GOUGE: It's been buried in a corner of the USGA web site, but aside from a few insiders, many aren't aware that the USGA is strengthening its position in favor of rolling back grooves on clubfaces.
There under the equipment testing section is the latest addition to its report on grooves. Look under the heading "A Study of the Effect of Rough Height on Tour Player Performance Using U- and V-Grooved Irons".
It asserts that increasing the height of the rough is not an effective alternative to rolling back groove parameters. Let's try to be crystal clear what this means: Aggressive U-shaped grooves, which are essentially the standard for most wedges and irons to date, are stone dead, or to paraphrase, they are no more! They've ceased to be! They've expired and gone to meet their maker! They are bereft of life, they rest in peace! Their metabolic processes are now history! They're off their twig! They've kicked the bucket, they've shuffled off their mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!!
A common complaint from golfers and manufacturers when the USGA announced the proposed rule change was why not simply grow the rough higher? As a matter of fact, the entire point of having a notice and comment period prior to adopting any rule is so the USGA can respond to concerns voiced.
"Some of the comments we received led us to do this research," USGA Technical Director Dick Rugge said. Hearing the complaint, the USGA sought to examine the issue directly by having elite players hit shots from light, medium and long rough and then examine the relative spin performance of each.
You can read the report in its entirety, but the upshot of the USGA's findings is that at-the-limit U-groove designed 5- and 8-irons and sand wedges launch the ball with dramatically more spin than old school V-groove irons, but not even in longish 3-plus inch rough does the spin of a U-groove shot decline to the point of a V-groove shot even in light rough., In short, you can't make rough tough enough to reduce performance of an at-the-limit U-groove, aside from making the rough so difficult it reverts to a hazard.
As our conversation with USGA Technical Director Dick Rugge and his team Thursday afternoon revealed, the intent isn't too make the rough a no-fly zone. "You don't want to get to pitch-out length. That isn't golf. The rough isn't supposed to be a hazard, it's supposed to be an area where you ratchet up the risk of the shot. The rough should have a different kind of challenge. You could just line the fairway with out-of-bounds stakes, but that removes the element of what rough is supposed to be. You can achieve that maximum penalty, but only by ruining the game."
The USGA is making the case that this proposed rule change is targeted to the best players in the world, for whom the correlation between driving accuracy and success has been severely minimized in recent years. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that a change in performance from the rough could have a change in playing attitudes, among other things (it might even change the golf ball). But the latest USGA report is as much research and testing as it is tea leaves that the proposed rule will go forward.
BOMB: I'm not totally convinced of everything the USGA suggests, but I do believe that Rugge and his team have answered one of the more prominent complaints about the proposed groove rule. There's no doubt in my mind, however, that driving accuracy is still rewarded and that hitting it wide of the mark is still penalized.
What's also clear, however, is that manufacturers already are working out how to attack the new groove problem. At least three major players are already expected to introduce several new irons in the coming months that will feature grooves built to conform to the proposed standard.
And while they may be slightly dumbed down from what we have in our clubs now, it's just not going to matter to a chop like you. Average golfers out there need to worry a whole lot more about a whole lotta other stuff before they start worrying how much spin they won't be getting on their approach shots from the right rough.
That said, I'll be hoarding all the sharp edged grooves I can find because they just might end up getting grandfathered well past when I'm ready to tee it up in the senior club championship.
GOUGE: Grandfathered? Not in my foursome.
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