Groove Sharpener

[TropicalSandTrap]

"Go buy new clubs" is not advice on groove sharpeners

Wasn't mark calcaveccia using old ping eye 2's until recently?  Just gets his grooves resharpened. If a career touring pro finds using older clubs with fresh grooves acceptable certainly buying new clubs is not the only option. 

[iacas]

19 minutes ago, TropicalSandTrap said:

"Go buy new clubs" is not advice on groove sharpeners

"Avoid groove sharpeners, they can render your clubs illegal. Buy new ones instead." is a perfectly valid response.

At this point though it's clear you aren't going that route. We had a few existing topics, too, on this. Though the second you'll want to avoid, I'm guessing.

 

[TropicalSandTrap]

Do you think that bringing your clubs to a professional custom club fitter and getting them sharpened will also render your clubs illegal.

next time I am qualifying for the us am I will invest in a new set of wedges. Until then I am going to play with a clear conscious if I am using a tool that is usga regulation to freshen up my wedges that I like a lot instead of blowing hundreds on a new set just so that somebody on a message board doesn't think I am playing with illegal clubs. Until then I am not going to aggressivley sharpen them to a point where they would be "illegal" so I'm not concerned about that issue. I just want to know if the tools work. (One person said they don't work too well, and wear down after a few uses, which seems to contradict the idea of making them too sharp)

And thank you for the link to the other thread. I didn't see that when looking prior to posting. 

And back on topic:

it appears that it is pretty hard to go to the point of making the club illegal, so that is not really a concern. 

So from a pure use stance, anybody have any luck with these?

[socialputts]

Looks like I showed up late to this discussion.  I was preoccupied putting chapstick on my driver face, cutting a hole in my pocket and loading my Swing Glove and Polara golf balls into my bag.  No lost balls tonight!

[iacas]

36 minutes ago, TropicalSandTrap said:

Do you think that bringing your clubs to a professional custom club fitter and getting them sharpened will also render your clubs illegal.

All anyone has said is that you run the risk of making your grooves illegal. Yes, there's a chance that by taking them to a club fitter, they could be illegal too. Most "professional custom club fitters" do not have the equipment necessary to measure the really small radius and angles of grooves.

What's not illegal? New wedges and any wear done to them through normal play. That is why you got so many recommendations to get new wedges, especially after nearly 20 years with them.

http://www.vokey.com/spin/spin-performance.aspx

36 minutes ago, TropicalSandTrap said:

Until then I am going to play with a clear conscious if I am using a tool that is usga regulation to freshen up my wedges that I like a lot instead of blowing hundreds on a new set just so that somebody on a message board doesn't think I am playing with illegal clubs.

The USGA doesn't certify groove sharpeners.

Heck, they barely mention groove sharpening, except on a pair of pages like this one: http://www.usga.org/rules-hub/grooves/informational-club-database.html . And what it says doesn't bode well for your conscience. (Not "conscious.")

I've only ever really heard of these… http://groovesharpener.com/products/uv-groove-sharpener - You'll note they say nothing about the USGA.

11 minutes ago, socialputts said:

Looks like I showed up late to this discussion.  I was preoccupied putting chapstick on my driver face, cutting a hole in my pocket and loading my Swing Glove and Polara golf balls into my bag.  No lost balls tonight!

 

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Some more info… http://www.franklygolf.com/sharpeningyourgrooves.aspx

If the grooves in your club are worn and you use a groove sharpener to recondition these grooves, you will remove metal from the sides of the groove and increase the groove depth otherwise you are not doing anything to recondition the groove, just waving the sharpener over the top of it. Sharpening always removes material so what you have done is made the groove wider and deeper than the original. 

If the groove was at the limits when new, then it will be over the limits when reconditioned using a groove sharpener. The only way to make the club conform –assuming the groove tool is made to the correct size and used very carefully – is to first remove a layer of material from the entire club face by grinding  or milling, before the groove sharpener is used. The edges of the grooves must then be rounded, because sharp groove edges are not permitted.

Rich, the answer to your question is YES; groove sharpeners if used aggressively may damage your clubs and also make them non-conforming. For your information, there are only a few club makers who have the ability to recondition and precisely measure the grooves in your clubs. This could be expensive but check with  Golfworks which will give you the detail and cost estimate.

[David in FL]

Doesn't Brandel Chamblee use a groove sharpener to touch up his wedges?

 

[socialputts]

6 minutes ago, David in FL said:

Doesn't Brandel Chamblee use a groove sharpener to touch up his wedges?

 

I can confirm that he does.  I asked him myself, I had to interrupt his putting lesson with Bernhard Langer. 

[TropicalSandTrap]

maybe if brandel Chamblee got his grooves sharpened he would have made more than one cut in a major championship in his career?

anyway, it appears the illegality issue is more of a red herring than anything else. So back on topic:  how do they work in sharpening your grooves compared to taking them to the local shop to do it?

[iacas]

14 minutes ago, TropicalSandTrap said:

anyway, it appears the illegality issue is more of a red herring than anything else. So back on topic:  how do they work in sharpening your grooves compared to taking them to the local shop to do it?

Did you read the Frank Thomas bit above?

[TropicalSandTrap]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

Did you read the Frank Thomas bit above?

Yes. It appears that if you are not overly aggressive then it is perfectly legal. The worry about illegal grooves is as legitimate as worrying about a shaft of a club bending because you keep your clubs in the trunk of the car and thus not playing with a conforming club. 

 

I really like this guy's style. Why should we struggle with battered caved in grooves?  My game deserves better. 

 

[iacas]

6 minutes ago, TropicalSandTrap said:

Yes. It appears that if you are not overly aggressive then it is perfectly legal. The worry about illegal grooves is as legitimate as worrying about a shaft of a club bending because you keep your clubs in the trunk of the car and thus not playing with a conforming club.

Whatever you say. If you remove any material, you're likely pushing the grooves into illegal territory. And if you're not removing material… just use a brush and scrub your grooves. No need for a special tool.

Whether your clubs are illegal or not will not affect my life, so… do what you want. But don't lie to yourself, or at least… don't lie to yourself and post it here.

I'm done, and will ask that you stop quoting and responding to me. I'm out.

[David in FL]

Allow me...

Groove sharpeners are amazing!  For less than the cost of a sleeve of mediocre golf balls, you can buy a tool that will allow you to recondition your irons to like new condition in no time at all!  You'll never need to buy another club in your life.  Shhhhhh, don't tell anyone else about this though.  The club manufacturers would go out of business overnight if it ever got out!

That's what you wanted to hear, so I just thought I'd oblige.

 

 

[TropicalSandTrap]

So the pencil one looks good, and conforms to usga regulations (so none of us need to lie to ourselves about our equipment ). 

But they also have this tic toc groove sharpener (which also conforms to the rules, which is important). 

Wondering which is better

 

[TropicalSandTrap]

14 minutes ago, David in FL said:

Allow me...

Groove sharpeners are amazing!  For less than the cost of a sleeve of mediocre golf balls, you can buy a tool that will allow you to recondition your irons to like new condition in no time at all!  You'll never need to buy another club in your life.  Shhhhhh, don't tell anyone else about this though.  The club manufacturers would go out of business overnight if it ever got out!

That's what you wanted to hear, so I just thought I'd oblige.

 

 

Ok, so back on topic:

which ones are good and any advice on using them?

most of us already knew that getting your grooves sharpened is perfectly acceptable before some people hijacked the thread to tell us we are cheating if we don't just buy new clubs. I mean mark calcavecchia used the same irons for 20 years, and it is not uncommon for people to have wedges for more than just two seasons. So can we have a discussion on the topic and not about whether some people think that buying new clubs is the only acceptable thing to do?

[David in FL]

19 minutes ago, TropicalSandTrap said:

Ok, so back on topic:

which ones are good and any advice on using them?

most of us already knew that getting your grooves sharpened is perfectly acceptable before some people hijacked the thread to tell us we are cheating if we don't just buy new clubs. I mean mark calcavecchia used the same irons for 20 years, and it is not uncommon for people to have wedges for more than just two seasons. So can we have a discussion on the topic and not about whether some people think that buying new clubs is the only acceptable thing to do?

Mark Calcavecchia played the same model of irons for 20 years.  He didn't play the exact same individual clubs.  

Like @iacas, I'm done here.  

[Phil McGleno]

22 minutes ago, TropicalSandTrap said:

most of us already knew that getting your grooves sharpened is perfectly acceptable before some people hijacked the thread to tell us we are cheating if we don't just buy new clubs. I mean mark calcavecchia used the same irons for 20 years, and it is not uncommon for people to have wedges for more than just two seasons. So can we have a discussion on the topic and not about whether some people think that buying new clubs is the only acceptable thing to do?

Mark got new irons every six months or fewer.-Pros change out their wedges every two to four weeks. You can not seriously think Mark used the same actual irons for two decades.

Groove sharpeners are either illegal or ineffective.-If they remove material then they are illegal.

But if they do not remove material-They are not doing much sharpening and you may as well just use a wire or nylon brush.

b. Wear and Alteration 

A club that conforms with the Rules when new is deemed to conform after wear through normal use. Any part of a club that has been purposely altered is regarded as new and must, in its altered state, conform with the Rules.

[TropicalSandTrap]

So if you don't aggressively sharpen, then your grooves are likely to conform. So no issue. 

So let's stop derailing this conversation about some red herring and focus on the topic

[Phil McGleno]

19 minutes ago, TropicalSandTrap said:

So if you don't aggressively sharpen, then your grooves are likely to conform. So no issue.

So just use a brush.-No need for a groove sharpener.

19 minutes ago, TropicalSandTrap said:

So let's stop derailing this conversation about some red herring and focus on the topic

Not a red herring.-Why you gotta be a jerk buddy? Save yerself the $25. If the groove sharpener is effective your clubs are probably illegal.

You can plug your ears and pretend that is not the truth-But stop insulting others by calling it a red herring. The topic is groove sharpener and whether it renders your clubs illegal or is ineffective is very much on topic as I see it.

Go buy one and get to the cheatin already.