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Golf Equipment Chronicles 2004 (Part 1)

Golf Equipment Chronicles: About Drivers & Testing Premium Iron Shafts

This was a very productive month with a lot to report. I built six sets of irons trying to answer certain questions that I’ve been wondering about. Then, I changed my mind (again) about drivers.

Readers who have been following this saga know that I’ve been loyal to my Magic Titleist LFE 8.5¡ with a Speeder 757 R flex, PUREd, “Plugged” and powder coated. I played it in every tournament round all summer. I played my best in 30 years. My last NCGA card showed an index of 2.1 which is clearly better than my real ability. What can I say except that it’s a reliable driver? But the Giants didn’t make an offer to Rich Aurelia and the Magic Driver is a free agent too. I’m going long.

You’re going to want to know what’s behind this sudden change of heart. I admit I’ve been the proponent of “control” by snipping length off of standard 45" drivers for almost two years. I’ve had great results applying that advice to my own game. It’s a fair question to ask: “what changed?”

It’s all about distance. For the last year, we have been fitting seniors at the Golf Lab with drivers in 47" and 48" lengths. Our theory has been that when you begin to get older and you’re losing distance, the last resort is going to a longer driver. We always check out a player’s swing and make sure that he hits plenty of demos, both with the Achiever launch monitor, at the range and on the course to make sure he can handle the club, it really does go farther and he doesn’t give up too much control. Fitting and hitting an array of test clubs is important if you’re trying to find a long driver that works for you. There’s no such thing as “off the rack” in long drivers. You’re going to have to spend some time finding the right one.

The results have been phenomenal. A wide range of players from 35 to 83 years old have been successful playing longer drivers. They report getting from 15-30 yards increase in distance with very little loss of control. The “rule of thumb” from the long drive circuit is that each inch should be worth 10-15 yards in increased distance. We think that amateurs should expect a little less.

I’ve experimented a lot but I haven’t made the change to a long driver myself. I enjoyed playing with them in casual rounds, but I’ve been afraid of the wild shot in a tournament that I would regret. But, thinking back about the summer, the Magic Driver was certainly not immune from the wild shot syndrome.

Even though I’m well into the senior age group, I don’t like to think of myself as incapable of keeping up with good younger players. And I’ve been trying. For the last few weeks I started a regular game with Heather, Patrick “Iron Byron” and Diego “The Stallion.” That pushed me over the edge. I just can’t accept hitting a drive I’m pretty happy with and watching the younger guys march another 75 yards down the fairway.

Then two things happened that sealed the deal. First, I had a chance to work with Eric Jones, who just won the Remax World Long Drive Championship, Senior Division. Eric’s victory is letting him live the dream we’ve all had. Three months ago he never thought about a career in golf. Even though he was a top amateur, Stanford Varsity player and assistant golf coach he was earning a living as an entrepreneur, software developer and wine consultant. Then he “walked on and won” the Senior World Championship. Our work convinced me that playing a long driver is a very realistic option for any capable amateur. Eric currently plays a 52" driver in competition but takes a 47.5" driver to the course.

Second, I revived one of my experiments from earlier this summer, a 47" Accuflex Vizion with an Alpha Reaction 7.5¡ V2 head and played it against Patrick and Diego. I learned enough from Eric to stay close to the kids. Bottom line: I’m absolutely convinced that with a little more advice I’ll be able to add distance to my drives without significant loss of control. Most important, I’ll have the confidence to play a long club in competition.

Keys for Success with Long Drivers
After working with Eric in several lengthy sessions, I realized that I was making a series of small mistakes in my experiments with long drivers that made the results OK, but not good enough to convince me to take the plunge. Now, with a clear idea of the direction I need to go, I’m ready to make a commitment to play a long driver in competition in 2004. Here are the changes I’m going to make.

Shaft Type and Weight
In the past, I’ve reported that I hit record length drives with the wind but the long driver didn’t hold up into the wind. Eric agreed that it was likely a problem with the shaft. I had been using the Accuflex Vizion. That’s an ultra lightweight (55g.) shaft that’s filament wound. Some shaft experts I’ve talked to have criticized filament wound shafts for long drivers. They say that while they may be uniform in construction and consistent, they don’t seem to have the strength of a more conventional sheet wrapped shaft. As for weight, Eric is passionate about light weight. He won the World Championship by a total of 29 inches. At 381 yards, it’s hard to imagine the minuscule increment of force that gets you 29 extra inches. With that margin of error, Eric is trying to cut every fraction of a gram possible.

Eric favors the ultra light weight Harrison shafts. They weigh 50 grams in 50-inch lengths. I’m surely going to experiment with them as well as the Penley and new Accuflex models. This is going to be a very interesting period. After working with a lot of Fujikura products last year, I wonder if we can get a 47" Speeder?

In the past, I’ve used shafts that were patterned after the models used in long drive competitions but produced so that ordinary amateurs would have a “look alike” shaft. I’m going with the longer (and more expensive) shafts built for the long drive tour. Eric is quick to express his belief in the benefit of new technology. He knows that it makes a difference.

Shaft Flex
One of the continuing mysteries of long drivers is how to judge flex. One thing is clear, the conventional method that we use of testing the butt flex and converting that to a PCS Equalizer Flex Value does not work. If you read the slope line in the normal way, you are going to get a flex much softer than required. In the world of regular length drivers, there’s almost no such thing as too soft. In the world of long drivers, it is imperative to find a shaft that has plenty of backbone.

When Eric was trying to find a long driver that worked for him, he returned time and again to his clubmaker, Jerry Trask at DynamicGolf.com in Fremont to cut more and more off of the tip to stiffen it up. To compensate for the aggressive tip trimming, they eventually had to extend the butt of the shaft with a plug so they could get the shaft up to the current 52" limit imposed by the Long Drivers of America (LDA). I am convinced that I have been unnecessarily afraid of a shaft that is too stiff. I will be trying much stiffer flexes and testing them on the Achiever launch monitor to see if I can find the one that works the best. I’ll narrow the field indoors and then go to the range and the course.

Head Size and Loft
I have been too conservative on head size. In my experiments I have used the Alpha Reaction V2 400 cc. I chose it primarily because it seems to have a flatter lie angle which seemed to fit me better with the long driver. But it is a mistake to use a smaller head. The head size of choice is 450 cc plus or minus a little. Last year the LDA Open Division Winner was the SMT Deep Bore at 455 cc. This year, Eric won with the 460 cc Alpha Reaction C-830. The bigger the head, the easier it is to hit. At the end of a long shaft, even a “brick on a stick” doesn’t look that big.

Eric uses a 6¡ driver most of the time and won the World Championship on his last swing with a 5¡. In the past, I’ve started with 10¡ heads and gradually worked down to 7.5¡. I tried a 6¡ but couldn’t get the right trajectory. One of Eric’s keys to finding success is fitting. Fitting goes beyond getting a shaft matched to a head. You can’t possibly know what loft will produce the right trajectory and spin. Not only that, some days you will require a different loft depending on the wind conditions and temperature. Consequently, you need the help of a clubmaker who can provide you with a variety of lofts in your chosen head style so you can find out what works for you.

Eric has a clear favorite in heads. He likes Alpha Reaction. More than anything, it’s a question of feel and confidence. The Alpha Reaction head has a high domed crown which puts a little more weight higher in the head which Eric liked for its ability to produce a boring shot. The crowned head design tends to move the sweet spot a little higher and out on the face to improve launch angle, increase flight time and maximize “release” so that balls bound forward after they hit the ground. To win, a ball has to run. Fair to say, Eric didn’t try every head on the market and he’s discussing a sponsorship with Alpha Reaction (Kent Sports) so his enthusiasm is easy to understand.

For me, I’ll be sure to try the Alpha Reaction heads. We’ve also had great results with SMT so this will be fun to try to see which one suits my eye and produces the best results.

Tee Height
Pay close attention to this revelation.

Working with Eric on the Achiever, we were a little perplexed. On the Long Drive tee line, Eric knows that he can reach swingspeeds in the high 130 MPH range. In our early testing on the Achiever, Eric complained that the tee height was a little too low. Alas, there was nothing we could do about that because the Achiever is programmed to understand four preset tee heights. The tallest one is a little over 2". Eric uses a taller tee. We were getting swingspeeds that topped out in the low 130’s. We began to suspect the accuracy of the Achiever. That wouldn’t have been a surprise to me, coming out of the high tech industry that Focaltron, the manufacturer of the Achiever, didn’t anticipate measuring swingspeeds of 138 MPH and ball speeds of 190 MPH. It’s only software.

Toward the end of one evening, we started experimenting with a taller tee inserted into the standard Achiever tee. When Eric got comfortable with the tee height, he started sweeping “up and out” catching the ball on the upswing. The result was an immediate and significant in swing speed. He topped out at 148 MPH. He started thinking again about picking up a few more MPH and challenging Jason Zubek, the current swingspeed leader who can swing his driver at 155 MPH. If Eric chooses to compete in the Open Division the prize money to the winner is $70,000. Eric won $23,000 by taking the Senior Division.

The point is, however you’re teeing the ball today, try to get it higher. This is likely to require quite a bit of practice. However, it will be easier to catch the ball on the face of the club if you go to the 450 cc size.

Swing Changes
Here’s one of the things that’s going to be more of a challenge. Those of us who learned golf a long time ago have trained ourselves to limit movement away from the ball (swing inside the cylinder). Our swings call for the right shoulder to pass under the chin. The finish is hands high with the back bent into a “reverse C.” We tried to copy Johnny Miller in his heyday.

The new method, and the method employed by Eric starts with an erect stance, a straight spine angle and a move through the ball that moves the right shoulder laterally forward. The finish is much lower and above all, you finish with your spine straight. Annika Sorenstam is a good example of the modern move. As Eric moves through the ball, he rolls his forearms releasing through the ball. His swing is highly timing dependent. He can snap it left or hang it high right if he’s slightly off. If he’s on, he sails it over the net at the Palo Alto driving range. The good news is that you only need one out of six to hit the “grid.” You hope that’s your best shot.

I’m not going to try to make the changes myself. Eric is going into the business coaching players who want to improve their game. I’ll get in that line. If you’re interested in working with a World Champion to increase your distance, you can contact Eric through his website at http://www.longdrivechamp.com/. It stands to reason that if you want to hit it longer and you’re looking for coaching, you ought to find a coach who hits it long.

Tuning the Magic Driver
With Eric looking to extend his uncomfortable margin of 22 inches to repeat as the Senior World Champion, he is understandably looking for any edge, no matter how small. He was interested in the Golf Lab’s “Driver Tuning” which consists of SST PUREing the shaft and altering the balance of the club with Balance-Certified back weights. Our first experiment was with a Harrison Striper and 6¡ Alpha Reaction 830 head. This was not a “go to” driver that would be a first choice for competition. That honor would go to a driver built with the more exotic and lighter weight shafts.

Eric was troubled by the Harrison Striper. He felt that when he made a good pass, he could feel a harmonic vibration in the shaft that made him think he was losing a little power. As an experiment, we PUREd the shaft. We also installed the Balance-Certified “Power Plug.” PUREing is about stabilizing the shaft and hitting the ball on the sweet spot. Backweighting is about increasing ball speed off the face. Alas, we made a fatal mistake. We changed two variables at the same time.

Sure enough, PUREing stabilized the shaft. To Eric’s sensitive feel, PUREing eliminated the unwanted vibration. At the range he was convinced that the shaft delivered more solid shots which translated to straighter shots. Follow up testing with Eric’s “play” club, a 47.5" Accuflex V2 with an Alpha Reaction 7.5¡ head clearly showed that PUREing reduced sidespin and straightened the pattern. Of course, the results will have to be confirmed with more testing in the “real world” of the driving range and golf course.

The effect of the Balance-Certified back weight was not quite as certain. In the second round of tests we were careful to change only one variable at a time. Eric hit two series of test shots with his “play” driver before PUREing. We recorded the results. We then PUREd the club and hit two more series. The results showed substantially straighter patterns with less sidespin. The average distances and swingspeed increased with the PUREd club. The differences were not enormous, but significant. Eric’s best sequence showed an average swingspeed of 132 MPH and ball speed of 182 MPH. He felt that was very good, considering it was a 47.5" driver.

We then added the backweight adapter and ran a series of drives with each weight. The 30 gram weight performed the best, but it did not exceed the numbers of the club with no weight installed. Further, the shot pattern showed more dispersion. It was clearly not a slam dunk. The one bright spot was that when Eric choked up on his driver, which he does frequently to make sure he hits the grid, the numbers seemed to be a little higher than we expected. We resolved to try an experiment with the backweights in a 52" driver to see if they improved performance “choked up.” In the next few weeks, Eric will continue testing outdoors to see if the weights have an effect on ball flight. He’s looking for a parabolic draw that hits the ground hard and bounces. He’s holding out hope that the weights will contribute to that.

Where Do We Go From Here?
The one undeniable conclusion from the sessions is that the Long Drive industry is primitive when it comes to understanding their equipment. The state of the art in long driver fitting today is to get a bag full of clubs and try to find the one that suits you best by slamming shots at the range. We know that method is at best inefficient and at worst inaccurate. Eric was enthusiastic about employing the Achiever to help him find the setup that works the best. Also, it’s obvious that PUREing stabilizes the shaft and improves accuracy. Employing state of the art technology will make the Search for the Magic (Long) Driver much easier to conduct.

We have some ideas. The most promising is to get lighter heads. Long drivers test out with very high swingweights due to their length. Most heads, even for the LDA weigh in the 195-198 gram range. If you’re looking for the lightest overall weight and the highest swingspeed, it stands to reason that a lighter head would help produce that. We’ll find out, with the help of the Achiever. Eric was even willing to go to the extreme of doing without a ferrule (2g.) and trimming a couple of inches off the grip to get the weight down. Then there’s the question of shaft length. Testing with Eric’s play club showed that a shorter length could get pretty close to the 52" competition driver. Is it necessary to go all the way to 52"? We need to find that out. Plus, there’s the continuing question about backweighting.

As this experiment goes on, with me and with Eric, we will undoubtedly learn what works the best and what feels the best. We will try to confirm feel with quantitative data from the Achiever. Fair warning, this might take some time. Look for an update next month but detail may take longer. As you can tell, it’s a subject of enormous interest.

Exotic Iron Shafts (Part III)
I was interested in two things building out this month’s demo iron sets. First, can I get the feel and power of the Fujikura Vista Pro 90 iron shafts with any other exotic shaft? Second, can I discover any more insight about relative swingweight for overlength clubs? We know that the PGA Tour pros favor D-1 and D-2 swingweights in standard length clubs. What represents an equivalent swingweight in a 1" overlength club? Last month I speculated that a D-6 or D-7 would represent an equivalent feel in overlength clubs.

A secondary interest was to compare the feel and performance of various iron heads. This is one of the unexplored areas in clubmaking. The conventional wisdom says that the head doesn’t really matter much. I’ve come to think that it really means we just haven’t figured out any scientific way to tell the difference. At this point, it seems like a huge trial and error effort. Perhaps with the imminent release of Tom Wishon’s Moment of Inertia (MOI) software and system in the next couple of weeks we’ll begin to find ways we can measure head performance.

Project X with Bailiwick Heads
There’s a lot of buzz around Project X (PX) shafts. Royal Precision expects that half of their professional staff will be playing them on Tour next year. They have been in the winner’s circle, most recently with Padraig Harrington in Hong Kong. We’ve fitted a few local professionals and top amateurs and they’ve all been satisfied. I’ve been aching to try them.

The Project X (PX) 5.0 flex shafts finally shipped. I’ve been avoiding overly stiff shafts. Since the PX shafts test out close to 1.5 flexes stiffer than marked and until now have only been available in 5.5 and 6.5 flexes, I just didn’t want to waste time with shafts that were too stiff. The early comment on PX shafts has been that they get the ball up, sometimes a little too much. That leads to a possible problem if you’re trying to soften the flex by softstepping. (The 2 iron shaft goes in the 3 iron.)

I decided to softstep the PX irons anyway. I thought that because the PX shafts were manufactured on a different mandrel than standard rifles, with a taper that extends close to the tip, that they might not kick the ball too high. I wanted to start with a flex that made sense to me, as measured by the PCS Equalizer.

I matched the PX shafts up with as set of Bailiwick forged heads. The Bailiwick heads were the last gasp of the Hoffman Foundry in Tennessee that used to do most of the work for American companies, before they moved forging off shore. I was testing the top end of the swingweight range. The finished irons measured out at E-2 swingweight. Bottom line: that’s too heavy. On the course, I lost about 10 yards. Trajectory didn’t seem to be too high. Feel was OK. None of that mattered. The clubs didn’t go. I’m going to keep the shafts and swap out the heads for a lighter weight set. I didn’t make any breakthroughs the first pass but look for a complete evaluation of the PX shafts next month.

Apache MFS 115 with PRGR DATA heads
Last month I discussed the new Apache MFS 115 shafts and their extraordinary consistency. I built out a full set of 115’s matched with a set of PRGR data heads. The PRGR heads were very light and I was testing the lower end of the swingweight range. The initial build came to D-3. I took them to the course and they were just too light. Once again, I lost about 10 yards in carry distance. I added lead tape to the heads and took them out again. This time, I didn’t like the feel. I thought of it as “tinny.”

No breakthrough. I still like the shafts for the way they build out. They turn into a near-perfect set if you’re looking for consistent flex and excellent PUREing. However, the feel just wasn’t there. I couldn’t get excited.

I think that a set of the Bridgestone Joe Model heads might match up well with the Apache MFS 115 shafts. Then I’ll know the feel for sure. Stay tuned for this one. I’ll make a report with different heads next month. Still, no breakthrough.

Fujikura VP 90’s with PIXL heads
We had a minor bright spot here. This was less about the shafts than the heads. I built them out to a 5.5 PCS Equalizer flex value. That’s half a flex softer than I’ve been playing. I was interested to see if I could feel half a flex difference in the VP 90 shafts. Bottom line: I can’t. Distance was just about what I expected.

I played two rounds with this set. I was surprised by the long irons. Despite the fact that they are small, no offset blades patterned after MP-29’s, they went surprisingly straight. The story behind PIXL is that they are supposed to go straighter. It would be interesting if we could figure out how to prove that claim.

Accuflex Icon V2 Shafts with Bailiwick Heads
Accuflex has done a fabulous job with its Icon V2 shaft. Tom Watson played it all summer and brought the company a lot of money when he won two Senior Majors and almost everything else. Accuflex responded by donating a portion of the sales to the fight against ADS.

They took a shot of leveraging their Icon success by producing an iron shaft with the same graphics. Steve Zunich sent me a set and I made them up with a set of the Bailiwick heads. As usual with Accuflex products they PUREd up great.

There were a couple of problems. First, the shafts are very light. The R flex is around 70 grams and the S flex a little under 80. That makes it a challenge to get the swingweights high enough but I had a heavy set of heads. We’re hearing more and more about lightweight graphite shafts in irons and I wanted to see how this setup felt. The second problem is that the flexes are soft. By the time I PUREd and dry-fitted the set of heads, the best I could do in a 1" over set was to bring the flex up to a PCS 4.5 or spot on regular. That was using the S flex shafts. I made up the set anyway and took them to the range. I was also interested to find out if I could play a regular flex.

I liked the feel. I liked the sound. I liked the ball flight. I think that for another player they could be a good shaft, but for a strong player, they are too light. My shots were dropping off a little too much to the right. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the symptom of a shaft that is too soft is not always missing left. I find it is much more common for a shaft that is too weak to leave the ball right. I found out one more thing about the Icon shafts. In testing for flex, if I clamped the shafts an inch down, simulating a standard length club, the shafts came up a flex. That is, at standard length, the shafts tested out to Stiff, just as they should. It is relatively common for shafts to get softer as they get longer; these do. I’m going to cut them down and put them in our demo pool. Before long, we’ll get some more feedback on playability. But for now, all we can say is that they won’t make it in overlength clubs for a strong player.

Heather’s Sets
Heather is one of the regulars at the Golf Lab. She plays most of the tournaments at Palo Alto. A former professional, she hits the ball like a pro. But she doesn’t hit the ball a long way. Her swingspeed places her about halfway between a men’s regular and men’s senior flex (PCS 4.0). We play a lot of golf together.

Last year, I built her a set of Apache 40+ shaft on our Golf Lab heads, flexed at a PCS 3.8 and Heather played them all summer. Her game improved. Scores got better, handicap came down. This year we started thinking about getting the trajectory a little higher. We built out a set of Apache 30+ shafts (PCS 4.0) matched to Raven heads. The set looked and felt terrific but it was a disappointment on the course. The ball went higher, but it also fell a little short.

We then tried a second set built out with the same Apache 30+ shafts, this time matched up to a set of Infiniti 302 heads. Breakthrough. Ballflight went up and distance increased. Better, Heather had an improvement in the elusive “feel.” The first time out with the Apache/Infiniti combo, she lipped a short gap wedge pitch, and stiffed a gap wedge and seven iron from the fairway. We’ve got a winner.

Here’s what we learned. First and most interesting, the head does matter. Heather played Pings for years. The Infiniti’s have a shape similar to the early Pings. We don’t know if it was a higher center of gravity or just the shape that suited her eye, but the Infiniti’s performed. Second, we learned once again that there is very little correlation between price and quality in the golf business. Unfortunately, when you have no basis for judging quality but you want the best you are tempted to choose the most expensive. Over and over again, the Apache 30+ shafts test out absolutely top quality. If you’re a player with an average to slow swingspeed and want your irons to go higher, the 30+ shaft is impossible to beat.

The PGA Merchandise Show
The Big Show is coming up at the end of the month. There’s going to be a lot of exciting new products this year. We’ll have total and complete show coverage in March. Meantime, take a deep breath. It’s not too long until Spring.

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.