Dirty Clubs

How does a dirty club effect performance?  I went to the range today and noticed that the grooves in my irons were filled with dirt (haven't cleaned them in awhile) and I am curious to know if that would be a cause of poor ball flight (slicing).

One of the causes of slicing is hitting the ball with the clubface open to the target line.  A club with grooves full of dirt can't spin the ball (which has nothing to do with the club position at impact), but ball flight can surely be impacted by dirty grooves due to the lack of spin.

The dirt won't affect slicing, but it will affect the feel you have with the club and it will also reduce the amount of spin you can put because the grooves will be ineffective. I remove the dirt from my clubs after each shot, just using the point of a tee to scrape the dirt out.

Idk my clubs are always dirty and they play exceptionally well.

Very dirty clubs...

very very dirty....

It's important to clean the grooves before every shot........

Right handed phil mickleson, are you joking, right?  I'm guessing you are, because I don't know of a single low HC player who plays with mud caked grooves.........caked grooves= loss of ball control.

To an extent, yes. My post was actually referring to my clubs being 'dirty' in the sense that they are 'naughty'.

But they are just plain dirty most of the time anyways. Doesn't affect me as much as it should I guess.

I think if your swing is correct and you're hitting down on the ball to get the correct spin on a shot then dirty grooves will affect the shot far more than someone who 'picks' the ball and doesn't get the correct type or amount of spin. The greater the amount of spin you normally get, the more pronounced the reduction will be with mud-filled grooves.

*watches as all the higher handicap players intentionally fill their driver grooves with mud*

With respect to my game as a high handicapper, probably not much of an effect.  You could probably take the grooves off my clubs and I wouldn't notice much of a change in my golf scores.  I still try to keep them clean though.

Dirty grooves would probably make you slice the ball less, actually.

On normal shots on short grass, it really doesnt make a difference. Grooves only come into effect when there is grass between the ball and the clubface. Clean grooves give the grass a place to go so more of the face can come into contact with the ball. So in the fairway, no difference. In the rough, however, there is a stark contrast.

In any case, I always keep my grooves clean. I could never look down on a caked clubface.

That's just ridiculous. Next thing you'll be telling people is that drawing the ball depends on the player rolling the wrists through impact and that they should aim the club face directly at the object they're trying to draw the ball around.

The grooves on a club give the face grip on the ball which in turn adds spin to the ball; that's why urethane balls spin more. If the ball is sitting pretty on the fairway and the player strikes the ball correctly, the club face will come into contact with the ball before it comes into contact with the turf. If the grooves are cakes-up then there's less 'bite' on the ball and it spins less.

In quite the opposite manner, playing out of the rough puts grass in between the ball and club face which reduces the spin on the ball.

If your club face is already caked with mud and you play off the fairway it'll be like playing out of the rough; you'll get less spin.

Wow, easy dude. Either I ain't explaining this right or you are misunderstanding.

"What a groove does is simply channel moisture, dirt, and grass away from the golf ball, resulting in cleaner contact between ball and club." --> basically what I was trying to say, sorry if I didn't make that clear.

The longer the ball is in contact with the clubface... the more spin you get. There probably is still a *slight* impact on the fairway with caked grooves because the grooves are unable get rid of minor debris moisture, but like you said if the ball is struck correctly, then there isnt really much of anything coming between the clubface and the ball, so spin is still being imparted onto the ball. Assuming the caking is only in the grooves, the complete face of the clubface is *still in contact with the ball*. The driver analogy in that link is a pretty good way to think about it.

The reason balls of out the rough dont spin, is that even with a some grass being taken away from contact, there is still a lot of grass between the ball and the clubface. If you're in very fluffy greenside grass, don't you give yourself more room for roll on chips??

http://www.rockbottomgolf.com/sandblaster-golf-sandblaster-sand-wedge.html This wedge is pretty much the extreme version of the theory. It passes through sand so that there is a minimal amount of sand between the ball and the club at impact, i.e. more facetime and less spin.

"The grooves on a club give the face grip on the ball which in turn adds spin to the ball " --> I believe that this statement you make isn't actually correct. To rephrase, the grooves get junk out of the way *so that* the face can grip the ball.

oops...meant "more facetime and more spin"

That information seems terribly wrong.

why do you think that Titliest and other wedges have spin milled faces?  The majority of a balls spin comes from face contact. The grooves help to keep that contact as dry and clean as possible so that there is more friction.  There would be only very minor, if any, spin added by the edges of the grooves.  You want the edges sharp so that grass is cut instead of just mashed against the club.

OK so the basic idea with your description is that the grooves effectively act like the tread on a car tyre and squeeze water/debris out of the way when the ball comes into contact with the face I believe?

There's definitely an element of that in the grooves but in my mind it's not the primary reason for the grooves. If it was the primary reason then I don't understand why people sharpen their grooves when they get dull or why the USGA changed groove sharpness rules to stop grooves spinning the ball so much or why Cleveland invented Zip Grooves to give more spin or why wedges are Spin-Milled to add extra grip to the face to increase spin etc?

There's definitely an element of what you're saying but to me it's not the primary reason for them.

Hey, whatever you wish to believe. I guess the variety in sentiments is fairly well documented in that link too. This theory just makes more sense IMO. I would need to be convinced with science otherwise.

At the end of the day, just keep your grooves clean. Your clubs last longer lol.