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Golf Equipment Chronicles 2003 (Part 15)

Copyright 2003 by Leith Anderson
All rights reserved
Originally appeared in November 2003 issue of Golf Today

Overall Weight, Swingweight, Balance & Feel
Or, how to make good irons out of bad irons

By Leith Anderson

Golfers who live in the West are just plain lucky. If you can stand some hot weather or a little rain, golf is a twelve month sport. When I was growing up in Illinois, this was a very depressing time of the year. As soon as the leaves fall, it is impossible to finish a round without losing five or six balls. Season over. And it stays that way until late March when you can start slogging your way around a golf course again. There will be no serious golf in the Midwest or East until early May. Count your blessings.

But we have cycles. The most intense competitive season is over. Players who are competing for NCGA Points still have tournaments to choose from, but the big events are history. I look forward to this time of year because I’m motivated to start experimenting again. I hate to change my clubs during “The Season”. That includes leaving some clubs in the bag that I don’t like very much. This month I started to tackle some of the projects that I’ve had in the queue. There are some clubs that need replacing and others I’d just like to improve.

I’m getting ready for the Palo Alto City, the PAGC Tournament of Champions and the Amateurgolf.com Christmas Classic at Del Monte coming up in the next couple of months. If a few friends would invite me out to their clubs I’d have a full dance card. (Hint, hint!)

I worked through several sets of irons and a few drivers this month. The results started out disappointing but ended up promising. My recent experience has me thinking a lot about overall weight, swingweight, balance and feel.

My first project was building out a set of Cleveland Byron Nelson prototypes that I’ve been saving. If you’re a forged blade aficionado, you will know this model. It’s the only true forging that Cleveland ever made. It’s a muscle back with a VERY thin top line. It has the Byron Nelson signature on the back and a 68.3 stamping to commemorate Nelson’s scoring average in his phenomenal 1945 season. The set I found does not have the 68.3 stamping which is why I call them prototypes. The guy I bought them from said that a few sets were produced that way and he got them from a friend who was on the Cleveland staff. I felt lucky to find a true prototype and couldn’t wait to take them out to some classy place like the Olympic club and leave them by the pro shop door. They’d be the coolest clubs anyone saw on that day.

Graphite v. Lightweight Steel

It’s no secret that I favor graphite for iron shafts but I thought it would be a mistake to fit the Nelson Blades with graphite. I wanted to preserve something close to the original integrity of the set. (They came with S-400 shafts, the default choice for Tour Players and top amateurs.)

In the last few months, we have had great results with Nippon Shaft Company lightweight steel shafts. They test out performing better than graphite with our Achiever launch monitor for about half the players who try them. I have been wondering why. So, I figured I’d just build a set for myself and find out. Plus, I don’t want anyone to think I’ve lost my objectivity and wouldn’t ever try steel again.

Why do the Nippon shafts test well? My belief is that a club with less overall weight is simply easier to hit. Lighter weight clubs always test longer and straighter. That’s the fundamental reason I’ve been drawn to graphite for irons and it looks like the advantage carries over to light weight steel shafts. Nippon shafts are about a full ounce lighter than the Rifle, S-300, S-400 and X-100 alternatives. There also seems to be something going on with the Nippon steel itself. Players report a very solid but “springy” feeling. We have frequently fooled PGA pros by handing them a PCS Equalizer 4.5 (regular) and they’d comment “Boy that’s a solid stiff”.

The NS PRO 950 name suggests that it’s 95 grams which would make it the same weight as two of our favorites, the Apache 40+ and the Fujikura Vista Pro 90. It turns out that the Nippon NS PRO 950’s are actually 105 grams. Japanese shafts (except Speeders) tend to test a little softer than the equivalent American shafts.

Although you may not have heard much about the Nippon Shaft Company, their products are actually well represented in the American market, but most distribution is “under the radar” because it is private labeled by major American OEM’s. Titleist had an exclusive OEM deal a couple of years ago and that might be the reason you still see a lot of the 762 series in play. Nippon has a great following on the LPGA Tour and is making inroads with the seniors. Another reason you don’t hear much about the shafts is that distribution into the aftermarket is limited. Like Fujikura, Nippon is not interested in two-tier distribution that includes large distributors. Rather, they appointed an exclusive distributor - Mark Pekarek’s Shaftology out of Chicago (www.shaftology.com). Mark set up a distribution network based on direct sales to established clubmakers. His theory is that to maintain the quality of the finished product, the fitting and assembly should be handled by a trained clubmaker. Hence, Nippon shafts are not available to golfers except in finished clubs, custom or OEM.

Finishing the Byron Nelson Blades

I dry fitted the set of heads on a set of NS PRO 950 “X” flex and they came out to a near perfect 6.5 PCS Equalizer slope. I needed to add 6 grams of tip weight to the long irons to bring them up to a swingweight of D-4. I changed my method a little with this set. Rather than using software to calculate and estimate swingweight, I went back to the old fashioned way of cutting the shafts to length and setting the actual swingweight on the scale after frequency matching and SST PUREing. Longtime readers know that I play 1” over the modern standard of a 38” 5 iron so nothing is standard for me. The reason I abandoned the swingweight software is that I discovered too many examples where it gave bad results.

The dry fitting setup also revealed another fact that tells you something about Nippon quality and consistency. Every shaft weighed within a single gram of 105. Nippon steel shafts are “constant weight” that professionals prefer (short irons are the same weight as long irons, despite being a shorter length). This is even true for their parallel tipped models, which is unique in the industry. This is the tightest weight control we have seen at the Golf Lab.

Setting Flex

My first mistake might have been thinking that I could play a PCS Equalizer 6.5 flex value. (That’s the low end of “X”.) I’ve had great results for over a year playing the 6.0 slope line. My gamer set of Bridgestone Joe Model forged cavity backs with Fujikura Vista Pro 90 shafts is flexed at PCS Equalizer 6.0. The 7 iron is 5.5. I like the 7 iron. I should have been thinking about stepping down to 5.5’s but, knowing better I chose to “step up” to 6.5.

For any readers who are new to The Equipment Chronicles in Golf Today, lengthy discussions of flex values, slope, fitting for flex and the PCS Equalizer System have been published in prior Golf Today articles. All prior articles are archived on the Golf Lab website: http://www.calgolftech.com/.

I emphasize that any flex value is, at best, a “relative concept.” The PCS Equalizer says that 4.5 is regular, 5.5 is stiff and so on. However, just because a shaft tests to a certain flex value that you think is regular or stiff has nothing to do with the way it plays. Experienced clubmakers can tell that a player who thinks he plays stiff will actually be best fit with a regular in certain shafts and an “X:” in others. The emerging discipline of determining “zone frequency” reveals differences in playability of shafts from the same manufacturer that are same flex and should be identical, but aren’t. Most experienced clubmakers think every shaft is unique. Flex value is an indicator, not a rule.

Since we bought the Achiever Launch Monitor, we have learned that the only foolproof way to fit for flex is to hit several clubs with different specifications on the Achiever and see which one works the best. We always confirm the indoor testing results on the course. We call our method “informed trial and error”.

The Byron Nelson blades tested to a near perfect 6.5 slope which you now know wouldn’t end up perfect after all. After a couple of weeks of working with the Nippon shafts, I know that they play about a flex stiffer than they test.

Understanding Swingweight

Swingweight is not about weight. Swingweight is about balance and feel. It’s a contrived way to “measure” how a club should feel in your hands. Keep in mind, any measurement can be tricked. The conventional range for swingweight is C-5 to E-0.

A swingweight scale secures the grip under a stop and “measures” the weight of the shaft and head suspended from a fulcrum 14” from the butt. Over the years, swingweight has become a shorthand way to interpret “head feel”. The concept is that the heavier the swingweight, the more head feel in the club. The conventional wisdom says that standard swingweight for men is D-2 and when swingweight gets heavier than D-5, it might be too heavy. The most common swingweights on the PGA Tour are D-1 and D-2.

I’m 6' 5" and play clubs at least 1" over standard. Here’s the problem that’s stumped me for years: The swingweight scale measures swingweight 6 points heavier for every inch you add to the length of a club. So, if you play 1" over length, should you expect to maintain the “Pro Only” swingweight of D-1 or D-2? If so, you have to find or grind a set of heads twelve grams lighter than standard, which is difficult. That’s the way I built my old “dirty birds” with the Apache 40+ shafts. They seemed to work fine at the time but thinking back, I imagine that the heads might have been too light and I might have lost a little power in the shot. I’ll have to go back and see if that’s true.

I set up the Nelson blades thinking (at the time) it would be more “natural” to build over length clubs with heads that hit a D-4 target to get a little more head feel and power into the shot. (Remember that “e=mc2” applies to golf.)

But, in the back of my mind I thought that the logical interpretation of swingweight might be that clubs built 1" over standard would have a “natural” swingweight of D-8. The conventional wisdom says that D-8 is too heavy. But I’m not sure that the “conventional wisdom” was based on actual experience. When you substitute lightweight steel for heavy steel, you can add head weight and create a club with balance and feel totally different from what we’ve experienced in the past. I was inclined to throw conventional wisdom out the door.

After my experience with the Nelson heads, I know that swingweight should also be interpreted as a “relative concept” and that the natural swingweight for a player with 1" over length clubs built with lightweight shafts should be close to D-8. Also, there is no good reason that swingweight has to be exactly the same throughout the set. I think that longer irons should play with a lighter swingweight. But that’s getting ahead of the story.

Alas, I built the Byron Nelson blades out to a perfect D-4 swingweight. At the time, I thought it was a reasonable compromise. It turns out that was my second mistake.

Taking the Byron Nelson Blades to the Course

I played the Nelson blades with my regular partners Craig, John and Heather in a serious practice round. I’ll make it short and sweet. It was a disaster and I won’t bore you with the details. I hit six greens. The only good birdie putt was on eighteen when I hit an 8 iron from 135 -- by then I had learned that the clubs were playing a solid club to club and a half short.

I blamed the heads and dynamics more than the shafts. I just couldn’t hit the clubs. I came away thinking the problem was a combination of head shape, stiff flex and light head weight. I couldn’t wait to get off the course. It was a major disappointment and shows that no matter how much you think a set of clubs will be great, you don’t know for sure until you build and play them.

On Monday, I took the clubs apart and threw the heads back into the parts bin. (If you’re a good player looking for a great set of prototype heads, give me a call.)

Working out the Problems

I wasn’t about go give up on the Nippon shafts. I had too much good experience with very satisfied players. I figured that I had to try once more, this time using a different theory about swingweight and different flex value. For heads I used a set of our standard cavity back forged blades. The second incarnation proved the theory.

This time, I concentrated on the idea that swingweight is head feel in your hands and longer means heavier. Rather than grinding weight off the heads to keep the swingweight at an arbitrary measurement I went with the theory that natural swingweight for 1” over length should be six swingweight points higher. I used enough tip weight to bring swingweight up to D-8. Fair warning: this is totally counterintuitive for most clubmakers. I had a safety net in this plan. If the clubs didn’t work, I could just cut off 1” and they’d be back at D-2.

I was worried that the heavy swingweight would make it difficult to hit the ball with “finesse”. My thought was that a heavy head smashes the ball. It goes a long way but you don’t have control over swingspeed and face angle so you lose distance control and the ability to “work” the ball. That’s not what happened. Although I ended up feeling that the long irons were a little too heavy, there was absolutely no negative effect with the mid and short irons. Normal ball flight was a slight draw but I could get a fade with my usual “right hand block” move.

The heavier heads and different hosel bore depth brought the flex value down to a PCS 5.5, a little softer than I expected. That’s spot on PCS stiff flex. I was interested to find out if the softer flex would result in more dispersion or a ballooning ball flight, both legitimate fears with shafts that are too soft.

Happily, there was no disappointment. I took the new clubs out for a Sunday practice round at Paly. The shafts felt just as stiff as what I remember from the old days of heavy Rifles and S-300’s and 400’s. There was no sign of weakness. It was a windy day so I had the chance to hit a lot of knock down shots. To me, that’s a true test of how a shot holds its line. Get in the wind and see what happens.

My own mental scoring system keeps a statistic on “good birdie putts”. To me a good birdie put is inside of 20 feet. That’s a makeable distance with a low risk for 3 putts. I had eight good birdie putts and 13 GIR which is at the top end of my normal range. Two shots were absolutely extraordinary. A seven iron on two out of the fairway bunker to three feet and another knock down seven iron to six feet on eighteen, to the most impossible pin position on the course. In between I had knock downs into and cross wind that held the line. I even had a couple of shots that weren’t totally perfect and they still crawled onto the green. Overall, distance seemed to be about equal to the Fujikura Vista Pro 90’s, which frankly surprised me. Not bad for the first time out.

The feel was clearly different. I like the squishy feel of graphite. It always seems a little quieter and softer to me. A lot of players think that graphite takes the shock out of the shot. The Nippon shafts don’t let you forget that they are steel. The feel is definitely harsher, but as the day went on and results stayed good, I began to appreciate it. A couple more rounds with similar results and appreciation will turn to admiration.

Confirming the Results

I don’t trust what anybody thinks he sees or feels, including myself. It’s interesting to take a new club to the course before putting it under the scrutiny of the Achiever launch monitor. The only way to really know whether one club outperforms another is to test it electronically and record the results. I wanted to know if my observations on the course would be confirmed. I checked to make sure that both clubs were at exactly the same loft and lie. (They were both 28* and 5* up.) Nippon club was only 3.5 grams heavier in overall weight. I hit two test sets.

The Nippon steel shaft was longer by two yards. (Try seeing that difference at 175 yards!) Both were very consistent on distance control. I think that we’d have to take a larger data sample to make sure that the accuracy indicators such as swing path, face angle and off line deviation were correct, but they were very close. The accuracy seemed to go to graphite, but I’m not sure that the difference was statistically important. Point is, the Nippon steel performed for me very similar to graphite which was surprising. In prior tests of heavy weight steel against graphite there was a solid 10 yard advantage to graphite plus better accuracy.

The results suggest that lightweight steel might be a very good choice for all but the strongest amateur players. My 5 iron swingspeed, for comparison purposes, tests out at 91 MPH with a carry distance of 175 measured on the Achiever. If you are currently playing standard weight steel shafts, you owe it to yourself to test the Nippon lightweight shafts. You might even get a great bargain on a used set of Titleist 762’s.

One More Tweak

We’ve been big fans of the Balance-Certified counter weight system. Jeff Lindner and John Cranston, the rocket scientists from Huntsville, Alabama have renamed themselves “The Balance Boys” which sums up what they’re doing to golf clubs.

We’ve used their sophisticated adjustable counterweight system in drivers and putters with great success but putting them in a complete set of irons presents problems. First, there’s the cost issue. Second, you have to cut off the shafts and install the adapter so it’s a lot of work and you waste the grips. If for any reason you wanted to go back, it is very difficult. Finally, the adapters don’t fit in some graphite shafts. My Fuji VP 90’s have very thick walls and won’t accept the adapters so I haven’t been using the Balance-Certified system in my “gamer” irons.

The Balance Boys have a new invention. It’s a “drop in” weight system for steel shafts. All you have to do is cut a hole in the top of the grip and drop the weight into the shaft. It tightens up perfectly and you get the benefit of counter weighting without all the work. Plus, you don’t have to cut off your shafts or lose your grip. I couldn’t resist dropping one of the 20 g. weights into the Nippon 5 iron I was testing. I felt that familiar extra weight in the hands and the solid feel from cutting down vibration. That was almost enough motivation to get me to play steel again.

I ran a set of test shots on the Achiever and the results were interesting. With a driver, the same swing speed produces a ball speed off the face of the club a couple of miles an hour faster, resulting in three to five yards extra distance. We’ve confirmed that result time and time again with the Achiever. The added benefit is the redistribution of weight, heavy under your hands and heavy in the head. The ability to change the balance and feel of a club to suit a player is the last step in tuning a club.

The 5 iron didn’t show extra distance on the Achiever. However, there was an interesting statistic. The launch angle was more consistent, less than .4% deviation. The accuracy indicators were positive. It only takes about half an hour to “plug” a complete set of irons, and the job is completely reversible. The weights are going to be mounted the next time I take the Nippons to the course. I loved the weights in my old “dirty birds” with the Apache 40+ shafts that were my introduction to graphite. If you just want to try the counter weight system, you can “drop in” the weight for under $50 so you can see for yourself the effects of changing the balance of your clubs.

Are Lightweight Nippon Shafts for Real?

I’m playing this Friday and Saturday after the Golf Today deadline and I’m going to be playing with the Nippons. They’ll have the Balance-Certified weight system installed. They’ll be playing to a 5.5 PCS Flex value. I’ll make a full report next month. Inquiring minds will want to know . . . I think it would be a minor miracle if they knocked the Fuji’s out of the bag, but I’m giving them a very serious test.

There’s more competition for the “Magic Irons” title. I’m getting another set of the Fujikura Fit-On’s ready. I think they’ll go in a new set of PRGR Data heads that I’ve been saving. And I still have the unfinished business with Penley. It will be an interesting month.

Driver Update

I built three drivers this month that each had a brief spell in the bag but didn’t make the cut. The Magic Driver is still the Titleist LFE with the Speeder 757.

The first contender was a Crown Jewel 400 cc on the Aldila “Lizard” shaft. I took it to Poppy Hills for a practice round. Bombed it on the range. Killed the first drive on three. After that, it died. I topped one on four, got it in the trees on five and seven and snapped a couple out of bounds on ten. I blamed the closed face or the slightly too stiff shaft. It was gone by thirteen. My Magic Driver was in the bag and took over. The Crown Jewel head is the darling of the Golf Equipment Aficionados forum on Delphiforums.com so I’m going to try again, but I’m going to ask John Lee to pick me a “square” head. The shaft frequency shows that even a few cycles can make a difference. I flexed the Lizard out to 258 cycles at 45". I’m going to try again, next time at about 252. The Lizard is another shaft that plays stiffer than it tests.

Second was the Tommy Armour “forged persimmon” head that I picked up on eBay because Patrick raved about it for days. It was cheap on eBay. I mounted one of the new Nippon Shaft Company NS PRO GT 600 graphite shafts. These are the new generation of “Speeder Beaters”. They might have a chance to beat the Speeder since it’s a Japanese product actually made in Japan. I took the setup out for one round at Paly, it was solid. If you’re looking for a fabulous value in an OEM head, I highly recommend the Armour. And, if you want to try a new shaft that might just be the “poor man’s Speeder”, find the NS PRO GT. It comes in 50, 60 and 70 gram weights to fit a variety of swings and clubs. I liked the feel, but the setup didn’t quite deliver the distance and forced me to muscle it too much. Like the Lizard, I’m going to build the next one out a few cycles softer. Stay tuned.

Finally, I thought I’d do a good comparative test between the Titleist LFE and the JVS. These were hot property a year ago and the first attempt by Titleist to produce a specific ball flight from head design. The prices are down so if you’re not ready to shell out for a 983 they’re a reasonable second choice. The LFE was supposed to be “fade bias” and the JVS “draw bias”. I built out a JVS head with a Speeder 757 as close as possible to the one I have in my “Magic” LFE to see the difference for myself. Surprise, the JVS head is so closed, it almost looks silly. I couldn’t believe that I never took a really close look. Anyway, it got six drives in a Sunday round at Paly. They all went left. No surprise. The JVS is in the demo bag at the Golf Lab. If you’re a slicer, the JVS will be good medicine.

I’d better get back to the Lab. See you next month.

Leith Anderson is a partner in the Golf Lab in Palo Alto. He will answer all questions related to clubmaking and clubfitting personally. Contact Leith Anderson by email: Leith@calgolftech.com. Cell phone 650-743-2816.