USGA Qualifiers Beware. Vice Pro Plus Lime & several others not on current USGA List of Conforming Golf Balls

[Yuck]

Public Service Message.   I don’t want any WRX’r to risk a DQ by innocently playing a ball they thought was legal for a USGA event or qualifier.  The Vice website says the following:

 

ARE VICE GOLF BALLS APPROVED BY THE USGA & R&A?

Yes, all VICE Golf balls are USGA and R&A conforming and can therefore be played in any tournament worldwide.

 

 

But, per the email I received from the USGA, this is no longer true.

 

 

 I have Played the Vice Pro Plus for several years and really like it.  I usually play the Lime color and it had always been conforming for USGA Qualifiers.  I have a Qualifier next week and per USGA Hard Card, balls & equipment must be legal per the current lists available on USGA.org.   I was surprised to find the Vice Pro Plus Lime was no longer on the list.  Some of the new, special edition colors were on the list, but not Lime or White.  I contacted the USGA and they responded quickly.  Apparently, the ball was legal until the May 2023 listing.  The ball was not resubmitted for annual testing per USGA rules, so the ball was removed from the list and is not legal for any USGA completions that require a legal ball.  I assume this was an oversight or human error by Vice and my hope is any of the balls that expired from the list will be resubmitted for testing ASAP.

 

In the mean time, if you have any USGA events coming up, recheck your ball to be sure it is still on the list.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Yuck

[vietnameeh]

Have you emailed vice and asked them ?

[Cameron Circle T]

Wow. Looks like very few of their golf balls have been submitted. 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Cameron Circle T

[elwhippy]

Oh dear. 

[Yuck]

5 hours ago, vietnameeh said:

Have you emailed vice and asked them ?

Yes I did.  I indicated it was time sensitive and I have not received a response yet.  Since I was running out of time, I then contacted the USGA to find out why the ball was not on the list.  The USGA responded quickly.  I did send the USGA response to Vice, but as of this morning  no response from VIce yet on either email.  I assume the ball will pass when Vice resubmits, but that does not help me for Monday.  I was surprised that the USGA was so quick on the response since I am a nobody.

 

This is from the USGA response.

 

”The Vice Pro Plus in neon green has been on the Conforming Ball List since March 2017.  The golf ball expired from the list in May 2023 due to the manufacturer not resubmitting the golf ball.  The golf balls must be resubmitted once a year for testing to continue its listing on the Conforming Ball List.”

 

I also provided Vice with the contact info from the USGA test center, but I assume they have that.

 

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Yuck

[Yuck]

For those of you who want to stay in the Vice Pro plus in a USGA event coming up soon, the Yellow/orange Bicolored ball, the Blue /Orange/White ball and the Black Ball are all on the list and legal for play as of the July 5th Conforming Ball Update.  As near as I can see, those are the only Vice Pro plus models currently approved.  There are several other models of approved Vice balls on the list.

[Yuck]

Update,

 

I did receive a response from Vice customer care a few minutes ago.  They acknowledge there has been a clerical error and they are working with the USGA  on resubmission for approval.  Unfortunately it will take until September before it makes the approved list again according to Vice.

[cardigan]

I've often noticed that various current production non-white Vice balls have been missing from the list but not having the current production white ball of one of their premium models on the list is a bad look.  The newest Kirkland ball fell disappeared from the list for some unknown reason after only being out for a couple of months which is also bad but they aren't presenting themselves as a golf ball company.  The big OEM's seem to be really diligent about that stuff, even keeping balls that haven't been available for years on the list.

[Yuck]

Vice is working on this with the USGA process, but I did suggest to the Head of Customer Care that  they put a notice on the the Vice website to prevent someone from making a bad assumption between now and September.  Some folks would not think to recheck the list for a ball they have had in play legally in the past.  I am pretty confident the balls will be reinstated in September.  I would assume they have contacted the Korn Ferry Players directly on this.

Edited July 21, 2023 by Yuck

[Yuck]

I am disappointed Vice still indicates balls are USGA legal on the Website.

 

 

https://www.vicegolf.com/us/vice-golf-how-it-works

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Yuck

[cardigan]

6 hours ago, Yuck said:

I am disappointed Vice still indicates balls are USGA legal on the Website.

 

 

https://www.vicegolf.com/us/vice-golf-how-it-works

 

 

 

Balls can conform to USGA/R&A rules but not be on the conforming list.  I don't see any language that appears to be disingenuous or needs to change just because it's not on the conforming list unless the reason for being removed from the list is that they found balls that violated the rules of golf.  Being on the list is just a rule for certain events.  Being within the rules of golf goes beyond that (can't even use that ball if you are applying that round to your handicap).  I still think it's a bad look to have dropped off the list though.

Edited July 29, 2023 by cardigan

[Yuck]

On 7/28/2023 at 10:59 PM, cardigan said:

Balls can conform to USGA/R&A rules but not be on the conforming list.  I don't see any language that appears to be disingenuous or needs to change just because it's not on the conforming list unless the reason for being removed from the list is that they found balls that violated the rules of golf.  Being on the list is just a rule for certain events.  Being within the rules of golf goes beyond that (can't even use that ball if you are applying that round to your handicap).  I still think it's a bad look to have dropped off the list though.

 

 

Below is the line I have a problem with.  It is currently a false statement.

 

”

 

ARE VICE GOLF BALLS APPROVED BY THE USGA & R&A?

Yes, all VICE Golf balls are USGA and R&A conforming and can therefore be played in any tournament worldwide.”

[cardigan]

1 hour ago, Yuck said:

 

 

Below is the line I have a problem with.  It is currently a false statement.

 

”

 

ARE VICE GOLF BALLS APPROVED BY THE USGA & R&A?

Yes, all VICE Golf balls are USGA and R&A conforming and can therefore be played in any tournament worldwide.”

I agree that the "can therefore be played in any tournament worldwide" part it is not accurate.  Balls not on the conforming list cannot be played in tournaments that have that requirement.  That part is nothing new for Vice.  It's been the case for years that Vice has had balls that they sell that are not on the conforming list.  Most often it's been non-white balls.  They currently have over 20 balls available on their website but there are only 12 Vice balls on the conforming list.

[North Butte]

Sounds like they want to be taken seriously as a real ball vendor but aren't willing to back it up by the considerable ongoing expense and bother of complying with the conformance testing requirements. Respect to @Yuck for getting the word out, no respect to Vice for trying to gin up credibility they don't deserve. 

[Yuck]

The balls in question were previously ok for USGA tournament play.  Vice does submit balls to USGA for testing, and the balls currently not on the list, were on the list previously.  My understanding from the USGA was that several models were not resubmitted for annual testing.  Vice is working on the resubmission now, but approval wont be until the September time frame based on current time line.  All I requested of Vice was a note on the Website indicating the situation.  I came very close to showing up at a USGA qualifier with a non approved ball only because I had previously played the ball in USGA qualifiers legally.

[ode1]

What's the cost of submitting?

[North Butte]

7 hours ago, ode said:

What's the cost of submitting?

USGA Golf Ball Submission Guidelines

 

According to the above-linked PDF, it costs $1,200 to submit 24 balls for conformance testing. Same price for initial testing or annual resubmission.

 

Not an overwhelmingly huge expense but if a company has, say, 20 different varieties of ball that's nearly $30K/year. 

 

And each color is considered a different ball for conformance purposes. So Vice may have more than 20 varieties in total. Not hard to see why they might skimp on the annual testing.

[bcjim]

Pretty onerous to have to submit every year. Surely every 2years would suffice or when a process or formula changed?

[lopey986]

3 hours ago, North Butte said:

USGA Golf Ball Submission Guidelines

 

According to the above-linked PDF, it costs $1,200 to submit 24 balls for conformance testing. Same price for initial testing or annual resubmission.

 

Not an overwhelmingly huge expense but if a company has, say, 20 different varieties of ball that's nearly $30K/year. 

 

And each color is considered a different ball for conformance purposes. So Vice may have more than 20 varieties in total. Not hard to see why they might skimp on the annual testing.

They'll lose WAY more money in the long run if their balls aren't on the conforming list. Don't they have korn ferry guys playing their ball? Just a dumb move all around and if they are hurting that bad for 30k a year then they have major problems with their business model. Hopefully it was just a mistaken oversight but even then, whoever made the mistake probably needs to be shitcanned to make sure it doesn't occur again.

[North Butte]

7 minutes ago, lopey986 said:

They'll lose WAY more money in the long run if their balls aren't on the conforming list. Don't they have korn ferry guys playing their ball? Just a dumb move all around and if they are hurting that bad for 30k a year then they have major problems with their business model. Hopefully it was just a mistaken oversight but even then, whoever made the mistake probably needs to be shitcanned to make sure it doesn't occur again.

I reckon whatever particular ball(s) are being played by Tour pros, they are careful to keep up with conformance resubmissions. But surely that's at most 3 or 4 of their 20 or so models and colors. 

 

Probably an oversight on someone's part that will be corrected. But oversights that save tens of thousands of dollars are probably easy to let slide. 

[bobfoster]

On 8/1/2023 at 8:17 PM, Yuck said:

 

 

Below is the line I have a problem with.  It is currently a false statement.

 

”

 

ARE VICE GOLF BALLS APPROVED BY THE USGA & R&A?

Yes, all VICE Golf balls are USGA and R&A conforming and can therefore be played in any tournament worldwide.”

This is seriously bad. Quite surprised at the Vice legal department. Actually, at a couple different levels.

 

First, they apparently simply forgot to submit a couple balls for testing. Doesn't matter if anyone thinks balls shouldn't need to be tested annually (that argument is for a different venue). They just do. It is paperwork you have to do in order to meet regulations. But a lot of business in any industry is paperwork required to meet regulations (government or otherwise). In terms of golf equipment, the USGA (basically) is the government. Every equipment OEM, small to huge, knows this. 

 

But it is the statement on their website that is the most serious issue. If a player uses a ball in a tournament - that the OEM itself publicly says is conforming - and is DQ'd when it is determined that they used non-conforming equipment, they'd have pretty strong grounds for a lawsuit. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by bobfoster

[ode1]

4 hours ago, North Butte said:

USGA Golf Ball Submission Guidelines

 

According to the above-linked PDF, it costs $1,200 to submit 24 balls for conformance testing. Same price for initial testing or annual resubmission.

 

Not an overwhelmingly huge expense but if a company has, say, 20 different varieties of ball that's nearly $30K/year. 

 

And each color is considered a different ball for conformance purposes. So Vice may have more than 20 varieties in total. Not hard to see why they might skimp on the annual testing.

I could see one per model (they pick whether it's green, yellow, white , sprinkles, etc.) and if there is a tweak then resubmit, but if no change to the ball to have to submit again because of a new calendar year🤔👎

[North Butte]

15 minutes ago, ode said:

I could see one per model (they pick whether it's green, yellow, white , sprinkles, etc.) and if there is a tweak then resubmit, but if no change to the ball to have to submit again because of a new calendar year🤔👎

USGA's been doing it that way for donkey's. A serious golf-ball OEM shouldn't have any problem complying. But I can see how it's a challenge for what's basically a marketing company that doesn't make balls and who tries to offer a huge range of colors and varieties. 

[cardigan]

1 hour ago, North Butte said:

I reckon whatever particular ball(s) are being played by Tour pros, they are careful to keep up with conformance resubmissions. But surely that's at most 3 or 4 of their 20 or so models and colors. 

 

Probably an oversight on someone's part that will be corrected. But oversights that save tens of thousands of dollars are probably easy to let slide. 

I would think that any pro playing a Vice ball is playing the Pro or the Pro Plus and most likely the white ball.  They let all of the Pro Plus balls except the yellow/orange shade, the blue/orange drip, and the black fall off of the list  Not having the white version of one of their premium balls looks bad.

[cardigan]

20 minutes ago, ode said:

I could see one per model (they pick whether it's green, yellow, white , sprinkles, etc.) and if there is a tweak then resubmit, but if no change to the ball to have to submit again because of a new calendar year🤔👎

One of the reasons they state for requiring different submissions for each color is that they've found performance differences between balls that are the same model but have a different color.  Titleist didn't sell yellow Pro V1/X balls for years and talked about the complexity of making one that performed the same as the white ones.  They made a big deal about all of the engineering that went into it when they finally did start making them.  Still, with just about any ball that comes in yellow, you'll find threads around here asking if folks see any difference between them and the white ones and some will swear that they do see differences.  Usually in respect to firmness.

[cardigan]

14 minutes ago, North Butte said:

USGA's been doing it that way for donkey's. A serious golf-ball OEM shouldn't have any problem complying. But I can see how it's a challenge for what's basically a marketing company that doesn't make balls and who tries to offer a huge range of colors and varieties. 

Agreed. I would expect at a minimum to see every available color of their current generation premium urethane (Pro and Pro Plus for Vice) models on the conformance list for a serious golf ball company.  I guess we'll see next month if they chose to submit all of the missing ones or just a couple of the more popular colors.  Considering how much that it appears that they spend on marketing, I wouldn't think that ball submission would be that big of an impact on their overall budget.

[bobfoster]

2 hours ago, ode said:

I could see one per model (they pick whether it's green, yellow, white , sprinkles, etc.) and if there is a tweak then resubmit, but if no change to the ball to have to submit again because of a new calendar year🤔👎

May seem a bit unnecessary if you only look at a couple balls from one company, but there's a bigger picture.

 

First, in any business there really is constant, annual/semi-annual paperwork - both government and industry. My firm needs to file with the IRS quarterly. An EEO-1 annually, etc., etc. Then there's industry and client reqs. Most of my clients require a COI (Certificate of Insurance) - and I have to produce them annually (regardless of whether or not anything has changed). A lot of my people have various industry or security Certifications, that have to be updated annually or bi-annually. All the way down to the city level - my building gets an inspection from the Fire Department every year, that I naturally have to pay for - even though (again) not a single thing has changed. Those are just a few examples, but the point is, anyone that wants to be in business in any industry is going to deal with a lot of apparently trivial paperwork. It is useless to complain about it, you just man up and do it. 

 

So far as the USGA's conforming equipment lists, they are a bear to keep current, and they have an almost assembly line process for doing so (by necessity). Looking narrowly at Vice, it may seem silly that failing to re-submit balls that haven't changed renders the balls non-conforming. But consider what the USGA has to manage - the list of conforming balls is literally 80 pages long. Even if ball designs haven't changed, a lot of OEMs make continual (if small) tweaks to their manufacturing processes. And, as @cardigan rightly pointed out, you never know what makes a difference - it would seem as though something like (for instance) color is purely cosmetic, but it will slightly change manufacturing, and the different color will be a different "material". 

 

So the USGA can't afford to look at each ball, each OEM on those 80 pages on a case by case basis. They established their process. If you want to be on the list, submit your balls to the USGA testing assembly line every year. Simple as that. It is just part of the trivial paperwork for that industry (in the same way as I have to run an expensive third party test of my Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery plan every year). 

 

This is normal business. You can't just "forget" to comply with an industry standard, and then complain about the standard itself. 

Edited August 4, 2023 by bobfoster

[cardigan]

At the end of the day, unless something happens like a pro they sponsor getting dq'd from an event and golf news outlets talking about it, this probably won't amount to much more than an opportunity for Vice to see that they should do something about their procedures. Heck, it might even end up with them thinking that it's not that big of a deal since not much came of it (unless there have been golf news stories about it that I haven't seen).

Edited August 4, 2023 by cardigan

[North Butte]

Maybe they're just getting ahead of the curve, ready for the day when USGA birfurcates and separately regulates the "real ball" and the "hacker ball". 

[Yuck]

Very disappointed in the situation since I like the ball.  I did write customer service and my only suggestion was they post something on their website about the ball not being current legal for tournament play.  Instead, this is still on the website.

 

 

OUR BALLS

Premium models for beginners to
professionals.

• 5 different ball models
• Market-leading price/performance ratio
• All VICE balls conform with USGA & R&A rules

 

I also asked to return about 12 dozen of the 14 dozen balls I purchased under the false pretense that they were tournament legal.  Vice responded by crediting me back for 1 dozen balls.  Since some of the balls I purchased were “legal” for a few weeks before the USGA removed them from the list, they did not accept my request for a return, not even for the 4 dozen of them were purchased after the UGGA removed them from the list.

 

 End of rant.