Given Webster's definition of the word "revolution" as a "momentous change," it is fair to characterize the movement toward non-metal or spikeless golf shoes as a revolution. What strikes many observers is its rapidity; hundreds upon hundreds of courses are adopting policies making mandatory the use of spikeless golf shoes.

Equally as remarkable is that many facilities are storied places, otherwise steeped in conservatism and tradition -- places like Muirfield Village in Ohio and Baltusrol in New Jersey. These are among golf's "landmark" facilities,where a few years ago, a player walking across a hard surface without his spikes crunching would have seemed just as glaringly out of uniform as an executive showing up for a board meeting in

Bermuda shorts.

The benefits stemming from the spikeless revolution are many: smoother and healthier greens; reduced wear and tear on carts, carpeting and other property; and increased comfort to the player, both on and off the course. These benefits combine to reduce repair and maintenance costs, which may also help explain the robust welcome of new policies from superintendents, club managers and facility operators.

But is there a downside to spikeless shoes and mandatory policies banning metal spikes? Logically, the answer would seem to be "yes" since it is virtually conceded that spikeless shoes are inferior in terms of traction, particularly in wet or hilly conditions. Nevertheless, to date, discussion in the media about of the liability ramifications of spikeless shoes and policies mandating their use has been sparse. Such as they are, the conclusions of the commentators appear to be that the liability concerns associated with spikeless shoes are not thought to be very significant.

There would seem to be two basic areas of legal exposure: "premises liability" on the part of facilities (particularly ones that adopt mandatory policies); and "products liability" on the part of non-metal spike and spikeless shoe manufacturers, distributors and sellers.

Premises liability has to do with the "duty of care" a property owner owes to persons on or about the property. This duty is highest in the case of so-called "business invitees," i.e., people who come onto the property as part of a business relationship with the owner. Patrons of a golf facility would fall into this category. Product liability has to do with defective or poorly designed products that cause injury under foreseeable conditions when being used in their intended manner.

In applying these principles to spikeless golf shoes and policies regarding their use, there are areas of concern. First, most of the benefits have to do with the preservation of property and the saving of money, argu-ably at the expense of safety. Second, there seems to be not enough effort being devoted to educating players regarding the lesser traction spikeless shoes sometimes provide and the need for extra care when wearing them in certain situations, e.g., in early morning dew or other wet conditions, in traversing hills or inclines, or in crossing painted wooden surfaces.

In the event of serious "slip and fall" injuries to players wearing spikeless shoes (particularly those forced to wear them by mandatory policies), there will be "plaintiff's lawyers" dedicated to exploiting the situation to the hilt. They will say that spikeless shoes were forced upon players to save property and money, with little regard for the safety and welfare of the people playing the game, and they will say that little attempt was made to adequately inform players regarding the reduced traction and safety issues.

There are things the industry can do proactively to help rebut these arguments: Educate the consumer buying spikeless shoes or non-metal spikes (Foot-Joy and Etonic are placing pamphlets and warnings in their shoe boxes); and make generous use of signage, posting areas and conditions that may be dangerous to spikeless wearers.

All indications are that spikeless golf shoes seem to be the way of the future. Ultimately, they stand to benefit the game and those who play the game. But to believe spikeless shoes will never be the basis of personal injury litigation is naive. In that event, the industry will be much better served in defending itself if it can point to appropriate consumer education and the liberal use of adequate signage informing and warning players wearing spikeless shoes about particularly dangerous areas or conditions.

-- Gary Crist

Scoring more Brownie Points

The USGA has become partners with two prominent organizations for females in order to expand the opportunities for young women in golf.

By teaming the USGA with the LPGA and the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., the newly formed partnership hopes to introduce and maintain an interest in golf by girls through expansion of the LPGA Girls Golf Club program, which was founded eight years ago with a pilot program in Phoenix, Ariz. Seventy sites in the U.S., along with programs introduced in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, are now in operation. The aim of the Girls Golf Club program is to provide a network for girls to learn to play the game, build friendships and sample competition in an enjoyable and non-threatening environment.

By 1998, it is expected that the Girls Golf Club program will have expanded to more than 100 U.S. cities nationwide.

"We're very pleased to contribute to this program for girl golfers," USGA President Judy Bell noted. "For nearly 50 years, ever since the USGA conducted the first U.S. Girls' Junior Championship, we've been seeking to get more girls involved in this great game. Our funding of this program continues that effort."

Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. is the largest voluntary organization for girls in the world. Available to girls ages 5 through 17, there currently are 321 Girl Scout Councils in the United States representing some 3.3 million members.

"This partnership shows true vision," LPGA Commissioner Jim Ritts said, "with these three high-profile organizations coming together to use golf to make a positive impact on the lives and futures of young women across the country."

Fifteen Girls Golf Clubs throughout the United States have been designated initial partnership sites: Phoenix, Ariz.; Sacramento, Calif.; Denver, Colo.; Jacksonville, Fla.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Louisville, Ky.; Springfield, Mass.; Las Vegas, Nev.; North Salem, N.Y.; Durham, N.C.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio; Youngstown, Ohio; Charleston, S.C.; and Houston, Texas.

A New Home For Canadian Hall

Over the past couple of years, Karen Hewson has been busy rearranging the history of golf in Canada. As curator for the Royal Canadian Golf Association, Hewson has reviewed an eclectic treasure trove that ranges from the massive silver trophy awarded to George Lyon for winning the golf competition at the 1904 Summer Olympics to the clubs used by the mysterious J. Douglas Edgar, who beat Bobby Jones in the Canadian Open.

The home for these pieces of the country's golfing history is the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame, a stone structure located at the RCGA's headquarters and opened nine months ago.

Architecturally, the Hall's most prominent feature is its unique interior. "It's set up like a golf course, with 18 holes, or stops," says Hewson. "And the building is open concept, without a ceiling, so you get the feel of being outdoors playing the game while inside touring our course."

The Hall's front nine is a roundup of Canada's early golf history with stops at Royal Montreal, the oldest golf club in North America (1793) and the first on the continent to allow women members (1891). There's also a biography of course architect Stanley Thompson, the hard-driving designer who built courses coast to coast, including the classic mountain layouts at Jasper and Banff.

At the turn, the Hall has a halfway house that doubles as a theater. The most memorable tape in the archives is of Arnold Palmer's win at the 1955 Canadian Open, his first victory as a professional. (That Open was also the first tournament to be broadcast on television across Canada.)

On the back nine, a popular stop is the 12th hole, an exhibit -- some would call it a shrine -- devoted to Marlene Stewart Streit. As the country's most decorated golfer, she has won the Amateur titles of Canada, the U.S., Britain and Australia.

The 19th hole is the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame Room and it's here you'll find pencil drawings and biographies of the country's 42 inductees. It is a colorful group, although the standout is George Lyon, who waited until age 37 to take up the game and then won eight Canadian Amateurs and the last Olympic title ever awarded for golf. Lyon was 46 when he competed in the St. Louis Games and was so excited about his golden win that with the crowd giving him a standing ovation, he walked on his hands to the trophy presentation.

The Canadian Golf Hall of Fame is located in Oakville, Ontario, about a 30-minute drive from downtown Toronto. It is open daily except Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For further information, call (905) 844-1800.

-- Ian Cruickshank

Life In The Fast Lane

If the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has its way, the first words out of your mouth the next time you plop yourself into a golf cart won't be "Which way to the first hole?" but "Don't forget to buckle up."

In many communities, especially those heavy with retirees, golf carts often share the road with regular vehicular traffic. That's a concern for the NHTSA, which wants to make mandatory on certain carts -- those that travel between 15 mph and 25 mph -- safety features, such as seat belts, windshields, headlights, turn signals, mirrors and parking brakes. Carts able to travel at these higher speeds would come with a warning sticker that advises drivers and passengers against taking the vehicle on public roads at speeds greater than 25 mph.

Most carts already in use would be unaffected by the proposed regulations. Those carts typically have a top speed of 10-12 mph.

Open Spots For Simms And Bench?

Count at least two former pros from other sports among the thousands trying to make the U.S. Open field at Congressional in June.

The first U.S. Open entry received at Golf House this spring came from Phil Simms, the former New York Giants quarterback. Also entered was ex-Cincinnati Reds catcher Johnny Bench.

Bench had qualified for the 1992 U.S. Mid-Amateur at Detroit (Mich.) Golf Club, where he failed to qualify for match play, but for this Open he entered as a professional.

We've Got A Deal For You!

The call came during dinner -- doesn't it always? -- and it was clear from the start the telemarketer was reading from a prepared script and knew nothing about the product she was hawking.

"We know you're an avid golfer," she began. "Would you be interested in testing a new set of irons and woods for 90 days with no obligation to buy?"

She proceeded with the spiel, fighting to read at the right pace and at the same time trying to sound as though she knew what she was talking about. When she mentioned oversized clubheads, the listener took that moment to interrupt.

"They're oversized clubs?" he asked. "I don't play oversized clubs."

Thrown for a loss, she hesitated abruptly, and I could picture her scanning the copy, looking for a quick response to my statement. With none forthcoming, she improvised. "The clubs aren't oversized," she replied with confidence, "just the clubheads."

At that point there was only one direction for the call to head.

Click.

A Deal Too Good To Pass Up

If you're wondering where all the golf bargains are, we might offer a suggestion you perhaps take for granted: the 10 annual USGA championships conducted solely for amateurs. Besides seeing great play up close, there's no admission fee. Maybe you won't spot the next Tiger Woods or Nancy Lopez . . . but then again, maybe you will.

In addition to the annual USGA championships, this year will also include State Team Tournaments for men and women.

The complete schedule is listed on page 47.

Necrology

MICHAEL BETTS, 39, spent two-thirds of his life as an Oakland Hills Country Club employee, and when he died March 10 of heart disease he was the club's golf service manager. Juggling the duties of starter, caddie master and bag room manager, he was called by head professional Pat Croswell "the heart and soul" of the club.

Betts started his career at Oakland Hills when he became a caddie at age 13. He looped for Dan Sikes in the 1972 PGA Championship. It was the first of six major championships he was involved with at Oakland Hills; the last came this past June when he was starter during the practice rounds for the U.S. Open.

JOHN FENNIE, 64, of Pinehurst, N.C., served as general chairman for two U.S. Senior Opens -- in 1990 at Ridgewood (N.J.) Country Club, and 1994 at Pinehurst Resort and Country Club's No. 2 Course. He also had served as a member of the USGA's Sectional Affairs Committee since 1991.

ED FURGOL, who died in early March in Miami Shores, Fla., won the 1954 U.S. Open and did so in legendary fashion.

Leading by one stroke at Baltusrol Golf Club's Lower Course, Furgol hooked his drive at the 72nd hole deep into the woods. Unable to get the ball back into the fairway, Furgol used an alternate route -- the adjacent 18th hole of the Upper Course. He played to there, pitched on and made his par, and when Gene Littler missed an eight-foot putt moments later, Furgol's 72-hole total of 4-over-par 284 had beaten Littler by one.

Furgol won five times during his professional career despite a permanently bent left arm, the result of a playground accident when he was a child.

When he won the 1935 U.S. Open at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club, Sam Parks Jr., who died in mid-April, had pulled off one of the monumental upsets in the history of the championship.

As a club professional in western Pennsylvania, Parks had only mediocre success in events leading up to that Open. In the West Pennsylvania Open the summer before the Open at Oakmont, Parks could finish no better than fourth.

But his familiarity with the course -- he had played there frequently through a close friendship with greenkeeper Emil (Dutch) Loeffler and W.C. Fownes, whose father was responsible for Oakmont's original design -- paid off handsomely the following summer. Facing an Open field that included the greats of that era, among them Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson, Craig Wood, Ralph Guldahl, Tommy Armour, Henry Picard, Harry Cooper, Horton Smith and Willie Macfarlane, Parks shot scores of 77-73-73-76 for a 299 total, two strokes better than runner-up Jimmy Thomson at 301. It was one of the most difficult course set-ups in Open history as no player among the top 20 third-round leaders broke 75 and only two 72-hole scores since then have been as high as 290.

"When George Bush became our president," Parks related in an interview a few years ago, "I had great fun telling people that I knew his father back when he presented me with the U.S. Open trophy."

When he died in early March, Matty Reed of Fort Worth, Texas, had perhaps the largest individual collection of golf clubs in the world. Over the better part of the last 75 years not even Reed, a retired railroad engineer, knew how many clubs he had amassed; he estimated it could have been 30,000, or 40,000, or 50,000. (For a more comprehensive story on Mr. Reed, see "A Collect Calling," March/April.)

In the years when the British Open was regaining its stature as not only a major championship but an efficient operation, W. George Wilson, 58, was responsible for much of the detailed organization and planning.

Hired by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in 1973 as assistant secretary of champion-ships under then-secretary Keith Mackenzie, Wilson combined backgrounds as an accountant (in offices throughout Europe, Latin America and the West Indies) and as a player (Dunbartonshire Boys' winner in 1955).

In 1979 he was appointed financial secretary of the R&A, and four years later became deputy secretary. He worked closely with the Implements and Ball Committee and helped plan and conduct the Seniors' Open Amateur. He died April 2 after a lengthy illness.