Golf Ball Crackdown

When your golf club has a swatfest, father & son tournament or other unique contest with a handsome goblet as prize, the chances are that it has been instigated by the Professional Golfers' Association of America, commonly called the PGA. Founded in 1916 by several eastern professionals, PGA is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to promote golf and thereby professional golfers, who are one of the most underpaid groups of crack athletes in the world. PGA conducts tournaments, offers free teaching in colleges, free advice to clubs, free architects to the Government or anyone else who wants to build a new golf course. Most spectacular PGA event is the annual Ryder Cup tourney between the U. S. and Great Britain, the latest of which was last week played in England (see p. 40). Bobby Jones is an honorary PGA vice-president and most of the ranking U. S. professionals belong. President George Richard Jacobus is typical. A pleasant-faced man of 38 with stocky build, brown hair and a crooked nose, he has taught golf for 19 years, most of them at the Ridgewood (N. J.) Country Club. He never won a major title but currently shoots in the low 70s, claims to be the only man ever to shoot eight consecutive birdies.

When George Jacobus became president four years ago, PGA was bogged in the rough with only about 600 members. Vigorous President Jacobus has punched it back to the fairway with 1,867 members by astute promotion of which a sample is the PGA Code of Ethics which he likes to circulate over his signature. Excerpt: "The name 'Professional Golfer' must be and remain a synonym and pledge of honor, service and fair dealing. His professional integrity, fidelity to the game of golf, and a sense of his great responsibility to employers and employes, manufacturers and clients and to his brother professionals, transcend thought of material gain in the motives of the true Professional Golfer. It is fundamental that the Professional Golfer must understand the basic principles upon which his profession is established; otherwise he cannot . . . work for the good of Golf." Last week this solemn creed was imputed a hollow mockery by the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, which accused the Golf Ball Manufacturers' Association, PGA, President Jacobus and several other members of an unlawful and discriminatory monopoly of the golf ball business.

Last year some 1,600,000 doz. golf balls were sold in the U. S. at a retail price of $9 a doz., wholesale of $5.60. To help finance its services, most of which are offered free, PGA sells golf balls through its members. The Golf Ball Manufacturers' Association includes many top-rank U. S. makers of sporting goods* and, according to the FTC, its members own or control almost every U. S. golf ball factory. Each member company in the association makes a number of balls stamped PGA which are usually of higher quality than balls bearing other names. In its complaint the FTC charged that the two associations deliberately executed eight such practices as exclusive license agreements with wholesalers selling PGA balls, price discounts to members, coercion of nonmember retailers to prevent their selling balls at prices less than those designated by the maker. The effect, said the FTC, "has been unreasonably to suppress competition, bring about unlawful discrimination in prices for goods of the same grade and quality, substantially increase the cost of golf balls to retailers and the public and to discriminate against small business enterprises." A separate count under the Robinson-Patman Act charged discrimination in price "between different purchasers of golf balls of like grade and quality, the effect being to lessen competition and create monopoly."

Given 20 days to file a reply, neither PGA President Jacobus nor any other man involved would say a word last week.

P: Last week the Federal Trade Commission accused the Cement Institute and 75 U. S. cement manufacturers, who produce at least 95% of the cement made in the U. S., of a nationwide system of price maintenance which retards recovery, adds to taxation and hogs unnecessarily large chunks of Government money released for building public works. According to the FTC, Federal and State agencies have been unable to get competitive bids in cement. South Dakota built its own cement mill as the only means of coping with the situation. The Tennessee Valley Authority got competitive bids only by threatening to follow suit.

*Those accused by the FTC: A. G. Spalding & Bros., N. Y.; John Wanamaker, Philadelphia; L. A. Young Golf Co.. Detroit; Worthington Ball Co., Elyria, Ohio; Wilson Sporting Goods Co., Chicago; U. S. Rubber Products, N. Y.; Dunlop Tire & Rubber Corp., N. Y.; Acushnet Process Co., New Bedford, Mass.

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