What's new on the West Coast

Golf Equipment Chronicles 2004 (Part 9)

Copyright 2004 by Leith Anderson
All rights reserved
Originally appeared in September 2004 issue of Golf Today

Golf Equipment.Chronicles: Face Angle Fixation while Contemplating My Belly (Putter)

I played a lot of golf in July and August. There were plenty of tournaments, the NCGA 12 Man Match Play, the Palo Alto Stroke Play and the PAGC Invitational. Sadly, I don’t have any crystal to show for the effort. If Tiger can have a slump and not be embarrassed, so can I. The best I can say is that I experienced flashes of brilliance and then some of the usual disappointment. Those of us who are veterans are supposed to say something like “It’s all about getting yourself in position to choke.” I did that too.

The competitive highlight was finishing one stroke back for both low gross and low net at the Palo Alto Stroke Play. One less mistake in two days and I’d have the tournament score sheet posted on the wall at the Golf Lab.

There wasn’t a lot of change in my bag. It’s not a good idea to play a new club for the first time in a tournament -- exciting, but not smart. That doesn’t mean I didn’t swap out individual clubs as fast as usual, but I stuck with the main categories -- Fujikura driver shafts, utilities, belly putters and especially the Ping Eye 3’s shafted up with Royal Precision PX (Project X) 5.0 shafts, decked out with Balance-Certified counterweights. For the most part, I was “tinkering and tuning.” Readers will remember how enthusiastic I’ve been about graphite in my irons. Alas, I have a new love affair going with the PX shafts. I didn’t change my mind; I just found something that works better for me -- at least for now.

I’m kind of glad the summer tournament season is winding down because I really like playing with a new set every week. That’s the only significant benefit of becoming a clubmaker.

Refining My Irons
Last month it was an experiment. This month I’m seriously refining my Ping Eye 3 PX setup. I’m not motivated to build out any new irons for the time being, including the set of Miura heads that are waiting for me on the bench. The PX Pings are the best set of irons that I’ve had to date. When you get a set like that, you just want to keep playing them.

On Tour, Project X shafts are gaining momentum. Royal Precision announced six of the top 10 finishers at the International played RP shafts. The winner, Rod Pampling was using PX. That adds to the well-advertised success of Phil Mickelson, another PX devotee this year. The technical story is that PX shafts are engineered in a new design, a “stepless” constant taper. That’s supposed to create a smoother, more constant bend for better feel and accuracy. True Temper (the great RP rival) shafts are manufactured in a “step” pattern. The RP angle is that steps create weak points in a shaft which causes “stress risers.” That’s pretty scary; I wish I knew what it means. Which one is better? If you really want to know, you have to try for yourself. Some custom golf shops will have complete demo sets that you can take to your course. That’s the best way. If you ask nicely, maybe I’ll loan you mine.

I had more motivation. On my second day with the PX Pings, playing Palo Alto Muni, I came to the eighth hole with the wind blowing hard from the north. We were playing black tees from 192 yards. I hit a perfect five iron. I mean really perfect. We saw it hit the green and roll straight into the hole for my first ever hole in one. That’s enough to make you like a new set of clubs a lot more.

I chose the Ping heads because I play a set based on a 39” 5 iron. That’s somewhere between 1” and 1.5” over “standard” depending on which standard you choose as a benchmark. Most players don’t know that standard iron heads weigh the same -- or at least they are designed to weigh the same. (A “standard” 5 iron weighs 253 grams and each successive head is supposed to be seven grams heavier or lighter.) That standard presents a problem if you need anything except a set of irons based on a 38” 5 iron mounted on a steel shaft that weighs about 125 grams. That combination with a rubber grip gets you a set of clubs that swingweights to D-1, plus or minus a point or two depending on final manufacturers’ tolerances. That’s the specification that major manufacturers think is the very best setup for every golfer in America.

If you decide to trade in heavy steel shafts for lightweight graphite shafts, swingweight goes down. You calculate the decrease by subtracting the weight of the lighter shaft from the heavier and then dividing by eight. Swapping a 125 gram steel shaft for an 85 gram graphite shaft takes 40 grams off of the total (in clubmaker jargon “static”) weight of the club. Divide by eight and you lose 5 swingweight points. Your D-1 becomes a C-6. Who would buy a set of C-6 irons? To compensate, most manufacturers simply make their graphite shafted clubs 1” longer. Each extra inch of length increases swingweight by six points. Just like magic, you’re back up to the low “D” swingweight range.

That’s been one of my pet peeves for years. In our clubfitting experience at the Golf Lab, making solid contact is more dependent on correct club length than any other factor. It simply makes no sense to say a player who plays a 38” club in steel should play a 39” club in graphite. It is only “good business” for manufacturers who like to keep their inventory costs down.

Some manufacturers are responding by creating irons based on a head weight progression several grams heavier than “standard.” KZG was the first to market heavier heads, their MC IIx model. Using heads 8-12 grams heavier than standard, you can build clubs with lightweight graphite shafts at normal lengths and swingweights. Another method is employed by Golfsmith and Tom Wishon Golf Technology. They designed a “weight port” into the hosel of their irons that can accept tungsten or lead plugs.

The problem is just the opposite if you want to build longer clubs. When I was building my sets with graphite shafts I could use standard weight iron heads and come out with clubs that had good balance and proper swingweight using standard heads. Not so with heavier steel shafts. If you want to use steel shafts and build over length clubs, you have to find a way to get heads that are eight to 10 grams lighter than standard. Over the years, I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get lighter heads. One option is to find a set of classic forged blades and send them out to strip off the chrome. When they come back, I grind them down carefully to preserve the shape but reduce the weight. Then, I send them back out for replating. That’s a very expensive and tedious operation. You do get some very classy irons for your trouble.

I chose the Pings because they’re nice shape but a little out of date so you can find them cheap on eBay. They are cast, so all you have to do is grind them down to the weight you want, polish them back up and you’re good to go. In the process, I also change the sole shape a little to help them work better around the unique flora of the Palo Alto Muni. I also wanted to see if I could make Karsten Solheim flinch in his grave if he knew someone was messing with his Pings. Bob and I feel like there’s no club you can’t help with a little trip to the grinder.

So far, it’s worked out great. Not only did I make that hole in one, I also have hit the most consistent iron shots in years. Players who have converted to PX shafts report the same results. PX shafts are described by a soft “cushy” feel, great distance control and very little dispersion. The big breakthrough for amateurs has been Royal Precision releasing a softer flex. Their 5.0 flex still tests out to 6.5 on our Professional Clubmakers’ Society Equalizer system, so they’re really stout. But a good player can handle them. If your prior experience has been with PX 5.5’s and 6.5’s and you hated them, give a softer set a try.

The Next Step: Testing Head Shape
I’ve been hitting my irons so well lately that it’s made me think I might be improving. The Eye 3 O Size irons have a pretty strong offset hosel which I convinced myself I needed. There’s strong wind around the courses I play and you have to hit a lot of knock-down shots. I have always felt it was a lot more difficult to hit knock-down shots with offset irons. The compound angle is hard to figure out. The danger is missing left.

So I went back to eBay and picked up another set of maroon dot Ping Eye 3’s, this time the blade model. They are a little more compact with a straight hosel. They’re heavy so I can work them over on the grinder. I’m making them up with an identical set of SST PUREd, PX 5.0 shafts. This will be my first test comparing the playability of heads testing with identical swingweights and shafts. Most clubmakers are fixated by shafts, asserting that the shaft is the “engine” of the club. But recently, a couple of respected clubmakers, Tom Wishon and Dana Upshaw began to call attention to the crucial importance of head design. Tom even went so far in his last newsletter to categorically state that the shaft is NOT the engine, but rather the transmission. That might be an esoteric distinction but it focuses on the importance of getting the right head, the right shaft and making sure that the balance of the club is correct. If you’re interested in technical issues concerning clubmaking, check out www.wishongolf.com. Tom is the patron saint of clubmakers.

I’m keen to give you a report next month on how the great “Return to Blades” experiment came out. This might turn out to be an interesting “combo set.”

Balance-Certified Counter Weights
I’ve been playing with a Balance-Certified (B-C) counter weight system in my putter and all of my drivers for the last couple of years. I’ve covered the story in previous articles which are archived on www.calgolf
tech.com. The first set of graphite irons that I made -- the “dirty birds” -- had the counterweight system installed and I loved them. Since that time I went deeper and deeper into graphite and left the counterweights behind. It had nothing to do with whether the system worked or not, it’s just that most graphite iron shafts can’t accommodate the weight system. They don’t fit.

We’ve tested the B-C system extensively with our Achiever launch monitor. Most of the time, we pick up a small increase in swing speed, usually one or two miles an hour. We record an increase in ball speed almost every time. That works out to a couple of extra steps down the fairway. The B-C system is sometimes dramatically better for women and seniors playing over length drivers.

The discussion of counter weighting always generates the question, “What about swingweight?” Swingweight goes down. The factor is one point for every four grams of weight in the grip. If you have a 28-gram counterweight, that’s seven swingweight points. But, since the weight is so far back under the grip, the feel of the head in your hands doesn’t change. If anything, the weight under your hands gives you a little more control of the head.

The B-C system was invented by a couple of rocket scientists from NASA who live in Birmingham, AL. The interesting thing about Jeff Lindner and John Cranston (the “Balance Boys”) is that they’ve continually reinvented and improved their system. The current model is a “drop in” configuration. All you have to do to test them out is cut a neat circular hole in the top of your grip, drop in the weight, tighten it up and you’re good to go. Worst case, you don’t like it and you have to replace the grip. The weights are removable and reusable and can be reinstalled in any club. The old model required removing the grip, cutting the shaft 0.5”, installing the adapter and then regripping. Lots more rigmarole.

The Ping PX set got the counterweights. I think that the weights do two things: first they feel more solid. It might be less vibration or changing the balance, but there seems to be more power in the shot. It can take a little time to get used to that. In one of my tournament rounds, my drive ended up in a divot. The shot was into the wind. I drilled a 9 iron. I was holding my finish waiting for the ball to come down next to the pin. It flew the green. That was 140 yards into a pretty strong wind -- a good 15 yards longer than I expected. That leads to my second finding. I think that shots hold their line better in the wind. The trajectory might be a little flatter. If your iron shots balloon, the weights are very likely to bring your trajectory down. If you’re looking for something that might improve your iron game, you should give counter weighting a try.

Follow-up on the Utility Wood Project
Since the British Open, the Sonartec MD has been the second hottest club in the world after the Taylor Made R-7. They’ve been selling steadily at the Golf Lab, mostly fitted with the UST Irod shaft but available with any shaft of your choice. If you’re thinking about making the move to utilities, your choice is going to be driven by whether you like the look of woods or irons in your longer clubs. I have always thought I was a better long iron player, so the MD looks good to my eye.

I had the MD in my bag most of the month, alternating between the 19¡, 21¡ and 23¡ models. I had the best results with the 23¡ which was a good 3 iron replacement. A solid strike flies 200 yards. You really can’t miss with the MD. Trajectory is lower than you expect.

Buy the end of the month, I had a different setup in my bag. I’m in a new aggressive mode after playing with the young guys who always go for the par 5’s in two. I went with the Advanced Golf Technology (AGT) Supernova 3 wood mounted on a Fujikura Pros3 shaft. AGT is a very small company with a developing reputation. This is a fairway wood with a serious distance story. The face is a specially treated Aermet metal that promises a strong rebound effect. I’ve played the 5 wood for several months with surprising results. I’ve had a couple of rounds with the Supernova 3 wood and it has performed. In one of the NCGA 12 Man matches, playing against a strong opponent, I hit the 15th green at Palo Alto from a place in the fairway that I though was out of range. The Supernova is a medium deep faced design that also works off the tee. Highly recommended.

My 5 wood choice is a Sonartec SS-07. For me, the 5 wood is a finesse club. I want to be able to fade or draw reliably. I also need it out of the rough for maximum distance. That requires a deeper face. The SS-07’s were designed with a “tour” hosel that can be bent. I bent mine a couple of degrees up, matching my iron lies. Getting the correct lie angle, even on fairway woods, definitely improves your ability to make solid contact. Most manufacturers think that every golfer in America should play fairway woods with the same lie angle. I don’t think so. If you’re taller or shorter than “standard”, the Sonartec SS-07 is a good choice because you can bend it to fit your swing.

I’ve been playing the Sonartec NP-99 7 wood for the last couple of months. It’s good, but it’s gone. The KZG Cobalt is in the bag. Once again, it was a choice based on face depth and shape. The NP-99 is shallow and radiused. For me, the 7 wood is a strong 3 iron replacement. I want it for tee shots on long par 3’s. For tee shots, you need a little more face depth and I like a straighter face angle. KZG has been known for classic fairway wood shapes and the new Cobalt continues the legacy.

This odyssey illustrates that fairway metals and utility clubs should be chosen for the specific shots you know you’ll need on YOUR course. I think it is a beginner’s mistake to put a matched set of fairway metals in the bag. If you think through the shots you’re going to need, you’ll pick your fairways very carefully. Don’t be afraid to be different.

There’s one more candidate club that hasn’t won a permanent place in my bag (yet) but is the most popular fairway metal at the Golf Lab. It’s the LaJolla Knife. This is the club that’s all over the Golf Channel infomercials. We call it the “get out of jail” club. It is made for getting the ball out of the rough and bare lies. It’s still good off the tee. If you find yourself needing maximum distance from the rough on long par 4’s and par 5’s, you should check out the Knife.

Contemplating My Belly
When I get on a kick to figure something out, I pull out the stops. Choosing the right style of any club is fruitless if all you’re doing is looking at pictures in magazines and reading reviews. Recommendations mean nothing if they come from someone who doesn’t know your game and hasn’t played with the club in the first place. I started thinking that belly putters were the way to go mainly because so many pros are bellyaching about how they should be illegal. I figured if so many cared so much, there must be a reason.

So I spent a few days on eBay buying up lightly used versions of every popular style of belly putter. Then, I took them to the course. I’ve got one in the bag, for the moment it’s the MacGregor Bobby Grace MOI. Here’s what I found out.

The most useful help came from a putter fitting session at Hot Stixx in Scottsdale, Arizona. If you don’t know yet, Hot Stixx is simply the best custom golf shop in the world. If you’re a golfer and want to understand your game and your equipment, a trip to Hot Stixx will be a great experience. The $350 you spend for a complete fitting is a better investment than spending the same amount on a round at Pebble Beach. I made the trip myself and took the “treatment” so that’s a pretty high compliment from a guy who is technically a “competitor.” Hot Stixx doesn’t really have any competition.

A couple of months ago, I described the two main theories in putting. There’s the Dave Pelz “straight back and straight through, keeping the face square” and Stan Utley “inside to inside, allowing the putter face to open and close like a gate.” The insight I gained from Hot Stixx is that if you’re following Utley, which you are if you’ve got the putter poked in your belly, you need to use a center-shafted putter.

That advice was proven correct by my experience. I started experimenting with heel-shafted putters, the first a Bettinardi and the second a Cameron Mid Sur. My mistakes were short putts that hooked a little left. A heel shafted putter is susceptible to closing the face. I then switched to center shafted models: a standard White Hot like the one Colin Montgomerie putts with, a Never Compromise and the MacGregor MOI that Vijay Singh has used off an on for the last several months. The left hooks stopped.

In addition to head design, you have to work with two more variables: length and weight. Length is simply a trial and error problem. The trick is to get the right length to position your eyes right over the ball. A little too long and the ball ends up outside your eyes, too short and it’s inside. You need some help to figure out the right stance and right length. The conventional wisdom on weight is that “heavy is good.” The White Hot and the Never Compromise are very light putters. I putted well with both of them, but better on short putts than long putts. It’s a little easier to control the belly putters on short putts with a lighter head. The heavier head putters seem to have an advantage on long lag putts. I found that distance control with the MacGregor was the best. I hit a lot of greens but usually not too close to the hole, so I went with the putter that did the best lagging. The downside is that I found myself missing some six and eight footers that I thought I should have made. When you begin to get comfortable with the belly, which will take at least three or four weeks, you begin to think that you can caress the back of the ball like you’re using a pool cue.

If you’re thinking belly, you need someone to help you pick the right length and then you’re going to have to spend a few hours on the practice green to make sure you’ve got the right head style.

Tweaking Driver Shafts Can Be Fatal (to the shaft)
For the last few months I’ve been working with Nakashima driver heads. If you’ve been following the story, the most interesting feature of Nakashima heads (other than they go long) is that they are shipped with measured face angle and loft affixed to the head on a sticker. Nakashima admits that every head is a little different so you might as well know the true specifications of the head you’re playing with. They measure each head after it’s manufactured and tell you what you’re getting. They offer face angles from 1.5¡ closed to 1¡ open. Other manufacturers are beginning to follow. I predict that it won’t be long before players demand to know what they’re buying.

Like all players who think they’re better than they really are, I’ve been trying to play a driver with an open face angle. We all pretend we’re terrified by duck hooks but for most of us that was about thirty years ago. We want to make a strong release through the ball and the open face angle helps you make that move, at least conceptually. It’s counterintuitive, but an open face angle lowers trajectory. The conventional wisdom says that 1¡ open will bring the launch angle down 1¡. My experience is that a 1¡ open face angle lowers the launch angle by more than 1¡. I can’t tell quite how much yet, but I chose a 1¡ open, 10¡ measured loft Nakashima 420 as my test head. For the first test, I mounted it on a Fujikura Pros3 shaft. It performed like an 8¡ for me.

Bob and I think of the Golf Lab as a Fujikura Demo Center. Bob talks to Chad Embry, our Fujikura guru three or four times a week. Around Palo Alto, Bob is known as “Fuji Bob.” Bob has played every Fujikura shaft. The Golf Lab sells a lot of Fujikura shafts, ranking #17 in the US as a Charter Platinum Dealer. We stock every Fuji shaft in every flex. I’ve got to brag a little to set up the story.

Day in and day out, there are the old standard Fujis. You can’t miss with a Vista Pro 70 in your driver for a relatively inexpensive shaft. The VP 70 is similar to a lot of OEM proprietary shafts that Fujikura sells. You can get it in 50 and 60 gram weights if you want a little more swingspeed. For fairway woods, that same VP shaft comes in 80 and 90 gram weights. For irons, the VP 90 has been our favorite for almost two years. If you’re strong and want to hit it very straight, get fitted with a Speeder 757, still the top choice on the PGA Tour. If you want to hit it a little lower, choose the Vista Tour in one of several weights. That’s the Fujikura shaft with the silver steel look alike paint job. The Fujikura International Series (the “Speeders”) has expanded into almost a dozen new models, including shafts that are playable for normal amateurs. Fujikura has a shaft for every player.

But lately, we’ve got a couple of new favorites that you don’t hear much about. The Fujikura SIX and the Pros3. The SIX is the Fujikura ultralight, sub-60 gram shaft but still made for a “player.” Stuart Appelby and Annika Sorenstam are SIX players. The Pros3 you almost never see. These shafts share one unusual characteristic: they are relatively high torque. Most good players think they need low torque shafts. We think that torque is your friend if you like feel and if you want to work the ball. Years ago, high torque shafts were cheap and poorly made. Today, a shaft like the SIX or Pros3 at around 4¡ torque, stabilized with SST PUREing plays as solid as any shaft on the planet.

I hit the longest drive of my life with a Pros3. I started this round of experiments with the 1¡ open face angle Nak 420 with the SIX. I started with an “S” flex that tested 253 CPM on the Equalizer. That’s the number I think I like. I hit some bombs with the Nak 420 10¡ at 1¡ open. I should have left well enough alone. I popped the head and trimmed 0.5”. That moved the CPM up to 259. Still OK, but I was working hard. Then I went too far. Thinking that I could surely play an ultralight shaft at a CPM in the low 260’s, I took another 0.5”. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I couldn’t hit the Nak more than 10 feet off the ground. Who would imagine that 0.5” tip trim would take a shaft from OK to unplayable?

I gave the club to Iron Byron our 122 MPH swingspeed scratch player and he crushed it. (He didn’t break it; he just broke his distance records.) If you’re looking for a shaft that’s a little different from the conventional choices, check out the Fuji SIX and Pros3.

Here’s the takeaway from this experiment. Many shafts are designed to play at a length pretty close to the way they’re made. You don’t think a little extra tip trim will hurt. But it might have a severe effect on trajectory. Be warned. Also, don’t be afraid of what seem to be high torque shafts. You might find that they work for you if you just give them a try.

On the Radar Screen
There was a lot of excitement around the Golf Lab when the box from Miura arrived. There are very few things that players agree about, but one accepted fact is that the best foundry for forged clubs in the world is Miura in Japan. Miura produces a lot of the top designs on contract for the major manufacturers. The Taylor made 300 series is a well-known and highly respected Miura product. So are some of the RAC models. If you’re looking for an indication of value, do a search on eBay for “Miura” and you’ll see that they have a cult following.

Miura is coming into the North American market with its own line of proprietary designs. They have a blade, a cavity back and an oversize offset design. Bob was excited because they have left handed models available.

Bob and Iron Byron immediately shafted up a set (with SST PUREd, Project X shafts) and took them to the range. It’s only been a week, but both players are raving about the look and the feel. I haven’t gotten around to working on my set yet. Look for an in depth review next month.

One Final Invitation for “Lurkers”

Every month players show up at the Golf Lab who say they’ve been reading the Chronicles in Golf Today for “years.” They say they’ve been intimidated by our technical approach and reluctant to come in and meet me and Bob. After they spend a couple of hours with us, they always say “I wish I did this a year ago.” Well, don’t wait. We might sound a little stiff and technical in writing, but around the shop we laugh a lot. If you want to get well acquainted with your equipment and understand how to get the best results on the course, you should pay us a visit. We’ll go to extremes to make sure you get exactly the information you want. We’re close to the Palo Alto range so you can test our recommendations outdoors after determining your specifications indoors. If you really want to “grin the bear” as Davey Crockett used to say, we’ll even work with you on the course.

That’s it for now. I guess it was a pretty big month after all.

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.