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Golf Equipment Chronicles 2005 (Part 4)

Game Improvement Clubs, MOI Followup

The summer tournament season is in full swing. In the last month, I played the Palo Alto Golf Club NCGA Four Ball Qualifier, the Amateurgolf.com Monterrey Bay Classic at Bayonet and Blackhorse and the NCGA Net Qualifier at Palo Alto. That’s a bunch of tournaments for one month. I’m also at the Palo Alto Muni at 7:00 most weekday mornings for on-course practice. Readers who live in the neighborhood and want to join me are welcome. Confirm if you’re coming a day early by calling the Golf Lab. (650) 493-1770.

I won’t bore you with how I performed. I betrayed the golf gods by not fulfilling my commitment to practice chipping and putting. I paid the price. Despite flashes of brilliance, I chunked, bladed and yipped my way to ignominy. I promise to burn incense, mumble prayers and imprecations and spend half of my practice time on the putting green. I hope it’s not too late for absolution.

Market research: The Golf Equipment Chronicles are big. I’m pushing 5,000 words every month and that’s almost too much to print, but not enough to cover everything. When you live in California, you’re always conscious about cutting down too many trees. If you think that an “Internet Blog” -- a more frequent update on subjects and questions that don’t make it into the monthly column -- would be interesting to you, let me know by email: Leith@calgolftech.com. If I get enough positive response, I’ll start a weekly electronic supplement to the Chronicles.

I wouldn’t say my tournament bag is completely set -- but it’s getting there. I’ve just about made my quota of early season mistakes and bonehead plays. I’ve had some encouraging signs that I might have a really good tournament one of these days. The Monterrey Classic at Bayonet and Blackhorse, presented by Amateurgolf.com was a highlight. If you’re looking for action beyond your usual club events, sign up with Amateurgolf.com. You can find a tournament to play and register easily. Plus, the Amateurgolf.com tournament series is first class if you’re a California player.

Setting the Bag
Most serious golfers tend to follow a pattern in annual equipment changes. Around Thanksgiving each year, after the competition season has wound down, they begin to notice the “buzz” that sets the stage for next year’s product release sequence. If a player is bargain-minded, he might find a new set of clubs under his Christmas tree. They will be the top model from last season’s closeouts.

In January, the new product drumbeat starts leading up to the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, FL the last weekend in January. The websites and chat rooms are full of leaks that whip up enthusiasm for new models.

After the Big Show the major manufacturers tally their order books, pick their winners and place their final orders for the season. Deliveries to retailers start in March. A frantic Demo Day period ensues leading up to the official start of the new golf year -- the Masters in April. The North and East lag a little because of weather, but by and large, major purchase decisions are over by May -- at least for the low index serious players.

New equipment purchases might be a whole new bag, simple replacement of problem clubs, or a response to specific new product or technology breakthroughs.

Amateur tournament golf is a summer activity in most of the U.S. Players like to have their tournament bag ready by the start of the season so they don’t have to fiddle with equipment changes when they should be focused on competing.

Any changes after May are usually in response to early season choices that just didn’t work out. There’s always the option of going back to last year’s tournament bag which no serious player will ever totally abandon until he knows his new clubs are going to be reliable. This is an autobiographical example, but I think that most Chronicles readers will recognize the scenario.

Winners and Losers
By early summer, the die is cast. Winners and losers are identified. I have an imperfect view of the total product landscape but it’s always interesting to check up on some of the stories that I have featured in the Chronicles. A great window into what’s happening is eBay. With bills coming due, retailers are inclined to dump products that aren’t selling. No point waiting; prices for golf equipment only go down. On eBay, the winners sell for more than wholesale cost. You can’t get your money back on the losers. eBay is the ultimate index of success.

The Price of Their Toys: Part Four
Burrows Golf is cooked. Despite denials, there are no vital signs. Bruce Burrows, once the genial host with the most ($$) is inaccessible. Dick Ryan, the VP of Sales, reports that the company is still shipping custom clubs. But there are no new models since last year. In the “Year of the 460” a company without the right size driver is not competitive. The buzz on the street is that Burrows is on life support while they negotiate the best deal for some of their truly innovative technology -- especially the patented fitting system. The eBay index shows that you can pick up a late model Burrows Power Sphere driver for $50. It might be a good souvenir of the reported $85 million dollar bust.

MacGregor is still trying harder. Owner Barry (“It’s all about passion.”) Schneider’s company is reported to be doing OK -- fueled by Greg Norman endorsements and a $20 million marketing budget. There’s no doubt that most golf industry veterans would love to see MacGregor brought back from the grave. The verdict is still out. The eBay index is unkind. MacGregor products are not recovering wholesale cost at auction.

I have some insight into MacGregor because it’s a line that we support at the Golf Lab. My conclusion: the company missed its winner. Too much energy was focused on the MacTec driver. That’s the “Made in Japan” high tech driver with the proprietary shaft. The marketing claims bordered on preposterous. (They promised a five to 10 mile an hour swing speed increase for “average” players.) The driver was too loud for the “traditionalists” -- MacGregor’s core customer. Finally, the driver is a “true loft” design -- requiring a player to choose a higher loft than normal -- an ego challenge. Eventually, we modified our original assessment that the “NVG” on the sole plate was shorthand for “not very good.” But if you fit the MacTec correctly, it is competitive with the best: Nike, Nakashima, KZG and others. If you’re looking for a bargain, you can find one on eBay, brand new for under-dealer cost. If you want to be sure your MacTec driver fits your swing, let your friendly MacGregor dealer fit you with a launch monitor and earn a couple of bucks.

The 2005 MacTec might be the last gasp of the proprietary shaft era. In the days of Fujikura Speeders, Mitsubishi Diamanas and UST ACCRAs, no one believes that one “one shaft fits all.” The MacTec shaft is a proprietary Fujikura model.

MacGregor redesigned its signature forged irons for 2005. They’re pretty. They have a smooth shape. They have a flawless satin finish and a real enamel beauty mark. If you’re a MacGregor collector or MacGregor aficionado, you need a set. Other than that, they’re just another forged iron. In this year’s sweepstakes, the new forged iron that the players are buying is the Mizuno MP-32. Overall, the forged iron market is small. You won’t revive a company based on selling forged irons.

Game Improvement Irons for Low Index Players
Here’s the winner: The MacGregor 565’s. It’s a totally new product category -- Game Improvement Irons for Low Index Players. Unfortunately, the category is so new that nobody knows it exists. That includes most low index players who wouldn’t be caught dead with game improvement clubs in their bag. What marketer in his right mind would ever try to sell game improvement irons to “good” players? But the Mac 565’s were in my Tournament Bag for the NCGA Qualifier. Here’s the background:

Last year, MacGregor came out with a game improvement model. It was the 455. We called it the Michelin Man iron because it had that puffed up look. The bad news is that they were positioned against Callaway, which is a tough row to hoe. Nevertheless, the 455’s sold OK and the customers that bought them liked them. But, like most game improvement clubs, they were a little too bulky and a little too offset for a serious player to consider. The 2 iron picked up a cult following as a hybrid-style utility club.

This year, MacGregor introduced the 565. It looks like a 455 that went on a diet. First, the offset was reduced to almost zero. The top line was thinned down, not exactly svelte, but not obese. The club is a space age combination forged and welded model. The face material is advertised as hot and springy in the long irons and solid in the short irons. These are not things that low index players look for in their irons. Traditionalists would be appalled.

I tried a set with the stock Rifle shafts. That experiment lasted nine holes. Too heavy and too stiff. But, I was in experimentation mode, working on the MOI story so I rebuilt the 565’s with a set of Aerotech 80 gram Steel Fiber shafts. Out of curiosity, I did the MOI analysis and found that the set was almost perfectly MOI matched with the Wishon system. I still don’t know why that happened. I only had time for one range session before Ireland. It was extraordinary -- I packed two sets of irons. The Nike blades went because I knew I was going to be playing some good courses and wanted to look like a “player.” The Macs went because I hit the ball better with them.

In Ireland, I played eight rounds, seven with the Macs. That tells the story: you’re going to play with the clubs you hit the ball best with -- it won’t matter what they look like.

Nike Slingshots
My interest in game improvement irons for low index players started when Fuji Bob got his lefty Slingshots. It’s hard not to notice that Nike is crawling up the charts in relentless fashion. They are delivering on the claim that Nike is the fastest growing iron on the PGA Tour. Every time you dial into the Golf Channel, there’s another “swoosh.” As a former marketing executive, I appreciate the way Nike manages their demographics. After buying Tiger, they picked up new recruits in the ethnic, age and gender classifications. They’ve got the world covered in every age group.

I’m not usually convinced by marketing hype. I like proof -- as rare as that may be in the golf industry. There is a transformation under way in how golfers buy their clubs. It used to be that we all saved our money and picked up a set of our favorite brand every couple of years, hoping that this year’s same old thing would produce different results.

It’s important to remind yourself that the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing and expect different results. (BTW: that’s the essence of the argument for why you should try a set of irons that’s dramatically different from what you think you like.)

We’re proud that Bob made the Tiger Team this year. That’s the Nike staff designation. To earn his keep, he worked out the Slingshots on our new Max Out launch monitor. That’s when he noticed that he was getting better performance indicators than with his blades, blades, blades, blades. . . By better performance, I mean a measured higher ball speed and better impact patterns. That looks like proof. If you can’t prove that your next set of clubs works better than the set you already have, you should save your money and stick with what you’ve got.

To make our usual long story short, the Slingshots are in his bag. Not end to end (he’ll never give up the Miura short irons and wedges), but the long and middle part of his “Frankenstein” set is the Slingshots. He put them in play a couple of months ago and they’re still in his bag, so you can tell they must be OK.

So I decided to give the Slingshots a try myself. I ordered a set from the Nike custom department in Dallas. When they arrived, I put them through our usual blueprinting and found that Nike is following the TaylorMade model with flex -- delivering shafts that test out softer than normal OEM versions -- but in agreement with the Professional Clubmakers’ Society Equalizer system. The specifications were very good for clubs that came out of a factory.

But on the course they were no fun. Too heavy. Clunky. They went home for a quick shaft lobotomy. I installed Aerotech Steel Fiber 80 gram shafts. I built them to a PCS Equalizer flex of 6.0 which matched the shafts in the MacGregor 565’s. I thought it would be a fair test to compare two sets that were as close as possible. Note: no low index player in his right mind uses 80 gram graphite shafts either.

Egad!! It was Exciting
I finished reshafting the set at the Golf Today deadline. I set them up 1” over length and five degrees upright (the factory would only go two up). SST PUREd, of course.

With only one day for on-course testing, I zipped over to the Palo Alto Muni driving range after dinner. I bought a big bucket of balls and hit shot after shot that started on a lower trajectory than the Macs and then rolled over into a tight draw. I started getting that tingly feeling that comes around once in a blue moon when a set of clubs turns out way better than I expect. After finishing my bucket, I was so excited that I walked out on the course even though it was getting dark. The 10th hole gets light from the range so I had a chance to hit some shots at a real target. I chose a spot which left me 150 yards to a back pin. That’s a relatively long eight iron for me. I hit a pocket full of balls to the green. By now it was too dark to see them come down. When I got close to the green to collect the balls, it was spooky. Eight out of 10 were within 15 feet of the pin. Maybe it helps to practice at night when you can’t see very well.

The next morning I took my bag full of irons out on the back nine. I know those distances very well. That is the acid test. You never know how a set of clubs performs until you take them to your course and hit shots from familiar spots. Then you know.

Now I know. The Slingshots are fabulous. Try this exercise: Over the next few rounds, keep track of the percentage of your iron shots that feel solid at the moment of impact. You know instantly if a shot will be good. With the Slingshots, almost every shot I hit felt solid. Then, there’s the next question. How many did you hit stiff? With three or four shots into every hole, at least one of them was inside six feet. For me, that was an unusually high percentage.

Comparing the Nike Slingshots to the MacGregor 565’s -- they both have little offset. The Nike Slingshots are smaller than the Macs. From the business end, the Nike blades look a lot like a traditional forged head. I have no idea why Nike chose Charles Barkley as their poster player for Slingshots. First, he doesn’t have a prayer of hitting them well, the heads are way too small. Second, it makes Slingshots look like they’re for hacks. Even Nike misses a shot once in a while.

The center of gravity on the Macs in intentionally set very low, with extra weight added. Ball flight is very high. The Slingshots are set up with a higher COG. You also notice that there’s more beef out on the toe. Ball flight is much lower.

Sole Design
The one big question was how these irons would perform out of bad lies. All game improvement irons are set up with a rounded sole, a blunt leading edge and plenty of bounce. In the NCGA Qualifier, I had some trouble digging the Macs out of deep lies in the rough. I had the feeling that a traditional blade with a sharper leading edge might get the ball out of heavy lies a little better.

From the fairway, I was worried about the Nikes. The sole design on the Slingshots is very broad. They don’t have quite as much bounce as the Macs but they don’t sit down low to the ball. Not to worry, by the time I got around to the 15th hole, I was looking for holes to hit shots from. On a flat lie, the Slingshots are definitely anti-dig. You will be taking stylish shallow divots. However, if your ball rolls into a little depression, you just have to have faith. You can dig it out with a Slingshot.

Conclusion
I’ve been excited by a new irons before. For the next month, at least, the Slingshots are going to be in my bag. I will keep my Mizuno Fli-Hi 21¡ shafted with the Fujikura Banzai as a three iron replacement but the Slingshots are going to get a good workout. Remember the definition of insanity. If you don’t try something new, how will you ever change your results?

If you’re adventurous and live in the Bay Area, you don’t have to buy before you try. We have complete demo sets of both the Slingshots and the Macs that you can take to your course and find out for yourself if game improvement clubs might work for you. The only risk is the hoots and hollers from your usual playing partners when they look in your bag. Consider this a research project. I think that game improvement designs will work for a lot of low index players. I may be the only guy on the planet who thinks that, but how will you know unless you try?

Northern California Golf Association

There are two kinds of amateur golfers. The vanity players tend to forget their high scores, post their best rounds and suck in their guts when they look in the mirror. But you have to give them credit: they want to be better than they are. Then there are the baggers. They’re the guys who slap their putts around when they don’t count. Their ego is not threatened by a “13” index. They look at their tournament entry fees as an investment in their game. They intend to get a return on that investment. In most golf clubs, the vanity players are happy to provide the return on investment for the baggers.

Not to say it ever happens at eagle-eyed places like the Palo Alto Golf Club, but in a perfect golf world, if handicaps were absolutely equitable, at the end of the season everyone would have the same winnings. That’s never the way it works out. Is it really a coincidence that the same names are usually on top of the prize money list?

That brings me to recognize the Northern California Golf Association (NCGA) and their efforts to promote golf. The NCGA is an extraordinary organization. In the days when amateur golf was controlled by the stodgy private club establishment, the NCGA realized that they could prosper by bringing golf to the masses -- and be compensated for the trouble. The result was a proliferation of hundreds of Associate clubs that are basically bunches of friends and business colleagues that organize their own competition schedules on public courses. The NCGA allows the Associate Clubs to collect performance information and resell the NCGA handicapping service. The result is a bulging treasury that allows the NCGA to do great things, like build Poppy Hills and Poppy Ridge as member-owned courses. The best golf value in California is a round at Poppy Hills.

But there’s always that nagging question about winners in handicap events. For years, it’s been the assumption that the only winners are the baggers. To counteract that problem, the NCGA has red flagged the greediest offenders. Players that post high scores on their home courses and then do much better in NCGA Tournaments are only allowed to get away with it three or four times before the NCGA handicapping software gives them up. They then go into the penalty box with a bunch of strokes added to their index. The most egregious offenders suffer suspension from NCGA events. In the end, the NCGA seems to finally have recognized it’s a matter of survival. Players won’t compete in events that are rigged.

Based on my performance in May and June, I’m in the vanity class. (And I admit to “taking a deep breath” when I look in the mirror.)

Moment of Inertia (MOI) Follow-up

It’s been 85 years since swingweight was invented and just a few years since Moment of Inertia matching started to gain a following. It’s safe to say that MOI isn’t about to replace swingweight matching any time soon. That doesn’t mean it’s not a better idea, but golfers don’t like changing what they think they know.

The problem with all new ideas is that there are no miracles in golf. It’s difficult to compare the performance of golf clubs because human beings are hitting the shots -- and they hit every shot differently. If you make a change it’s hard to tell whether it worked or not. In the end, the only measure that matters is that your handicap went down. Then you know.

In the four years that we’ve been working with players who are trying to get better at the Golf Lab, we have seen many of our customers cut their handicaps by several strokes. Usually, they give most of the credit to their driver. That’s the easiest club to change and get immediate, positive improvement. It’s the “low hanging fruit.”

Tuning and tweaking your irons is much more complicated.

Deep in the Weeds

My article on MOI last month generated a lot of interest. I received a dozen calls and emails from around the country from clubmakers with ideas and questions. Many wanted to share their positive experiences. Interestingly, there were no critics, complainers or nay-sayers. There’s a lot of genuine interest in MOI.

We started a thread about MOI on the Golf Equipment Aficionados Forum on Delphi. That discussion attracted over 100 responses and lasted for several days. The world’s most recognized clubmaker, Dana Upshaw, even joined in the discussion. His conclusion: MOI is going into his bag of tricks. Absent absolute proof -- which can only come in time -- “it can’t hurt” -- was his conclusion. There were some surprises. Bill Kostuj, a golf pro from Illinois, sent me a treatise on “Waggle Weight.” (www.waggleweight.com) Overall, I was inspired to think about swingweight, progressive swingweight, club balance, overall weight and counter weights. MOI turned out to be a “weighty” subject.

In the meantime, I started to perform the MOI analysis on every set of clubs that I’ve touched for the last couple of years. The underlying reality about MOI analysis -- as well as swingweighting -- counterweighting and other balance related issues is that there is very little collected, documented, and sadly, understood knowledge. We have a lot of numbers, but we don’t really know what they mean.

Through launch monitor testing in my first round of MOI analysis, I found a couple of clubs that I could call my “favorites.” They tested out with the best performance (highest ball speed, best impact pattern). The MOI value that indicated my “best clubs” from different sets was 2850. But what does that number mean?

Here’s the reason for my confusion: Those Nike Slingshots that I described earlier came from the factory with steel shafts. The MOI numbers were a little higher than my “sweet spot” of 2850. I blamed that on the fact that they were heavy. So I swapped out the shafts, steel for graphite, saving an average of 20 grams per club in total weight. Guess what, I performed the MOI analysis again and it came out HIGHER. That’s a counter-intuitive outcome. The reshafted Slingshots had an MOI value of 2926, a solid 50 points higher. It looks like total weight is going to be yet another “relative factor.” At a certain total weight, a certain MOI value might mean something. But, at a lighter total weight, that same MOI value might mean something else.

Or, did the MOI analysis yield an unexpected result because of a change in balance point. We don’t know.

If we really understood what we were doing, we would be able to say a player will optimize his performance within a band of plus or minus (fill in the number) MOI points from his “best” club. As yet, there is no completed testing of that concept. Let’s be polite. At best, matching clubs by Moment of Inertia is a “work in progress.” Hopefully, some of the big brains in clubmaking will jump back into the fray and help us figure it out -- if it can be figured out.

Over the course of the next month or so I’ll do my part. I’ll complete the detailed “blueprinting” of all of my current sets. MOI analysis is just another aspect of club specifications. I’ll do my best to discover how sets that perform well compare to sets that don’t perform as well. That will take a lot of “mornings at the Muni.” Hopefully, other clubmakers will share their experience. Maybe we can collect and correlate the data and begin to really understand what we’re doing.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to provide free MOI matching for customers who come into the Golf Lab and are willing to try something new and share their experience. MOI matching is an idea that will go nowhere unless we gain confidence that the procedure actually produces improved results. If you live outside the Bay Area, contact an MOI Certified Clubmaker listed on the Wishon Golf Technologies website. Offer to be his crash test dummy.

Short Takes -- Moveable Weights

I’ve been tempted to declare that the Taylor Made R7 -- the hands down driver winner from 2004 -- is dead in 2005.

Golf clubs are normally not too complicated. You grab them and hit the ball. You watch what happens. You feel a tingle. Your partners say “nice drive.” End of story.

Despite the fact that TaylorMade has sold hundreds of thousands of R7’s we have yet to encounter a customer at the Golf Lab who has changed the weights more than twice. It’s just too difficult and too boring. First, differences in ball flight are hard to detect and harder to remember. Second, comprehensive testing is too time-consuming for amateur players. We’ve worked with a few customers, changing their weights, trying to record differences on the launch monitor. That is supremely difficult. The R7 is all about sidespin and launch monitors don’t do a very good job of picking that up. One thing you can do is find out the swingweight that works best for you.

Finally, you’ve got the problem of testing your driver at the range, hitting notoriously low spin balls and then taking the “adjusted” driver to the course where you’re going to hit much more responsive balls. The good news is that R7’s are getting cheaper every day so it doesn’t cost much to try. As usual with TM -- buy the TP or “Tour Proven” version. It will hold its value much better.

Short Takes -- 2005 Titleist Drivers

Big Name Companies hate clubmakers. They hate the idea that you might take their baby apart, cut the shaft to fit your size and swing, add head weight, change the trajectory or gain distance with a different shaft. They love the “one size fits all” idea that every golfer should play with a 45” driver at D-1 swingweight and whatever shaft they choose for you. No problem if you’re 6’5” or 5’6”.

This year Titleist came out with a new idea. They built their driver with an aluminum sleeve inside the hosel. They intentionally engineered to make it difficult to get the shaft out of the club. Then they added an ominous warning that any tampering with the club voids the warranty. We have reshafted zero Titleist drivers this year. On the other hand, I’ve also seen very few Titleist drivers on the course. Is it possible that golfers don’t want to be locked into a driver and locked out of the chance to change it? Just like the TaylorMade moveable weight invention, this will be an interesting story to watch. Can Titleist close their system and find success?

Short Takes -- Nakashima is Booming

When you have a small company that you’re funding out of your own back pocket, it’s hard to have all of the ducks in a row at the right time. Nakashima was the hands-down winner in the new company sweepstakes in 2004. For 2005 they got ambitious, designing forged irons, cast irons, wedges, and redesigning their fairway woods and utilities. Owner John Nakashima is passionate about making the company that bears his name a success. He’s a certified golf nut.

They had one problem, they didn’t get the new 460 cc driver out for the start of the season. OOPs!!

In the “Year of the 460,” that put them behind the power curve. But the Nak 460 shipped in June. It’s beautiful. It’s as hot as they come. And, every head is shipped with a measured face angle and measured loft so you know exactly what you’re getting. It’s the closest thing to true custom in the business. Highly recommended.

That’s all for July. Let me know about the blog.

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.