Groovin’ To The Clubs
If you’re a golf nerd, then you’re aware of the debate that’s been going on for at least a decade or so about the type of grooves clubmakers are allowed to create on the face of irons. Currently, clubmakers are allowed to manufacture irons with u-shaped grooves on the face of irons. So what you ask? What it means for skilled golfers is that when they hit shots from the rough they can still create spin on the ball, which in turn will cause the ball to stop quicker on the green.
In other words, with typical v-shape grooves, whenever you hit a golf ball from long grass, the blades of grass come between the ball and the face of the club, preventing the grooves to impart spin on the ball. However, with u-shaped grooves, touring pros can hit that same shot out of the rough and not be penalized for straying off the fairway.
It appears now that the USGA is thinking about banning u-shaped grooves from all golf clubs. They’ve tried this before and failed and I don’t see that outcome changing this time. Here’s the reason: golf club makers genreate hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue every year from golf clubs and the industry will not allow this to happen simply for financial reasons (whether it’s good for the game or not).
However, if I was the USGA/R&A/PGA, I’d go to the players with two options: you can have club technology or you can have ball technology, but not both. If players were allowed to keep club technology, the industry could roll back the technology of the ball and have it act like it did 25 years ago, which would in turn force players to learn how to shape their shots. Wow. What a concept. The pros could still have their high-tech clubs, but the net result would be less affect on how the ball would react. Will it happen? Probably not, but we can dream.