Leading Edge

Despite objections from some golf equipment manufacturers and PGA Tour players, Tour commissioner Tim Finchem announced on Tuesday that the circuit will not delay the enactment of a new rule governing the size and shape of grooves in players’ irons.
 
GolfChannel.com senior writer Rex Hoggard has more on Finchem's decision, with reaction from manufacturers and players, including Tiger Woods.

Both Kenny Perry and Paul Goydos putted lights out during the final round of the Travelers Sunday afternoon. And it’s worthwhile to note that they’re both using putters that feature what could be called “stability-model” heads.
 
Goydos, who finished tied for second at 19-under par (three strokes behind Perry), has the TaylorMade-adidas Itsy Bitsy Spider, which we saw him experimenting with at the Transitions in Tampa Bay earlier this year. TMaG freely admits the inspiration for the head was automotive – something that’s easy to see, with the two big weight ports on either side of the wide body looking like lights on the tailfins of a big ol’ Cadillac. But the space age look isn’t the point. As usual with putters, it’s all about moving the weight to the outside, which helps stabilize the head through the swing.
 
Same with Kenny Perry’s Ping Craz-E variation, the one with the blue face that he’s been using for some time now. Kenny, who shot a final-round 63 and a tournament-record 258 (22 under), is a loyal TaylorMade endorser, but he’s allowed to freelance the putter, and he can’t seem to turn his back on the Ping model that has worked so well for him over the past two years. Like the Spider, the Craz-E body has weight moved to the perimeter, and the modern shape pushes that perimeter farther from the center of the face than would be the case with a more traditional shape.
 
Modern as they look, both putters continue the fundamental approach of weight-outward design begun by Ping founder Karsten Solheim.

Papa’s got a brand new bag – or at least Vijay does. Singh is now carrying a Never Compromise-logoed golf bag around the Travelers Championship on the PGA Tour this week. NC is the putter brand of Cleveland/Srixon, the golf equipment multinational with which Singh has been allied for some time now. ···One sign the golf economy might be easing a little: There’s money for enhancements to top courses. The folks at La Quinta Resort & Club and PGA West out in the golf-crazy Coachella Valley of California (Palm Springs area) have spent $10 million on improvements lately. Some of that went to GPS Industries’ “Inforemer” HD/MAX GPS course yardage and information system. And to reinforce its reputation as an international golf destination, La Quinta and PGA West went for the multi-lingual models. The units can convey crucial info in up to four languages at any one time, which course owners can choose from this menu: English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian and Swedish. Arigato.

Even a second-place tie in a U.S. Open can do a lot for a golfer’s career – and especially for his endorsement partners.
 
Ricky Barnes, who shared second at Bethpage with better-known names Phil Mickelson and David Duval, obviously didn’t win. But his television exposure over the four – no, wait; FIVE – days of the championship was a big win for the companies whose products he endorses. Verve, the energy drink, had a logo on Ricky’s shirt, puffed out by his fitness-crazy chest. Between that and a logo on his hat with a web address for a Ricky-centered Verve-and-fitness site, the Verve people figure the value of Ricky’s U.S. Open exposure at about $3 million.
 
Verve comes in a can, but it’s Wilson Golf that has shown a talent for catching lightning in a bottle the past couple years. They have Barnes, but recall Wilson also counts Padraig Harrington, a three-time major winner since summer 2007, among its staffers. Harrington missed the cut at Bethpage, but Barnes picked up a lot of slack, showing the Wilson bag on TV many times. The result: People can’t get enough of that painter cap (or engineer cap, if you prefer) the Rickster was wearing. The fashion craze, which might not have happened had Barnes not worn the lid while shooting a solid first-round 67 and then felt compelled by superstition to stick with it, has Wilson air-freighting in more caps to meet the demand.
 
Meanwhile, Wilson hopes the frenzy spills over into the hard goods sales bucket. Barnes was playing new FG Forged irons (3-PW), Wilson’s first true deep-cavity back forged model. It’s due in stores in November. He also had a Wilson TW9 54-degree wedge.

Adams Golf is extending its successful Speedline family with new drivers and hybrid-fairway woods. The driver, the 9032LS, has a 17.3 percent larger face and is designed to reduce drag and lower spin rate by 10 percent. That could yield three to four mph more clubhead speed, says Adams, which could translate to as much as nine more yards off the tee. The stock graphite shaft for the new driver will be an Aldila VooDoo NV, making its first commercial appearance. Look for the 9032LS in the bags of PGA Tour players Aaron Baddeley and Gary Woodland.
 
The hybrid-fairway woods, called 9032Ti, have a way-low center of gravity – 22 percent lower – and a very light overall head weight. But there are two 40-gram tungsten sole inserts that give the club a great deal of heft through the ball – more than three ounces worth, for you metric-challenged types.
 
The new Speedlines ship July 1. Suggested retail for the driver is $470; for the fairways, $380. ···In tough times, club companies are coming up with new ways to prime the pump. Cleveland Golf wants to fight that instinct to wait for next year’s models. So regular-price buyers of at least a seven-piece set of current product line Cleveland iron models (CG7, CG7 Tour, Launcher, HiBORE Xli, CG Tour and HiBORE Bloom Xli irons for women) will be eligible to trade them in on a new set of any models introduced between January 2010 and December 2011.
 
Hmm. Wonder if the possibility of the PGA Tour adopting the new groove regulations in January 2010 has anything to do with it? Recreational players are off the hook until 2024 with respect to the new grooves…but some players insist on being Tour-compliant. ···Turns out urethane is the new black. Bridgestone made 9,000 black golf balls bearing the Bethpage Black logo for sale at last week’s U.S. Open. Five bucks each, and they were going like hotcakes…burned hotcakes.

CROMWELL, Conn. – The groove issue continues to heat up on the PGA Tour. During a conference call late Tuesday the four player directors on the Policy Board continued to debate whether the Tour should switch to the U.S. Golf Association’s new groove rules in January 2010, as originally scheduled, or if they will delay the implementation date until 2011.
 
According to one board member who didn’t want to be identified, the debate was “too heated to do on a conference call,” and the issue will be addressed next week at AT&T National.
 
According to sources the issue will likely be decided by Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, who would likely not push to delay the rule change, which is designed to limit the effectiveness of grooves on shots from the rough.

Phil Mickelson’s costly bogey on the par-4 15th hole during Monday's final round of the U.S. Open wasn’t what he had in mind. The club he used to hit his approach shot from the left rough to the fringe of the elevated green was exactly what he had in mind.
 
The club, an 18-degree Callaway hybrid prototype, was created in response to Phil's desire for a more versatile performing hybrid. Many Tour players help with the design of clubs, but Lefty was extraordinarily involved in this one, says Callaway, because his home in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., is so close to Callaway's headquarters in Carlsbad, just up Interstate 5.
 
The idea came to Phil during a practice round for this year’s Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club. He told Callaway technicians that his dream utility club would behave like an iron from the fairway, and enable him to control distance consistently from the rough. Translation: crisp contact when his tee ball has earned it, and no fliers when it hasn’t.
 
With Mickelson's input, Callaway designed a clubhead shape that’s short from heel to toe and tall in the face, giving it a very compact look. The score lines on the face go all the way up, as they would on an iron; this helps channel away grass bits and moisture, even on balls contacted high on the face. The heel and toe are highly cambered, almost like the so-called C-grind on a wedge, the better to stay away from grabby grass blades. The heel has a lot of relief, so much so that Phil can even open the face – yes, with a hybrid – and hit an extra-long flop shot, which he did at one point on No. 15 Saturday from about 146 yards.
 
But the most striking aspect of Mickelson hybrid may be the sole, which looks almost like your dad’s old big-flange sand wedge. The front of the sole – essentially, the leading edge –is lower than the back of the sole as the club sits on the ground. This allows Mickelson to open the face, but it also helps move the center of gravity down and forward, which yields the kind of flight out of the rough that Phil was looking for. In the fairway, the part of the sole that actually goes through the turf is about the size of an iron sole, perhaps a little bigger.
 
The design process began after the Northern Trust Open (which Mickelson won), was into computer drafting by late April, and ready for Phil soon afterwards. That’s pretty rapid, compared to club development timelines of a decade ago.
 
Only one of these clubs exists now – and it’s a left-handed model, of course. Callaway is testing some RH prototypes, but can’t promise the club will ever make it to market. If it does, you’ll know who the inventor is, literally – word is Mickelson’s name may be listed on the patent application.

As the first page of the leaderboard fights its way down the stretch in the 109th U.S. Open, Nike has to be pleased with Lucas Glover’s putting performance throughout the tournament – and the season. Glover is using a Nike prototype putter this week, and has been for some time. Year-to-date on the PGA Tour, he’s 23rd in putts per round and 32nd in putting average. Last year, he was 116th and 107th, respectively.
 
The prototype isn’t out yet, but it is in the bags of Stephen Ames, Justin Leonard, Paul Casey, Stewart Cink, Bo Van Pelt, Charl Schwartzel and Trevor Immelman. One wonders whether this might be the model that makes a Nike putter guy out of long-time putter holdout Tiger Woods, who uses a Scotty Cameron by Titleist Newport 2.