"It'll be a change, but it's not like you're going to watch something different next year."

Rex Hoggard is at the Disney event and does some research on the grooves issue. Early conclusion? Too early to tell for the most part since manufacturers have been slow to ship conforming clubs to players.

The new rule applies to all clubs, but most players already play conforming grooves in their irons. The only adjustment for the lion’s share of Tour players will be in their wedges and most agree the impact will be negligible.

From fairway lies, tests indicate a Tour player gets 3 to 4 percent less spin with the conforming grooves, which are smaller than the old grooves and not as sharp along the edges. “You really can’t tell the difference,” said Heath Slocum, who put the new wedges in play at the Frys.com Open. “Maybe a foot of extra roll on the greens. I couldn’t tell any difference.”

From the rough, however, there is a tendency for the ball to roll up the clubface, creating a shot with less spin that comes out higher than players are used to.

“You’re going to see players go to wedges with less loft,” said Todd Anderson, the swing coach for Charles Howell III and Charles Warren. “A guy will go from 60 (degrees) to 56 (degrees) to control shots better.”
Touch shots from the first cut of rough are also a concern for some players.

“From 80 yards out of the rough it’s going to be tough to control,” said Warren, who is 144th in earnings and did not switch to the new grooves at Disney as he attempts to break into the top 125 and secure his ’10 Tour card.

David Dusek offers this analogy from Davis Love:

But anyway, it'll be a change, but it's not like you're going to watch something different next year. It's like watching Talladega with a tiny bit smaller restrictor plate. To us fans it looked like the same race. It was just a little bit slower, but it looked like the same race. 
It's going to look like the same race next year. You just might see one ball roll a little bit farther on a chip and it'll just be because a guy played a different shot.

Taylor Made Appealing USGA Wedge Ruling

Jim Achenbach reports on Taylor Made's struggle to get its "exchangeable face technology" wedges approved by the USGA.

Frankly, I'm just shocked that a wedge where you the owner can easily exchange face plates from conforming to non-conforming grooves would cause a problem. Shocked!

TaylorMade immediately appealed the USGA decision, and chief technical officer Benoit Vincent traveled to USGA headquarters in Far Hills, N.J., in October to present his case. Vincent said he would discuss the wedges after Nov. 9, when a ruling on the appeal is expected.

The wedges, from 50 to 64 degrees, are scheduled for release early next year. A face plate can be removed and replaced in a few minutes, using the same torque wrench designed for TaylorMade drivers.

Equipment appeals are heard three times per year by the USGA, during regularly scheduled meetings of the Executive Committee and the Equipment Standards Committee.

TaylorMade’s argument is simple: Golf club manufacturers are allowed to produce wedges with larger, aggressive grooves during 2010, so TaylorMade should be allowed to sell face plates with the same grooves during the same period.

"I just wish they had gone to a straight, old, traditional V groove..."

Great stuff from Lanny Wadkins on many topics prior to his Hall of Fame induction, but the final comments about grooves are the most interesting:

I like the idea of trying to get back to V grooves. I just wish they had gone to a straight, old, traditional V groove because what they're doing with going to an area, the amount of area that's in the groove, which is basically going to shallower U grooves if you will, the manufacturers are going to figure out a way around it. They're going to figure out a way to keep as much spin as possible in the ball. I would love to see it back in the V grooves we played in the early '70s. No reason they couldn't do that in my mind and just be very straight forward about it, and I think it would require more imagination in today's game. I think it would involve ball changes for a lot of the guys on TOUR. With the changes they're making today that probably won't happen as readily as we thought it was going to. It would involve driver changes.

I mean, my generation has changed all the way along the line. We've changed from shafts that weren't frequency matched, then we went to frequently matched shafts. Then we went to wooden clubs that were heavy, 14 and a half ounces for a driver, a shaft that weighed 135 grams, which is probably what mine weighed early '70s, mid '80s at that point in time. We've changed to small-headed metal clubs to big-headed metal grooves to U grooves to balls that don't spin. My generation has changed all the way up. This generation like where my boys are, my boys have always played the same stuff. They've never hit a wooden club. They're 21 and 17, all they've known is big-headed metal stuff.

I think it's about time. This generation has to change something. Let's see if they've got some imagination.

And the thing about it is, guess who's been playing V grooves all along? Tiger Woods. All he's got to change is two clubs in his bag. He's got to change his 56 and his 60. He doesn't have to change balls, driver, nothing. Let's just give Tiger a bigger advantage. Just what he needs, right?

C-C's Ready To Go

He doesn't have to pitch a Game 7 and now he has a wedge line named after him. So good to see the nice folks in Fairhaven, Massachusetts paying homage to...oh, not that CC? David Allen at GolfChannel.com writes:

In response to the new restrictions being placed on the volume and edge sharpness of grooves, Titleist has come out with a conforming line of its popular Vokey Design Spin Milled wedges. The new wedges are named, appropriately enough, Vokey Design Spin Milled C-C wedges. The C-C stands for the “Condition of Competition” adopted by both the USGA and R&A, which prohibits PGA Tour and most Tour-level participants from playing the non-conforming irons and wedges after January 1, 2010.

Titleist will continue to manufacture and sell the previous generation non-conforming Vokey Design Spin Milled wedges through 2010. The C-C wedges, which will be available through authorized Titleist retailers beginning November 1, 2009, generate a higher launch, less spin and more run-out than the previous “bigger groove” wedges.

Wouldn't COC have been more accurate?

"It wouldn't be widely known but I've carried two sets of irons to every tournament for five years. I choose depending on the rough that week what grooves I'm going to use."

Mark Reason talks to Padraig Harrington about the impact of the groove rule change:

Harrington says: "I've talked to pros and they don't think it will make a big difference. I see it as a massive issue.

"It wouldn't be widely known but I've carried two sets of irons to every tournament for five years. I choose depending on the rough that week what grooves I'm going to use."

In the heavy rough of the majors Harrington uses the v-grooves that will still be legal next season. They hit the ball 30 yards further out of the thick stuff than the box grooves. But at the regular events Harrington has tended to use his box grooves, because they don't produce those 'fliers' that send a ball 10 yards over the green.

"In addition to their equipment, players may also need to spend considerable time changing their course strategy and technique."

I was poking around Stan Utley's new website and he posts a few thoughts on how he sees the groove rule change impacting the sport.

He also links to Titleist's groove report, which I had never read. Naturally I enjoyed a warm chuckle reading this alarming revelation:

The magnitude of these changes is far greater than most players anticipate. All players will be required to make time and resource consuming changes to their game to address the impact of these performance differences. Beyond wedge and iron changes, players will likely consider other equipment changes such as their golf ball, driver and set composition. In addition to their equipment, players may also need to spend considerable time changing their course strategy and technique.

Brain cells might move around, forehead wrinkles could develop and players are likely to use their arms to support their chin to ease the burden of extra brain activity. Now you see why we need universal health care in this country. It's all the USGA's fault. Always is!