"I just wish they had gone to a straight, old, traditional V groove..."

Great stuff from Lanny Wadkins on many topics prior to his Hall of Fame induction, but the final comments about grooves are the most interesting:

I like the idea of trying to get back to V grooves. I just wish they had gone to a straight, old, traditional V groove because what they're doing with going to an area, the amount of area that's in the groove, which is basically going to shallower U grooves if you will, the manufacturers are going to figure out a way around it. They're going to figure out a way to keep as much spin as possible in the ball. I would love to see it back in the V grooves we played in the early '70s. No reason they couldn't do that in my mind and just be very straight forward about it, and I think it would require more imagination in today's game. I think it would involve ball changes for a lot of the guys on TOUR. With the changes they're making today that probably won't happen as readily as we thought it was going to. It would involve driver changes.

I mean, my generation has changed all the way along the line. We've changed from shafts that weren't frequency matched, then we went to frequently matched shafts. Then we went to wooden clubs that were heavy, 14 and a half ounces for a driver, a shaft that weighed 135 grams, which is probably what mine weighed early '70s, mid '80s at that point in time. We've changed to small-headed metal clubs to big-headed metal grooves to U grooves to balls that don't spin. My generation has changed all the way up. This generation like where my boys are, my boys have always played the same stuff. They've never hit a wooden club. They're 21 and 17, all they've known is big-headed metal stuff.

I think it's about time. This generation has to change something. Let's see if they've got some imagination.

And the thing about it is, guess who's been playing V grooves all along? Tiger Woods. All he's got to change is two clubs in his bag. He's got to change his 56 and his 60. He doesn't have to change balls, driver, nothing. Let's just give Tiger a bigger advantage. Just what he needs, right?