If you're a conspiracy theorist, you're probably thinking that this entire grooves campaign was orchestrated on purpose by Acushnet and other manufacturers as a way of (1) prolonging the inevitable and (2) making the USGA look bad.  Leave that aside for a moment and take a look at the this press release sent out by PING yesterday.  It is flat out embarrassing for PING, Mr. Solheim, and the sport.

Solheim sums up his later remarks with this quote:

"The new groove rule harms the game and golfers and should be dropped. The recent uproar about it from PGA Tour players demonstrates this fact," said Solheim. "However, the PGA Tour's proposal to delay implementing the rule is not a solution. You can't turn a bad idea into a good one by waiting an extra year to adopt it. We hope everyone who cares about the future of this game keeps that simple concept in mind."

It's kind of late in the game to be so adamant that the USGA rule makes no sense.  It has been under scrutiny for nearly three years now and at the eleventh hour is when PING decides to write a pamphlet on its perils.  On top of that, it begins with such a blanket statement that it makes it difficult to take the remainder of the release seriously.

We'll try our best to do that after the jump.

Let's break down Solheim's points in simple, easy to understand language.

1. It is simply wrong to place the potentially biased concerns of a small number of Tour professionals above the needs of tens of millions of amateursWhy are amateurs being needlessly harmed and told to reach into their pockets to pay for an alleged problem that the USGA believes applies to just the PGA Tour?

This is a complete non-sequitir.  Amateurs buy clubs all of the time.  They do so because they think that technology that the pros play on TV - for free and hyper-customized to their game - will make them play better without practice or extra effort.  The equipment industry has pulled in billions of dollars from golfers with those promises.  They're not true. 

What's more is that these rules do not apply to amateurs until 2024.  They have plenty of time to find a set of irons and wedges that comply with the rules.  The USGA set that deadline on purpose so as to not force amateurs to buy new clubs outside of the normal market cycle.

2. Once the rulemaking bodies approve a golf club, it should remain approved. It simply is not fair to say to the golfing public, "You know those clubs you bought, the ones we said conformed to the rules? Well, we changed our mind. Sorry about that, and you will need to get some new ones." This not only harms amateur golfers, but it damages the respect many have for the USGA and the R&A.

Not fair?  By that same logic, it is unfair to amateurs to present them with new technologies like hybrids, interchangeable shafts and weights, better spinning wedges, and the like.  The ProV1 is unfair because it causes golfers to not be able to work the ball as well as they once did.  This harms amateur golfers, too.

3. The skill of driving accuracy continues to be richly rewarded. The data from recent US Opens and from PGA Tour events (including its improved ShotLink data - which was ignored by the USGA) establishes that there remains a significant penalty from landing in the rough. In fact, the USGA is able to define, and obtain, the level of penalty ("Cost of Rough") it desires through its course set-up.

Two things here.  I've done independent studies for Sports Central that suggest that the USGA research is accurate to indicate that there is no correlation between driving accuracy and success on the PGA Tour.  It's already been proven.

Second, it is ridiculous to try to create a diversionary point by saying that rough is still penal.  Really?  Of course rough is penal, particularly when it plays 4 to 6 inches deep at some tournaments.  Yeah, there is a penalty, but at what cost?  The cost is boring setups that force players to hack the ball out of the rough.  The PGA Tour creates absurd pin placements to protect its courses against being destroyed by technology.  The PGA Championship last year is a fine example of how driving accuracy can be "richly rewarded," but awfully boring and painful to watch.  Whack and hack is not golf that people want to watch.  That's why the USGA hired Mike Davis.

The next point is the only one that has some traction.

4. In targeting grooves, the rulemaking bodies ignored numerous changes that likely impacted the game over the past 30 years. It is nearly impossible to conclude that a single variable (grooves) caused any observed changes to the game at the PGA Tour level over the past twenty five years. To attempt to do so requires that you ignore all of the other changes to the game since 1984 (the year square grooves were allowed), including the following: course conditioning changes, driver improvements (such as large-headed drivers made with exotic materials), shaft improvements, improved golf balls and golf ball cover materials, improved agronomy, increased athleticism, improved player conditioning, improved player training aids, launch angle fitting and even improved coaching.

The problem is that this point actually only further proves the need for some kind of regulation.  The USGA cannot stop players from getting stronger.  They cannot stop science from finding better ways to combine technology together to fit players.  They're not going to force a reversal of agronomy technologies, particularly in light of the USGA's effort to commitment to more environmentally sustainable golf course design and setup.

If anything, Solheim's point shows that more regulation may be needed - particularly of the golf ball.  Be ready to fight that battle after this one.

5. The "money list/driving accuracy" rank correlation analysis cited by the USGA to justify its change in grooves is fundamentally flawed. We believe it is more closely linked to PGA Tour player behavior than the introduction of any particular equipment innovation. We undertook extensive statistical analysis of publicly available PGA Tour data. We quickly discovered the number of tournaments played annually by the top 10 money earners has been gradually decreasing since about the mid-1990’s. In fact, the number of PGA Tour events with 3 or more of the top 10 money earners in the field has dramatically decreased since the 1980's. The decreasing trend in participation by the top money earners at PGA Tour Events closely mirrors the decreasing trend in the money list/driving accuracy rank correlations, and could be the cause of it.

This is a chicken and egg argument that does not really have much to help Solheim.  Think about it.  Golf pays more than ever, which allows the top players to play less.  To stay top players, they have to keep playing well.  If they stop playing well, then they play more often.  But, the top players can continue to play well despite a lack of driving accuracy.  That means that the top players don't have to be accurate off of the tee in order to do well.

6. The USGA has not demonstrated that any change in any PGA Tour statistic is due to grooves. If the rule making bodies believe that grooves are wreaking havoc on the PGA Tour, why is it that among the hundreds of statistics kept by the PGA Tour, no one has ever deemed it worthwhile to identify the specific grooves each individual PGA Tour Pro is using in his irons and wedges. If grooves truly are a problem, it seems obvious that someone would gather and analyze this easily obtainable data before telling tens of millions of golfers the USGA is reversing its prior approval of hundreds of millions of golf clubs. The failure to do so suggests there may be something else going on here.

Beautiful attempt at the scarecrow argument.  The USGA has already admitted that it has had difficulty in developing a tool that will accurately measure grooves themselves.  Solheim does have a point if he implied that the sample size that the USGA used in its field testing was way too small for statistical significance.  He doesn't have a point in saying that any one statistic is tied directly to grooves.  Any of the following could be indirectly related to grooves: scrambling percentage, up and downs, sand saves, distance from the pin, and others.  To pinpoint any golf statistic to grooves is a mistake.  The statistics that pinpoint the relevancy of the grooves argument has to do with launch monitor technology that shows the impact of different ball and club combinations upon game performance.  Tournament performance statistics have to factor in mental aspects of the game such as nerves, decision making, and the like that are not part and parcel of the technological debate.

Finally, Solheim throws a bone to the amateur after talking in a self-preservation voice for six points.

7. What happens to hundreds of millions of "Used" golf clubs - which have always been an important asset in golf.

Ok, fine.  Overall, the argument in the release is filled with misconstrued logic designed to give the impression that Solheim has created clear issues with grooves.  This essay is designed to simply buy additional time for the manufacturers to get an indirect delay from the PGA Tour Policy Board because they know the USGA will not budge.