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Golf Equipment Chronicles 2009 (Part 8)

The Search is Still On

by Leith Anderson

I’ve explored new ideas for Golf Today readers for over seven years – the “Golf Psychos” – never missing a single deadline. I know I won’t disappoint you this month. There is so much going on in the new driver world that I don’t know how I’ll condense everything I need to say into a mere 4000 words.

The very beginning of the Golf Equipment Chronicles was the “Search for the Magic Driver”. That search started way back in 2002 with a focus on fitting technology and has never ended. In the meantime, I have been happy to take another tack for a month or two to describe whatever is happening with irons, shafts, wedges, putters and any other golf gizmo you can imagine. But my obsession has always been the Big Stick. If you’re going to buy another “Magic Driver” this year, what will it be? I’m going to give you some tempting ideas.

Checking Predictions

One very interesting result of publishing articles every month for seven years is the “written record” of opinions, predictions and (God forbid!! Mistakes.) It’s more fun to focus on the predictions that came true.

The “Interchangeable Shaft” movement that was touted as the “Next Big Thing” at the Worldwide PGA Show in 2007 turned out to be a disaster for the companies that introduced the “interchangeable shaft systems”.

The Callaway invention was the I-Mix. Taylor Made introduced the CGB Max Limited. The motivation for both Callaway and Taylor Made was to get into the shaft business. It is no secret that the Monster Original Equipment Companies (MOEM’s) are jealous of the custom clubmakers and club fitters around the world who take the product that comes out of the factory, tweak it, and make it work better by fitting the club to the player. They’re also jealous of the little extra profit that they’re letting slip away into the independent craftsman channel.

The underlying idea behind the interchangeable shaft systems was that you would no longer have to rely on your local clubmaker for help in finding the “right” shaft. Just go into your friendly golf store and pick up a shrink wrapped head, a shrink wrapped shaft, screw them together and you’re good to go.

You’re paying a pretty penny – at least you were supposed to. Callaway assumed that golfers would gladly fork out a premium price for the amusement and convenience of interchangeable shafts. That business model assumption turned out to be wrong.

It is simply impossible for the MOEM’s to be successful with a “one size fits all” product. They are running businesses that require standardization. If you buy a shaft from them, it’s going to be one length. The head weights are going to be the same. Their assumption? It doesn’t matter if the player is 5 feet 5 inches tall or 6 feet 6 inches tall, the “standard” should work. Alas, the essence of custom fitting drivers is changing the club to fit the player. The reason custom clubmakers are successful in improving the performance of off-the-shelf golf clubs is that they change the shaft length, shaft weight, shaft flex, grip and swing weight – and lately moment of inertia - to help the player maintain balance, tempo and timing. One size never fits all.

Fast forward to see how the interchangeable shaft systems worked out. Conclusion: not according to plan. If you buy a Callaway driver with an interchangeable shaft today you’re going to pay the same price as the same driver with a shaft that’s installed permanently. No more premiums for interchangeability. Cheap rejects are turning up on eBay in increasing quantities. Faced with the threat of massive returns from their distribution channel, Callaway was forced to drop the prices. I would love to know the amount of the “net downs” that rippled through the Callaway accounts receivable. Maybe selling shafts isn’t a great profit maker after all.

If you happened to miss making a huge mistake by buying the Taylor Made CGB Limited for $1000 when it came out in 2007, it is time for a second look. At $1000, the CGB wasn’t an awful deal – on paper. You got three super premium shafts with your driver – each one a $300 upgrade in the aftermarket. The CGB came with a Fujikura Rombax, a Mitsubishi Diamana and a Matrix X-Con 5. The problem was that each of the shafts was built for a different player and a different swing. A player might test each of those shafts to find the one that performed the best for his swing. But after the fitting, the other two shafts would be useless. Who wants to play with the second – or third - best shaft in his driver? I called that as a serious marketing mistake when the CGB was introduced. Why didn’t TM ask me for advice?

But last year’s disaster can be this year’s super bargain. I just bought the original CGB Max Limited on eBay in new condition, complete with the three great shafts, for $260. That’s a huge discount from the go-go days when dealers were paying over $700 for the same package – wholesale - and the street price was $1000. The CGB is a very good driver and the mark down makes it a bargain. You don’t have to buy the three shaft package. If you know the shaft that works for you there are dozens of CGB Max Limited combinations to choose from on eBay for around $150.

You might be tempted to think that would be a good way to get a $300 shaft. It’s not. The fitting on the tip of the CGB shaft that connects the shaft to the head requires that shaft to be trimmed more aggressively. You can’t put that shaft in a standard driver. Shucks!!

The New “Next Big Thing”

So now the Big Boys are back with an upgrade to the “Last Next Big Thing”. This time the interchangeable shaft concept has been re-engineered to allow a player to change the orientation of the shaft in the head and by doing so, alter the face angle and loft a little bit.

I think that is a great idea!! This might be your next “Magic Driver” – I know one of the variations to be mine.

But you have to remember where I’m coming from. Back in the 1950’s when I first got hooked on golf, the whole world used persimmon drivers. Every persimmon driver was shaped and finished by hand which meant that every one was slightly different. There were never two identical persimmon drivers. There were always subtle changes in the way the driver set up. As a result, those of us who were looking for the “Magic Driver” in those days would pick up and waggle every single driver in every pro shop that we entered – always looking for that special one. That’s where the Search for the Magic Driver really started.

Although most modern titanium drivers are much more consistent – they are not identical. Modern drivers are constructed from stamped or cast parts, fitted together and welded by hand. Then they are then ground and finished by hand. Almost the same? Sure. Identical? Surely not.

There’s another problem with the way modern drivers are manufactured. In a “one size fits all” world, manufacturers make assumptions about their customers. One of the assumptions is that the higher the loft – the worse the player. They assume that a high index player swings with an outside-in swing path with a steep angle of attack – and consequently “needs” a driver with a closed face angle and high loft to offset the assumed swing flaws. Most modern drivers are designed to the following specifications: 8* one degree open, 9* square, 10* one degree closed, 11* two degrees closed – and so forth. If you happened to want a driver with 12* of loft and a square face angle you are out of luck – unless you got lucky with one of a few component manufacturers who might be able to “hand pick” a head that you were looking for.

If there’s one common complaint from all golfers who are pretty good or better – especially those who have a consistent inside-out swing path – they all hate drivers that have “closed” face angles. That problem is exacerbated because even drivers with square faces appear to be a little bit closed. For most players, it takes a face angle about 2* open before a driver actually looks square.

Players with a strong inside-out swing path have a legitimate beef about closed face angles. The closed face angle makes it more difficult to square the face at impact and a little glitch in timing can send the ball violently left. Meantime, manufacturers provide limited numbers of drivers with open face angles for their Tour players. You can pretty much be sure that if a driver is listed as “Tour” the main difference is that it will have an open face angle. Drivers with open face angles are extremely rare in high lofts.

I have spent a lot of time and effort, and more than a comfortable sum of money trying to search out driver heads with open face angles for myself and Golf Lab customers. They are scarce. The only consistent source is Bombsquadgolf.com – but at very high prices. From time to time, they come available on eBay – usually a model or two out of date.

The new drivers with adjustable face angles will make it possible for any golfer to have a driver with an open face angle.

Taylor Made R9 and Nike STR8 Fit

The two big companies offering adjustable drivers are Taylor Made and Nike. Overall, they are both very good drivers. Taylor Made has a little edge on sophisticated styling – bringing the size down a few cubic centimeters. The attachment between the shaft and head is more elegant with the R9. The Nike driver looks like they hired a plumber to make the connection. Nike, meantime, offers both its square and traditional head shapes with the adjustable shaft fitting. The recession had a positive effect on pricing. Originally targeted at a comfortable $499 price level, a last-minute game of “chicken” prior to release resulted in an aggressive street price of $399.

Nike’s STR8 Fit driver is a beast. The standard length is 45.75” and the average swingweight out of the factory is D-9 – from the drivers that we’ve measured at the Golf Lab. That’s good for the custom club business. In raw form, Nike drivers are only playable for giants and weight lifters. If you are planning to buy a Nike – modification is not a big problem. If you cut an inch off of the length you’ll make the club just about right – length between 44.5’ and 44.75” and a swingweight in the low D range.

I followed Michelle Wie at the Kraft-Nabisco a couple of weeks ago and was interested to see that she was playing the square STR8 fitted up with a Mitsubishi Fubuki shaft. She was hitting it sky high.

Alas, neither Nike nor Taylor Made has given up on the hope that they can make money by selling shafts. The fittings that make the drivers adjustable are “proprietary” which means protected by design patents and not sold individually. If you want a shaft to fit your new driver, you have to buy it from Taylor Made or from Nike. They haven’t learned the Callaway lesson yet – buyers refuse to pay artificially high prices for anything – and that includes driver shafts.

There is a chance that Taylor Made is rethinking the belief that it makes sense to try to control the aftermarket for shafts. I have noticed an unusual supply of Taylor Made adapters available for sale on the “Bay” and a few online golf forums have had members say that they had adapters for sale. Also, one of the key suppliers of aftermarket parts for the golf industry – Billy Bob Golf – has been predicting that aftermarket parts from third party suppliers might become available. If so, that would make the proprietary systems much more interesting. Who wouldn’t buy a handful of connectors to try some of the “old favorites” from the garage in the new R9 or STR Fit driver head? It will be interesting to see how much the aftermarket is restricted by repressive patent protection.

Nike and Taylor made should bite the bullet on this one and make their connectors available. Why? Because if they don’t, someone else will.

The Nickent Evolver Upgrade

Guess who? Nickent has cultivated an image of “blue collar” – keeping prices a little under the highest going rate and working closely with the players who don’t get paid before they’ll pick up a new golf club.

Nickent has had good success on the Nationwide Tour – first with hybrids – carving out a niche and establishing their reputation. Last year, they began to make headway with their drivers.

The big difference between Nickent and the other companies is that Nickent never intended to control the aftermarket business in shafts. They recognized early on that would be too expensive and also impossible. No company, not even Nike or Taylor Made can possibly satisfy the appetite for every shaft that any golfer might want to try. At best, they will offer a limited selection of the top models. What if you like a shaft from Oban, House of Forged, Nippon, Harrison, Aerotech, Penley, SK Fiber, RT Technologies, Enzo or any of the myriad boutique shaft companies that are trying to gain your attention? You’re out of luck unless you buy a shaft from the big boys just to get the gizmo. Nickent made their fittings available for a reasonable $25. Since they are totally reusable, that is a pretty good deal.

That’s the reason we’ve been using the Nickent Evolver driver line at the Golf Lab for shaft fitting. Once you get a head that produces the launch angle and spin rate that optimizes your ball speed, testing for ball speed and ball flight is a snap. You can switch shafts in a minute and use the same head. Shaft performance comparisons are immediate and easy to see and feel. That’s paying attention to the scientific principal that if you want to find out the difference in any comparison – change one variable at a time. It does you no good to test one driver with a certain shaft against another driver with a different shaft. You will find out which driver you like better, but you won’t have a good idea about how the shaft affected that opinion.

The Nickent Evolver driver system has been our primary shaft fitting tool at the Golf Lab. Customers love testing different shafts with the same head. After we work on launch ballistics (ball speed, launch angle and spin rate) indoors with our precision launch monitors, they can take the best of the best outdoors and see ball flight. Since the Evolver system was “street legal” many players who found the right combination exercised their option to “buy the demo”.

The key variable is “how many shafts can you test?” At the Golf Lab, we have over 100 high performance shafts to test with the Nickent Evolver. Our driver fitting system permits a player to try any shaft in our library to find the best one. “Try before you buy” is a better model than “buy before you try”. We would never have been able to offer that range of options paying Taylor Made and Callaway prices.

Nickent Follows Suit

Now Nickent has announced a new Evolver driver fitting gizmo. They re-engineered their current Evolver driver fitting to match the adjustability of the Taylor Made and Nike systems.

Now, you can buy a Tour-proven Nickent driver – in your choice of “regular” or “Tour” face angles and all of the fittings you want to try any shaft with your driver.

Since I’m in the prediction business, I predict that if Nike and Taylor Made do not make their fittings available so that players can use shafts they already have, or use shafts that Nike and Taylor Made do not offer, Nickent will climb up the charts.

How Does this Gizmo Work?

It is totally simple. If you imagine that you’re putting a fitting on the end of the shaft to attach the shaft fit the driver, the obvious way to do that is to make the driver shaft go straight through the fitting. If you do that, you will get a predictable result. The shaft will always go into the driver at exactly the same angle.

Now, imagine that you’re inserting the shaft into a fitting that has a little “bend”. Not too much, just a few degrees. Now, depending on how you orient the shaft when you insert the fitting into the driver head the relationship between the shaft and the driver head will change.

If you align the “bend” at 12 o’clock, you will raise the lie angle a little bit. How much? Impossible to know exactly but assume 1 or 2 degrees. That depends on how much the fitting is “bent”. Like everything else in the golf industry, you should not assume that all fittings are “bent” to the same angle. If you align that same fitting at 6 o’clock, you will lower the lie angle a little bit. In each case, the face angle and loft will stay the same.

Each of the fittings is a machined part. Each one has “flutes” that secure the shaft in the head. Turn the fitting a little bit counter clockwise – just a few flutes – and you’re opening the face angle and lowering the loft. Turn the fitting a little bit clockwise and you’re closing the face angle and raising the loft. Don’t worry, you’ll get a user manual with your purchase.

The newest “Next Big Thing” is actually not all that new. The Golfsmith catalog advertised a similar product twelve years ago – 1996 - for $26.50 – and that included the driver head. That’s a little reality check for golfers who think that the fancy R&D departments are actually coming up with really new ideas.

In another weird reference to the past, it was really Callaway that popularized the use of the “clockable hosel”. For several years, Callaway has offered a similar option to its Tour players. Older Callaway drivers require a fitting to mate the shaft with the head. Callaway produced a fitting that was described as a “clockable hosel” that they made available to their tour players. When you think about it as a clock face, orient the “bend” in the vertical plane. Turn clockwise – close the face angle, raise the loft. Turn counterclockwise, open the face angle, lower the loft. That’s what “clockable” is all about. That’s exactly what the new gizmos from Taylor Made, Callaway and Nickent are doing. Callaway had the idea first but didn’t make it easy to use.

How Do You Know, Exactly?

This is a key question. The reality of “manufacturing tolerances” in the golf industry is that the number might not be THE NUMBER. If a driver has 10* stamped on the sole plate, it is “in spec” if the actual loft is anything between 8* and 12*. Some manufacturers manage a slightly more precise delivery specification but not one will guarantee that a driver with 10* stamped on the sole plate is actually 10*.

The same goes for face angles. Due to the manufacturing inconsistencies that I noted earlier, it is possible for any driver, despite the “target” face angle to differ a couple of degrees one way or the other. Hence, a driver with a 10* face angle stamped on the bottom (looking for 1* closed) could wind up anywhere between 1* open and 3* closed – and that’s just to make “spec”. Most of the component companies take on the extra expense of measuring and marking every head that comes out of the factory. That’s why you can get a 2* open head from companies like SMT. They know that there will be manufacturing inconsistencies, and they plan for them. Only the major manufacturers make believe that every head is manufactured to a perfect specification.

This discussion is aimed at alerting all Golf Today readers to understand that even with the “Newest, Next Big Thing” you still don’t know exactly what you’ve got until you have your golf clubs measured.

No matter which driver you choose, if you assume that the starting point is the loft stamped on the sole plate and a square face angle, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

The only way you will ever know exactly the specifications that you are playing is to find a clubmaker with precision instruments to measure your actual loft and face angle. Then, when you change it, measure again. Only then will you know exactly what you’ve got.

Since I’m focusing on “annoyances”, I’ve got another one. If you are like most golfers and can’t stand the idea that your grip is not installed straight, consider what will happen when you change the orientation of your shaft. You guessed it; the graphics on the grip will change position. If you like ribbed grips, you will have to reinstall your grip every time you change shaft positions. The easy answer is to pick up a small air compressor and install your grips with air pressure. Then when you need to move them a little one way or another you can do it easily without wasting the grip.

Hands On

Most of my hands-on experience has come with the Nickent Evolver. It is a classic pear shaped head with a solid “thwack” on impact. It doesn’t have any of the highly touted high moment of inertia design features but if you like a classic driver, you will appreciate the Evolver. I’m looking forward to the availability of the adjustable hosel connector.

I’m not too far along testing the Nike STR8. When the first shipment came in, we made the mistake of ordering every driver with the stock shaft to keep the cost down. Dumb and boring. The Stock shaft is a UST ultra-lightweight shaft. It looks a little fat. Overall, the feel and performance is not too bad but just it’s no fun to have an interchangeable shaft driver and not be able to test other shafts.

As far as the adjustability feature goes, it is fine. I have changed the face angle around and sure enough, the character of the driver is vastly different. The claims of automatically changed ball flight are overstated. No driver will ever overcome a bad swing.

With Nike you have the added flexibility of choosing the square or traditional version. Once players appreciate the value of fitting the driver head to their eye and their swing – and once the shaft availability issues have been resolved – I think the STR8 will be very popular. Personally, I’m going with the square.

If you’re looking for ultra-adjustability, the R9 offers the option of changing the head weight. That is a significant advantage if you’re going to fit your driver with longer or shorter, heavier of lighter shafts. My R9 evaluation will have to wait. I never buy a Taylor Made driver until six months after it comes out – and the price comes down.

One More New Idea – Crazy or Brilliant?

Taking a completely different tack, you might decide that you just don’t want to mess around with your driver. That will surely be the opinion of the majority of golfers if experience with the Taylor R7 series taught us anything. Most players set their “MWT” (moveable weight technology) once and forgot it. If that’s your attitude but you still want a taste of something new, test the PowerBuilt Air Force One driver.

The idea behind the line is to create a line of drivers with variable face thickness – thinner for slower swing speeds – thicker for higher swing speeds to maximize the rebound effect. In order to make the driver work – and stay legal – the driver head is “nitrogen charged”. The designers chose nitrogen because it is inert. It won’t expand and blow up if you leave it in your car trunk and the head won’t cave if you take it with you on an airplane ride.

The technology has been in development for several years. It’s no small challenge to trap gas in a club head at high pressure. The head had to be sealed and a new valve had to be invented.

Each driver head is “swing speed rated”. The thinnest driver face goes on the head rated for the lowest swing speed. The nitrogen pressure inside the head prevents catastrophic failure – reinforcing the thin face but allowing some compression.

The key question: Does it work? We have picked up a couple of Air Force One’s and have conducted some preliminary tests. Some players showed measurable improvement in ball speed. Those tended to be lower swing speed golfers. This is a brand new product so there’s a lot of testing to be done to prove the idea. If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to find out for yourself, we’ll be sponsoring a “Challenge” in the month of May. Bring in your current driver and test it against the Air Force One. As usual, inquiring minds want to know . . .

OOPS!! Out of space. If you want another fix before next month, log into www.calgolftech.com and sign up for the newsletter.

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