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A number of years back (1997 or 1998 I think) I received a call from Corey Pavin. He was concerned with the grooves on his irons because he claimed he was hitting more fliers than he normally did. He also said he could not predict when it was going to happen, since a number of what he felt were normal fairway shots ended up as fliers. Corey sent his irons into me and the first step was to check out the grooves.
No player could play consistently well with the faces Corey once had.
Here is what I found: The groove type was a “V” groove but it was very shallow. The maximum groove depth allowed by the USGA is .020” and the maximum groove width is .035.” Corey’s irons had groove depths that ranged from .005” to .007” deep. This was a problem that was compounded by the fact that with this shallow a “V” groove depth, the width of the groove was also quite narrow. Finally, the face surface was smoother than normal because of a very light bead blast used to define the face area vs. a normal sand blast that is rougher. Also, after hitting quite a few balls, the surface was smoother yet. I also felt that his leading edges were too sharp.
Technical note here: The very shallow and narrow grooves created two problems. The first was that the grass juices or any water trapped between the club face and the ball could not escape. Think worn tires on wet pavement. Secondly, the friction component between clubhead and ball was seriously reduced because of the small grooves and also the very smooth face. Friction adds bite to the ball to reduce or eliminate the flyer effect. Corey was basically hitting some degree of flyer with every shot unless the playing conditions were perfectly dry at impact.
I called Corey back and explained the facts to him. Basically, no player could play consistently well with faces like this and I had definitely found his problem. I recommended the following solution to him: I would re-cut all the face lines to .018” deep (the PGA Tour checks depth on request, so a .002” cushion is advisable). I recommended that his #2 through 6 iron stay in “V” grooves but that I wanted to re-cut his #7 through sand wedge with “U” grooves. He finally agreed with the “U” groove thing after some convincing. I knew I had no chance on getting “U” grooves on all his irons, so I didn’t even try. I did however recommend to him that the leading edges on all the irons needed to be rolled slightly more and back up into the face and this he agreed with. Note that the GolfWorks has a special machine that I built that mills in the new modified grooves. Over the years hundreds of other Tour players have used this service including Jack Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd, Tom Watson, Tom Weiskopf and Lee Trevino.
So, Corey received his irons back and a few weeks later I received a very nice and long note explaining that the look and the playability of the irons was great. He simply could not believe the difference that proper grooves could make in hitting a golf ball the way he wanted to.
The lesson here is that one can never assume that the irons they are playing have correctly designed and manufactured grooves. We all need the best grooves to get the best playability.
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#21
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Mr. Maltby,
Thank you very much. I appreciate all the knowledge and expertise you have provided within your articles. They have truly helped me better understand the game of golf. Finally, I am starting to understand why things happen in golf rather than just accept these happenings blindly.
Dan
#20
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DGart09, there are no new groove specifications from the USGA as yet. I have the Titleist AP1 irons here in my studio and I just looked at them and I can report that the face grooves are normal very good playing face grooves.
#19
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Mr. Maltby,
I recently looked at a review for the Titleist AP1s on thesandtrap.com, and they mentioned that fliers are now an issue again because of new groove specifications. Does this mean the USGA has finally implimented the new parameters on the iron grooves?
#18
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Antony, no announcement yet. My guess is that they are getting a tremendous amout of pressure from the major manufacturers. They certainly want to avoid any possibility of a lawsuit.
#17
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Ralph … I have expend some time in the internet looking if the USGA already made a decision about grooves. I think they will have some common sense and will not take a decision that affects the golf players mortals like me … but could you please let me know if you have any news about it. Have an excellent day.!
#16
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Antony, the USGA is suppose to make an announcement in January. I don’t know if this will happen or not since the manufactureres are fighting them over any changes.
#15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Maltby
JJ, there was, but the comment time has now ended. We are currently awaiting the final ruling from the U.S.G.A.
Ralph Looking at the questions below…is there any decision from the U.S.G.A regarding the grooves…how the history end?
#14
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JJ, there was, but the comment time has now ended. We are currently awaiting the final ruling from the U.S.G.A.
#13
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Mr. Maltby. I’am agree with you. The USGA is only focusing in the tour players. If they modify the way grooves are made now a lot of people will be affected (mortals) and the game will loose new players…we do not want this!...Golf is a great game…and should not be affected by some people that is no consider us…. Is there any way that mortals can contact the USGA people to stop this?
#12
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Brian, in my opinion this entire groove thing is a giant waste of time and resources. The U.S.G.A. focuses entirely on what the tour players do but they want to restrict equipment advances for all golfers under the premise that golf courses around the world are being obsoleted. I cannot come up with a single individual at my club that is obsoleting our course (this definitely includes me also). It will never happen. We mortal (normal) golfers cannot and never will be able to hit the ball like the touring professionals. Yes, the tour pros come to my course and shoot some very good scores simply because they can render the blue tees less hostile by driving the ball 300 to 320 yards. With all this said, after the U.S.G.A. goes to all the trouble of changing the groove rules, it will not change the scoring one bit on the PGA Tour. The tour players will not shorten their driving distance, they will simply allow for more of a flyer effect in non dry conditions (water, grass, etc.) and will adapt at controlling distance better than the rest of us because they are extremely skilled and it’s their job every single day. If you remember, this whole groove thing was started when people made comments such as, “today tour players simply hit it as far as they can, go find it and hit it again. They do not care about hitting it in the fairway because with these new super sharp grooves they can stop the ball from anywhere”. This is simply not entirely true either. Yes, there is no one I know in golf that is not aware of the fact that most “U” shaped grooves create more spin in non dry conditions than the older “V” grooves. I think it is ironic that the U.S.G.A lets tour players use drivers and golf balls that can easily go over 300 yards and they want to try to solve this problem (to them only) by changing the irons groove which mostly affects the second shot (third sometimes) into the hole.
