BOMB: Well, well, well, pardsy. Finally something to give me a 10-minute respite from writing copy for the Hot List issue.
Stephen Ames won the Children's Miracle Classic at Walt Disney World Resort using irons and wedges with the 2010 conforming grooves. But before anyone thinks Ames performed his own miracle by winning with the new grooves, listen to this. Our man Tim Rosaforte caught up with Ames, who was at his home in Calgary, and this is what the recent winner had to say on the subject:
"It is a good sign, I thought there would be a big difference for me, but then again I'm playing a soft golf ball, the Nike Tour, which is like the old Platinum, which spins a lot. I won’t have a problem."
Apparently not. Ames, who has been playing with conforming grooves in his irons nearly all year (to wit, his What's In My Bag from the March Golf Digest) birdied five of the last seven holes to win. Ames then added wedges with the conforming grooves in Scottsdale at the Frys.Com Open. Here's what he had to say about that:
"I put them in for Wednesday's pro-am, didn’t see much difference, put them in bag, off I went."
Now to be fair, Rosie also reported that Ames did say there may be some concern about flyers and that Ames thinks it's going to "really penalize [those who] miss the fairway, which is what the game used to be, isn't it?"
But from his comments as well as those of Davis Love III, who also used the conforming grooves at Disney and said he "doubted the switch would be noticeable," perhaps the new grooves won't make the game what it used to be, but rather simply will be more of the same. What say you about that?
GOUGE: I say what started out as a good idea, namely a meaningful rollback that (business considerations notwithstanding) would only inhibit the play of elite level players and leave average golfers relatively unscathed, is still, now, just a little over a month from full-scale implementation, much more complex than the world of golf realizes.
First, the good news: The USGA is expected to produce a list of irons that conform to the new groove rule/condition of competition, perhaps as early as next week. That's not an especially big deal for PGA Tour players, but it will be helpful for professionals competing in events on minor tours like the Canadian Tour, for instance, where tournaments are expected to play by the 2010 rule but will include many players who may not have been furnished with the latest clubs by manufacturers. Of course, it is the player's responsibility to use conforming irons in a tournament, just as it's always been. Having a list, however, helps players and organizers of minor tours. The USGA likely will expand the list as necessary, but it's a good and necessary starting point.
The fact that manufacturers are still uncertain which of their recent or current products might or might not conform to the rule seems weird to me, at least on one level. If this rule is 1) such a design hardship to manufacturers, and 2) going to have a definitive and presumably dramatic effect on playability, then I would think the differences between the irons and wedges that will meet the guidelines of the condition of competition would be overwhelmingly obvious. They are not. Which is good, I guess, because it won't affect the way average players play at all. But it's bad because it won't lead to chaos.
Given the perceived lack of effect in Stephen Ames' or Davis Love III's or Robert Allenby's games, well, I shudder to think what would happen when we don't see immediate impact in Week 1 of the 2010 PGA Tour season. The angry young man in me wishes there would be catastrophic system failure and players driving their courtesy cars off of cliffs in Kapalua in psychological meltdown when they realize that every shot from the rough flies in umpteen unpredictable directions. BUT THAT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Here's what USGA Senior Technical Director Dick Rugge said in a telephone conversation this morning: "It's not going to be like flipping a swtich," he said. "It's going to have different effects on different players. It's not like it's going to be a whole new ball game.
"You need to look at many, many data points to see what effect this is having," he said, pointing out that the USGA studied a quarter century-plus of PGA Tour data before even embarking on the study of the effect of grooves. "It's not going to be what happens the first week out. One thing I do know for sure: The amount of spin for shots being hit out of the rough will be reduced. That's going to be the cause. What will be the effect remains to be seen. We won't see that effect in one event.
"What's the number? I don't know because the conditions vary so much from year to year. Maybe we'll see something in half a year, maybe more. But I think it will show up."
One thing that would be helpful, of course, would be if the media were given unfettered access to the PGA Tour's ShotLink data to show how less effective shots from the rough are week-in and week-out, course to course, year over year. Because without it, no one will really know if the groove rule is having the desired effect. (I'm going to completely discount as useful information the uninformed outbursts from TV announcers, who to a body insist on calling this decision a return to V grooves when in fact that is not what is happening.) We may never know anyway because course setups change, courses change, individual situations are unique (and by nature not quite scientifically useful). Let's just hope we don't have to wait a quarter century-plus to know if all the huzzahing and harrumphing was worth it.
