Duffers Corner

I have never really bought into the hype of “The Latest & Greatest” when it comes to today’s drivers. You know the ones – the mondo headed titanium behemoths with their tour FujiMaxx low torque low spin shafts that offer up the highest MOI gear effect COR legally allowed along with a LGC dual composite power-bow crown for maximum spin & high launch drives. I mean come on people, let’s wake up here!

It seems like the marketing departments at Callaway, TaylorMade, Titleist, Cobra, Nike, Adams & Cleveland have been a sleep at the wheel the last 3-5 years. Rehashing the same old acronyms, that makeup the same old drivers that hit the ball just as far as the marginally different model that was released what seems like only just a few months ago! And how can they get away with claiming that every new club they offer up will get you 15-20 more yards?

And now with the current economy taking a dogleg right turn for the worse, I think you’re going to see a lot more golfers playing their current equipment longer, without any thought or desire to change or upgrade, no matter what new technology arrives over the horizon.

I’m not going to go as far as to spell out doom & gloom for the golf industry, but you should see a nice decrease in overall retail pricing for the next year. I can’t imagine a company right now introducing a new driver between $399 and $499 and expect big sales, it’s not going to happen. No one is going to pay that. Not now, not for quite a while.

I am trying to soak in as much information about this supposed rule change as I can. Forum discussions, industry feedback, consumer opinions, my head is starting to hurt. I need a beer…………………………………………………………..ok, I feel better now.

So, for those of you who don’t know, the USGA, as of Jan 1 2010, will be ‘…placing new restrictions on the cross sectional area and edge sharpness of golf club grooves.’ What does this actually mean? Well, do you own a Titleist, Cleveland, TaylorMade, Cobra, Ping, Callaway or Adams wedge? In fact any club with 25 degrees of loft or more will all be deemed illegal as of 2010, well not officially but kind of, I’m still trying to get to the bottom of that one. Let me see if I can explain it a little better…

Since 2005, the USGA has been diligently studying and testing the amount of spin that some of the newer wedges put on the ball, specifically with shots out of the deeper rough. They feel that majority of the newer wedges create an unfair advantage for those skilled players who use urethane covered golf balls, which most professional golfers do. Balls were spinning at the same rate out of the deeper grass as compared with shots from the fairway, so the USGA wants to change the current groove design to soften their edges by 30°, making it more difficult to create spin.

OK, fair enough. So the USGA, which is the governing body for all rules of golf (along with the R & A), has looked into this for a few years (not a knee jerk reaction to negate newer technology or design) and has decided to change the sharpness of my clubs grooves. Ball spins less, scores even out(?), whatever, and officially I have until 2024 to comply to these rules. On the surface I can accept that, but what gets my panties in a knot is this paragraph from an August 2008 USGA press release about the upcoming rule change;

“Our research shows that the rough has become less of a challenge for the highly skilled professional and that driving accuracy is now less of a key factor for success,” said USGA Senior Technical Director Dick Rugge. “We believe that these changes will increase the challenge of the game at the Tour level, while having a very small effect on the play of most golfers.”
http://www.usga.org/news/2008/August/grooves.html

So the rules are changing to increase the challenge of the game on the tour level? Hmmmm…..so let’s do some math here.

Number of golfers in America – 28,600,000
http://www.ngf.org/cgi/whonews.asp?storyid=261

Number of PGA Members – 28,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Golfers’_Association_of_America

So the percentage of golfers who this rule will directly affect if is .001%?

.001% of golfers who get paid to practice & perfect every imaginable shot in the game.

.001% who if needed, could spin back a Gutta Percha ball using a cut-down Patty Berg 9-iron with a worn leather grip.

.001% who are not going to worry about replacing their equipment since their equipment is basically given to them by club manufacturers.

Now for the 99.999% of golfers who, with the sharpest of grooves and the softest of balls, might create a marginal amount of spin, the new rules should void all ball spin from their game (backspin of course). And I mean completely! And for what reason? To prevent a tour player from Bombing & Gouging? To raise the scores of .001% of players who make golf their living?

Will the average golfer, who uses whatever ball is in their bag at the time and whatever wedge they got on closeout at their local discount shop, feel the sting when the rules take affect? Most likely they won’t. I mean how much spin do you think a ‘professional golfer’ would create using a Dunlop LoCo golf ball? Or how about a Top-Flite Freak (Freaky Long!), even if they were using the latest zip-groove wedge? Probably not much. But for those 5-14 handicap golfers who use the softer urethane balls and create a fair amount of spin, the new rules could stymie their short game quite a bit.

You want a better solution to this? Put more rules in place to govern how soft a ball can be. Soft cover golf balls spin more and are used mainly by professionals and experienced amateurs. There, that was easy. And for those who don’t believe me that golf balls are getting extremely soft, check out the new Callaway Touri balls, they are soft enough to put on the end of a stick and roast over an open fire!

RE: for those who didn’t understand the last statement, the new Touri balls are so soft they feel like marshmallows!

This rule change equates to taking an aluminum baseball bat away from a little leaguer and saying “Sorry kid, tests have proven that professional baseball players hit the ball way too far using metal bats, so that’s why we make them use wooden ones. And since you play baseball, you also must use a wooden bat. Thats the rules. It’s ok, with enough practice and HGH, you will grow into that bat someday.”

My letter to the USGA:

Dear USGA,

Thank you for all that you have done for the game of golf. An organization like yours should be commended for all your efforts on and off the course.

As for the new rule changes regarding grooves being too sharp and professionals creating too much spin from out of the rough, did you weigh out all your options before deciding to kill the hopes and dreams of all us hack golfers who pray every time we hit a sand wedge that our 150 compression golf balls spin enough to keep them from rolling off the green?

If its technology that you truly want to regulate to keep the playing field level, bring back the persimmon wood and balata golf ball.

Thanks again,

Duff
President of the Persimmon Wood & Balata Golf Ball Preservation Society

Has technology helped or hurt the golf club industry?
Heads are bigger, shafts are lighter, drives go farther, consumers are buy more equipment over their lifetime than their parents or grand parents who golfed ever did, I’d say technology has helped quite a bit over the last 20 years.

Are golf companies over hyping their products by using engineering jargon to make their clubs out to be more than what they are?
You bet they are!

Moment of Inertia (MOI), Coefficient of Restitution (COR), Center of Gravity (CG) are just a few of a long list of technical keywords used by club makers to help hype their products performance. What does it all mean? If I have trouble hitting it past the ladies tees, is a high MOI driver going to help me?

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“COR” is an acronym for “coefficient of restitution.” Coefficient of restitution is a measurement of the energy loss or retention when two objects collide. The COR measurement is always expressed as a number between 0.000 (meaning all energy is lost in the collision) and 1.000 (which means a perfect, elastic collision in which all energy is transferred from one object to the other).

The current USGA rule limiting the coefficient of restitution of a clubhead states that the COR cannot be higher than a measurement of 0.830. This means that when the clubhead impacts the ball, there cannot be more than an 83-percent transfer of the energy of the head to the ball.

“Moment of inertia,” or MOI, is a property of physics that indicates the relative difference in how easy or difficult it will be to set any object in motion about a defined axis of rotation. The higher the MOI of an object, the more force will have to be applied to set that object in a rotational motion. Conversely, the lower the MOI, the less force needed to make the object rotate about an axis.

Center of Gravity (CG) of any object is the one small point which represents the intersection of all the possible balance points of that object. In a golf clubhead, the CG can be determined by balancing the head on its face, sole, or any place on the head – the intersection inside of the head of all these different balance points is the center of gravity of the clubhead.

From golf.about.com/

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Who gains from all of this? Is this information for real? Will golfers benefit from a driver with a high COR and low Center of Gravity?

Answer – You betcha.
But here is the kicker. Since there are very specific rules and measurements that designers and club manufacturers must abide by, the playing field has sort of leveled out a bit, meaning that most of todays drivers should be of equal performance, so to speak. No, your $39.99 Wal-Mart special driver cannot be compared to a TaylorMade Tour Burner driver, but the gap is narrowing. Shaft quality is now the focus for a lot of players that are looking for a little extra yardage and control. This is why when some you go to your nearest golf shop in search for a new driver or fairway wood, you end up having 5-6 different options of shafts to choose from per model. It’s not all about flex anymore, there are kick points, torque and shaft weight you also need to consider, all playing a key role with your drives trajectory and ball spin.

MOI, COR & Center of Gravity – yeah, they all say it, but they all need to stop saying it!

Note to all club manufacturers

You’re boring the every day golfer with these pointless acronyms that mean nothing! I say to you all (Callaway, TaylorMade, Titleist, etc.), adopt the caveman approach to marketing your new equipment – “Club real BIG, ball go far!” Now I’d buy that approach!

Next topic I might try tackling – Offset clubs: Can they help my slice?

Do you constantly hit the ball thin? Do you take a larger than average divot? Are your shot patterns consistently going right? These are all signs that the clubs you are playing have not been properly fit to your unique swing.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to have your irons properly fit to your swing. Most of the time your averaged sized weekend duffer won’t need any major adjustments, a tweak here or there will do, but you will be amazed with the results.

A few years back I was having issues with my short game, so I thought I should consult my local pro for some chipping advice, maybe a tweak or two might save me a couple of strokes. After hitting a few dozen balls he notices a consistent enough pattern and decides to put me on a lie board to see if he could pinpoint any issues. “Your clubs are too flat.” Now I have been around golf for 30+ years and I never thought for a second that my irons weren’t a perfect fit for my game. “Are you sure?”

Lie Board - Special hitting surface material leaves a small temporary mark on the sole of the clubhead indicating lie angle at impact.

Fitting on a lie board is about the simplest and most accurate way to determine your irons proper length and lie angle. What my local pro was able to tell me is that due to my height (6’6) and short arm length, I needed irons that were 5 degrees upright, not 2 degrees like I have had them since the beginning of time. I called instant BS. No way. Don’t attempt to convince me that my short but perfect swing needs irons that are off-the-chart-upright. I just can’t envision that mutilating my clubs is going to make that much of a difference to my game. But I was still curious, so I had my pro only adjust my pitching wedge. I thought to myself, “my clubs are forged, I can always bend them back, no harm no foul.” Honestly it felt pretty good. My shot pattern was perfect! Straight on target with a slight draw, just like the good old days. But I was still reluctant to have my complete set adjusted, so I told my pro that I would practice with the pitching wedge some more before I decide to have my complete set bent upright.

A couple of days later I am out on the golf course, first hole, par 4 385 yards, after a perfect drive that left me about 95 yards to the pin, I pull out my pitching wedge. It didn’t even cross my mind that I was about ready to hit a shot that I had been struggling with for months with a club that I thought my pro had butchered by bending it 5 degrees upright. With a slight open stance and a short three quarter swing (I’m just hoping to make it somewhere on the green) I watch with complete amazement as my ball, with a smidge of a draw, barrels in on my target line and after hitting the green, on its 3^rd bounce, it rolled right in the hole. I KID YOU NOT!

Let’s just say that after the round I couldn’t get to the pro shop fast enough to have the rest of my set adjusted.