Feelin` groovy about iron shots out of the rough

Los Angeles: As professional golf edges closer to the year-end, several of the younger players can be forgiven for not exactly feeling groovy about their prospects out of the rough once the 2010 season gets underway.

Simon and Garfunkel preached a slower pace to life in their whimsical "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin` Groovy)" in 1966 but those uplifting harmonies are unlikely to be of any help to many golfers who miss the fairways next year.From Jan. 1, new rules relating to club-face grooves will come into effect at top professional level after research found modern configurations could allow players to generate almost as much spin with irons from the rough as from the fairway. All clubs, with the exception of drivers and putters, will be affected by the change which will limit groove volume and groove-edge sharpness, effectively replacing U-grooves with V-grooves. Larger volume grooves can help channel away more material such as water or grass while sharper groove edges allow better contact between club and ball, thereby increasing the chance of backspin. The upshot of all this is that the more skilled and creative players, such as world number one Tiger Woods and second-ranked Phil Mickelson, have embraced the change. Others, many of them too young to have experienced flyers out of the rough with older technology in the dim and distant past, are probably having nightmares thinking about their escape options. "The younger generation have never experienced it and don`t have a clue what is going to happen to their game," double major winner Greg Norman said. "They better start making the adjustment very early." Although many players have begun experimenting with the new club-face grooves ahead of next year, there is no doubt that flyers from tangly rough will become a much more common occurrence on the leading tours around the world. "It`s a shot we haven`t seen in years that is now going to come back into play," Woods`s swing coach Hank Haney said. "When you`re hitting off the fairway, you don`t typically get flyers." "But when you get in the rough and you get grass between the club and the ball -- with less spin possible -- all of a sudden that six-iron you might hit 175 (yards) could now go 200, and therefore 25 yards over the green." Going forward, rule number one for the majority of players on tour should simply be to find the fairway off the tee and take the unpredictability of the rough out of the equation. "I`m all for it," 2003 US Open champion Jim Furyk said. "If you can limit the amount of spin on the ball and make the guy play from the fairway and hit a more crisp and better shot it`s probably a good avenue. I think it`s a positive move." Left-hander Mickelson, long renowned for his magical short-game skills, is also looking forward to the `less groovy` new world of professional golf. "It will be more challenging for a player to judge shots out of the first cut of the rough or out of the rough," the three-times major winner said. "Is the ball going to spin? How is it going to come out? I like that challenge." British world number three Paul Casey is among those who have already started testing the V-groove irons. "What I found is off the fairway there is no significant decrease in spin," the 32-year-old Englishman said. "But as soon as you drop into the rough, then the numbers change drastically. It`s going to be entertaining." Every new golfing year throws up an abundance of storylines to intrigue fans and players alike. The battle to find the right groove in the rough might just be one of the more compelling as the 2010 season unfolds. Bureau Report