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Golf Equipment Chronicles 2007 (Part 6)

Are You Too Smart for Your Own Good?

By Leith Anderson

My title this month is purely a rhetorical question. I’m thinking about myself. I had a great late season on the course so I’m going brag a little – then try to explain why I ignored my own advice for too long. Why do golfers keep doing the same things, the same way, and still expect different results? That’s the definition of insanity! You might see yourself in some of my stubborn mistakes.

Here’s a hint: after all of my focus on graphite iron shafts over the last few years, my breakthrough performance came with steel shafts in my irons that I had never even considered because I thought I “knew” what was right for me.

“One More Low Gross” – (a Golfer’s Prayer)

Competition is the ultimate test of a golfer. There is nothing like making the turn on a Sunday afternoon, thinking that you have a chance to win a golf tournament. That’s where golfers prove there mettle. It doesn’t have to be the Masters or the US Open. It can be any tournament on any golf course. The field doesn’t have to include Tiger Woods – it can be forty guys from the Muni. A tournament is a tournament.

Winning a tournament, no matter how small, is a thrill for any golfer.

The ultimate pressure? Posting your score on the wall for all of your friends to see.

When Fuji Bob and I founded the Golf Lab six years ago, our idea was to play more and better golf – and play with the coolest clubs. That’s worked off and on over the years even though it’s axiomatic that owning a golf shop is bad for your game. But this year has been difficult. Bob’s priorities changed after the birth of his daughter a year ago. Looming expenses of a young family motivated Fuji Bob to pursue a more lucrative career selling high tech products. Why not? It’s Silicon Valley. The result is that Bob has much less time to help at the Golf Lab so Clint and I have been doing a lot more work.

That’s my excuse for not making good on one of my resolutions this year. I really wanted to earn some Northern California Golf Association (NCGA) points in an “official” tournament. It just didn’t work out.

At 62, there’s good reason to wonder if you’ll ever win another golf tournament. Not that I’ve been all that successful as a player, but I’ve accumulated a few trophies. The last one was the “Tournament of Champions” at the Palo Alto Golf Club a couple of years ago. That’s one of the “Majors at the Muni”. The best prize is your name engraved on the permanent trophy. I visit the back room from time to time where the trophies are on display to remember the last weekend I came out on top.

2007 Tournament of Champions

The Palo Alto Golf Club is pretty traditional. That’s a polite way to say that most years the schedule is like “Groundhog Day”. In the late fall, the “Tournament of Champions” rewards the top 36 point getters from all of the year’s tournaments with a limited field tournament where the club picks up the greens fee on Sunday. The competition to win that free round of golf is intense.

I didn’t make the field on the merits this year. Not enough tournaments, not enough points. But then I got a reprieve. First one, then another qualifier dropped out. The night before the tournament I got the call. There was an opening – and I took it. I would be paired with three of the top players in the first group. At least I would have a chance to see some good golf.

My start was auspicious. I hit a slightly thin gap wedge to two feet on the first hole for a birdie. It was just “my day”. After that, I made some good shots, didn’t make any serious mistakes, and finished with a 73, including an even par 36 on the back nine. That was unfamiliar territory. I had a three stroke lead after the first day.

Intermission: I “Own” the Back Nine

The Palo Alto Muni is above average difficulty for a public golf course. The first six holes are long enough to present a good challenge. You have to hit the ball pretty long and solid or you’re likely to find yourself four over par teeing it up on number seven. The back nine is much shorter and theoretically easier. But I had a habit of scoring better on the front nine. There’s nothing more disappointing than making the turn in good shape and then shooting a higher score on the easier side. That’s even truer if you happen to be playing a tournament and your back nine score is higher. When that happens, it looks like you choked.

A couple of years ago, I started to meet up with customers and friends for “Mornings at the Muni” – always the back nine. Why not just play nine holes, have a great breakfast at Don’s Place and make it to work by 10? There’s no reason that golf has to include a lot of rigmarole and eat up a whole day. An easy nine holes just after the sun comes up is a great way to enjoy playing. Plus, it’s good discipline to drag yourself out of bed to work on your game.

My “Mornings at the Muni” turned out to have a side benefit. I started to think that I “own” the back nine. I know all the angles, all the carries and all the breaks on the greens. For the last few months, when I made the turn it was like ‘heading for the barn” as we used to say in Indiana. That’s a huge advantage when you need to post a low score.

2007 Tournament of Champions – Sunday

I didn’t exactly lose sleep because I was leading the tournament – but I thought about it two or three hundred times on Saturday night.

On Sunday, it didn’t take long to make my first mistake. I pulled my drive left on the first hole. My lay-up clipped the trees. OOPS!! A stupid bogey on and easy par 5. Not a good start for a shaky player’s state of mind.

Another bogey on three. Then a long putt saved par on the fourth – a premonition of a round that would ultimately be saved by putting. But then, chunked chips led to double bogies on the sixth and eighth. Out in 41. Looming disaster – and worse, looming embarrassment.

Then a little bit of that great back nine comfort kicked in. I played a knock-down six iron on the 11th – pure local knowledge - and holed a putt that broke eighteen inches for birdie. I wasted a stroke on the easy 12th. But I made up for it with a great par save on 14 and another birdie on 16 – both long putts. Two pars coming home allowed me to post a back nine of 1 under 35 for a total 76. It was good enough to win “one more low gross” with a 73-76=149. That’s one New Year’s resolution completed. And, one prayer answered.

And Then It Got Better . . .

The Paly Golf Club staged two more events in November. The first was a match between our Thursday and Saturday NCGA match play teams. The Brad Lozares Cup competition. I was a little “loose” on the front nine – shooting a 45 (egad!!). But then I found familiar territory and brought it back in 34 – two under – to break eighty the hard way and tie my match after going into the back nine four down.

The last tournament of the month was a one-day individual low net event. A couple of three putts and a little sloppy play took me out in 39. But then I made the turn and this time brought it home in 3 under par – 33 – my lowest score ever on the back nine at Paly – good for another “low gross” - 72.

What’s up? How is it that my last four competitive rounds were even, one under, two under and then three under on the back side? Fifty “Mornings at the Muni” and a very positive state of mind surely helped. Knowing that you can score is most of the battle. You might expect that I’d give some credit to my clubs, especially since I’d just made a change.

For this spell of unusual success, I was playing Nippon 950 steel shafts and two different sets of E21 Scandium- shafted irons. My driver was a Nickent “Tour Spec” head with a Matrix XCON-5 shaft. I just hope that this dream doesn’t end.

I “Know” What I Like

Over the years, I’ve built and played dozens of different iron sets – and hundreds of drivers. I love forged irons. That’s obvious to Chronicles readers. My collection numbers in the hundreds. I’ve always prided myself on my long iron play. That’s the signature of a good player – excellent long irons.

It was my long irons that convinced me that more flexible – “softer” – shafts were the way to go. I found that I hit much better long iron shots if I took an easier swing. Stiff shafts whisper in your ear – telling you to “hit me hard” – or suffer the consequences.

Over the last few years, I’ve played softer and softer shafts – in lighter and lighter weights. I’m not alone: that’s exactly what 99% of all senior players are doing. In launch monitor testing, lighter weight shafts almost always produce higher ball speeds – an indication of better performance if you’re going for best distance. I became very critical of shafts that were too stiff.

Like a lot of golfers, I stopped looking at other alternatives. I was too smart for my own good. But then, I had a new awakening.

The Max Out Shaft Max – Cognitive Dissonance.

The Shaft Max is an electronic gizmo that we have found to be the most reliable way to fit shafts for weight, flex and bend profile. In the last couple of years, fitting shafts has become much more sophisticated – and much more accurate – thanks to the Shaft Max.

The Shaft Max is an instrumented golf club that measures shaft deflection in two planes – horizontal and vertical. In addition to recording a player’s tempo and plotting acceleration, the Shaft Max shows tip deflection. Combined with our extensive knowledge of shaft bend profiles, it is now feasible to choose a shaft that reacts appropriately to a player’s swing. Before the Shaft Max, shaft fitting was mostly random experimentation.

The Shaft Max also calculates “shaft load” and expresses that in a numeric value. The “load” reflects the power in a player’s swing. Fitting shafts by measuring “load” is much more reliable than fitting based on swingspeed. It is quite common for a player with a relatively slow swing speed to load the shaft heavily. We have fitted many players – including lots of seniors - with extra stiff shafts based on the Shaft Max load reading.

The Shaft Max load index is a proprietary scale that goes from 1 to 12. When I test my swing with the Shaft Max, I top out the scale at 12. It’s like going to the carnival and ringing the bell with the heavy sledge hammer. The Shaft Max kept telling me that I should be playing extra stiff shafts.

Why did I ignore the Shaft Max for the last couple of years – disregarding my own fitting data while relying on that same data to fit other golfers with success?

I was just too smart for my own good. It was time to go back and trust the Shaft Max. At a minimum I needed to confirm – or disprove – my instincts.

I found a set of heads that I’ve coveted for years. The Tour Stage MR-23’s were a scarce and expensive model when they came out a few years ago. But lately, they’ve been showing up on eBay in used condition for affordable prices. I decided to match up the Tour Stage heads with a set of Nippon 950 shafts (105 gram actual weight). In deference to the Shaft Max diagnosis, I decided to throw caution, and my prejudice, out the window and install ”X” flex.

Find Your Weight and Your Flex

Additional motivation to make a change was a nagging feeling that light weight iron shafts were causing me to “jerk” my irons on the downswing, pulling shots to the left. I had been playing with a set of Bridgestone Forged Combos, shafted with a set of 95 gram Stulz Nano Arrow shafts for a few weeks. I found myself “yanking” a shot or two every round, missing greens badly to the left. I wanted to increase shaft weight a little and see if that would help me stay on plane a bit better and slow down my tempo just a bit to avoid the “yank”.

When tested for flex, the Nippon 950 shafts in “X” flex are very stiff. If you’re thinking about making a similar move, disregard frequency matching. The frequency number will surely freak you out. Once again, I was reminded that frequency is a poor test of playability. Even though the Nippon shafts tested extremely stiff, they did not whisper “hit me hard”. I found that I could hit a nice tight draw. Partial shots and knockdowns were a lot of fun. There was no sign of leaking to the right – the classic sign of shafts that are too stiff.

What about “feel?” The current thinking about “feel” in golf is that it comes in through your ears at least as much as your hands. Steel shafts have a high-pitched, strident sound. Graphite shafts are much quieter. Some players feel like steel is more precise – possibly owing to the sound. I certainly got that feeling from the Nippons. There was clearly a “zing” in my ears that made me feel like I was holding a sharp tool in my hands.

The combination of a heavier weight and stiffer flex proved out. I completely lost the “lefts”. I played the MR-23 Nippon combination to win the “Tournament of Champions”. The setup just flat worked. It’s in my permanent Hall of Fame.

Don’t Overlook Lie Angles

My biggest problem has been my short game – from 100 yards in. I’ve never been a fan of the Pelz system which calls for a mechanical analysis of loft and swing length. I much prefer to “feel” how far I want to hit the shot. Lately, relying on feel has caused problems. I changed my wedges from the common 48-52-56-60 combination to a 47-53-58 lineup. That saves a slot for another utility. I went with Scratch wedges because I could get a classy, custom grind with my initials. For shafts, I paired the new wedges up with the Aerotech 125 gram Steel Fiber shafts made for the purpose.

I made another change. On close examination, I noticed was cutting my divots a little “heel heavy”. In analyzing my misses, it occurred to me that I very rarely missed a short wedge to the right. A lie angle that’s too upright will cause the blade to turn left. Once again, I had neglected looking closely at my divots and “putting two and two together”.

You mainly hit partial shots with your wedges. That implies that your stance is going to be a little closer to the ground and you’ll carry your hands a little lower. Most iron sets are set up with progressive lie angles. As the irons get shorter, the lies become more upright. That might not be correct for you. It’s possible that your lie angles should actually get flatter as your wedges get shorter. At least that’s the way it was for me. I flattened my lie angles in my wedges and started having shorter birdie putts from 100 yards and in.

Correct lie angles are usually determined by hitting your irons with impact tape on the bottom to indicate where the sole strikes a hard surface. Most clubmakers try to adjust clubs so that the impact will be on center. Just like all other things in golf, the conventional wisdom might not always work for you. You have to watch your ball flight and adjust your lies accordingly. I ended up knocking my lie angles down a couple of degrees through my set based on the tendency for my shots to miss left. And guess what? It worked. If you were to test my lie angles in the traditional way, you’d say that they are too flat. That might be true, but my irons work better that way – and I haven’t been missing left.

Revisiting Scandium

A couple of years ago, I had my first experience with Scandium shafts. Scandium is an element: E21 on the periodic table. The company that brought Scandium shafts to market took E21 for its name. It has been an interesting story – until now more for its promise than delivery.

Three years ago, I had one magic day with a set of Scandium shafts mounted in an old favorite set of forged irons – the “dirty birds”. It was chilly and windy but the ball was going unusually long and straight. I was playing with Fuji Bob and Fitz at Stanford. They both remembered the unusually good results.

I decided to move the Scandium shafts to a different set of heads. The results were not the same. Disappointed, I began to lose interest – thinking that there was just something in the water that day. I moved them back to the “dirty bird” heads but could never find the magic again.

Could there be another explanation?

The E21 Company has a peculiar history. It’s been around in various configurations for four or five years that I remember. Three years ago, one of the big names in the golf club design business, Howard Butler was retained by the company as a designer. They announced a line of clubs including a very interesting “waffle top” driver. The clubs never made it to market.

Meantime, the company went through multiple rounds of reorganization, spending millions of dollars and not bringing in very much revenue. I received a few sets of shafts to test out, but it was never clear exactly where to buy them or how much they would cost. E21 sold one load to Golfworks for distribution into the clubmaker market – but at close to $100 each, they failed to catch on.

Slow Forward to 2007

Even with the peculiarities, I still like the company. They have an active PR program and send out a press release almost every week. At one point, they convinced a Russian astronaut to hit a ball off of the International Space Station creating the “longest drive in golf”. It is still going, headed for Pluto. Someone at E21 has “connections”.

In the last year, stories about Scandium shafts began to filter back from the PGA Tour. First it was Davis Love that was giving them a try. I saw Rich Been on the Scandium list for a while. Then, the inveterate tinkerer Vijay Singh began to play them, at least off and on. Recently, Boo Weekley had the temerity to bag Scandium.

The distribution problems seemed to be under control as well. The same company that distributes UST ACCRA shafts to the clubmaker market picked up exclusive distribution rights. The price came down to just plain high from stratospheric. I figured it was time for another look.

There are two ways to match flex in shafts: by testing “frequency” or by trimming shafts utilizing a “tip trimming chart”. We rely on frequency to match shafts for a set of irons – even though we know that frequency matching might not make complete sense. At least we know the precise specifications of the sets we build.

Setting flex by frequency requires clamping a shaft at playing length, fitting the head by friction, oscillating the shaft and counting the oscillations with a meter. Careful trimming from the tip will make the shaft gradually stiffer.

Trimming by chart is much simpler and quicker. You take a packet of shafts. Depending on the target flex, the three iron might go into the club at full length. The four iron gets a quarter or half inch tip trim and so on through the set. Trimming by chart requires trusting the manufacturer’s “best guess” about matching shafts.

When I’m trying to understand the performance characteristics of a new line, I combine the methods to see how closely they match. It’s a tedious process that usually takes a day or so. I compare the frequency of shafts that have been tipped by frequency against those that were tipped according to the chart. In a perfect world, with perfect shafts, the result would be the same. Alas, that didn’t happen with E21.

The recommended method for setting flex with E21 Scandium shafts – targeting a PCS 5.5 or “stiff” flex is to work with two shaft weights. The longer irons use 110 gram shafts. The shorter irons use 117 gram shafts. Allowing iron shafts to get heavier as they get shorter is actually the method that True Temper invented years ago with their Dynamic series of shafts. The theory is that as shafts get shorter, they should get heavier. That way the shafts through the set will come out weighing more or less the same – the heavier weight compensated by the shorter length.

I matched a set of “stiff” Scandium shafts relying on frequency and mounted them on a set of Bridgestone cavity back heads. That set made it into my bag for the intra-club matches. They were good enough to deliver a two-under-par 34 on the back nine when I needed it. There was one problem: I thought that the set felt heavy. That could have been due to the fact that they were heavier than the Nippons. Ten grams is a little less than half an ounce. It doesn’t sound like much but it was enough to make me wonder. That set won’t make it to the Hall of Fame.

Back to the Bench

I continued to wonder what it was about the original set of Scandium shafts that felt so good long ago. I tracked down the old set of “dirty birds” that I had safely stored in my garage. I pulled the grips and tested the shafts. They tested half a flex softer than the 5.5 in the new set. Then, I pulled the heads and weighed the shafts. Ahah!! They were much lighter, right around 100 grams and suspiciously close to the weight of the Nippons. I plucked another set of Bridgestone heads out of our storage bins and built it out with my original Scandium shafts. That set made it to the last tournament of the month. It may have been the best of the bunch. On a cold day, I needed to hit a bunch of four and five irons. They were all good. I ended up hitting sixteen greens – close to a personal high.

I’ve got a few more days of working with Scandium to really figure out how to get predictable results. It may be that the manufacturing specifications changed over the years. I have not been able to find that out from the company. At a minimum, the result demonstrates the importance of shaft weight and the somewhat lesser importance of shaft flex. Curiously, I couldn’t say that I felt a great deal of difference between the Scandium shafts at 5.0 (PCS Firm) flex and the Nippon shafts at 7.0 (PCS Extra Stiff). I also noticed very little difference in distance or ball flight.

The Scandium story will be interesting over the next few months as we see if the Company actually ships complete golf clubs in 2008. We’ll find that out at the PGA Show in the middle of January. In the meantime, the technical specifications of the shafts continue to be interesting. I’ll be building out a few more sets and reporting the results. Scandium could very well be one of the best stories of 2008.

Sky Caddie – the Secret Weapon

A few months ago, I reported that I fell in love with a Sky Caddie. My fascination was all about ease of use. One quick look and you know how far it is to the front and back of the green. Some players want to measure the distance to the flagstick with a laser but that’s more precision than I need.

It may be that the Sky Caddie is a big part of the reason for my recent success on the course. It has changed the way that I club myself.

The feature that makes the difference is the “mark” option. Here’s how it works: After you hit a shot, you mark the spot. When you get to your ball, you hit “mark” again and the Sky Caddie tells you the exact distance your ball traveled. After working with that feature diligently for a couple of months, I have a much better understanding of exactly how far I hit every club in my bag. Too many players think that each club is good for a single distance. Not me. I hit my five iron anywhere from 155 to 205 yards.

That reminds me of the reason behind the Hogan quote: “Don’t tell me how far it is, I don’t want to know.”

But you have to know how far each club goes, and under what conditions. Combine that knowledge with knowing exactly how far it is to a “safe” spot on the green. In the past, I have always pulled the longer club when in doubt. As a result, my misses were almost always long. That’s a problem. Long is usually a tough spot to recover from. Since I’ve been using the Sky Caddie, I’ve found myself frequently choosing the shorter club and aiming for spots underneath the hole. It may be that trading just one double bogey for one par or birdie is the reason I’ve been posting lower scores.

Shootout at Poppy Ridge

On December 1st and 2nd, we will host another “Shootout” at Poppy Ridge golf course in Livermore. We will be equipped with state of the art radar-based launch monitors. The Trackman and the Cheetah will both be available for fitting drivers including complete trajectory analysis and “angle of descent”. Radar is the best way to find out exactly how far you hit every club in your bag.

We will have complete bags of demo clubs that can best be tested outdoors, hitting off of a natural grass surface. Wedges, utilities and fairway woods will supplement our usual collection of drivers and irons. Every exotic shaft will be available for you to hit.

Reservations are required. The cost is $125. That includes an hour of launch monitor time and unlimited access to our demo clubs and range balls for as long as you want to stay. Phone the Golf Lab for details: (650) 493-1770.

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