7. THE NEW GROOVES RULES ARE HERE

The new restrictions on golf club grooves that are in effect for the 2010 PGA Tour season represent the first equipment rollback in nearly 80 years. In an attempt to restore a need for accuracy, the USGA chose to reduce the width, depth and sharpness of grooves, going from a “U’’ or square, shape to a “V’’ shape. The ball slides off the face of the club with less control than players previously enjoyed.

The question is, will the modification accomplish what the governors hope to accomplish? Will it protect the game’s integrity? Will it hold the world’s best players accountable when they don’t hit the best shots? The answer depends on who you ask.

Certainly, the texture of golf has changed in recent years. Stretched by scientific advancements in manufacturing and agronomy, endorsed by course expansions and reconfigurations, power and distance have become the building blocks of today’s competitive game. Square grooves fed the beast, allowing for better control of shots approaching the greens and diminishing the repercussions for missing fairways. Technology allowed players to launch the ball farther, and square grooves allowed them to do so more fearlessly. The relationship brought forth the “bomb and gouge” era.

“It used to be that driving accuracy was as important a predictor of success on the PGA Tour as was putting,” USGA President Jim Vernon says. “Over the past couple years, the correlation between driving accuracy and success on the Tour has been almost zero. So we know that the way the game has been played, the skills that are required to succeed at that level, have been changed.

“One way of describing the goal of the USGA’s Equipment Standards Committee is to make sure that skill, and not technology, remains the dominant factor to success in the game.”

The USGA Rules of Golf concerning grooves will not apply to recreational golfers until 2024. “You don’t want to make the game harder to learn or harder to play for the amateurs,” says Davis Love III. “If we can give people a big-headed driver, or new technology every couple of years — like these grooves — and it helps people enjoy the game a little more and keeps them playing, I think that’s good.

“So if I was the average player, I’d just buy a bunch of what you like and just keep playing with it. Unless you’re going to play in the U.S. Amateur or a club championship, it doesn’t matter.”

That said, the new regulations will matter for touring pros. How much, again, depends on the player. Golf swings are as different as fingerprints. Players use different balls, different strategies, different applications. Likewise, their game will be affected in different ways.

“A huge difference,” said Pat Perez, who with the old grooves won the 2009 Bob Hope Desert Classic. “It’s not even close. I’ve always played square grooves. … The chipping for me has been a nightmare. I can’t stop it. I can’t stop it out of bunker (with a sand wedge).

“You play a certain wedge for so long, you know exactly what you’re doing. You look up, and it’s 10 feet farther than you think it’s going to be. It’s a lot different. I’m not real excited about it.”

On the other hand, Jack Nicklaus supports the groove change but calls it just a start, or “the chair off the Titanic.” Still others suggest that players who are impacted by the no-spin grooves will make necessary adjustments elsewhere.

“Will it affect the players? Yeah,” says PGA Tour player Kevin Na. “But I don’t think it will be significant. Yes, we will catch more fliers out of the rough, and it will be harder to stop the ball. But players are going to find ways to spin the ball, regardless. With a 60-degree wedge, pros will find a way to stop it. And the ball technology is so good, so advanced. You can find any kind of golf ball that fits your game. If you’re a spinner, they’ll find you a low-spinning ball. If you can’t spin, they’ll find you a ball that spins.”

Thus, golf manufacturers will look for new ways to enhance performance and push product. The best players in the world will seek other means to gain a competitive advantage, and the governing entities will strive to find a happy median, one that protects the “value of par.”

8. ECONOMY STILL IN ROUGH ON PGA TOUR

If you need any signals that golf and big business are still taking a time out, just look at the PGA Tour schedule for the 2010 season.

The Bob Hope Classic lost Chrysler, the St. Jude lost Federal Express, Torrey Pines lost Buick, the other Buick-sponsored event in Michigan is gone, and so is the U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee.

The recession will continue to hit the PGA Tour where it lives, as Commissioner Tim Finchem continues to look for sponsors that just a few years earlier were beating down the doors in Ponte Vedra Beach to get in partnership with the tour.

“I think that at least currently, I’m very confident that we’re going to be able to weather whatever transition emanates in this area,” Finchem said at the end of 2009 in a prime example of commissioner-speak. “I feel good about that right now.”

That quote, of course, came before the controversy regarding Woods. Finchem knows as well as anyone that his Tour won’t be fully healthy until Woods returns.

9. PASSING THE TEST

The PGA Tour’s drug testing went largely unnoticed for most of the year. PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem came out and said in July that performing-enhancing drugs were not to be found on Tour.

Many of the players had argued that it was a non-issue all along, and several voiced resentment for having to get tested in the first place.

Then in October, Doug Barron tested positive for a banned substance, and suddenly it was as if the golf world had been infiltrated by the East German women’s Olympic swim team.

Barron was an obscure player on the Nationwide Tour who played in one PGA Tour event and four Nationwide events in 2009. The journeyman, who claimed he was taking medication to help low testosterone and beta-blockers to ease anxiety from a heart condition, filed suit to try to erase the one-year suspension.

If Barron was taking performance-enhancing drugs to help his golf game, it ­wasn’t working. Barron’s claim to fame before his suspension was taking off his shirt at a PGA Tour event a couple of years ago to hit a shot out of a muddy pond. Look at the pictures of the shirtless Barron, and it becomes clear that steroids were definitely not in play.

The overreaction to Barron’s suspension will blow over, and this is not a tip of the iceberg situation. No players — especially any of note — will be found using any banned substance this year.

10. LPGA’S ASIAN INFLUENCE

The tour has had a strong Asian presence for years, and now the schedule is going to reflect that influence even more than before.

The first two events on the schedule were in Thailand and Singapore, and three events toward the end of the year are set for China, Japan and Korea. In all, nine countries beside the United States will host tournaments this season.

The first event in the U.S., the LPGA Classic Presented by J Golf in Carlsbad, Calif., is being sponsored by JoongAng Broadcasting, a Korean cable television company that sponsored an LPGA event in Arizona last year.

Jan Stephenson once told a magazine that Asian golfers were killing the tour. Ironically, it might be Asian golfers and Asian companies that end up saving it.