Will the groove change inspire changes in GCA? Or in maintenance practices?

[Mike Benham]

Same basic question was buried in one of the other groove topics and thought it might warrant its own topic.

Thoughts?

[Mike Benham]

The USGA Announcement:

USGA Announces Rules Changes
On Golf Club Grooves
August 5, 2008

Far Hills, N.J. - The United States Golf Association announced revisions to the Rules of Golf, placing new restrictions on the cross sectional area and edge sharpness of golf club grooves.

The revisions are designed to restore the challenge of playing shots to the green from the rough by reducing backspin on those shots. The initial focus of the new rules will be competitions involving highly skilled professional golfers and will have little impact on the play of most golfers.

The rules control the cross sectional area of grooves on all clubs, with the exception of drivers and putters, and limit groove edge sharpness on clubs with lofts equal to or greater than 25 degrees (generally a standard 5-iron and above).

The rules apply to clubs manufactured after Jan. 1, 2010, the same year that the USGA will enforce the new regulations through a condition of competition for the U.S. Open, U.S. Women's Open and U.S. Senior Open and each of their qualifying events. All USGA amateur championships will apply the new regulations through the condition of competition, after Jan. 1, 2014.

The PGA Tour, the European PGA Tour, the LPGA, the PGA of America and the International Federation of PGA Tours have all indicated their support for the new regulations on grooves. Each of these organizations, as well as the Augusta National Golf Club, have told the USGA and The R&A, the game's governing bodies, that they intend to adopt the condition of competition, applying the rules for their competitions, beginning on January 1, 2010.

"Our research shows that the rough has become less of a challenge for the highly skilled professional and that driving accuracy is now less of a key factor for success," said USGA Senior Technical Director Dick Rugge. "We believe that these changes will increase the challenge of the game at the Tour level, while having a very small effect on the play of most golfers."

The research undertaken and published by the USGA and The R&A demonstrates that for shots from the rough with urethane-covered balls (the type of ball most used by highly skilled players), modern, sharp-edged U-grooves result in higher ball spin rates and steeper ball landing angles than the V-groove designs used predominantly in the past. The combination of a higher spin rate and steeper landing angle results in better control when hitting to the green. Shots from the rough become more similar to shots from the fairway, creating less challenge for shots from the rough.

[Sean Leary]

Maybe the architects will be more likely to do more open fronts to greens , rather than frontal bunkers.

[Ken Moum]

Despite my new-found belief that there's a chance the groove change could work well, i don't have a lot of optimism re. these possibilities.

If it does work, the difference in spin from even light rough might be enough to allow course setups for majors to be slightly softened. But given the effect of weather on the same issues I doubt that anyone if going to notice a change in setups even if it occurred.

Regular course maintenance probably won't change, because as the USGA has noted, most golfers don't spin the ball out of the rough anyway. And guys like me aren't going to be required to use the new grooves until 2024, at which point I will be 76 years old...

As far as GCA, I cannot imagine any way there'll be a change due solely to the groove rules.

One thing I absolutely expect to happen is a resurgence in the value of Ping Eye wedges. They are still grandfathered under the deal Karsten and the USGA signed, so they will be the only deep, wide square-grooved clubs allowed in elite play.

And, FWIW, the Eye2+ isn't included--but they didn't have the big grooves anyway. I have a two sand wedges and a lob in stainless, and a P, S and L in BeCu that get in and out of my bag, depending on whim.

[Garland Bayley]

Hi Mike,

The average golfer really sees no effect from grove changes. Certainly architects like Tom Doak who target the average golfer will not make changes, and I suspect most other architects won't either. Perhaps if you are a PGA Tour architect, you might make changes, because your clients will be affected. I won't comment on maintenance, as I don't think about it too much.

[John Moore II]

I mentioned this in the other thread, but I don't think there will be a significant change in daily maintenance practices at courses. The rough at daily fee courses typically is not higher than 2.5 inches and greens are not exceptionally hard and fast. Since those are geared towards the average golfer, there will be limited changes needed.

The set-ups for tour events may change a little bit, even though for the most part, they are not exceptionally hard. I played TPC Wakefield 3 days after they hosted the Rex Open (Nationwide Tour) last year and the rough was maybe 2.5 inches with hard greens running at maybe 11. It was not terribly difficult, I shot 79 from the back tees and didn't feel like I played exceptionally well, so its not a very hard set-up. I can see the greens being slightly more receptive but the rough staying the same and the greens running the same speed as much as possible with them being a bit softer.

I think the only place you will see a difference in maintenance practices is for the majors. Augusta might do away with the 'second cut' the USGA might scale back on the wheat grown far off the fairways and the PGA might cut down a little bit.

This groove change will have little effect on daily practices.

[Ulrich Mayring]

Since it now looks like none of the professional tours and none of the majors including the one run by the USGA are going to implement this "condition of competition", it will soon fade into oblivion.

Ulrich

[Brent Hutto]

Since it now looks like none of the professional tours and none of the majors including the one run by the USGA are going to implement this "condition of competition", it will soon fade into oblivion.

Ulrich

And rightly so.

The argument behind it seems to come down to "The ball goes too far so maybe if we monkey with wedge grooves the players will use a ball that doesn't go as far". Plus a healthy dose of "Hogan and Nicklaus never used square grooves and they were Real Men who knew how to bunt the ball into the fairway" for good measure.

[Tom_Doak]

Brent:

So what's wrong with the logic as you explained it above?  (the first half, anyway)

I hope the rule is implemented.  It's a step in the right direction -- maybe just a baby step, maybe more, I don't think anyone really knows.  But, as in the debate over national health care, now the entrenched players are starting to drag their feet and use their muscle to avoid ANY change from the status quo, because they are afraid they might lose market share, i.e., money.

Whether it's implemented or not, I don't think it will have much of any effect on architecture or on maintenance.  In both fields, most practicioners seem determined to keep trying to make courses tougher any way they can, and even if the rule change produced major results, I don't think you would see much in the way of backing off from that trend.  There are big changes to come in architecture and in maintenance, but they'll be driven by economic factors and not by rules changes.

[Dave Falkner]

Tom
what changes in maintenance do you foresee as a result of economic conditions?  Less watering? more "natural" areas?  less  mowing in the rough?

[Ben Sims]

Dave,

I fear that the intended results of the rollback will be short lived.

On a thread a few weeks ago, I cited a rep for Vokey at a trade show.  He basically said that the rollback isn't going to affect the spin rates as much as the governing body intends.  He said that comparing a brand new circa 1985 forged wedge, and the prototypes for the new groove are inconsequential.  He said there are other things that affect spin, namely face milling and the precision of todays tools vs. yesteryear.

I see a sligh difference in course setup for the tour guys.  Maybe we'll see a little bit of a change in rough configurations--more graduated.

For us normal folk, I don't see a change in GCA or in the course setups we play every weekend. This is all based on what I see as companies sidestepping the groove rollback through extensive and expensive research and tooling methods.

[John Moore II]

Ben-Face milling does wonders for shots hit from the fairway, but does a limited amount on shots hit from the rough. Deeper grooves allow for more grass, moisture etc to be moved away from the ball and give more spin. The roll back will affect spin on the deep box grooves compared to the new U grooves. Assuming they don't want to make courses nearly unplayable, some type of change will need to occur.

[Brent Hutto]

The argument behind it seems to come down to "The ball goes too far so maybe if we monkey with wedge grooves the players will use a ball that doesn't go as far".

Brent:

So what's wrong with the logic as you explained it above?  (the first half, anyway)

I hope the rule is implemented.  It's a step in the right direction -- maybe just a baby step, maybe more, I don't think anyone really knows.

It's silly wishful thinking in lieu of doing what they really intend. If they think the best players hit the ball too far nowadays, it is totally within their power to change the ball and make it go less far. They could do it now or last year or ten years ago.

For whatever reason, they ignored that possibility for a decade and now seem to consider it off the table. So when they finally address the putative "problem" it is by assuming a chain of events that to my mind makes no sense. I do not for a minute believe that Tour players will give up any meaningful distance in order to regain the spin from the rough presumably lost by this change in grooves. Maybe they will demand balls that spin more from the rough and maybe that will at the margin end up costing them a yard or two in distance. But they aren't going to play a Tour Balata equivalent just because the occasional wedge shot from the rough might run out on them now.

It's as though the guys making these rulings see the game Nicklaus played, the game Tiger plays and thinks they can induce Tiger to play Nicklaus' game by making the grooves on his wedges shallow like Jacks. I have no objection to specifying whatever kind of grooves they want to specify. I'll play any of them with virtually no effect on my game and the Tour players can eventually adjust to whatever equipment you want them to use. It the specious reasoning that offends me, especially in the wake of the USGA abdicating control over golf-ball distance for years, all the way bellyaching about the ball going too far and dicking around with driver C.O.R. and driver length and all their earlier off-target nibbling at the margins of the real "problem". This is more of the same.

[Richard Choi]

I have been thinking about this for awhile and I believe going to the v grooves will be a major step backward for those of us who favor "firm and fast" conditioning.

With v grooves generating less spin, especially from the rough, the "accomplished" players will complain bitterly that the shots that used to stay on green is no longer staying there. Sure, the average players won't notice much difference, but they are not the ones usually complaining about slow greens or fluffy bunkers. The supers will have to make the greens even softer than what they are now so that they will hold the ball better.

The great positive trend we have seen over the last 10 years of more and more courses adopting "fast and firm" conditioning will be beaten back and will die out slowly. Sure, it will be firm and fast for majors, but for everyday play at your local club, this is bad news.

[John Moore II]

I have been thinking about this for awhile and I believe going to the v grooves will be a major step backward for those of us who favor "firm and fast" conditioning.

With v grooves generating less spin, especially from the rough, the "accomplished" players will complain bitterly that the shots that used to stay on green is no longer staying there. Sure, the average players won't notice much difference, but they are not the ones usually complaining about slow greens or fluffy bunkers. The supers will have to make the greens even softer than what they are now so that they will hold the ball better.

The great positive trend we have seen over the last 10 years of more and more courses adopting "fast and firm" conditioning will be beaten back and will die out slowly. Sure, it will be firm and fast for majors, but for everyday play at your local club, this is bad news.

Well, not all players will complain. I wouldn't. I'd love to see rock hard greens, fast fairways, gut busting bunkers (matter of fact, I'd like to see bunkers raked with those furrow rakes Jack used at Memorial a few years ago) and rough that is 3 or so inches deep. Yeah, it would make playing golf fairly difficult, but that would be the point. I always find it funny that the best players, those with the most skill to adapt to conditions, are the ones who complain the loudest. Stupid people.