"GrooveFix are a fantastic UK company started by two brothers; one with great design skills and the other with great machining skills. Together forming the perfect combination to make great golf accessories hand-crafted in the UK with an innovative twist. For example, their A.line ball marker shows you where you lined up as you walk away and view the putt from the other direction. Whilst their GreenFix divot tool also acts as a greenside club rest. This is the time where you say: "why didn't I think of that?!" Looking forward to GrooveFix taking over the golf market, believe me you won't be disappointed with the quality."Dr. Bryan Roberts, Director
GrooveFix Ltd was started by two dedicated and innovative brothers based in the UK. One was an expert craftsman and machinist, the other was a skilled designer. Both brothers had a passion for golf and realised that there were few premium golf accessory brands worldwide. So with a lot of hard work and dedication, they created GrooveFix - the premium golf accessory brand. Their website goes on to say:
"GrooveFix™ is a UK based company manufacturing and retailing golf related accessories. Our dedicated team have years of knowledge of engineering and design combined with a keen love of golf. Our Groove Sharpeners, pitch repairers, golf ball line markers and other products are produced using the highest grade materials and manufacturing processes to create unique and stylish accessories that any golfer would value. We believe our premium products are the best on the market."
Be sure to look out for more exciting products from GrooveFix.
Wedge Science
So we know grooves are important, but what exactly do they do? The science of wedges and grooves are so important to our golf game, that it is almost crazy that we, as players, don't exactly understand the effects of groove design and their upkeep. Few of us actually maintain groove depth, and edge sharpeness. SPORTSTECHLAB will aim to explain some of the current knowledge in groove design, including recent findings in the scientific literaure. In this section we will discuss WEDGE PLAY AND GROOVE SCIENCE.
Groove and driver head design rules seem to be updated frequently by the R&A and certainly receive the most headlines. Even though the contact between a ball and wedge is only milliseconds, differences in groove design can have a major effect, especially on backspin rate, but only in the wet. A good analogy of grooves is car tyres. We all know that bald tyres work perfectly well in dry conditions, but in wet conditions they can skid. This is a loss of interlocking friction between the road surface and the tyre. Introducing grooves essentially increases surface area with the road and allows the tyre to "interlock" with the road, whilst distrupting the water film layer between the surfaces.
A report by The R&A and the United Stated Golf Association (R&A/USGA, 2006) concluded that there were no significant difference in spin rates of a 3-piece ball between groove types in dry conditions. However, the major differences in spin rates occur in wet conditions, backspin rate was greater for U-shaped grooves than V-shaped grooves due to the increase in groove cross-sectional area. It is very rare, especially in Europe, to ever play in truly dry conditions, so for us in the West it is important to consider our groove design, and of course ball type. The same results were seen in a study by Cornish et al., (2008) who found that the deeper the U-shaped groove the more backspin that occurred in 3-piece balls, and that dry conditions again showed no effect.
Unfortunately, although we all know it is instinctive to continually sharpen our grooves, we could only find one test from HOT STIX GOLF showing double the difference in backspin between newly sharpened grooves and blunt grooves. More research in needed, but if you want to see a ball getting hit by a wedge in slow motion then please see the video below.