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What's new on the West Coast
Golf Equipment Chronicles 2003 (Part 9)
Copyright 2003 by Leith Anderson
All rights reserved
Originally appeared in April 2003 issue of Golf Today
By Leith Anderson
Tuning the Magic Driver
By Leith Anderson
Last month I used our Golf Achiever launch monitor
to pare a bag full of drivers down to four candidates
for the new Magic Driver. The selection criteria were
carry distance, clubhead speed, ball speed, launch angle,
spin rate and several indicators of accuracy. I compiled
the results of several test sets of ten drives each
recorded with the Achiever. If you missed that article
in Golf Today and can't find a back issue, you can download
a copy from www.calgolftech.com.
After hitting several hundred drives with seven different
drivers over a four day period, performing modifications
and then testing each club at the range the survivors
were:
- Titleist LFE 9.5*, stock ultralight, PCS Equalizer
6.6 flex at 45"
- Nicklaus JNP 8.5*, SK Fiber Lite Revolution, PCS
Equalizer 6.3 flex at 45'
- Sonartec Super CV 10*, stock Penly, PCS Equalizer
6.7 flex at 44.75"
- La Jolla 350 9*, Fujikura Speeder 757, PCS Equalizer
5.8 flex at 45"
Taking the Shortcut to a Finding the
Magic Driver
After working with the Achiever for the last couple
of months, I'm impressed with the accuracy of the data
and the incredible efficiency of using a launch monitor
to measure and compare the performance of golf clubs.
I have often felt sorry for golfers (including myself)
who took an armful of drivers to the range and tried
to choose among them by hitting balls into space. The
most obvious problem is that if you're trying to find
the one that goes the farthest you can't see where the
ball is coming down at 200+ yards out. You also can't
see the effect that trajectory might have on roll. In
addition, if you slap shots randomly, before long you
can't even remember which club is giving the most consistent
results. It's really just blind luck if you pick the
best one. The correct method is to winnow the choices
down to two or three, based on measured performance.
Then, you must take the club to a course that you play
regularly and see where you end up in play. It's better
to be disappointed before you pay your money than after.
Tuning the Magic Driver
The idea for this month was to see how much a stock
driver can be improved after you decide that it is "the
one". Tuning is something that you can do with
a driver, after you are satisfied that the shaft flex
is good, trajectory is good and distance is great. This
is not about finding a driver you can play with, it
is about making the driver that you are playing with
better.
I was hoping that by using the Achiever, I would be
able to measure the effect of the tuning modifications
and quantify the actual improvement, if any, in the
performance of the new Magic Driver. I was able to do
just that.
"Tuning" by my definition involves two operations.
First, I planned to (re)align the shafts in their most
stable plane to promote consistent feel, better control
and increased average distance from solid contact. In
my world, this is SST PURE ™, a patented procedure
invented by Dick Weiss, the founder and president of
Strategic Shaft Technologies (SST). Second, I planned
to add counterweight to the grip of the club to change
the balance to improve feel and top off the distance.
I made the arbitrary decision to keep things simple
by tuning just two of the drivers from the first round
of testing. All of the candidates from the first round
were formidable, but I thought that the Sonartec and
the LaJolla would take too much work to finish fitting
the shafts for flex to be included in this month's article.
I decided to focus on the Titleist LFE and the Nicklaus
JNP. We'll come back and work with the other combinations.
My middle name should be "Byron". Over a
month's time, I hit almost 200 drives with the two drivers
and recorded every one. First, I hit several sets with
each driver to provide a baseline. Then, I PUREd the
shafts and took another set of data. Finally, I added
the Balance-Certified counterweight system and tested
each of the weights. The results were surprising.
I need to make my disclaimer. I'm not presenting this
exercise as scientifically correct. However, it is the
kind of testing that any golfer with access to a launch
monitor can do himself. It only takes a few hours. In
that way, it is a realistic test. For anyone who is
interested, the spreadsheets with the complete data
are available on my website. Go to www.calgolftech.com
if you want to see all of the detail from each of the
sessions.
SST PURE ™
It might sound like voodoo that you can take a shaft
out of a golf club, test it, and then reinstall it in
the club in a new position and improve performance.
It turns out that this procedure was a "dirty little
secret" among leading edge clubmakers for years.
The problem was that USGA rules prohibited realigning
shafts until very recently so any clubmaker who tried
to make a better set of clubs by "spining"
the shaft was forced to keep a secret between himself
and his customer.
About six years ago, Dick Weiss set out to invent a
method to "PURE" the shafts in a set of clubs
by using computerized instrumentation. Along the way,
he had to convince the USGA that realigning shafts in
a set of clubs should not be against the rules as long
as the result was to "neutralize" the natural
inconsistencies in shafts. The USGA bought the argument
and issued a ruling that SST PURE ™ technology
was legal.
Today, PUREing is a well-accepted procedure with a
solid following among touring professionals. Over 200
PGA, LPGA and Champions Tour professionals have had
their clubs PUREd. About two thirds of the current PGA
Tour has had their clubs PUREd. It is a procedure that
is gaining momentum rapidly. A few years ago, you would
get a lot of argument from clubmakers about whether
orienting the shaft was worth the trouble, whatever
they might have called the procedure. Today, there is
little argument. Clubmakers believe that shafts need
to be aligned properly in the club. The main value of
the SST PUREing system is that it is the only computer
driven engineered system on the market. As such, it
is much more precise than any other method.
I was looking for some physical indication that would
prove that PUREing actually changed the performance
of the club and I found it. With the LFE, there was
a dramatic decrease in sidespin that occurred immediately
after PUREing. I concluded that was the result of stabilizing
the shaft. Other accuracy indicators were positive,
but not as dramatic. These included launch angle, and
some Achiever accuracy indicators. At the range and
on the golf course, my main conclusion was simply that
the shots felt more solid and I had no catastrophic
misses. There were no distance surprises because the
course was still playing wet and long so we're not close
to summer distances.
How PUREing Works - The First Test
Golf shafts are inconsistent. The first SST test is
designed to measure that inconsistency. The butt of
a shaft is clamped in a lathe chuck and tensioned at
the tip under a load cell. The shaft is rotated 360*
and the results are measured and graphed.
The graph reveals two important facts about the shaft.
First, it shows how consistent the shaft is. The instrumentation
measures the force exerted around the circumference
of the shaft. A perfect shaft would graph as a straight
line. In that case, the force exerted by the shaft would
be exactly equal around its circumference. This never
happens. The SST system expresses the inconsistency
in terms of a percentage. In the example shown in Figure
1, there is approximately a 7% variation in "strength"
around the shaft. This might result in as much as half
a flex difference just depending on how the shaft gets
placed in the clubhead.
The second fact that the system reveals about the shaft
is precisely where the shaft exerts the most force.
In the SST system, this is called the "hard side".
In the example graph, this point is located at exactly
99.78 degrees. The computer remembers this position.
The basis of the SST patent and subsequent USGA ruling
is that the hard side should be located in the line
of flight to promote stability in the shaft. If you
think of yourself as addressing a shot, the line of
flight position would be at nine o'clock.
There are some competing opinions put forth by clubmakers
that assert the hard side (or spine) should be located
in a different position, sometimes at 12 o'clock and
sometimes at 3 o'clock. It is important to note that
no scientific testing has been performed to prove these
theories. The only USGA sanctioned procedure is the
SST procedure. The only meaningful testing to prove
the benefits of PUREing in ball striking have been performed
by Golfsmith utilizing the SST system.
The Second Test
With the "hard side" located in the line
of flight, the computer then takes over to find the
precise position where the shaft is in its most stable
plane.
To fully understand this second operation, you might
try an experiment yourself. If you clamp the grip of
your driver in a vise with the toe at 12 o'clock and
then pull the shaft back horizontally, you will make
the club oscillate in the same plane as hitting a golf
ball. What you are likely to see is that the head of
the club will "bounce and wobble". This is
because the torsion inside the shaft causes it to distort,
sometimes in wild patterns.
The second phase of the SST PURE ™ procedure begins
by testing the shaft in the position that it comes out
of the club. In the example shown in Exhibit 2, the
shaft vibrates wildly, distorting by almost an inch.
From there, the computer finds the orientation where
the hard side is located in the line of flight and proceeds
to "look" up and down from that position a
few degrees at a time until it finds the most stable
plane. This position is illustrated in the flat line
graph of Exhibit 2. The beauty of the SST system is
that finding the stable plane is instrumented. This
is impossible to accomplish with the same accuracy using
only the naked eye.
To sum up the SST PURE ™ procedure, it's a two
step process. The first step is to find the "hard
side" of the shaft and locate that in the line
of flight. The second step is to find the point with
the hard side in the proper position where the shaft
will oscillate in its most stable plane. The shaft is
then reinstalled in the club in its most stable orientation.
Benefits of PUREing a Shaft
The idea behind PUREing a shaft is that by locating
the hard side in the line of flight, each shaft in the
set will feel as much like every other shaft in the
set as possible. Inconsistencies in shaft flex are eliminated.
By finding the most stable oscillation plane, the shaft
will distort less during the downswing. The result is
that you hit the ball closer to the center of the clubface.
In real life on the golf course, this means that you
will get better AVERAGE distance because you hit the
ball more consistently. I have already noted that in
my testing this was reflected in a dramatic decrease
in sidespin. I think that the electronic evidence shows
that the ball goes straighter as a result of PUREing.
This testing data was confirmed outdoors at the range
and on the course.
For more information on PUREing, you can go to the
SST website at www.pureshaft.com. Golfsmith international
has done the most scientific testing. You can find those
results at www.golfsmith.com.
Altering the Balance of the Magic
Driver
In the last few months, I have written about the Balance-Certified
Golf Company and their Pro-Balance System. A simple
description of the Pro-Balance system is that it is
an easy way to backweight a golf club. Backweighting
is placing one to two ounces of weight under the hands,
preferably as close to the end of the grip as possible.
The Pro-Balance System does just that.
The most likely question you might have is "Why
would you want to do that?" Readers of my generation
would remember that backweighting has been discussed
since Jack Nicklaus popularized the concept back in
the sixties. I recently found out that Jack only stopped
backweighting his clubs a few months ago.
Here is what we have found out in the last several
months of testing and play. Backweighting definitely
changes the feel of the club. Some players describe
it as "more solid". Some describe the feeling
of weight in the grip as promoting the ability to "drop
it in the slot". We have heard dozens of different
descriptions. The testing that we have done clearly
shows that backweighting increases the ball speed off
the face of the club. We use the system to gain the
last few yards of distance after every other tuning
technique has been applied. For our purposes, we were
trying to get more distance "for free".
The principal advantage of the Pro-Balance system is
its simplicity. It consists of a machined adapter that
fits down in the shaft of the club. An opening is cut
through the butt end of the grip to provide access for
a set of interchangeable weights. The adapter weighs
25 grams. The weights come in 5, 10, 20 and 30 gram
sizes. By installing weights, you can add from one to
two ounces at very end of the grip.
A common question is "What about swingweight?"
It is true that adding weight at the grip lowers swingweight
as measured on a swingweight scale by about one SW point
for each four grams of additional backweight. However,
swingweight is meant to measure "head feel".
Because of the location of the weight, the feel of the
head in your hands does not change. I think of backweighting
as providing a little additional leverage.
The surprising result of the testing that I just completed
is that results are very sensitive to the amount of
weight used. As I experimented with different weights,
I found that my results might not improve with certain
weights, and in some cases might deteriorate.
Specifically, the 20 gram weight that I thought felt
the best resulted in a decrease in swing speed and consequent
decrease in distance. The 5 gram weight was a little
better. The surprising result came with the 10 gram
weight (counting the weight of the adapter, a total
of 35 grams or a little under 1.5 ounces.) The right
weight gave me an extra five yards with both drivers.
Frankly, that result was surprising. I simply can't
understand why a 5 gram difference would produce such
a different result. What this experiment does show is
that a very small adjustment in balance can produce
a significant result measured in additional distance.
"Why" is part of the mystery of golf.
Quantifying the Results
Here's what happened. I established a pretty consistent
baseline. One of the non-scientific choices that I made
is I switched balls. I was interested in whether a "seamed"
Titleist tested differently than a Titleist in random
orientation. I clearly introduced an extra variable
into the system. In at least one case, with the Callaway
Red, it appeared that the ball alone made a significant
difference in the results. I'll answer this question
next month by conducting a ball test. Now that we have
the Magic Driver and we know exactly what performance
to expect, it will be a simple matter to hit a few hundred
drives with different balls and record the results.
"Ball fitting" will be a better way to answer
the question "which ball works the best for me?'
The data shows that PUREing has no provable effect
on distance but a clear effect on factors that indicate
increased accuracy such as decreased sidespin. Sidespin
was reduced by over 60% with the LFE. The data presented
physical evidence that PUREing improved accuracy, as
has been the claim. I would like to say that it improved
feel, but you can't quantify that.
The data also shows that the Pro-Balance System, with
the correct weight, increased swingspeed, ball speed
and carry distance for me. Swingspeed increased by one
or two miles per hour. Ball speed off the face increased
by four or five miles per hour. Carry distance increased
by five to seven yards, a factor of two to three percent.
The caveat is that it was very important to get the
right weight. I don't think it would be possible to
determine which weight performed the best without a
tool like the Achiever. If you intend to optimize the
Pro-Balance backweighting system, you will need access
to a launch monitor.
The Data - Before and After - Titleist
LFE with stock UL shaft
The following table presents the first and last data
set from the LFE. The complete data are found on the
Golf Lab website. Small increases in swingspeed and
ball speed resulted in a 3% increase in distance. Pretty
cool results for simply tuning a driver I already thought
was great. The accuracy indicators such as off line
and distance to pin increased dramatically. The shot
pattern changed from a fade right to straight. More
testing would be interesting, but like we used to say:
"where there's smoke . . ."
The Data - Before and After - Nicklaus
JNP with SK Fiber Lite Revolution
The JNP data was similar. Over the course of the tuning
exercise, we managed to squeeze an extra nine yards
of distance out of the driver. That's a 3.7% increase
from tuning. Accuracy indicators such as sidespin, off
line and distance to pin also showed market improvement.
The tuned driver is a better performing driver.
The Data - The New Magic Driver Revealed
It's time to choose a winner. The JNP was just a hair
ahead of the LFE on most of the distance statistics.
The two clubs were very close when comparing the accuracy
indicators. The final factor in favor of the JNP is
the lower backspin value.
Last month I expressed a strong preference for the
shape and balance of the JNP. I still feel that way.
I simply haven't seen a driver head that I like the
looks of better. On the physical tests, the JNP was
the winner by a nose. On performance and looks, the
JNP is a hands-down winner. It's in the bag.
The Final Word on the Pelz Wedges
(for now).
They're officially out of the bag. I finally just gave
in on a couple of points. First, they're diggers. On
a tight lie with a soft fairway, I hit too many fat
shots, especially with the sand wedge. I found myself
taking bogeys on holes where I was seventy yards from
the pin in the middle of the fairway. Also, in the end
I just couldn't get used to the radically different
balance caused by the huge and heavy grip.
I have also seen several of my friends who bought into
the Pelz frenzy a few months ago make the same kind
of mistakes. Don't get me wrong, you can hit brilliant
shots with these clubs. It's just that I think they're
too dangerous.
The Peninsula Tournament Season Is
On
We had our first 36 hole tournament at Paly - the NCGA
Low Net Qualifier. Maybe part of the reason I feel the
way I do about the Pelz wedges is that I took three
shots to get on the green from fifteen feet on the third
hole in the first round. (I'm looking for a scapegoat.)
If I could have had two of those shots back along with
a few more bonehead plays, I would have had a chance.
In the end, I crawled on to the very end of the money
list. It's nice to be thinking about playing on Sunday
afternoon instead of watching the players on television.
It's going to be a great season.
Leith Anderson is a partner in the Golf Lab in Palo
Alto
He will answer any questions about golf equipment and
clubfitting. Contact by email: Leith@calgolftech.com.
Contact by phone: (650) 743-2816.
All questions relating to equipment and clubfitting
will be answered. |
