So you think you have it tough,   what with the economy, the markets, the environment, and so on. Imagine what weighs on a PGA tour player’s mind?
What if he makes the Ryder Cup team and can’t use his brand of ball in the alternate shot? What if he makes only $800,000 this year and loses his card? What if he can’t handle one more swing thought or swing change? Is it time to hire an entourage to straighten things out?
No wonder one player called it a hard way to make an easy living.

Follow up:
So, I have to ask, why make life harder for these guys? As if they don’t have enough on their minds, now they’ve got this groove issue to contemplate.
As of January 1, 2010, an August 2008 United States Golf Association (USGA) decision will limit groove volume to 0.0030 square inches per inch and groove-edge sharpness to a minimum radius of .010 inches. Less volume and more rounded edges – I know, it’s starting to sound like a hairdo – will mean that shots from the rough with the current U-shaped grooves, or square grooves as they’re better known, won’t spin as much. That will put a greater premium on what has become a disappearing art – hitting fairways.
The new regulations in a nutshell:

Affects all clubs with lofts of 25 degrees or more – a 5-iron and above – but  would mostly affect wedges since most companies are already iron-compliant
The rules apply to clubs manufactured after January 1, 2010. Companies can continue to manufacture and distribute previously conforming club components through the end of 2010
Key effective dates: All major tours and USGA Opens – January 1, 2010; all other USGA events – January 1, 2014; recreational golfers – January 1, 2024.

This change is welcome news for traditionalists and for shotmakers already using V-grooves. But for U-groove advocates it’s like losing their best on-course friend. The two became especially close when manufacturers brought in the lethal combination of big-headed drivers and explosive balls. A 520-yard par 4? No problem. Rip a 380-yard drive 70 yards offline into six-inch rough. Fly a gap wedge 15-feet over the pin and spin it back to three feet.
And so was born the bomb-and-gouge approach. Many great courses were rendered helpless, traditionalists were appalled, and the general public seemed to bore of gargantuan wayward drives that ended up in birdies.

Well, say goodbye to bomb-and-gouge and hello to potentially earth-shattering decisions, at least from the perspective of the U-groove specialists who live a comfy tour existence.
Will it mean, heaven forbid, that they have to rely on skills of yore – ball control, trajectory control and distance control? Worse, could re-tooling their set mean having to re-tool their swing as well?

Yes, said Titleist in a July 2009 press release (www.titleist.com/News/Press</a> Releases). Tests they did with tour players suggested less spin might ultimately mean a swing change. Akin, it would seem, to Fender shortening the necks on their guitars by a few millimeters and forcing the likes of Eric Clapton to re-learn the instrument.

Titleist had players make full and partial swings (50-yard pitch) from the rough with 56º and 60º Vokey Design Spin Milled wedges vs. prototype wedges with the proposed new grooves. The results showed a 30 to 50 per cent decrease in spin rate; a 7 to 20 per cent increase in launch angle; and 9 to 15 feet more roll out after the ball hit the green.
Now replace the wedge with a 7-iron and redo the math. It adds up to the dreaded flyer, the death knell of many a round. Flyers will now be so frequent, some say, that maybe they should go the FedEx Cup route and award points for them.

Interestingly, and perhaps ironically so, Titleist believes that players shouldn’t expect the ball to be the remedy for any ills the new grooves will bring. A ball that increases spin 10 per cent reduces distance off the tee by 5 to 10 yards; a 30 per cent increase reduces drives by 15 to 20 yards. Shots into the green, says Titleist, will be similarly affected. Higher spinning balls will be more susceptible to wind, making it more difficult to control ball flight.

A loss of distance plus loss of control could add up to a loss in earnings. Any wonder some affected tour players are concerned.
Obviously they’re more concerned about the impact on performance than the rest of the golf world seems to be. Even other manufacturers, despite the challenges they face in getting their players ready for January 1, 2010, have mixed feelings as to the magnitude of the groove changes.

In the September 2009 issue of Golf Digest, Benoit Vincent, chief technical officer at TaylorMade, is quoted as saying that, “when it’s all said and done, nine months from now, I think (the concerns) will disappear.” Vincent adds that, “you can always alter players’ performance with the course conditions way beyond what the equipment is doing.” And in the same article, Jeff Colton, Callaway Golf’s senior vice president of research and development says: “We’re not convinced, nor do we believe, that the rule change will actually enact the desired outcome, because of player skill and their ability to adapt and to use trajectory instead of spin to compensate.”

As for how this will affect the average player, those I spoke to either didn’t understand the new groove regulations or didn’t see them as having any kind of game-altering effect. Ditto for Green Grass shops and retailers. From their standpoint, the biggest impact will probably be having to stock both currently compliant irons and wedges and ones with the new grooves once they’re ready for sale.

Actually, it seems quite silly that a microscopic groove change could cause anything more than a ho-hum reaction. Just as companies have come up with performance-enhancing ways to help players deal with longer courses, they’ll find ways to help them find their groove again. The better players will adjust, too, and in no time this whole groove thing will probably be a non-issue. And hey, if all else fails, at least at the tour level, all they have to do is scale back the yardage and trim the rough. Issue resolved.

While many questions remain to be answered – how will testing be done, can a player call another if they suspect a non-compliant club, etc. – one thing is certain for the average player. If you like your square-grooved irons/wedges, now is the time to buy back-ups. You can continue to enjoy the wonderful world of spin until 2024. By then, many of us will have so many hybrids we won’t have to worry.

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