GOUGE: Remember early last week when I relayed a story Terry Dill told me about J.B. Holmes bashing a 5-iron from the light rough 220 yards to land comfortably on the green on Colonial's first hole? Dill had a look at Holmes' lie and reasoned that with the new grooves that kind of shot might fly onto the second tee. Well, the folks at Acushnet, parent company of Holmes' club sponsor Cobra, offered this wrinkle to Dill's story about Holmes' bomb-and-gouge episode: Seems, according to Acushnet, that J.B.'s already using an iron with grooves that would conform to the new rule.

Let's assume the word from Acushnet is gospel (we're sure it is, but we can't be certain because the USGA hasn't released a list of 2010 rule-conforming irons yet). There are only a few things one can then take from the Colonial story. 1) The new rule's not going to make much difference on iron shots; 2) In terms of its impact on scoring, maybe this is just a wedge rule; 3) Why was Acushnet/Titleist so apoplectic about the implementation of this rule and the hardships it was going to cause for players when its most prototypical bomb-and-gouger won't be hurt by it? 4) Why do we need this rule if it's not going to penalize bomb-and-gougers in a way that fundamentally alters the tilting of the axis around which modern elite golf currently rotates?

My thoughts on 1-4: 1): Let's not overreact to one shot in a practice round by a tour player. 2): If it's just a wedge rule, it's not fulfilling its intent to reward driving accuracy directly. Assuming more approach shots are still hit with clubs other than wedges, then iron shots from the rough should be significantly punished to at least the same degree as wedge shots. 3): Is Titleist and are other ball manufacturers, as well, more concerned about having enough time to develop a ball technology response to the new grooves? It's a theory. 4): There has been and there will be much time and money spent because of this rule. Average golfers will at some point be asked to change their equipment (I would argue, given golf's natural tendency toward peer pressure, that point in practical terms will come sooner than 2024, but maybe that's just me). So, given all that time, money and inconvenience, if the rule doesn't completely alter the universe (in this admittedly very narrow, but fundamentally enormous way) then it shouldn't be, should it?

But for now I'm going to stick with No. 1: Let's not overreact to one shot in a practice round by a tour player.

BOMB: Lets start here. Whether it should or shouldn’t be, it’s a done deal. So lets everyone just get past that. The question of whether it will actually accomplish anything, however, is a completely different animal.

So lets use J.B. and some others as examples. If we believe (and we have no reason not to) that about 30 percent of tour players are currently using irons with grooves that conform, can any fan tell me which players those are because they have seen a noticeable difference in the way the ball reacts for these players versus other players on tour? Anyone? Didn’t think so. So that certainly backs up your contention that it is primarily a wedge rule and that the apocalypse may not be upon us.

But what it really might be showing is that players who have not yet tried the new grooves might do well to get going on it. More than anything, players who already have experience playing conforming grooves in their irons, as Tiger Woods hinted at, are going to be way ahead of their counterparts.
 

As for the ball manufacturers and club manufacturers trying to design their way around the rule, best of luck. Word is that at least one major manufacturer has already submitted a groove design to the USGA that conforms to the new groove rule but was not allowed because it provided too much spin. The preamble to Appendix II and Appendix III of the Rules of Golf (which essentially gives the USGA wide-ranging power to disallow equipment designed to get around a rule) is going to become language a lot of manufacturers are going to become familiar with in a hurry I’m afraid. Indeed, and I'll admit we're burying the lead here but the news just came across my desk as I was typing this, a notice sent to manufacturers today (click thumbnail to read the notice) makes it pretty clear that any enhancements not covered by the new rule but affecting spin will not be tolerated. The new language, attached here, reiterates the idea of the intent of the rule, namely: “The objective of this change is to limit the effectiveness of grooves on shots from the rough to the effect of a traditional V-groove design.”  That very easily could mean there won’t be any meaningful innovation in grooves or face pattern that might enhance spin production ever again. Of course, you could argue that if the USGA spent all this time and money developing this rule, why did they allow such a loophole to develop five months before the rule is supposed to go into effect? You could make that argument, but we won't. We'll just ask the question. That and other questions will not sit well with the golf manufacturing community. And that sounds a lot like World War III.

BOMB: Greetings from Turnberry, buddy. Wish you were here, particularly when I played Girvan GC last night—a par-64 gem with eight holes looking out over the water and Ailsa Craig. How good is it to be able to start out at 7 pm and still get in 18?

But that’s not why I’m writing. Greg Norman recently finished his press conference and I think what he had to say regarding grooves might interest you. He wasn’t even asked about grooves. He was asked if he felt he had another great championship in him and he offered up this:
“To be honest with you, I’m looking forward to St. Andrews, before I even tee it up tomorrow, because I really think St. Andrews, the way it played a couple of years ago, suits my [game], especially with the new groove technology coming in next year. I think the younger generation have never experienced it, don’t have a clue as to what is going to happen to their games. . . . When you go to the British Open where you can’t spin the ball as much, the whole game of golf is different. Andy North said yesterday to both Tom [Watson] and I, ‘You guys should both start playing more golf because you know in the early part of next year when the guys are trying to make the adjustment, the more experienced players are going to have an advantage over the younger players because of their lack of control over the golf ball. So I look forward to that more than I do this year.”

The Shark seems to be sounding a bell that the grooves situation is going to have more impact than many players believe. Those we have spoken have mostly taken a matter-of-fact approach, saying they will figure it out. But when a man of Norman’s smarts and experience talks, I tend to listen. Still, I’m not so sure all of a sudden the David Toms’, Davis Love III’s and others in their 40s are going to be cleaning up on tour next year while the young guns fall off the map. An adjustment? To be sure. But it’s not an insurmountable one for these guys. Or is it?

GOUGE: You deserve a month's worth of golf on the Scottish or Irish coast. But next time, I want to get a spot on the travel team.

Let me tell you a story about grooves that Terry Dill relayed to me as we were working on an article on grooves that will appear in the September issue of Golf Digest. Dill, who's played professional golf for five decades and is still coaching and teaching in the Austin, Texas area, believes the rule change will mean a return to the unpredictable flyer lie. He thinks that will be great for golf, and he agrees with Norman that many young players might not understand what they're getting into. Dill went to Colonial earlier this year for the Crowne Plaza Invitational and talked with dozens of players about the new rule. One was the original Bomb & Gouger, J.B. Holmes, who told Dill: "I am looking forward to the change. I played V grooves through college. I believe the change will help me overall."

Fair enough, thought Dill. Then he watched as Holmes played the 565-yard par-5 1st hole at Colonial. "He had just hit a 320-yard drive, about 15 yards into the light rough. I looked at his lie and determined that the ball was sitting up but with some grass behind it. It was a classic 'shooter' lie. He hit a high 5- or 6-iron about 220 yards right into the middle of the green and it stopped in about four feet. From my experience, that ball with V-grooves might have flown 20-25 yards farther, which would have put his ball almost on No. 2 tee."

The whole point of the groove exercise is to return a relatively extreme (not crippling, mind you) advantage to hitting the ball in the fairway. What the less effective grooves might mean for some is a measure of uncertainty. I think if you think you know what's going to happen with this new rule, whether you're Greg Norman or J.B. Holmes, you either have an unusually large sense of your ability to predict the future or you ought to be using that talent to rake in money on Wall Street and/or Las Vegas.

But I also think this could happen: The old-timers like Norman and Dill might be overestimating the effect. First, let's not forget that the standard was softened slightly from its original guidelines. Second, let's also realize that many tour pros will have the opportunity to have their grooves milled into the face at the most precise measurements, which could give them a slight advantage over the grooves in the investment cast irons sold to the general public. Third, the golf ball is not the golf ball of Norman's day or Dill's day. It's much better aerodynamically. It will be interesting if similar lies next year will produce results that Norman and Dill are remembering from back in the day. I have seen testing that shows a range of differences between prototype grooves and current grooves in terms of spin and distance. I do not see a consistent pattern that a player can point to and rely on every time from every lie in the light rough. 

And I guess that's the point of the change, isn't it?

BOMB: Cue up the music—another one bites the dust.
 
Well, not exactly. But Mizuno and Bettinardi putters are severing their exclusive arrangement after the end of this year. Of course, that makes you wonder if Mizuno will want to remain in the putter business at all. This makes them a fairly solid 0-for-3 in the desigher-label putter department, having in the past had Scotty Cameron and T.P. Mills designed lines.

Bettinardi will be coming out with a new line of putters this fall under the Bettinardi name. Good for him. But it also underscores that although some companies have actively tryed to follow the Titleist-Scotty Cameron model by attaching designer names to their putter lines (see Kia Ma and TaylorMade, Bobby Grace and MacGregor to name a couple), fact is it is a difficult proposition to succeed at unless you are willing to dump a lot of resources behind it. That not only applies to big-name designers, but for those stadium full of little guys looking to break into the biz as well. Brands such as Odyssey, Ping and Titleist are just too strong in the putter area for a single person to make much of a dent, regardless of the name stamped on the club.

GOUGE: Oh, really? How's Stephen Boccieri doing with his Heavy Putter brand, and its latest innovation the Mid-Weight? No, he'll never threaten Odyssey or Ping, but there's room for new, out-of-the-box ideas. Same with the team at SeeMore. And the folks at Yes! are still churning out good ideas.

But you're right about the puttermaker-big manufacturer partnerships not working. The reason it works for Scotty Cameron and Titleist is because of Titleist's vast numbers on tour. That's obvious. If you don't have those numbers, it really wouldn't matter if your designer partner was Michelangelo, Vera Wang or I.M. Pei. The only company that might have a similar opportunity is TaylorMade. But it's only going to happen for TaylorMade if every one of their staff players starts using a Kia Ma. You look down the list of Titleist players, and I can think of only one who's not using a Cameron (Zach Johnson and his SeeMore). I mean when a name staff player like Retief Goosen opts for a Tiger Shark instead of a TaylorMade Rossa Kia Ma putter, you've got issues when it comes to corraling your tour staff.

But none of that means designers large or small, including Tiger Shark, don't have technologies worth examining. I think the problem with golf consumers is they aren't willing to step outside the usual places unless someone literally grabs them and shakes them and then holds their hands and physically walks them to the store and shows them what a better idea looks like. Point is, they shouldn't miss out. I'm not sure designer-labels work, but I'm pretty sure solid thinking works. That's why those brands are having success on the professional tours.It's worth serious consideration. Even for a label chaser like you. 

BOMB: Thankfully, I was able to get the last question in to commissioner Finchem yesterday regarding grooves and its possible effect on course setup on the PGA Tour. Here’s what he had to say:

“We have changed our rough heights this year at a number of golf courses and did some fairly meticulous analysis of what happened when we brought those rough heights down a little bit compared to earlier years, and the reason we did that was to set the stage for now measuring what happens on those same golf courses when we shift grooves.

“So this will be a -- you're not going to see us revolutionize our setup the first month next year, but over time we're going to be experimenting with a lot of different ways to set things up because our hope is that this change is going to make the game more interesting to watch from a variety of perspectives, and that would be helpful to us. So we're going to be -- we have more people, more energy, we have this wonderful ShotLink program that tells us everything, so we're going to really, I think, enjoy the process of doing some things differently and playing around with it.”

On the surface, that seems like a great idea. After all, course setups have come under fire in recent years as being too difficult with some hole locations bordering on silly. However, if course setups are relaxed in some manner, isn’t that somewhat offsetting what the groove condition of competition is meant to accomplish? Just asking.

GOUGE: Yeoman’s work, my friend. No, I’m not talking about making the drive to D.C. at the last minute. I’m talking about sorting through Commissioner-speak to get to the meaty details. The question on everybody’s lips these last few days (and on ours for the last few years) is “Will the rule change produce the desired effect?” You can spend months looking at the mountains of research produced by the USGA and even some equipment companies, and still not come to any hard and fast conclusion. Most manufacturers genuinely believe PGA Tour players are great and will adapt. Some players aren't so sure. My favorite came from a conversation I had with Scott Verplank:

"If anybody says they know what’s good for golf, their ego’s either way too big or they’re uninformed.
 
"For the PGA Tour, that’s a different story. I honestly feel like we should have our own equipment specs. In other words, if you want to play on the PGA Tour, then you’re going to have to conform to the clubs that you have to have more skill to play with. Less effective grooves, smaller driver heads and I don’t think you should be able to anchor a club against yourself in a professional tournament, either. But that’s just my opinion.

And a little later, he added this: "If you went to 240 cc driver heads and V grooves, the whole money list would change a whole lot. There’d be some guys that you would never hear of again."

For Verplank, though, Tiger Woods would still be where he is: "That’s the thing that makes Tiger so good. He still plays with clubs that are old style, and he can hit all the shots. He can change his trajectory and do all that. That’s one reason why he’s so darn good."

Whether some old-school superior set of skills will be more in evidence with the 2010 groove in play is hard to predict, however. Why? Because it's very likely to be a moving target. If course setups, specifically hole locations, aren't as difficult as they have been for the last several years, how will we know exactly what the result of the rule change might be? Will the greens in regulation from the rough percentage (it's about 50 percent right now) be dramatically worse after one event next year? Well, even if it were, there are too many variables in play to know why that might have happened. In fact, I'd bet a year's worth of events aren't enough to know for sure. I'll say it right here: We may never know, and the long run, it might matter in the most subtle ways that make the game better, more efficient, more interesting and perhaps even slightly more environmentally friendly (bye, bye over fertilized rough).

So what to make of what might happen next year with the rule change? I'll let you know the first time somebody's 8-iron approach from the light rough flies over the heads of the gallery behind the green.