Philippines Golf Academy

The Callaway Jaws wedge with conforming grooves in the foreground

A while back, it came to the attention of the United States Golf Association that the skill of driving accuracy had become a much less important factor in achieving success while playing golf than it used to be. USGA analysis of statistical data measured by the PGA Tour since 1980 shows that historically, driving accuracy was similarly correlated to winning as putting. Beginning in the early 1990’s, however, driving accuracy became much less important. In the early part of the 21st century, the correlation between driving accuracy rank and winning rank had reached a very low level. It was the era of what was then called “bomb and gouge golf”; the biggest hitters hit the ball as far off the tee as they could with little regard of whether the ball found the fairway or not. The rough proved to be of little consequence since the grooves on the wedges allowed them to stop the ball on the green regardless of the severity of the lie.

The USGA’s research clearly demonstrated that for shots from the rough with urethane covered balls (the type of ball most used by highly skilled players); modern, square or U-groove clubs result in higher ball spin rates and steeper ball landing angles than V-groove designs that were predominantly used in the past. The combination of a higher spin rate and steeper landing angle results in better control when hitting to the green, creating less challenge for shots from the rough. As the challenge from the rough has decreased, driving accuracy has become less important.

Therefore, the USGA changed the rules governing grooves. The objective of this change was to limit the performance of grooves on shots from the rough to that of the traditional V-groove design. While currently conforming clubs with V-grooves would continue to conform under the proposed new rules, the changes do not mandate the use of a V-shape. Rather, they permit club designers to vary groove width, depth, spacing and shape to create clubs that conform to this proposed groove rule. Under rule, most of the current rules governing grooves remain unchanged. There are two key additional groove specifications for clubs other than driving clubs and putters:

The total cross-sectional area of a groove divided by the groove pitch (width plus separation) would be limited to 0.0025 square inches per inch.
Groove edge sharpness would be limited to an effective minimum radius of .010 inches.

So as not to cause an uproar among golfers worldwide and not to unduly burden us economically, it was decided to phase in implementation of the new rule. 2010 was the last year that the now nonconforming grooves would be produced was the start of the implementation of the new regulations for the professional tours around the world. Elite amateurs have until 2014 before they are required to used clubs with the new grooves and the rest of us have until 2024 to wear out the grooves in our current wedges.

Being proactive, I decided to procure a wedge with the new, conforming grooves for direct comparison with the now outlawed grooves on my current set of wedges. To keep variables to a minimum, I chose a Callaway Jaws wedge since I already had a pair of them in my bag. Upon inspection, the differences are immediately apparent; the new grooves are much smaller and the edges less pronounced than before. To try and keep spin rates high, Callaway has squeezed more of them onto the clubface than before; the rationale being that the more abundant but smaller grooves would not lose too much spin compared to their larger, sharper predecessors.

In practice, I don’t see any difference from the fairway. With a urethane covered golf ball, the ball reacts as it would with the old grooves. From the rough it’s a slightly different story; a well struck golf ball will roll out a bit more with the conforming grooves. It’s not a night and day difference, but one you need to account for nonetheless. This was expected. The grooves serve mainly to clear grass and other debris from the grooves so they make clean contact with the ball thereby imparting as much spin as possible. The smaller grooves lose some of this capability thus accounting for the reduction in spin.

There’s a silver lining to this; my golf balls last significantly longer than they did with the older grooves. Callaway’s Jaws wedges were renowned for their wanton destruction of golf balls. Full shots took chunks out of the cover and severely limited the ball’s useful life. The new grooves are much gentler with the ball. I now have no trouble playing one golf ball for the duration of my round unless I lose it. Further, after a few rounds, I now barely notice the difference. What seemed to be a body blow to the casual golfer is now business as usual. I chalk this up to the research and inventiveness of the manufacturers (Callaway in particular, in my case). They might have given up the depth and the sharpness of the grooves but by giving us more grooves on the clubface, they’ve been able to mitigate the reduction of spin.

Bottom line is that after a few rounds with the new grooves, you should have no trouble adjusting and since we’ve got until 2024 (unless you plan on playing a professional event) to use your current wedges, the new rule does not place an undue economic burden on us. So the furore that surrounded the announcement of the new rule was all for naught. Go ahead and put the new wedges into play and you’ll see what I mean.

Read the whole story on:http://pinoygolfer.com

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