Wedge Grooves and GCA

[Ben Sims]

I attended a rather large demo yesterday here in Sacramento.  Mr. Vokey's Tour Van was customizing wedges for a few people when I stopped to talk to the associate that was grinding soles, stamping initials, etc.  We talked for awhile about he mysteries of bounce and camber when I popped the big question.  I asked , "With out divulging proprietary information or design, what is the future of spin next year?"

As I expected, he said that spin from fairway and tight lies had not diminshed one iota in their tests.  He then started to chuckle.  What he said next was very surprising.  That in tests from sand, different types of rough, etc--pretty much all the imperfect scenarios--the spin rates were down only small percentages, like in the 3% range. 

After our great thread "Distance Realllly Matters", I was excited to see tour players being forced to be more accurate off the tee and think strategy rather than "long and wrong."  Based on my conversation yesterday, I'm not so sure that the USGA's new groove rule will affect the tour player as much as expected. 

In that vein, I wonder what will be done in the future with course setups and the like if this current ability to stop the ball continues.

[Chuck Brown]

"current INability to stop the ball..."?

That is a very interesting tidbit.  As our fellow GCA member Nick Pozaric already knows better than I, Bob Vokey is one of the really good guys in the equipment business.  Anybody, regardless of 'station' in the golf industry, is liable to get an honest and thoughtful answer from Bob Vokey to any question.  It would not surprise me at all if his associates were the same.

Also, as somebody else rightly pointed out, the tour professionals mostly DON'T make decisions about what ball they will use based upon concerns about how far they can hit the ball with their driver.  They decide based on how the ball behaves around the green.  And in that connection only, are they concerned about "distance."  Tour players under contract to Titleist have such refined tastes, that of the hundred or so players on the PGA and Nationwide tours, they are using 8 or 10 different iterations of the Pro V1.  For instance, players are not merely choosing between the 2009 Pro V1 and the 2009 Pr V1x.  Some players are using the formulations from 2008, 2007 and even 2006.  The guys are "dialed in" with a particular ball that allows them to get a particular flight, with a particular spin, which translates to a very particular distance with each club in the bag. 

Is there a schedule for the Vokey Tech Van -- where will it go, and where will it be on any particular day?

[Brent Hutto]

So basically the USGA got its clock cleaned in the ball-distance derby, which was an easy fight for them to win given that they totally set the test conditions and parameters of the conforming ball test. So now they want to pick a fight with grooves?

As the redoubtable Mr. Vokey points out that won't be much of a fight. I guess their next thing will be to outlaw more than 56 degrees or so of loft. Then after that doesn't make Tiger start bunting it around their tricked-up course setups they can cycle back to the ball again, this time to try and make it spin less.

I say unless they legislate against clubhead speed and fast-twitch muscle mass they can not put the Genie back in the bottle and see cagey short hittings making 3/4 swings and painting pretty pictures instead of just knocking the ball Far and Sure (tm).

[C. Squier]

The battle against grooves is so silly.  After 20-25 rounds with a Vokey Spin Milled wedge, the grooves are already worn down considerably.  Here I will concede to Chuck that the fight is with the ball....nobody uses a ball for 25 rounds or more, ergo the ball never changes the way your wedges do.  The cat is chasing it's non-existant tail in this case.

Top tier pros pick their ball based on it's ballflight.  That's their #1 priority.  Like Mr. Hogan, they want to see it fly through the imaginary window each and every time.  That also leads to inefficiencies with their ball choices, but they don't care.  This is one of the main problems with choosing one ball to fit all in competitive golf. 

[Ben Sims]

The ball, the club, agronomy, player conditioning, launch monitors, ad nauseum, et al.  Is attacking any one particular variable going to really affect (for more than a season or two) the ability of these guys to score?

My conversation with Mr. Vokey's associate reminded me of a few things we idealistic golfers sometime forget.  Golf technology hasn't overwhelmed the game as has, say, aviation. When 225-250 yards was considered a good drive, Orville and Wilbur were making a a new fangled thing called a flying machine.  Today, after I get done flying from Germany to California in 12 hours, getting a hundred thousand pounds of gas while in the air from another airplane, all in something that can carry the equivalent of 20 African elephants; I head to the course and 250-300 is something I am happy with. 

Technology in our game has progressed significantly in the past 15 years, but is out of control?  Is par to be protected at all costs and any equipment that makes the game easier (for average hacks and Tiger) to be struck down with furious anger by the USGA? Also, if changing groove shape and volume has made almost no difference in spin from rough--hence the strategy of missing fairways long in order to have shorter shots--what will governing bodies do next?  It seems as if it's a slippery slope.

[Chuck Brown]

The ball, the club, agronomy, player conditioning, launch monitors, ad nauseum, et al.  Is attacking any one particular variable going to really affect (for more than a season or two) the ability of these guys to score?

Well, no matter what, we are not going to outlaw any off-course conditions like "player fitness" or "launch monitors."  But we can take note of what impact they have on course.  If players do suddenly get bigger, stronger, better-trained, with unimaginably perfectly optimized launch conditions, such that they render golf courses obsolete, I say, "Darned right you make an adjustment to the equipment, even if the equipment hasn't changed.  You adjust the equipment, because it's the one thing you can adjust, apart from the golf courses, which have their own artistic and historical merit."

In fact, I really don't believe for a New York minute that player fitness is what this is all about.  It may be that lots of guys have found it worthwhile to bulk up and work on strength, now that balls spin so little off driver, that they are able to focus on harder, more athletic swinging, with less and less emphasis on technique, spin, and strategy.  But that is a slightly different question.  It all comes back to the ball in the first instance.  We've seen huge distance jumps with new technology like the Pro V, and flattened rates of change when the Pro V design has remained unchanged.

My conversation with Mr. Vokey's associate reminded me of a few things we idealistic golfers sometime forget.  Golf technology hasn't overwhelmed the game as has, say, aviation. When 225-250 yards was considered a good drive, Orville and Wilbur were making a a new fangled thing called a flying machine.  Today, after I get done flying from Germany to California in 12 hours, getting a hundred thousand pounds of gas while in the air from another airplane, all in something that can carry the equivalent of 20 African elephants; I head to the course and 250-300 is something I am happy with. 

Okay.  Will your happy numbers be 350-400 someday?  Should we be grinding inexorably in that direction, toward that result?  Where does technology end?

Technology in our game has progressed significantly in the past 15 years, but is out of control?  Is par to be protected at all costs and any equipment that makes the game easier (for average hacks and Tiger) to be struck down with furious anger by the USGA? Also, if changing groove shape and volume has made almost no difference in spin from rough--hence the strategy of missing fairways long in order to have shorter shots--what will governing bodies do next?  It seems as if it's a slippery slope.

If you ask most advocates of ball rollbacks, we'd say, "Forget par, and forget target scores.  We're not advocating a ball rollback based on any particular score, or stat, or quantitative parameter.  We are simply trying to avoid the need to make more disastrous alterations to historic classic championship golf courses.  And we would like to restore some of the character and strategy that have been lost as championship golf course  set ups cope with technologically-produced distance gains in the Pro V era.  And yeah, we'd acknowledge that most of this technology has done little for the average player.  Recreational players aren't dominating their courses.  Their courses haven't been rendered 'obsolete.'  True as that may be, those players just as clearly ought to have little to fear from any carefully-crafted ball rollback..."

[Ben Sims]

Chuck,

Well written and insightful.  Makes me even reconsider a point or two. 

In the second paragraph, well, I'l admit that the technology is headed that way.   And you're right to say that every manufacturer would build it if they could.  But I just don't see 105 mph swing speeds creating 400 yards drives anytime soon.

In the first paragraph, I think you're being naive.  I wish there was a way to compare the top 10 money list guys' swing speeds from 1960 to now.  I would hypothesize that the guys are swinging harder than ever before.  I am not advocating trying to outlaw fitness, but let's at least be aware of its potential to greatly affect ball speeds.

I was humbled by how much better your response to the third paragraph was than my original statement.  Could you expound on that notion of incremental and well-planned rollback?

[Ken Moum]

Could you expound on that notion of incremental and well-planned rollback?

I'm clearly not Chuck, but I still think the most logical way to deal with this "problem" is to adjust the weight of the ball.

By carefully examining the effect of a lighter ball, it should be possible to rein in the distance of the bomb and gouge guys if for no other reason than a lighter ball will be harder to control at high swing speeds. Players would find themselves back where they were in the balata era, ie., forced to back off on the power a bit to regain the precision needed to play championship golf.

In addition, unlike the ProV1 and it's clones, a lighter ball would produce a slightly flatter distance/clubhead speed graph, further tilting the balance back toward precision.

The longest, straightest players would still have the edge, but there'd be more balance.

Best of all, for the weakest players, a slightly lighter ball would be easier to get in the air, and it might sit up a bit better in the fairway, making their game more enjoyable.

For another point of view, see http://www.golfclubatlas.com/opinionvanderborght.html.

I would note that Jon's essay is now about 5 years old, and he didn't take into account the fact that the Ballooon Ball had a balata cover, and would have been much, much harder to control than the balls most amateurs use today.

K

[Jim_Kennedy]

Ben,
Although I find the info from the Vokey guy a little suspect (spin rates from sand  , grooves have 0 do to with that ) I take you at your word, but I think you need to consider the changes over a longer time span, not just year to year. Look at drivers, there hasn't been any appreciable change in distance over the past few seasons but that hasn't been the case over the past 20 years.

Same with wedges. A couple of years ago Golf Magazine did a piece   where they tested a new 56* Vokey spin milled wedge against an old (1987) Wilson staff that sported the same loft.

They found that on a short pitch of 25 yards the Vokey had a spin rate of 5,000 RPMs, while the Wilson came in at 2,500 Rpms (same ball). I cannot remember much else about the test, but that one thing alone is enough for me.

That will surely have an effect on Tour players, and everyone else.

[Jason McNamara]

tested a new 56* Vokey spin milled wedge against an old (1987) Wilson staff that sported the same loft

Jim -

Old Wilson, but used or unused?

[Ben Sims]

Mr. Kennedy,

Points well spoken and well taken

I can only take the words of a man that knows as much about wedges as an associate for Acushnet (Titleist) would know.  He could have prevaricated his information about how the groove rule affects spin post 2009.  I will say this in his defense; most companies have sent in numerous patents in the past year or so regarding new grooves.  I forgot where I saw the mock-ups of those grooves.  But with special milling, added teeth inside the grooves themselves, etc, they looked to be quite "spinny".

I don't think wedge spin is the real issue however.  If Hogan, Palmer and others were hitting consistent 300 yarders back in their day, they would've had much shorter clubs in their hands into greens that were undoubtedly shaggier than today's greens.  That's why a ball rollback that Mr. Brown spoke of is of much interest and probably a better weapon against the "bomb and gouge" play than limiting groove specs.

But I stand by my assertion that these insanely smart club manufacturers will produce similar spin results even with reduced volume and shape. 

Even so, all of these technology advances' affect on GCA is what intrigues me the most.

[Chuck Brown]

Chuck,

Well written and insightful.  Makes me even reconsider a point or two. 

In the second paragraph, well, I'l admit that the technology is headed that way.   And you're right to say that every manufacturer would build it if they could.  But I just don't see 105 mph swing speeds creating 400 yards drives anytime soon.

In the first paragraph, I think you're being naive.  I wish there was a way to compare the top 10 money list guys' swing speeds from 1960 to now.  I would hypothesize that the guys are swinging harder than ever before.  I am not advocating trying to outlaw fitness, but let's at least be aware of its potential to greatly affect ball speeds.

I was humbled by how much better your response to the third paragraph was than my original statement.  Could you expound on that notion of incremental and well-planned rollback?

Ben, I truly think we are in much agreement about players and swing speeds.  And the effect of new equipment.

Let me describe it this way.  If you watch Bubba Watson or JB Holmes, two of the handful of the longest hitters on today's tour, and compare them to Andy Bean, one of the longest hitters 30 years ago, you'd see a startling, qualitative difference; not merely a quantitative one.  
The way Andy Bean (and almost of all of his fellow long-hitters in the '70's and 80's, and well before, I presume) hit the ball with his old MacGregor Ben Hogan model, was a low ball that climbed, on backspin, as it flew.  It took off like a jet.  All based on the high-spin balata ball.
Fast forward to the 21st century.  Bubba and JB hit a ball that jumps off the clubface and immediately gets to altitude, then flattens and carries as far as possible... they hope.  (One of the more advanced areas in launch-monitoring tour players now is to monitor the "angle of descent," trying to achieve an angle, based on trajectory height and ball speed, to get the ball coming down at an angle which represents not only maximum carry but also the optimum angle for the ball to hit and roll out.)

The point is that ball design drives those two qualitative differences.  With the 21st century ball, spinning so much less, bigger, stronger guys can swing harder; not simply because they might have had a strength and condidtioning coach since high school, but also because the new ball design rewards that kind of fitness, by allowing players to swing harder at balls that spin so little off driver.  (Drivers today are fully an inch and a half longer than drivers in the steel shaft era, too.  The fact that retailers are selling drivers at 45.5 and 46 inches, while tour players are often playing 44 and 44.5 inch drivers is yet another indicator that the tour players have so much length, they don't need to worry about anything but hitting fairways.)

So are players nowadays more fit?  Probably.  Is the fitness drive aided and abetted by the equipment?  Absolutely.  Putting together the entire complex equation of player-shaft-clubhead-ball, is today's tour player much much longer than club pros and recreational players than were tour players of yesterday.  I say, "Yes, definitely."  Jack Nicklaus also says the same.

One of the most pernicious myths in the ball debate is that we'd be "taking something away" from the recreational player if we rolled back golf balls.  In fact, we'd almost certainly make the gap between Tiger Woods and the average recreational player somewhat smaller.