The US Golf Association could be engineering its own demise if it outlaws over-size metal drivers such as the Big Bertha. The manufacturers of the club, Callaway, have warned that they would be forced to "seek recompense" if official action were to hurt the company financially.

This is potentially a far more serious situation for golf's ruling bodies - the USGA and the Royal and Ancient - than Ping's litigation over the square grooves issue nine years ago. In this instance, there are huge numbers involved: the Big Bertha alone has sold 14 million worldwide.

The matter came to a head three weeks ago when Nick Price, the former British Open and USPGA champion, told an American golf magazine that over-size titanium drivers cause a "trampoline" effect which catapults the ball off the clubface. "If the USGA decides to step in and regulate equipment, I would be the number one supporter," he said.

As it happens, Price is a close friend of the current USGA president, making him, effectively, an informed source. And since then, while R and A secretary Michael Bonallack was voicing his dislike of these clubs, the USGA indicated they would be issuing an official statement on the matter.

That is expected to come tomorrow morning in an announcement at the Olympic Club. Basically, it is believed that the USGA have three options: 1) To do nothing; 2) To adopt a new standard for clubface rebounding but draw a line under existing equipment; 3) To take retrospective action which would mean that most of today's drivers would not conform.

Against that background, I met Don Dye, the president and chief executive of Callaway at their headquarters in Carlsbad, a suburb of San Diego. In a frank, wide-ranging interview, he informed me that since the Price article, his company had suffered serious losses on the stock market.

"We have seen our stock price drop, leading to a loss of between $200 and $300 million as a direct consequence of this action," he said. "We were trading at $25 dollars a share; we're now trading at $18 since the announcement."

He added: "That's seven dollars per share and we've got 70 million shares out there, so that comes out at almost $500 million in lost market capital. We have no doubt that a good portion of that drop is due to the possibility of action by the USGA."

Dye comes across as a hard-nosed businessman who has guided his company to astonishing success in a highly-competitive industry. His main adversary appears to be an equally determined 66-year-old, whose ideological mindset is said to be driving the USGA agenda.

F Morgan Taylor, known as Buzz, is a fascinating character whose father, Morgan, was the first track and field athlete to win medals at three successive Olympiads.

"I'm not here to worry about lawyers," said the USGA President. "We have to do what we feel is right for the game." At issue is whether drivers are in breach of a regulation whereby the clubhead cannot "have the effect at impact of a spring."

According to a US golf-club design consultant, the basic theory is that most of the energy is lost in the golf ball from the ball squashing up against the face. The more the amount of deformation is minimised, however, the more the energy transfer is maximised at impact.

When the face gives a little bit, as in the trampoline effect, the ball is deforming less, thereby allowing it to retain more of its own energy. So, the ball travels further.

Dye readily acknowledged the existence of such a concept, but totally rejected any notion of the clubhead actually bending inwards while the ball is still on the face. "To the extent that there is a quivering of the clubface, sure," he conceded. "That exists with wood. But we don't believe it contributes to greater distance."

He went on: "We have been trying to make the Holy Grail, as we call it. We have been trying to make the club that will deliver the trampoline effect and we haven't been able to achieve it. We would do it if it were possible, but we haven't succeeded.

"Alastair Cochrane (a former head of the R and A ball and implements committee, now working for Callaway) has a paper coming out that says the trampoline effect is a theoretic possibility. But what we have discovered so far is that any club that can theoretically deliver it has a clubface so weak that it will collapse.

"We have measured the Biggest Big Bertha (Titanium) at impact. You can't see what happens to the ball, you can only measure it with strain gauges. The maximum deflection you may see in the metal is the width of two hairs."

The Callaway official then pointed out that when the Big Bertha was launched in 1990, two years before the company went public, the USGA could have declared the club illegal. "Instead, we were in a position to go to prospective shareholders telling them we had this great club, the Big Bertha, which was approved by the USGA," he said. "Now they are trying to change the rules of the game in the middle of the round.

"Every test they're doing now, they could have done eight years ago. But after eight years of permitting clubs onto the market, they have now suddenly started scurrying around trying to see if they can undo the mistake they believe they made before. They are trying to have it both ways."

Precisely. But the section on equipment in the Rules of Golf states that the R and A/USGA reserve "the right to change the rules and make and change the interpretation relating to clubs, balls and other implements at any time."

Clearly frustrated by the situation, Dye says: "Who knows how this thing is going to end? Maybe the R and A will run the game for the whole world. Right now, I believe that golf is ruled with the consent of those governed. It's much like the US: we may have a president, but if he goes too far, we'll vote him out of office."

He then made the telling point: "I don't think the R and A would permit the USGA to bring them in on this issue because I believe they're (the R and A) scared to death they could end up as a defendant like they did in the Ping litigation.

"I don't think the R and A is dumb enough to make legislation retroactive. Michael Bonallack, for instance, may want to do it but I don't believe he is dumb enough to do it. I feel I understand the R and A position on this through Alastair Cochrane, who is now on our staff.

"If Michael Bonallack wanted to listen, which I'm sure he would, I could show him that what he perceives as threatening the game of golf is not the equipment, but how people can use it to greater advantage. It's certainly a much broader issue than, for instance, than trying to keep Merion as a decent golf course for the US Open (rather than have it made obsolete by modern equipment)."

But would the USGA have the financial clout to take on the multimillion-dollar manufacturers of golf equipment. "Why not?," asked Dye. "They may decide not to fight this issue but either way, they are a very wealthy organisation with very little expenses. The USGA have $100 million in cash. They earn $20 million a year from TV rights alone.

"If it came to it, they could probably make a better job taking us on than we could if we were to take them on. I'm a prior litigation counsel and let's say you take a full-blown lawsuit and you spend a million dollars. We could spend $10 million defending.

"But it is also true that they couldn't afford to pay us the damages we've already suffered, if we took them on and won. The difference between this and the Ping case is that Ping dealt with an issue of grooves and how you spin the ball and it did not affect more than two per cent of golfers.

"In that case, the (US)PGA outlawed all but the V-grooves whereas the USGA permitted the square grooves. That's where they had a divergence." But if the USGA have all the resources that Dye claimed, why did they back off the Ping case? "Because they were going to lose it," he replied. Dye summed up his company's position: "If they were to make an announcement that all the Big Berthas in the world were to be outlawed, it would be interesting if anyone paid attention: how many people would give them up. If they made such a ruling, I believe it would spell the end of the USGA because it would be an irresponsible ruling for golf.

"And if, in the process of trying to support this ruling, the USGA or the R and A acted with the interest of hurting Callaway Golf from a financial point of view, and they did it wrongly and improperly, then I would have to, on behalf of my shareholders, seek recompense."

He concluded: "I have a responsibility to my shareholders to ensure that the future of our company is not jeopardised."