"I think a lot of guys are going to switch. I know a lot of guys are buying them off eBay."

Doug Ferguson reports that the PGA Tour has two players in the Sony Open field getting around the new groove rule: John Daly and Dean Wilson.  Each is using old Ping wedges grandfathered in because of a previous USGA settlement agreement with Ping:

Daly is using Ping-Eye 2 wedges -- pitching wedge, sand wedge and lob wedge -- that he first used at the 1986 U.S. Open when he was a sophomore in college. He stopped using them shortly after winning the 1991 PGA Championship when he signed with a different company.

Dean Wilson also is using a Ping-Eye 2 wedge that he found in his garage. He's had it since sometime in the 1980s.

Even in this new era of grooves, the old Ping wedges remain legal because of a lawsuit Ping filed against the USGA over square grooves that was settled in 1990. Under the settlement, any Ping-Eye 2 made before April 1, 1990, remains approved under the Rules of Golf.

Look at the wonderful initiative John is showing:

Whenever Daly gets a new Ping-Eye 2 wedge, he calls the company and reads them the serial number. Ping has a catalog of its wedges and can confirm if the wedges were manufactured prior to April 1990.

"Ping said the ones I have are all good to go," Daly said. "I think a lot of guys are going to switch. I know a lot of guys are buying them off eBay."

Daly said he first tried his old wedges when he played in Australia last month.

However, he most likely won't be able to use them at the British Open or anywhere else outside the United States or Mexico because the USGA settlement would not apply.

Since Daly's likely not clever enough to have figured this out on his own, Jim McCabe reports that a longtime USGA rules official wrote about the loophole recently, though he doesn't say where this appeared. I know I'm taking a leap here that Daly and Wilson read on a regular basis, but here's what McCabe writes:

It was sometime in early December when a longtime rules official with the U.S. Golf Association was doing some light reading. He was studying the wording to the new grooves regulations that would go in effect Jan. 1, 2010.

“They’ve left a loophole,” he wrote. “If I’m right, then the Ping Eye 2 wedges from pre-1990 might be the club of choice for some players come 2010.”

And the next time someone bellows on about professional golfers all being honest, upstanding, rule-abiding gentlemen who call penalties on themselves and don't need PED testing or any other kind of behaviorial regulation? Remember these two schmucks and the other guys surfing ebay for an edge.

Oh by the way, the Golf Gods are on to them: Daly fired a smooth 73 and Wilson a one-over 71.