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Golf Equipment Chronicles 2008 (Part 7)

Re-thinking Club Length, Balance and Other Mysteries

by Leith Anderson

November 2008 was no fun for most everyone in the United States except voters who decided to fire the Republicans. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. There was a little meeting down in Columbus, Georgia that attracted some of the most inquisitive club fitters from around the country. I was there. You’ll get the best ideas and most of that story this month.

Whatever the industry, that meeting is the kind of gathering where new ideas come to light. The golf industry is generally not friendly to innovation. Change comes at a glacial pace. I’m wondering if the only sport that is less open to change is fox hunting.

Determining Correct Club Length

One of the non-standards of the golf industry is club length. Most drivers today are 45” – except the ones that are 45.5” or 46”. Most irons are built to a specification where the three iron is 39” and each club decreases in length by half an inch down through the wedges. That is unless the three iron is 38.75” and the wedges decrease in length by a quarter of an inch. And graphite shafted irons are an inch longer. What’s with that? You get the idea.

The lie angle of irons is somewhat adjustable. You can bend an iron head to help a player make solid contact. At the most basic level, clubfitting aims to get the “correct” length and lie angle. That is usually done by hitting clubs with different specifications until one club stands out with a few good shots in a row. That one goes home with you.

We’re used to buying new golf clubs and then learning to hit them. Mitch Voges, the Amateur Champion from 1991 and creative club fitter in Los Angeles says: “Golf clubs should be like new glasses. I get new glasses, I see better right now.”

Over the years, there have been some clubmakers who asked the question “why not make the club fit the player instead of vice-versa?”

Golf is a difficult game to learn. Worse, to “get good” requires thousands of hours of practice. That’s why so few adults ever find time to master the game. If you want to learn golf, it’s a great advantage to be a kid and not need a summer job.

1-Iron Golf

David Lake is one of those guys who asked “why” and answered himself that there was no good reason that “sets” of golf clubs should be put together the way they are. His reasoning was that with conventional sets a player needs to learn a different stance and swing for every club in his bag. Thirteen clubs, thirteen stances, thirteen swings. If it’s difficult to learn a single swing, how about thirteen swings?

David founded his company based on the concept that golfers would be better off if every club were exactly the same length and lie angle. Why should a three iron be longer than a five iron or a seven iron? Why should the length progression be half an inch? Why not make the only difference the loft of the iron head? If you built a set of clubs like that, a golfer would be able to stand in exactly the same position for all of his shots. He could use the same swing with all of his clubs. The underlying concept of the 1 Iron Golf Company is to learn one swing and use it to hit every shot.

A couple of years ago I made contact with David and enjoyed several energized phone conversations. He is the consummate salesman for his system – peppering his pitch with entertaining facts and anecdotes. The result was that he built me a set of irons based on his theories and I took them to the course.

A set of David Lake’s irons is truly different. He gets the heads custom made, each with exactly the same weight and lie angle. Then he fits them with shafts all exactly the same length and frequency. The length he uses is loosely based on a player’s “favorite length” – usually something in the range of a six or seven iron. You only get one size grip – oversize to promote his vision of the right way to connect a player to the club.

I promised to use the irons for five consecutive rounds so that I could get over the shock of playing golf differently and get accustomed to the simplicity of the “single swing”. I did that religiously.

There were flashes of brilliance. The virtues of single length clubs were most noticeable in the long and mid irons. I was surprised by how controllable the four iron was. But in the end, I abandoned the experiment because of the wedges. There was no way that I could get accustomed to the wedges that were as long as my seven iron. Maybe I spent too many lazy summer days hitting wedges in the back yard.

The Pilot’s Experiment

Back then, David Lake only sold his irons in finished sets. (He has now sells “heads only” for clubmakers who want to try the single length concept out.) The 1 Iron concept is not unique. My Ostrich Golf sells sets of single weight, single lie angle iron heads under the “Pure Spin” brand that have a weight port to make adjusting the final head weight easy. I wanted to check out whether the single length concept might work for a higher handicap player.

One of the inveterate testers at the Golf Lab is the Pilot. He’s 74 and like most seniors, has his moments. Once in a while he’ll finish a nine under 40 but he also breaks 50 going the other way.

We bought a set of the Pure Spin heads and built a set of single length irons for the Pilot. That experiment went on for over a year. In the end, the Pilot concluded that he loved the single length concept for the middle irons but that there was no way he could get accustomed to longer wedges. Same for utilities – of which he has several. He wanted longer lengths for the utility clubs.

The final conclusion was to modify the concept of 1 Iron Golf and end up with a set of clubs that were four different lengths. The driver was 47” –the Pilot could control the Accra 40 gram shaft and wouldn’t give up the extra distance. The utilities were 39”. The irons were 37” and the wedges which were all 35”. That setup worked until just recently when a hankering for something new (Nickent 4DX irons) knocked them out of the bag. No one says you’ve got to go “hook, line and sinker”.

True Length Technology

I told that convoluted story to set up Dan Connolly’s “True Length Technology (TLT) invention – presented for the second year at the Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals (AGCP) meeting in Columbus, Georgia, November 5-8th. Last year, he won the prize for “Best New Clubfitting Idea”. This year he was back to nurture more converts with a certification class. I signed up.

The theory of Dan’s system is similar to David’s in the belief that every golfer has a “true athletic position” and it would be better for golfers if they could hit all – or at least most - of their shots from that stance. This idea is hard to argue against. In many years of listening to Eric Jones give lessons at the Golf Lab, his starting point with a new student is always “set up”. The same concept is natural in most sports, from baseball, basketball and football to wrestling. There is a common stance that athletes take to put themselves in position to perform.

Dan’s real life job is a CAD/CAM operator for General Motors in Canada. He’s a GM veteran with twenty seven years experience – but that doesn’t keep him from loving golf in his spare time. As you might guess, the basis of Dan’s system is a series of diagrams that yield detailed specifications on how to match a set of irons for length and lie angle based on a golfer’s “true athletic position”.

The first thing you do to fit for TLT is determine your unique “series” – base length - by the usual trial and error method supplemented with some measurements. Once you have that figured out, the build out specifications give you the exact length and lie angle of each iron in the set. You no longer worry about fitting for lie angle. The lie is mathematically determined, just like the length.

In a “standard” set of irons where the three iron is 39” and the lob wedge is 34.5” – there’s a four and a half inch difference between the longest and shortest iron in the bag. In the TLT system, that spread will be under three inches. With the TLT system, the length progression from club to club is non-linear.

TLT also sets the lie angles at 1* progression. This might be the most radical requirement for a golf world accustomed to fit lie angle to a player’s swing. The effect is to force a player into a “correct” swing plane. That’s going to be a little hard to swallow for players accustomed to attacking the ball more or less randomly. Both Dan and David are unapologetic. To them, it is a benefit that if you use their system, you will be forced to “swing right”. That theory will surely work for some players but not for all. The key question: will you fit TLT?

Real Life Comparisons

When you work on your own clubs, it’s not too hard to make those little “tweaks” that you’ve been wondering about. Sometimes random experimentation produces the same results predicted by scientific analysis. The reason I’m interested in the TLT system is that I have mimicked some of Dan’s findings with my own modifications.

Hitting long irons is the signature of a skilled player. There’s probably no more difficult club in golf than a long iron – or more satisfying to master. I’ve always prided myself on being able to hit a good long iron. To this day, all of the collector sets in my garage include a one iron. Memories are sweet. I still remember the two iron that I hit on the eleventh hole in the Illinois State boys’ golf tournament when I was a sophomore in high school. That was forty-five years ago. With long irons, sweet memories are rare but luckily, they last a long time.

Years ago, I started to trim a little length off of my three and four irons. Rather than the standard half inch progression, I cut the four iron just a quarter inch longer than the five and the three iron another quarter inch longer than that. I found that slightly shorter long irons were more reliable and gave up no distance. It was pure trial and error.

At the other end of the spectrum, I found that I liked my wedges a little closer to the same length. Most of the time, I build wedges with a quarter inch progression. Setting club lengths that way yields just a 3.25” spread from the longest to the shortest. That’s strangely close to the TLT spread – though the actual club lengths are not as precisely measured. When real life matches theory, I call that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

The One Big Difference

It’s a mistake to think that True Length Technology is exactly the same as 1 Iron Golf. If you go with the 1 Iron theory, you’re going to be standing in the same athletic position and taking an identical swing on exactly the same swing plane – assuming everything goes according to plan.

The TLT system will have you standing in the same position but because each club is a slightly different length and lie angle, you will be making each swing on a different plane. That might be easier starting from the same “athletic position” but TLT does not produce identical swings – again assuming that everything goes according to plan.

Ready for Prime Time?

If you want to pursue this idea further, you can visit Dan’s website: www.truelengthtechnology.com or David’s website at www.1irongolf.com.

If you’re looking for a custom clubmaker who has adopted the TLT method, they are listed on the TLT website. There is a surprising number of clubmakers listed. That’s a good sign that the system is being adopted. On the other hand, neither scheme has been noticed by the mainstream golf media.

I plan to build a couple of demo sets to make available for Golf Lab customers. I believe that the only good way to prove a concept is to give a complete set of demos to a customer and let him go to the course. When he returns to the shop and says “You can’t have these back” – it’s a good sign. When that happens twenty or thirty times, I know we’re on to something.

And of course I’ll build myself a set and see if I get that electric feeling. You’ll have to wait for that report until January.

Bottom line: I’m still skeptical that TLT will be adopted by accomplished golfers. Very good players have already taken the time to learn the game the hard way. It would be great if a slight change in length and lie angle theory produced significant and immediate results. It’s worth a try.

I think that the true value of both of these ideas is going to be proven with players who are still learning the game and aren’t about to spend the ten thousand hours it takes to become a true master. I see it as being a great first start for beginners. If you live in the Bay Area and would like to be a “product tester” to find out for yourself – get in touch.

The Next Big Thing?

Last month I introduced Golf Equipment Chronicles readers to John Jones and his “Newest Crazy Idea” – that irons for Tour players can be made with lightweight graphite shafts. We were running out of time as Golf Today went to press so I didn’t have too much testing information. I only had a couple of rounds with my own set, built on the same model. They seemed to be very good but my handicap hasn’t had time to come down.

I loaned my irons out and the player ordered an identical set when he brought them back. I made a couple of demos for another player and he ordered a complete reshaft for his Nike Pro Combos. It’s not twenty satisfied customers yet, but we’re on the way.

If you missed the article, the gist was lightweight Aerotech graphite shafts – 70 or 80 grams – fitted with a 15 gram weight located internally in the shaft at eight inches under the lower hand. That was paired up with an eight gram butt weight. In my case, using 80 gram shafts, the static weight of the clubs came back up to the equivalent of a 105 gram shaft with counterweights installed. That’s close to the specifications on my current “gamer” set, the Tour Stage CB’s mounted on Nippon 950’s in extra stiff flex.

The underlying idea of balancing your clubs with counterweights is that you get the performance benefits of light weight but you keep the static weight of the clubs in your “comfort zone” so your tempo and timing are not affected.

Update on John Johnson’s Irons and Driver

After playing a few more rounds with his 70 gram Aerotech shafts and Bridgestone heads, John started to think that the head weight was not heavy enough. When we built out the first set, we left the head weights at “standard” which is a 255 gram five iron head with a seven gram progression up and down the set. The resulting swingweight, due to the weight of the shaft comes out a little light – the reduction in swingweight is found by subtracting the weight of the lighter shaft from the heavier shaft and dividing by eight. Fifty-five grams (130-75) cuts the swingweight almost seven points. We thought that would be OK for the first set but there were a couple of shots with a three iron under windy conditions that John thought lacked a little bit of power.

So we built another set, same specifications except for the headweight which we brought up six grams – raising the swingweight by three points. That set is on its way to John for a tryout during December. Remember, after building out John’s first driver with a 193 gram head weight – about seven grams less than “standard” he added that seven grams back and liked the feel better.

Here’s what we’ve learned: we still don’t know two things. First, exactly how to optimize and balance golf clubs with weight down the shaft. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as these products are all very new. In the balance of art and science – we’re still way over on the art side.

The second thing that we don’t know is the precise shaft to counterweight balance ratio. We’re assuming that down the shaft counterweights will not be as effective in steel shafts. As you can tell from my chronicle, this is still a work in progress – much more an art form than a scientific procedure.

What really worries me is that we might just be drinking our own cool aid. Unfortunately, most of the breakthroughs and miracles in the golf world seem to end up just a flash in the pan. There have been many - including some that are disconcertingly close to the ideas I’m describing in this article. Dave Pelz’ “Featherlight” irons and Armour Golf’s single length irons from the 80’s come to mind. The only way we will know that balancing golf clubs is here to stay is if the little trickle of business from the “early adopters” turns into a flood when the story gets out.

Tour Lock Sales Results at the AGCP Roundtable

There were two presentations on counter weighting golf clubs at the AGCP Roundtable in Georgia. A fitting experiment was conducted by Bill Kelly and I reported on my fitting methods and sales results at the Golf Lab. Bill Kelly is a distributor for Tour Lock weights. He took orders from 50 of the 60 clubmakers in attendance. That’s a good sign.

Free Offer for Chronicles Readers

Here’s your reward for reading this far. If you live in the Bay Area and can pay the Golf Lab a visit, I’ll introduce you to balancing your golf clubs with a free fitting for counter weights, the Balance-Certified Stabilizer and Opti-Vibes from Tour Lock – the weight down the shaft. The fitting will take about an hour and I’ll be very surprised if we can’t improve the performance of your current golf clubs. I’m on a mission to bring club balancing to the golf world. I’ve said it before; balancing your clubs is the closest thing to a miracle that I’ve seen in golf. And, would you like a sip of kool aide to go with that?

Graphite is Coming, Graphite is Coming

Another presentation at the Georgia AGCP Roundtable was delivered by Terry Kohler the founder and president of Eidolon Golf. The subject was “wedge fitting” but there was a lot of product information covered. Terry has been around golf his whole life so he’s well-versed in equipment technology.

One of the discussions in the program centered on “spin milling” wedges. That discussion provided an amusing example of marketing hype. I always assumed that “spin milling” was the texture on the face of late-model wedges – that kind of swirling pattern. I thought that spin milling assured that a wedge face would produce more spin. OOPS!! That swirling pattern comes from a milling machine that levels the face. Most premium wedges are made that way. It has nothing to do with spin milling.

Spin milling is actually an advanced machining technique for cutting grooves in iron heads more efficiently – and cheaper. A series of spinning saw blades, computer controlled, cut the grooves in one pass, rather than one at a time in conventional CNC milling. You could argue that grooves cut one at a time by a milling machine are actually superior to spin milled grooves. Spin milled grooves are certainly not superior in any way to grooves cut by conventional milling techniques. Nevertheless, we all think that wedges with spin milled grooves produce more spin. I still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. And, I believed the marketing hype.

Eidolon wedges are an interesting product. It’s probably the shortest product line in the industry, one model, four lofts, one finish, one weight, one lie angle. It’s a low-grade miracle that Terry has been able to sell enough wedges to sustain a company. For no other reason that proves they must be good.

Terry made a surprising announcement. Next year he is offering his wedge line only with graphite shafts. His explanation was that graphite provides better consistency and feel. I thought that was a very interesting attack on another belief: that wedges need stiff heavy shafts for accuracy and consistency. Terry is adamant: if you’re playing anything other than graphite in your wedges, you’re taking strokes off your game. That’s another first in the industry.

I’m getting a jump on the move to graphite wedge shafts. I have three complete sets of Eidolon wedges fitted up with the latest graphite: the Aerotech 125i, the new SK Fiber 120 gram wedge shaft and the “John Johnson Special” – Aerotech 80i’s set up with Opti-Vibe weights down the shaft. Any Golf Lab customers can check out a set for no charge to test during a round of golf. For readers in other parts of the country, suggest to your local custom clubmaker that he do the same.

Graphite in Putter Shafts

This leads to an update on John Johnson and his “Great Graphite Putter Shaft Project”. John’s true love is putters. He’s been working on the idea of lightweight shafts for putters – with enough room inside the shaft to mount his counterweights to influence a player’s stroke. He got the shafts made by SK Fiber. They’re a distinctive black and white design – an alternative to the primary colors that have already been co-opted by the big OEMs. You can still recognize the black and white pattern from two hundred yards.

It might be that graphite shafts in putters is about to go mainstream. John will be in the Yes! Putter booth at the PGA Show in January. Yes is making a commitment to offer customization in their putter line and it looks like John’s shaft and Opti-Vibe weights will be a big part of that program. I think it’s the continuation of the trend to improve the performance of every club in a player’s bag with counter-weights.

As usual, if you want to try out demo putters fitted with John’s shafts and weights, stop by the Golf Lab. If you’re not in the area, your clubmaker can order weights and shafts at www.tourlockpro.com.

Last Word on the Roundtable

From time to time I’ve mentioned the sickness of the golf industry. Rampant over-production has glutted all of the distribution channels with out of date golf merchandise. Golf companies are already hunkering down, expecting 2009 to be down, if not disastrous. The multi-national corporations can afford to flush the surplus at fire sale prices to clear the way for next year’s production. Clearance prices are impossible to match for the smaller companies that can’t afford to revamp the entire product line every year. Mid-tier companies are at huge risk.

The casualties this year will almost certainly include MacGregor – the once venerable manufacturer – one of the “Big Three” when there were only three. Nicklaus Golf seems to be reverting to its “bubble pack” product for distribution at Costco. Cleveland is always mentioned in the at risk category. Who knows what companies will be next?

In the midst of the chaos in the marketplace, over sixty clubmakers found their way to Columbus, Georgia where they shared techniques for fitting and building golf clubs. The event was organized and produced by Roy Nix. I went specifically to hear from Dana Upshaw, Jerry Hoefling, Keith Chatham, Tom Spargo and a few other deeply experienced fellow travelers. The event was inspirational – evidence that there is a core of professional club fitters and clubmakers around the country who care about nothing more than helping their customers play a better game of golf and have more fun. I urge you to find one of those guys and give him some of your business. For information and a clubmaker locator, go to www.AGCPgolf.com.

The Golf Lab Gang wishes all of their customers and friends a joyful holiday season. See you in 2009.

Leith Anderson is a Partner in the Golf Lab, Palo Alto, CA.
He will answer any and all questions about club fitting and club making. Contact: Leith@calgolftech.com. Or by phone (650) 493-1770