“What a bunch of fun that was.”

Ray Glier tackles the Flogton mission in an NY Times Sports item and quotes chief executive Pat Gallagher at length. Now here's a guy you want to do business with!

In bright daylight, for all to see, Pat Gallagher handed a foursome a can of cooking spray to carry around on the golf course. It was as if he had given a batter a corked bat to take up to the plate.

When the group got to the sixth tee at Metropolitan Golf Links in Oakland, Calif., Dave Morris, one of the golfers, pulled out the spray, applied it to the head of his driver and drew back the club.

What happened next was pure joy for Morris, though the custodians of golf’s hallowed traditions might describe it as pure pain.

“Two-ninety,” Morris said. “I hit it 290 yards. It was like the space shuttle lifting off. Straight down the fairway. You’re walking around the golf course like a touring pro. We’ve all heard of things to put on the club to cut down the spin, but I never had done it.

“What a bunch of fun that was.”

Ah yes, the new American way: the rules are in the way of proper transactions and genuine happiness!

The Flogton crowd continues to imply the rules of golf are behind the game's slowdown and that freeing them up will just open the floodgates to a new audience. (But not mentioned but in their dreams, potentially Flogton branded equipment.)

While I don't discount the potential that they are right and that the game should be open to some new approaches, you do have to wonder what the appeal of skirting the rules says about our society.

Thoughts?