-toe weights and advanced clubface innovations drive total performance in the two tour-proven models.

New GTS fairway technology:

Wraparound composite crowns: Unlock lower CG positions for higher launch and lower spin as well as more CG depth for added forgiveness.

Refined shapes and profiles: With two distinct setups, with GTS2 featuring a shallower face height and larger address profile compared to GTS3’s deeper face and more compact profile. Both models feature flatter sole designs for better performance off the turf.

Dual-weighting systems: The dual-weighting systems allows for personalized performance, with interchangeable heel-toe flat weights helping to fine-tune CG location across the face.

A forged L-Cup face design: The new face design is optimized for GTS and works to preserve ball speed, maintain launch conditions and enhance sound and feel on low-face impacts.

Tour-inspired polished clubfaces: To help players see more of the clubface at address.

GTS2 Fairway

The new GTS2 fairway is designed with a shallower face and a larger profile than GTS3, ideal for players with more sweeping deliveries with their fairway metals.

GTS2’s new face height, inspired by tour feedback, was designed shallower than the prior generation GT2 model and more in line with the GT1 fairway. Each loft in GTS2 leverages a shallower profile except for the 13.5-degree, which maintains a slightly taller face.

With its new dual-weighting system, the ‘2’ model now has heel-toe CG adjustability.

Lofts: 13.5, 15.0, 16.5, 18.0, 21.0

Dual-weight system: 11-gram weight in heel, 5-gram weight in toe (standard)

GTS3 Fairway

The new GTS3 fairway is designed with a deeper face and a more compact profile, ideal for players who hit down on the golf ball more with their fairway metals.

New to the GTS3 family is a 21-degree offering, giving players two distinct profiles in Titleist’s 7-wood loft.

Instead of the track weight system featured in prior generation ‘3’ models, GTS3 now benefits from adjustable heel-toe flat weights.

Lofts: 15.0, 16.5, 18.0, 21.0

Dual-weight system: 11-gram weight in heel, 5-gram weight in toe (standard)

Price & Availability

The new GTS fairways are available for fittings and pre-sale now and will be in golf shops worldwide beginning June 11 priced at $399 (standard) and $599 (premium).