Stimpmeter slowly gained acceptance

The return of the British Open to Muirfield in 2002 brings to mind a charming story about a previous staging of the championship at the home of the Honourable Company. It involved a particularly interesting presentation that was made to Muirfield's greenkeeper, Shaig Logan, during the build-up to the event.

On being handed a stimpmeter, Logan rasped: "What's this for?" It was for measuring the speed of the greens, he was informed. "Why would I want to do that?" the greenkeeper inquired. So that each green would roll at the same speed.

Still bemused by such a notion, Logan persisted: "Why would I want to do that?" Gently, his benefactors pointed out that it would ensure the first green would not be slower than the ninth and that the 10th would roll at the same pace at the 17th and 18th. Which brought the retort: "But laddie, that's why we have practice rounds."

Despite the resistance of Logan and his ilk, the stimpmeter reaches a significant milestone this year. It is the silver jubilee of the implement's acceptance by the US Golf Association and, by a coincidence, the inventor happened to be a member of the Country Club in Massachusetts, where the Ryder Cup is to be staged in September.

Critics charge that its use has led to absurdly-fast greens, too slick even for tournament professionals. Which is richly ironic, given that Edward Stimpson was prompted to invent the device after excessively fast greens had prevented the 20 leading players from breaking 75 during the final round of the 1935 US Open at Oakmont.

Won by local man Sam Parks Jnr, who three-putted only twice in the 72 holes, the championship broke the spirit of Walter Hagen, who finished third having led briefly during the early stages of the final round. It would be the last time for Hagen to lead a major championship.

Throughout his life, Stimpson had been a reader of scientific books and periodicals and developed an intense curiosity about how things worked. And in an attempt at establishing uniformity from green to green, he set about developing a measuring device in the basement of a friend's house. Incidentally, 1935 was also the year he won the Massachusetts State Amateur title, playing off five handicap.

The original stimpmeter was a 30-inch piece of wood with a groove running lengthwise and a notch to hold a golf ball in place. To operate it, Stimpson laid the device flat on a level section of green and raised one end at a steady rate until the ball rolled down the board and across the green.

In his original instruction to accompany the device, Stimpson wrote: "Raise the stick until the ball rolls out of the niche, then measure the distance it rolls from the end of the stick." So, if the ball rolled 10 feet, the green would have a stimpmeter reading of 10.

When he sent it to the USGA, they dismissed it as being "not sufficiently scientific". So it collected dust over the following decades until Frank Thomas arrived as technical director at the USGA in 1974. Concerned about the speed of greens, he modified the original model by changing the material from wood to aluminium, lengthening it from 30 to 36 inches and specifying that three balls should be rolled down the stimpmeter in one direction and the process repeated in the opposite direction. The average distance the balls had rolled would provide the official reading.

When Stimpson's invention was adopted by the USGA, a friend suggested that he should patent it and sell it. "We'll make millions," he was assured. "Everyone will have to have one."

But the inventor shunned any notion of commercialism, replying: "Golf doesn't owe me a thing. I owe golf. I've had a marvellous life playing golf."