"It didn't matter all that much."

E. Michael Johnson concludes that the groove rule change had little impact on PGA Tour play even though some players insist it made a difference.

The numbers show there may be a reason for that. Or at least a reason not to abhor them. Although the tour's scoring average did rise to 71.15 (from 71.04 in 2009), driving distance was nearly the same (287.3 yards compared to 287.9 last year) and birdies per round was a virtual dead-heat (3.43 to 3.42 in 2009). Greens in regulation rose, from 64.7 percent last year to 66.26 percent this year. Driving accuracy rose from 62.91 percent to 63.51 percent. To put that jump of slightly more than a one-half percentage point into perspective: PGA Tour pros, on average, were hitting one additional fairway every 13.5 rounds. When you consider that the primary rationale for the rule was to restore accuracy to the game, that's not a lot. In short, whether the numbers moved up or down, not a single stat that can be related to grooves showed a significant move in either direction. 

So is it fair to judge the impact of the groove rule change after one year?

"No one will dig them up. Golfers play without reflecting upon what lies beneath the verdant 18th hole."

James Montague of CNN.com suggests that Lebanon Golf Club is a possible mass grave. (Thanks reader Digsouth via Kevin Robbins.)

British journalist Robert Fisk, who wrote "Pity The Nation" about the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war, has repeatedly claimed the golf course as the burial site of many of the missing bodies.

"There are perhaps 1,000 murdered Palestinian civilians under the golf course near Beirut airport, dumped there by Israel's Phalangist allies after the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres," Fisk wrote in the British newspaper The Independent.

"No one will dig them up. Golfers play without reflecting upon what lies beneath the verdant 18th hole."

The piece includes a photo gallery of the club in various war-torn stages and scenes from today.

"The fact golf will be included at the Olympic Games in 2016 and 2022 is bound to give the game a boost in a country that has more value for an Olympic gold medal than a Green Jacket from Georgia."

Literary looper Colin Byrne writes from Shanghai on the state of golf in China and among the many interesting observations, he reminds us that in China golf is still very much a niche sport for the rich, but there is hope that the Olympic movement will help expand interest beyond a select audience.

I spoke to Michael Wong, who is in charge of developing Chinese junior golf. One of the early initiatives was to get talented juniors to hit a shot to the 17th hole at Sheshan during the pro-am for the tournament. We were all impressed by most of the swings these youngsters made in front of the professionals. Their progress since its conception four years ago is already evident; the tee they were playing from was farther back this year and the hole is a long carry over water.

The chances are these young hopefuls come from a wealthy background. With a membership at the exclusive Sheshan Golf Club costing over 1.6 million yuan and with 500,000 yuan (€177,191) being a pretty normal membership fee, there are not too many citizens from the fields in the market for these clubs yet. But there are initiatives being made to reach out to the less well off.

Without it sounding like an altruistic effort on behalf of the developers in China, there are plenty of courses being built at personal expense. Even though there is a moratorium on course building, in true local fashion courses are still developing. There are 600-700 courses already built and that will double in the next five years. They somehow estimate by then 10 million Chinese will play the game.