PALM HARBOR, Fla. -- Who says the USGA is full of stuffed shirts?

A couple of years ago at the Players Championship, the host PGA Tour threw a huge shindig at a nearby convention center, inviting many of golf's top officials to attend a concert by 1970s rockers the Doobie Brothers. There, over in a darkened corner, enjoying an adult beverage, was grinning USGA executive director David Fay, clad in his traditional bowtie, blue blazer and loafers. Those loafers were a-tapping, too.

Shake your groove thing, boy.

Actually, that's exactly what the techno-geeks at the game's governing bodies are doing with a new proposal that would significantly change the face of club design by 2010. And we do mean face.

Any bogey golfer who has scuffed the white paint off a Titleist with a well-struck iron shot knows that the U-shaped grooves on the clubface of modern irons can cause some serious backspin. Now, in a backdoor attempt to rein in the unbridled long bombers, the USGA is proposing that grooves be overhauled and rolled back to the effectiveness levels of more than a decade ago.

Yep, they've made a U-turn on U-grooves, but unlike the turbo golf ball of today, the USGA didn't go nearly far enough to satisfy some critics. It still doesn't fix the real hot-button issue, distance gains.

"Like (tossing) a deck chair off the Titanic," Jack Nicklaus said.

In theory, here's how the groove proposal works: The USGA defangs the newfangled U-grooves so that they perform like the old-school V-groove construction, which doesn't spin the ball nearly as much. (For those struggling with visualization, imagine a cross-section photo of the clubface. The grooves are actually shaped like the capital letters U or V. The U-shaped grooves pinch the ball more effectively, causing backspin, even from long grass). Going forward, whenever a player like Tiger Woods misses a fairway -- and he has won numerous titles by playing mostly out of the rough -- he would not be able to get the ball as close to the flag with less teeth in his irons.

Missing a lot of fairways hasn't hindered Tiger Woods' ability to win over the years. (AP)

Thus, or so the thinking goes, the prevailing bombardier approach might experience a correction. Hitting fairways would again be an important facet of the game.

"I'm all for it," said Ryder Cup regular Chris DiMarco, a shorter hitter. "Sign me up. I'm on board. Do something. It has gotten ridiculous out here."

Woods stands as the perfect clinical test case. He finished sixth in driving distance in 2006 with an average of 306.4 yards off the tee but was a dismal 139th in driving accuracy, finding only 60.7 percent of the fairways. Astoundingly, partly because of his ability to spin the ball out of the rough and stop it close to the flag, Eldrick ranked first on the PGA Tour in greens in regulation with a stellar 74.15 percent.

This ain't bureaucratic spin-control -- sans the current U-groove model, approach shots from the rough will often scurry off the back of the green, which means bombers might throttle back on tee shots in order to keep the ball in play, or be punished if they don't. So-called square- or U-grooved clubs won't be banned, but the width, edges and spacing between the grooves would be adjusted to mirror the performance of V-groove irons. Think of a comb with fewer teeth, sort of.

A couple of years ago, Arnold Palmer wagged a finger in the face of USGA lead scientist Dick Rugge and told him that allowing U-grooves on irons was the biggest mistake the USGA had made in decades.

"It was a short conversation," Palmer recalled this week. "He didn't agree with me at first, but after doing a little research, he came around."

At the moment, the penalty for hitting a foul ball doesn't nearly compare to the benefit of hitting it a country mile. Swing hard, fellas, just in case you hit it straight?

"Today, the correlation between driving-accuracy rank and money-winning rank on the PGA Tour is very low," Rugge said.

Yeah, like, almost zero. Phil Mickelson was 160th in fairways found last year, while fellow mega-stars Retief Goosen (176th), Ernie Els (171st), Vijay Singh (153rd), Sergio Garcia (129th) and Adam Scott (117th) were almost as errant. Scott "topped" the stars with a forgettable 62.0 percent.

The contemporary style of mindlessly bashing a driver with little regard to direction goes by many sarcastic names, like "bomb and gouge," or the hockey term "dump and chase." Clearly, a disproportionate amount of emphasis on power isn't good for a game in which wiles and finesse also should carry equal weight.

Said Palmer, who applauded the proposal: "The fact is, you have to have a little more game to be able to play the V grooves vs. the U grooves."

Skill? What a concept. Somewhere, Hogan and Nelson are smiling.

As for you and the U-groove issue? The feelin'-groovy adjustment won't have much effect on John Q. Publinks, since most amateurs don't generate much spin anyway and don't have the slightest concerns about whether their clubs are in compliance. For those playing in certain tournaments, a new set of irons and wedges would likely be compulsory. (No wonder the clubmakers -- the people who seemingly hold the most sway in the game these days -- aren't likely to whine much about the proposed change).

Slow on the trigger or not with regard to the distance issue, the USGA previously established limits on the trampoline effect of oversized driver faces, maximum clubhead size and shaft length in an attempt to keep driving yardages somewhat in check. But as Nicklaus said, the game in the minds of traditionalists has already gotten away from its trustees at the USGA. The horsepower is out of the barn, so to speak. Fans cannot relate to the game being played at the highest levels, causing a disconnect, Nicklaus said.

In an odd bit of timing, the USGA also announced that it will relax standards regarding adjustable-weight clubs, clearly an olive branch offering to amateurs. Nicklaus, the game's most vocal critic of the yardage gains of the past few years, all but yawned at the twin proposal.

"I don't think either of them mean very much, but it's a start, I suppose," he said.

Will the USGA ever finish the job? The Honda Classic features a 525-yard par-4 this week, believed to be the longest two-shot hole in tour history. The fact that the yardage gains have slowed over the past three-four years doesn't mean everything's fine and dandy.

"Make the clubhead smaller, let some air out of the ball and maybe shorten the length of the (driver) shaft," DiMarco said. "Don't stop now. But nobody is going to listen to me."