I thought the USGA ruling said that the date groove rule changed for manufacturing was January 1, 2010 when the pros have to switch.

Yeah, I read it this morning and I'm still not sure what the USGA's problem with this is.

Clubs can't be manufactured past 2009 but they can be assembled and sold in 2010... is that their beef? That these wedge faces won't be "manufactured in 2009"? Certainly it's not with the fact that the face is interchangeable - interchangeable SHAFTS are legal, after all, and pros swap out wedges like they're disposable razor blades (ha ha, get it?) as it is - so I doubt it's the face being swappable that matters.

Like it or not, the USGA left the door wide open for these types of grey areas when they made 2024 the earliest year ordinary golfers will have to change their wedge grooves. If they had said 2010 for pros and 2014 for everyone else, and no assembly/sale beyond 2010 of existing clubs, I think this wouldn't be so much of an issue.

I'm sure there'd have been some hand-wringing over the "expense" of guys having to buy new wedges in five years, but then again, maybe not: I doubt a wedge that's five years old and has the "bigger" grooves would perform all that well in the club championship anyway. And if some dummy kept a bunch of brand new wedges that long, well, he's worrying about the wrong things if he wants to win the club championship that badly...

The only people I see this really helping would be the officials at USGA tournaments that require the V grooves. They're going to have to check wedges for a while and having box groove faces floating around will be tough to check.

The problem is that Achenbach (or TMaG, if Achenbach is simply reporting) has butchered the explanaiton of the rule. And Geoff knows better, so I am not sure why he hasn't called this out:

No, manufacturers are not really "allowed to produce wedges with larger, aggressive grooves during 2010." The rule, at least as I understand it, is this; Manufacturers are allowed to assemble, for sale, completed heads with old-form grooves if the heads were produced before 2010. The rule allows manufacturers to fix any "work in process" probelms with old stock. It was a courtesy to manufacturers. A reasonable one, unless of course the manufacturers try to use it as a loophole.

So yeah, if I understand this very brief recitation of facts correctly, TMaG is way out of line, and very much unreasonably trying to pull a fast one.

It may be that TMag is right now cranking up production of non-compliant face inserts, all being produce before 2010. So that a player can buy an interchangeable-face wedge next srping, and have a supply of nonconforming grooves to last until 2024, or whenever. In that case, TMaG is deliberately gaming its production to create a product that can easily be made non-conforming while appearing to be legal. It would be somewhat like Titleist making extra-hot Pro-V's, marked exactly like legal Pro-V's with only some tiny mark, a dash or somethin, to distinguish it. Or an illegally hot driver, by design, that was distinguishable from a legal version only by a removable screw. Neither one of those hypotheticals passes muster with ithe USGA's technical staf; neither should this TMaG effort.

Taylormade should have just presented the clubs with conforming-only changable faceplates at first, to get approval. They could have argued that it would allow players to get fresh grooves whenever needed. Then they could always have sold "alternate non conforming" face plates later.

@ court

V grooves are not required. U grooves are not required. The groove can be any shape. The spacing and the edges (sharpness) of the groove are what have changed.

There is nothing written in the current and future (2010) USGA groove rule that mandate the groove has to be of a specific shape. This is probably the most misunderstood part of the new groove rules. Many in the golf press see too lazy or clueless to report this accurately.

Chuck-all the manufacturers think-as you suggest-that there will be a huge surge in wedge buying this year and Titleist are suggesting that they are going to ration each account to a certain number so as to be fair to everybody!!
Dont think they will produce no new wedges in 2011 do you?Sounds like opportunism to me.

OWGR - where did you see that ? Everything I have seen says that the shape of the groove is changing to the old V / U groove and not the square grooves.

chico -- I've seen the beginnings of that, but not nearly as much as one might think. And remember, there's no need to line up to buy wedges by the boxful on New Year's Eve.

The prohibition is on the manufacture of old-style grooves. Retailers can sell them anytime they want. We recreational players can buy and sell them whenever, to our heart's content.

If right now, Titleist were to wildly ramp-up production on old Spin-Milled Vokeys, for sale in big numbers between now and December 31, 2010, all they would be doing is taking away from their own future sales.

I have seen Vokey's own mini-site roll out a few more limited editions before the end of the year (I think they could do for another whole calendar year), but that's really limited production. The numbers are tiny. It is Vokey collectors mostly.

@ court - google it and you should be able to come across the information. The USGA has the information on its website and in different interviews the USGA has made mention the grooves can be any shape. I have no specific link currently but if I can locate it tonight I will post it for you.

court here is info directly from the USGA website.

What are the basics of the new groove regulations?

Although the complete technical specifications of the new groove requirements are more detailed, the following statements summarize the key changes:

• The volume of grooves is reduced.

• Groove edge sharpness is reduced for clubs with lofts greater than or equal to 25 degrees.

A common misconception is that “V” shaped grooves will be required under the new specifications and that “U” shaped grooves will no longer be allowed. This is not the case. However, any “U” shaped groove must conform to the new specifications for both cross sectional area/spacing and edge radius.

The complete technical specifications can be found in the Test Protocols for Equipment section at www.usga.org.

http://www.usga.org/news/2009/September/Questions---Answers---Implementation-Of-New-Rules-Regarding-Grooves/

Here are a few other links....

http://www.mygolfspy.com/usga-2010-groove-rule/

http://www.intothegrain.com/about-the-usga-groove-rule-change/
Fast forward to 2009, and the USGA is finally pulling the trigger on a rule change related to square grooves, or U grooves, or box grooves. One of the biggest misconceptions about this rule change is that the USGA is banning square grooves. This is not the case at all. In fact, it doesn’t govern what shape the grooves can be any more than the current rule that has been in effect since 1984. Club companies can continue to make U or square grooved clubs. The new rule, as it it currently written, calls for a club’s grooves to be straight and parallel, have a symmetrical cross section and must have sides which do not converge. Also, the spacing and width of the grooves must be consistent across the face.