ARVADA — Dimension Z Golf president Don Ingermann isn’t feeling so groovy these days.
Ingermann believes new United States Golf Association regulations that constrict and round the grooves on the clubfaces of lofted clubs are unnecessary, costly for clubmakers and, perhaps more important, could cause more golfers to quit a sport that has stagnated.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2011, all clubs assembled and sold with 25 or more degrees of loft must adhere to new groove guidelines. The intent of reducing the size and sharpness of grooves is to make it more difficult for players to spin the ball out of rough. For most sets of clubs, the regulations will affect all wedges and other clubs down to a standard 5-iron.
“I support the USGA in upholding the sanctity of the game,” Ingermann said. “But they don’t need to be implementing rules that make the game more difficult than it already is.”
A small segment of golf’s best has already been affected by the new groove regulations. Competitors on the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, Nationwide Tour, Champions Tour, European Tour and other professional circuits had to comply with the new specifications at the start of the current season. Amateurs and non-touring pros attempting to qualify for the USGA’s most prestigious national championships this year (U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open, U.S. Senior Open) also are required to use compliant clubs if they reach the sectional qualifying round.
Other competitions, including those conducted by state golf associations and trickling down to club championships, won’t be affected by the new groove regulations until 2014.
Weekend players who never enter anything except the annual company scramble can relax. They can use their normal clubs at least through 2024. New irons purchased during this calendar year also will be compliant with the rules of golf through 2024 for recreational use.
Dick Rugge, the USGA’s senior technical director, acknowledged that the multiple compliance dates have caused confusion.
“We’ve certainly yelled it from the rooftops as best we can that most golfers don’t have to worry about it,” Rugge said in a phone interview.
Ingermann believes confusion leads to frustration, however, perhaps even prompting some players to get rid of their golf clubs at a garage sale and turn to another hobby. He’s concerned about golf’s future and has studied market trends of sports for decades. He was president of Hogan golf equipment from 1992-96. Prior to that, he was an executive in the bowling industry.
In several letters to the USGA that went unanswered, Ingermann pointed out that the number of league bowlers in the U.S. has plummeted.
“A big reason was fooling with the rules,” he said, referring specifically to ball changes and relaxing requirements about how lanes are oiled.
Little growth in golf
Golf can’t afford to lose more players, Ingermann said. According to analysis by the National Golf Foundation, the number of golfers in the U.S. has increased only from about 24 million to 27 million since 1990. Meanwhile, the total population of the U.S. ballooned by more than 60 million during the past two decades, meaning that golf has had a substantial drain in participation on a per- capita basis.
“Whatever the USGA is doing to grow the game, it isn’t working,” Ingermann said. “They’re old fuddy-duddies that are out of touch.”
Rugge said one of the charges of the USGA is to ensure that the game of golf remains a “very broadened and deep challenge, contesting a lot of different skills and abilities.” Concerned about the effect of the modern “U-shaped” grooves, the USGA analyzed 25 years of play on the PGA Tour. Those statistics showed that driving accuracy had greatly diminished and was no longer a major factor in winning tournaments. Today’s pros play a fearless game of blasting their tee shots as far as possible with little concern for the consequences, in part because of square grooves on the clubs which allows them to hit the ball out of the rough and stop it on the green due to the tremendous spin.
Larger, deeper grooves are able to accommodate more moisture and blades of grass. Removing debris from the clubface allows for more spin.
“Anytime one of the skills involved is diminished, the game becomes less rich and varied,” Rugge said.
Issue traces to 1987
This isn’t the first time golf leaders have fought the groove issue. During the PGA Tour’s 1987 Honda Classic, Mark Calcavecchia hit a Ping Eye2 8-iron with U-shaped grooves from the deep rough and stopped the ball quickly on the green. Within months, the USGA sought to ban the irons and require all golfers to use clubs with the then-conventional V-shaped grooves. Ping’s ensuing $100 million lawsuit was settled by the USGA in 1990, and all club manufacturers switched to square grooves.
In 1995, a new milling machine was devised enabling clubs to be produced with sharper, more precise square grooves. The USGA took notice.
The new groove regulations do not prescribe a return to V-shaped grooves. But the U-shaped (or square) grooves on all lofted clubs produced and sold in 2011 won’t be as wide or deep as in present models. And the edges of the grooves on 2011 models will be rounded, further reducing the amount of debris they can contain during a shot from rough.
Rugge believes the new groove regulations will affect only highly skilled players. “The rest of us mortals haven’t been able to spin the ball out of rough anyway,” he said.
Ingermann disagrees.
The Dimension Z CEO believes pros can adjust to the smaller grooves by switching to softer golf balls.
“Amateurs can’t control soft golf balls,” Ingermann said.
Also, accomplished players can improvise. “Even the new grooves are pretty darn good, compared to the old V-grooves,” said Castle Rock’s Gary Hallberg, a regular on the Champions Tour. “For us, the new grooves might make a difference of a shot or two per round. But you learn to compensate for it, open the clubface and play a different shot.”
In any case, some manufacturers are advertising that 2010 is the final year of production for lofted clubs with the wider and sharper grooves.
“If you’re a golfer, you should be buying wedges this year,” said Bobby Jones Golf president Jesse Ortiz, who designed that company’s Pelz line of wedges.
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
Clubface to clubface
A timeline of key dates in the discussions between the United States Golf Association and the R&A concerning the effects of grooves in clubs, and key future dates:
2005: USGA and R&A announce they will study the issue.
August 2006: USGA publishes first of two major research reports on groove performance/characteristics.
January 2007: USGA publishes second major research report on the issue.
February 2007: USGA and R&A propose limits on groove volume and edge radius, seeking feedback from manufacturers.
August 2008: USGA and R&A adopt a revised proposal, incorporating manufacturer comments.
Jan. 1, 2010: All new clubs submitted to USGA for approval must conform to new specifications. PGA Tour, major championships and international federation tours will adopt the rule as an “expert” condition of competition. Manufacturers are allowed to produce existing clubs and exhaust inventory until the end of 2010.
2014: USGA and R&A have announced they will implement condition of competition at expert amateur competitions. Other golf organizations (for example, state and regional associations) are expected to follow the USGA and R&A timeline for their expert competitions.
2024: Earliest date the condition of competition will become a permanent equipment specification in the Rules of Golf.
Source: USGA
