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Golf Equipment Chronicles 2006 (Part 5)

Copyright 2006 by Leith Anderson
All rights reserved
Originally appeared in September 2006 issue of Golf Today

Driver and Shaft Discoveries Summer 2006 – Part Two

By Leith Anderson

Direct Link: http://www.calgolftech.com/whats_new/driver50.html

If you live in the temperate Midwest or Northeast, by September your golf season is almost over.  A native of the Midwest, fall was a melancholy time of year for me.  Once the football games start, it won’t be long before the leaves fall, making golf courses unplayable.  There’s nothing like a big oak leaf for a golf ball that wants to hide.  In October, it’s a long time to April.

Not so in California.  Ironically, in the Bay Area fall is the best part of the year to play.  The fog leaves the coast, resulting in clear and sunny days.  Fall is a great season to pay a visit to Poppy Hills in Monterey or Poppy Ridge in Livermore.  The NCGA member-owned golf courses are the best bargain in California golf.  In the last couple of years, the Livermore Valley has emerged as a wine region.  Dozens of wineries have sprung up.  The quality of the wine is very good.  At Poppy Ridge the bar only stocks Livermore Valley wines and the staff is knowledgeable.  You can take a virtual tour of the top wineries at Poppy Ridge.  Nothing like killing two birds with one stone.

The competition season stays alive.  My favorite, the annual 12-Man Team Match Play moves to regional competition and many municipalities, including Palo Alto, have fall championships.  You can check out all of the tournaments in California on www.amateurgolf.com.

The National Golf League

This year there’s a new game in town.  The National Golf League was born in Northern California.  It’s a unique concept.  The idea is to make competitive golf a team sport and make it approachable – literally – by fans.  We hauled the Golf Lab Tour Van out to the first tournament of the year, held on Saturday, August 5th at the Ridgemark CC in Hollister, CA.

Those of us who attend PGA Tour golf tournaments from time to time know that they can be too big and no fun.  The PGA Tour is turning into pure corporate entertainment.  Unless you have a ticket to one of the hospitality pavilions – with big screen plasma TV so you can see the tournament – it’s no use going on the weekend.  Who wants to park in Seaside and take a bus to Pebble Beach?

National Golf League tournaments are 27 hole team events.  They start after noon and finish before dark.  The first nine holes are fourball, the second nine alternate shot and the third nine a scramble.  The format is designed to reward risky shots, the most fun to watch, in the fourball and scramble and test team play in the foursome.  There are no ropes.  Spectators are allowed on the course.  You can walk right next to the players and talk to them.  I rented a golf cart and had a lot of fun scooting back and forth to check on the action in different groups.  Each group is accompanied by a mobile scorecard so it’s easy to keep tabs on your team.

The National Golf League is made up of local pros and amateurs.  At the Ridgemark tournament there were players from various mini tours as well as local club pros and top amateurs.  “Ringers” are even allowed.  Long drive champion Eric Jones was drafted by the Silicon Valley Drivers for the scramble segment – powering 350 yard drives.  Divina Delasin of “Big Break” fame represented the San Francisco Spin.  It you’re hungry for a peek at tournament golf and don’t want the hassle, seek out a NGL event.  Check the schedule at www.nationalgolfleague.com. 

Unraveling Driver Mysteries

Sometimes I think the more I find out about drivers and shafts, the less I know.  For the last couple of months, I’ve been focusing on drivers.  I’ve been swapping shafts and heads, sometimes playing three or four different drivers in a single round.  I start with one and keep playing it until I miss a fairway.  I resolved to find my new “Magic Driver” for 2006 and the year is pretty far gone with no miracles - yet. 

For the last couple of years, players have been buying adjustable weight drivers and ultra-expensive shafts.  The American Way is to throw money at any problem.  Golfers face a choice:  Buy the most expensive club, supposedly used on Tour, hoping that price reflects value and performance or engage in a tedious testing process to understand your swing and discover golf clubs that deliver the best performance, regardless of price.

I’ve done both.  There aren’t many golfers on the planet who have wasted more money on golf clubs than I have.  But I have an excuse.  By turning my personal quest into a business, I have a partner – Uncle Sam.  At least my mistakes are tax deductible.

Every player’s swing is unique.  Complicating the problem, every golf club is unique.  Complicating the problem even further, golf swings change from day to day, week to week and month to month.  That’s the crux of the clubfitting mystery.  We have all asked ourselves, “What swing did I bring to the course today?”  Finally, you have to consider the golf courses you play.  Drivers that work at wet and soft golf courses like Poppy Hills aren’t going to be the best performers in the desert.  You might need “horses for courses.”

My goal is to have ten candidates for the “Magic Driver – 2006” by next month, tried out and tricked up, and pick one or two that won’t find themselves back in the parts bin.

Why Not Buy a Bargain?

There are two ways to buy a bargain.  The easiest one is to pick out a driver that looks good on eBay and win the auction.  A week or so later, your new driver shows up.  If you’re lucky, it will be great.  But most clubs that appear on eBay have a problem.  Their previous owners either couldn’t hit them or if they came from a shop, couldn’t sell them.  My grandmother used to call that “a pig in a poke”.  But if you’ve taken advantage of demo days and know what you’re buying, it’s a reasonable gamble.  You’re still going to have to check performance with a launch monitor or you’ll never know if the club performs as well as possible.

The other way is to test your swing – know your swing path, face angle, angle of attack and swing speed.  Then, find out how a club behaves in your hands – your tempo, how the shaft flexes and how you load the shaft.  Finally, you need to know what the ball does after you hit it – ball speed, spin rate and launch angle.  Then, you will know your specifications.  A qualified clubmaker can build you a club to match your specifications with a high probability of success.  Most will guarantee results.  If you want a bargain, just make sure that you choose high quality components that aren’t too expensive.

There are plenty of quality shafts and heads that don’t cost a lot of money.  When Eric Jones won the World Senior Long Drive Championship in 2003, he was using a Harrison shaft, the 50 Light that had a wholesale price at the time under $30.  Even with the premium Alpha Reaction head, the whole setup would have made a clubmaker happy if he got $299.  That’s a custom driver built to a player’s specifications for the price of off-the-rack.

Iron Byron’s Breakthrough

Golf Equipment Chronicles readers have become familiar with the Golf Lab Gang over the years.  Iron Byron is back from his odyssey in Stockton and Atlanta.  We’ve been playing a lot of golf together recently.  Iron Byron is a good player, a little more practice and he’ll be breaking par most days.  But his driver was hurting his game.  His favorite was a Taylor Made “Tour” 580 XD in 7.5* loft.  He’s had a dozen shafts in it, including the ultra-expensive, super low-torque ACCRA SE 80 ($425) without changing its personality.  His drives start over the right tree line, high enough to threaten small aircraft and then duck to the left.  With luck, they hit the left side of the fairway. 

He was hanging around the Golf Lab one day poking through the boxes of orphan driver heads when he came across a SMT 455 DB that was still in the plastic.  No wonder, it was a 6* loft.  I caught his eye at that moment and you could tell we were both thinking “why not?”  Since it was an experiment, he went over to the shaft bin and picked out a bright red SK Fiber Pure Energy shaft to match the head.  He dry fitted the head, gave it a wiggle and said “that feels OK”.

We set up the Max Out Launch Max to measure trajectory and spin.  The 7.5* driver produced spin in the high 3000’s and a trajectory of 15* or higher.  The 6* SMT 455 DB brought launch down to about 12* and spin came in under 3000 RPM.  The Launch Max predicted a distance gain of 20 yards in the air and another 20 in roll out.

A couple of days later, we played on Sunday morning at the Palo Alto Muni with Heather and John Norris.  It was a good day; Iron Byron caddied for John the week before for John’s “Player Ability Test” to earn his PGA credentials.  It was one of those mellow rounds with friends.  We started thinking about “magic” on the first hole.  Iron Byron’s drive was straight down the middle at a fairly normal trajectory and when it hit the fairway it took a big bounce and kept going north.  He hit one drive after another that looked the same.  By the fifth hole, he was jumping up and down and giggling after each tee shot.  We figured that getting the trajectory and spin right added forty yards to his already prodigious distance.  The Launch Max prediction proved to be accurate. 

We learned something else.  Launch monitors can be wrong.  We have four different models so we’ve become familiar with the idiosyncrasies of each one.  Here’s why.

Most launch monitors have a built-in software routine that compares each shot to a “theoretically perfect” shot.  That software is based on mathematical models that are focused on maximum carry distance.  The model looks for a high launch angle and low spin.  We first discovered the problem working with women and seniors.  When we fitted them according to the “optimization model” (high loft and soft flex), they would occasionally come back to the shop and report that they were losing distance.  That’s not supposed to happen.  We discovered that golf is not necessarily controlled by mathematical models.  Maximum distance is a combination of carry and roll.  For women and seniors, roll is a crucial component of distance.  We started to look very closely at our fitting recommendations.  Rather than going with the conventional wisdom of high loft and soft flexes, we began to experiment with much lower lofts and very light shafts in stiff flexes.  Guess what?  All of a sudden our players began to set personal distance records.

Thinking about why, led us to discover that the carry distance recommended by software might only be a few feet longer than the carry distance produced by a lower loft and stiffer flex.  The key to distance is a good “run out”.  The longer real distance might not come from the mathematical model.  Sometimes players test clubs indoors that show different results than they produce outdoors.  If you are a senior or female player that hits the ball with authority, you should try a different setup if your drives are not going as far as you think they should.  Whatever your level of play, you’ll know your driver is right when it takes you to “places you’ve never been before”.

This phenomenon was noticed on the PGA Tour.  There is now a technical breakthrough that allows players to determine how the ball is coming down.  The new Trackman launch monitor, based on radar, tracks the ball for most of its flight.  The Trackman reports the “angle of descent”.  That is the reason that the Trackman is all the rage on the PGA Tour.  Players have found that launch monitors that report that maximum distance from a computer program often don’t prove out in real life.  PGA Tour players who want maximum distance from their drives know that the angle of descent has to be 40* or below.  Sure enough, when measured by the Trackman, Iron Byron’s angle of descent was under 40* with the SMT 455 DB and SK Fiber Pure Energy combo.  Stay tuned for details of the “Technology Shootout” that will give Bay Area amateur players the chance to take advantage of the same radar-based technology as PGA Tour pros. 

Meantime, the 455 DB and SK Fiber Pure Energy combo is still in Iron Byron’s bag.  The Pure Energy is a very light (60 g.) shaft and tends to have an active tip, not exactly what you would pick for a very strong, low-index player with a swing speed north of 115.  But it is stout.  It tested 271 CPM at 45” – well into the PCS Equalizer “X” range.  In an ultimate expression of superstition, when I suggested that we should go back and SST PURE the shaft to make sure it was OK he said:  “It’s perfect, you’re not touching it.”  By the way, that’s another combo that most clubmakers would be very happy to sell, fitted, flexed and decked out for $299, the price of the cheapest off the rack drivers.

Copycat, Copycat

When I see a player with a setup that works great, I build one for myself.  We were a little low on SK Fiber shafts so my only choice was a tipped “A” flex – tested to 245 CPM – softer than what I think of as my current “best flex”.  I mounted it in a SMT 455 DB 10* head and put it in the bag for a trip to Poppy Hills.  Fabulous.  Every drive was in the fairway except for one sorry swing on the ninth hole where I was thinking about getting home in two.  On two holes, I logged personal best distances.  First lesson:  ego gets in the way.  After all these years, I still don’t like it when I get good results with a shaft that I think is too soft.  I want to look in the mirror and say:  “This guy plays “X”.  Second lesson:  you can’t trust frequency alone when fitting shafts.

Naturally, I took that good driver apart and substituted a stiffer Pure Energy shaft in the stylish red color.  I was looking for a little lower trajectory – and a more dramatic presence on the tee.  You might think I was crazy after my best driving day of the year.  It just wasn’t magic enough.  It missed a fairway.  My magic driver – when I find it - will never do that.

Fitting and Tweaking Driver Shafts

There is a debate about whether the shaft or the head is the most important element of a driver.  At least 90% of golfers today would say that the shaft is the “engine” of the club and consequently more important than the head.

That is what makes Tom Wishon’s opinion so interesting in his new book “Common Sense Clubfitting”.  He is unequivocal.  For Tom, the head is most important.  His argument is to consider two options.  First option:  you pick the wrong shaft.  Tom asserts that he could pick a head that would yield good results.  Second option:  he picks the wrong the wrong head.  Tom asserts that no shaft would make that head OK.  That challenge may be right, but I don’t think that example wins the argument.

Making a driver work is usually a matter of several small changes that combine to yield extraordinary results.  It is rare to simply match a shaft with a head and improve performance by a lot. 

We look first at the players’ swing with their driver.  We want to know swing path, face angle, ball speed, angle of attack and launch angle.  That gives a good view of driver head shape, center of gravity, loft, club length, shaft weight, shaft flex and grip.  We then confirm launch monitor results with the Shaft Max load measurement device which verifies shaft flex, weight and profile recommendations.  For final tuning, we turn to the Max Out Launch Max to zero in on ball speed, spin and launch angle. 

We’re trying to produce the highest possible ball speed with the correct spin and launch angle.  Most of the time, ball speed is controlled by shaft weight, length and flex.  Spin rate is influenced by shaft weight distribution and bend profile in addition to head shape, COG and loft.  Once we’ve got the basics optimized, we tweak with SST PUREing and Balance-Certified counter weights.  PUREing helps consistency and solid contact.  Counter weights add 2-3 MPH of ball speed (up to 10 yards of carry) for most players.

I don’t think you can say that the head or the shaft is most important.  You need to find a head that looks right to your eye.  Some heads produce higher ball speed for some players.  Some players hit pear shaped heads better than rounder models.  If you can get the right shape and a “hot head”, that’s the best of both worlds.  I think that shafts of the same weight, flex and profile produce the same distance, regardless of how much they cost.  More expensive shafts are generally more consistent.  The mystery is feel.  How is the club balanced?  What is the club length, the ratio of shaft weight to head weight?  Finally, what does it sound like?  There are dozens of drivers that will deliver similar performance for a player.  But we’re all looking for THE ONE that never lets you down.

If you’re just going to pick one thing to tweak to improve your results with your driver in a few minutes have a close look at club length.  Most drivers are 45” or more off the rack.  Most PGA Tour players use 44.5” drivers – or less.  At the Golf Lab we like to test a too-long driver with a launch monitor and record the results.  Then, we take it to the back room for a haircut.  We blow a grip back on and test it again.  Most of the time ball speed goes up – sometimes dramatically.  Longer drivers do not go farther for most players.  They are never more consistent.

New Driver Shafts for 2006

The crop of new shafts for 2006 is impressive.  It’s impossible to try every one.  In addition to some old timers like the SK Fiber Pure Energy, here is a quick look at the new ones I’ve been playing.

Fukikura Rombax

The granddaddy of all super-premium shafts is the Fujikura Speeder.  It lasted eight years and practically dominated the PGA Tour during most of that time.  In the aftermarket, it was a great seller at $300.  But nothing is forever.  The Speeder brand began to appear in proprietary versions – Titleist started the trend and MacGregor features the Speeder name this year.  That’s a sure sign that the product is nearing the end of its life cycle.  With plenty of competition at the high end of the shaft world, it will be interesting to see if Fuji can defend it’s dominance on the PGA Tour.

The “New Speeder” is the Fujikura Rombax.  It comes in three models:  5W06, 6W06, and 7W06.  Each one is targeted for a slightly different player with increasing weights and varied bend profiles.  The technical story is about the Fuji magic material – Triax.  No one outside of the laboratories knows exactly what Triax is.  The design goal is to strengthen the shaft to prevent “ovaling” – the tendency of the shaft to distort during the swing.  Presumably, a shaft that can maintain its round cross section shape will be more accurate.

Fuji Bob has been playing the Rombax in his MacGregor NVG2 most of the season.  It’s his go-to driver when he wants something normal.  When he wants to blast it and confound his playing partners, he takes out the Nike “Lucky 13” shafted with a tip stiff, spin killing Fujikura Vista Tour 60 g. in stiff flex.

Graphite Design Pershing

The single most popular shaft model on the PGA Tour is the Graphite Design YS-6.  A year ago, Graphite Design made a bold move.  They changed their color and graphics, added a “+” to the shaft name and then raised their prices.  I received a sample of the new Pershing shaft to test.  It is black with holographic graphics.  For looks, it’s a “10”.

I only had a chance to try it out for a few holes.  In a short test, it was similar in feel to the GD YS series.  I couldn’t tell which YS shaft it was closest to.  I’m going to need to find the right head and spend more time, but when I do that, the Pershing could make the finals.

Aldila VS Proto

High quality in graphite shafts is determined by the quality of the graphite fabric (prepreg) and the number of layers of the prepreg that are wrapped around a mandrel to manufacture the shaft.  Cheap shafts have a few plies of thick prepreg.  Expensive shafts have a lot of plies of thin prepreg.  Silk is more expensive than burlap.

Graphite shaft design is the process of determining what kinds of prepreg, in what shape and what orientation are wrapped on the mandrel.  Stronger material is frequently applied to the tip of the shaft.  Sometimes designers try to produce unique bend profiles by moving stiff sections up and down the shaft.

The shaft is held together by resin – the “glue” that binds the prepreg.  Aldila has been at the forefront in mixing “nano tubes” with the resin to produce a golf shaft with more resistance to distortion.  Hence, a claim to “nanotechnology” in Aldila shafts.

That’s an oversimplification of the design and manufacturing process, but enough to understand the variables that make a shaft expensive.  The VS Proto is Aldila’s newest entry in the premium shaft market.  The value proposition is many layers of very thin prepreg.  I tried it for a couple of days on a 10.5* Indio head from SMT.  It was solid with enough flex to give a pronounced kick.  It went high which made me want to pair it up with a lower loft head.  Aldila needs to find a replacement for their blockbuster NV and NVS.  They are aiming high with the VS Proto.

The Reincarnation of Penley

A few years ago, Penley shafts were the darlings of the long drive set.  Then, the company fell on hard times and gradually disappeared.  Penley is back, rescued by Horizon Sports Technologies (HST).  The company has a new logo, a new line and renewed enthusiasm.  The logo is a stylish “P” that looks great on the new P2 shaft line, finished in gold.

We received a few samples of the new P2 line together with some of the old standard, the Penley ETA which looks just the same.  The technical story behind the P2 is that it is manufactured using a patented, “viscoelastic” dampening material that is supposed to create a low-torque shaft that doesn’t feel harsh.  As usual, the “proof is in the pudding”.  Bob shafted up a fairway wood and took it to the range.  It’s a little hard to get Fuji Bob to like an alien brand but he came back saying it was “OK” – which, if you know him is a pretty strong endorsement. 

The line is set up in progressive weights with matched driver and fairway woods.  For example, the P2-96s model is a 68 g. driver shaft and a 90 g. fairway wood shaft designed for players with a swing speed of 90 to 102 MPH.  The concept of weight-matched shafts for both drivers and fairway woods is rare in the shaft business.  Most club fitters recommend heavier fairway wood shafts so Penley is providing a product that professional clubmakers will like.  Preliminary testing showed that the shafts are consistent for flex and PURE well.  We always support once-proud companies that crash and burn and then attempt recovery.  Stay tuned for the next chapter, but don’t bother to log into the new Penley website – it’s still under construction.  www.penleygolf.com.

True Temper (Bi-Matrix) Prototype

I hit one of the longest drives of my life with the original True Temper Bi-Matrix four or five years ago.  It rolled onto the tenth green at Paly and almost through the legs of Kay Cockerell who was playing with the president of the USGA in a benefit scramble.  Never before and never again.  Alas, the shaft never caught on.

It’s hard to know what the difference between then and now is.  But when Tiger plays a shaft, the whole world knows and wants to try it – and I’m no exception.  I ordered up a few including the new pink color (the most popular).  If you decide to try the Prototype, be sure to match it up with a head that’s a higher loft than normal.  I mounted the pink Prototype on a 12* head and it was marginal for trajectory.  Even Iron Byron couldn’t get it up with a 9* head.  I think that the Prototype could be fabulous as a spin killer in short lengths (the steel tip is heavy and brings swingweight up several points).  My next test will be to replace the Vista Tour in my Nike Lucky 13 with the Prototype.  If you haven’t tried high loft, high COG heads with short, tip stiff shafts, you should think about it.  After all, if you don’t try something new, you can’t expect your results to change.

At press time, Tiger was back playing his Mitsubishi Diamana.

Golf Lab Technology Shootout – version II

Make plans to pay us a visit Poppy Ridge on the weekend of September 29 and 30.

Back in July we held our first “Technology Shootout” at the Poppy Ridge Golf Course in Livermore.  The focus of the event was to compare two state-of-the-art, radar-based launch monitors, the EDH Flightscope Cheetah and the ISG Trackman.  We bought a first-generation Flightscope over a year ago.  It was a $25,000 disappointment.  The Flightscope simply did not deliver accurate spin data.  Without knowing about spin, it is impossible to optimize driver distance.  The Flightscope was useful for ball speed, trajectory and distance.  In fact, it was great for distance.  Players who hit through their bag to gap their clubs were extremely satisfied.  But for spin, we went indoors and worked with the Launch Max.

In July, we invited Golf Lab customers by email to take advantage of the new radar-based technology at the gorgeous Poppy Ridge practice range in Livermore, CA.  We offered hour-long fitting appointments for a very reasonable price of $75.  Customers received the undivided attention of one of our expert fitters and the exclusive use of one of the $25,000 gizmos.  They were free to test their drivers, compare the performance of their drivers against our high performance demos, gap their irons – whatever they wanted.

We booked two full days.  Over thirty players took advantage of the offer.  We are repeating the event on September 29 and 30. 

This time we are going to make it bigger and better.  We still have the two launch monitors so we will also repeat the $75 per hour fitting offer.  In addition to our driver demos, we will have bags and bags full of the kind of high performance clubs that are best tested at practice ranges, hitting off of grass:  fairway woods, irons, utilities and wedges.  Not long ago, Bombsquadgolf.com advertised a similar program – but they were charging $1000. 

As a financial incentive, we will offer bargain prices on custom fitted fairways, utilities and drivers.

There is more.  Ari Techner, president of Scratch Golf, is coming down from Oregon with his complete line of custom ground wedges.  One of the masters of the wedge will be offering custom wedge fittings for a very reasonable price of $50 per half hour - rebated with purchase.  You will never have a better chance to find your “magic wedge”.

There is still more.  We also have the Science and Motion putting analysis system.  Heather Hughes, our putting wizard, will be delivering putter fittings on the practice green.  We will, of course, have a nice selection of the hottest putters plus all of our tricks to upgrade a player’s own putter including the UST Frequency Filtered shaft, the Balance Certified counterweights, and the Mitchell Putter bending machine. 

Leith Anderson is a Partner in the Golf Lab, Palo Alto, CA.
He will answer any and all questions relating to club fitting and club making. Contact:  Leith@calgolftech.com.