Page 9 From Winter
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TECHNICALLY SPEAKING
Change to the
Groove Rule
By Frank Thomas, from franklygolf.com
Frank Thomas
is a former technical director of the United States Golf Association,
inventer of the graphite shaft, author of the books ‘Just
Hit It’ and ‘Dear Frank’. Frank is president and
co-founder of Frankly Consulting with its mission to “Help
golfers”. |
The
Masters in 2010 will be the first of golf’s four major tournaments
where the new groove rule – making the game more difficult
for all of us – will be adopted as a condition of competition.
The United States Golf Association announced in August of 2008
that after years of deliberation, it was changing its rules regarding
the grooves on the face of golf clubs.
Grooves help
golfers spin the ball and control the shot to the green. Elite
golfers like Tiger Woods can do this far better than the average
player, especially from the long grass that surrounds fairways
and greens. The change in specifications cuts their permitted
volume of grooves in half. (The current maximum, established
in 1984, is only 17 fine human hairs wide and 10 hairs deep.)
The U.S.G.A.
is concerned that with the current grooves, elite golfers can
control the ball nearly as well from the rough as they do from
the fairway.
It wants to make
the rough more of a hazard for the top players; smaller and shallower
grooves on the club’s face cause a more erratic ball flight
out of longer grass, with little or no spin. There is a perception
that the game is becoming too easy for elite golfers — about
0.1 percent of the golfing population — who can drive the
ball with abandon because they do not fear the consequences of
landing in the rough.
This problem
— if it is a problem — involves the very best golfers,
but the other 99.9 percent of the golfing population will be
affected by the change as well.
A U.S.G.A. official
said that most golfers “won’t notice any difference”
because “they don’t hit greens out of the rough very
often anyway.” But there is a difference between not very
often and never, and all golfers relish those moments when they
hit shots that are every bit as good as those of the PGA Tour
stars.
Those shots will
be even rarer, and most golfers will notice the difference. They
will also eventually notice the effect on their wallets because
the clubs they own run afoul of the new rule. All golfers in
elite competition will be required to use clubs with the new
groove configuration beginning Jan. 1, 2010; all clubs manufactured
after that date must have the new grooves. Casual golfers, though,
can keep using their old clubs until 2024.
This means that
for the first time, golf will have different rules for different
levels of players. Golf is different in that the finest professionals
and middling amateurs can compete side by side, as they do in
tournaments like the AT&T National Pro-Am. For many golfers,
part of the game’s appeal is knowing that they are playing
the same game on the same courses as the world’s best.
But from 2010 to 2024, the average golfer may use clubs that
professionals may not. A little piece of the identification factor
will be gone.
In the 1920s,
there was much concern that the golf ball was traveling too far
and that it was making great courses obsolete. To rein in the
distance gains, the U.S.G.A. in 1931 reduced the permitted weight
of the ball to 1.55 ounces from 1.62.
The chairman
of the Implements and Ball Committee (now the Equipment Standards
Committee) wrote at the time, “Our aim has been to provide
a better and pleasanter ball for the greatest number playing
the game and to restore the proper balance between ability and
course conditions.”
A year later,
the U.S.G.A. reversed this change; its president announced that
“after carefully canvassing the situation in all parts of
the United States and among all classes of players, we concluded
that the sound thing to do was to increase the weight of the
golf ball, and we have done so.”
Today, the U.S.G.A.
does no such canvassing, and certainly no thought is given to
making the game “pleasanter.” The performance of the
elite golfer has dictated almost all recent equipment rules changes:
restrictions on the length of a driver, the height of a tee and
the degree of forgiveness that can be built into a club, as well
as this new change in grooves.
The U.S.G.A.
has not shared its evidence that a problem exists, nor has it
demonstrated that this solution addresses the problem while doing
the least damage to the golfing population as a whole. Never
has a change of such consequence been made with such a lack of
transparency or without appropriate input from those affected.
A category within
the Rules of Golf called a condition of competition can be adopted
for specific events without affecting everyday play. The logical
solution to a problem caused by a few hundred elite golfers is
to grow the rough a little longer at their events, or to make
the impending equipment change through a condition that would
be adopted by the PGA tours and the governing bodies for major
championships.
This would allow
some time, and provide evidence of whether the change solves
an actual problem, and should be extended to all golfers as a
rule, be abandoned or remain a condition for the pros alone.
Golf participation
is declining, and we have yet to hear of people quitting the
game because they found it too easy. We do not need equipment
rules aimed specifically at making it harder for Tiger Woods
or anyone else.
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Page 9 From Winter
2010 Florida Golf Magazine ©Copyright 2010, All Rights
Reserved. Subscribe at floridagolfmagazine.com/subscribe
To advertise in Florida Golf Magazine in print and on-line,
phone 863-227-2751 and/or email joestine@floridagolfmagazine.com |
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