Tonight I want to make you aware of some new videos that Tom Wishon of Wishon Golf Technology has created on his web site.
The web link for these is:
http://www.wishongolf.com/video_wishongolf.php
Tom Wishon has been in the custom club business for more than 37 years, and is the holder of a few hundred patents related to club design. There video titles at this link are...
- Custom Fit vs Standard Off the Rack
- What Does Custom Clubfitting Actually Do for Golfers?
- The Facts of Life About the Golf Equipment Industry
- The Basic Elements of Professional Shaft Fitting
Each of the videos is 4 to 9 minutes in length. If you view these and have any questions on the contents of them, feel free to email me at tony@gameimprovementgolf.com.
Tony
Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
AGCP - My BUDDIES!!
The Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals (AGCP). I thought it was time to give these guys a bit of a plug - though to tell you the truth many of the folks in this group are at a pretty incredible level of clubfitting and do not need any help from me!
I think it was about 2 years ago, probably around this time of year, that I found the AGCP web site. Something about them, the resources and approaches that they promoted, and the fact that they have a yearly "Roundtable" meeting where clubfitters get together to talk details of clubfitting, seemed attractive. So I joined.....and it was the best move I have ever made in clubfitting.
The AGCP, lead by Roy Nix of Columbus, GA is one tremendous organization. They attempt to keep things simple in my view - How Can We All Improve As Clubfitters And Clubmakers? And they do it in a deceptively simple way - All members are encouraged to buy in the philosophy that There Are No Dumb Questions. This is an easy philosophy to say but not easy to realize - but it is the bread and butter of the AGCP. Questions come from clubfitters who are new, clubfitters like myself who have a few years of experience, clubfitters who have many years of experience - and answers come from people who have qualifications like International Clubmaker of the Year, and may others who have been the business and fully know ropes. And always the response is thanks for the question and here is your answer.
As a result, many of the really great clubfitting and clubmaking techniques that I have learned have come from being an AGCP member. Some of these include....
1. Zone profiling of iron shafts....to determine which shaft in a set of untipped shafts to use in which irons to get the most consistent shaft flex profile.
2. Using unscented baby wipes to clean epoxy off the outside of clubs when doing a build.
3. The "Butt-Mid+Tip" profiling technique for picking the best driver shaft for a player's swing speed, tempo, and release point.
4. 3M DP 810 epoxy, which has great strength characteristics and is playable in about 30 minutes.
And a lot more.
And the ROUNDTABLE events.....well, these are the highlights of being involved in the AGCP. In the late fall in 2007 and 2008 I attended these, with about 60 other clubfitters. Each time I came away with lots of new knowledge and connections and ways to improve my clubfitting techniques.
Now, clearly if you read this and are in the Knoxville area your clubfitter of choice ought to be me! (and I believe in fact I am the only AGCP fitter in this area). But if you are from another area of the country, and are looking for a great clubfitter to help improve your game, I suggest you get on the AGCP web site - www.agcpgolf.com - and look for an AGCP fitter in your area. You will be pleased with the results!
Tony
I think it was about 2 years ago, probably around this time of year, that I found the AGCP web site. Something about them, the resources and approaches that they promoted, and the fact that they have a yearly "Roundtable" meeting where clubfitters get together to talk details of clubfitting, seemed attractive. So I joined.....and it was the best move I have ever made in clubfitting.
The AGCP, lead by Roy Nix of Columbus, GA is one tremendous organization. They attempt to keep things simple in my view - How Can We All Improve As Clubfitters And Clubmakers? And they do it in a deceptively simple way - All members are encouraged to buy in the philosophy that There Are No Dumb Questions. This is an easy philosophy to say but not easy to realize - but it is the bread and butter of the AGCP. Questions come from clubfitters who are new, clubfitters like myself who have a few years of experience, clubfitters who have many years of experience - and answers come from people who have qualifications like International Clubmaker of the Year, and may others who have been the business and fully know ropes. And always the response is thanks for the question and here is your answer.
As a result, many of the really great clubfitting and clubmaking techniques that I have learned have come from being an AGCP member. Some of these include....
1. Zone profiling of iron shafts....to determine which shaft in a set of untipped shafts to use in which irons to get the most consistent shaft flex profile.
2. Using unscented baby wipes to clean epoxy off the outside of clubs when doing a build.
3. The "Butt-Mid+Tip" profiling technique for picking the best driver shaft for a player's swing speed, tempo, and release point.
4. 3M DP 810 epoxy, which has great strength characteristics and is playable in about 30 minutes.
And a lot more.
And the ROUNDTABLE events.....well, these are the highlights of being involved in the AGCP. In the late fall in 2007 and 2008 I attended these, with about 60 other clubfitters. Each time I came away with lots of new knowledge and connections and ways to improve my clubfitting techniques.
Now, clearly if you read this and are in the Knoxville area your clubfitter of choice ought to be me! (and I believe in fact I am the only AGCP fitter in this area). But if you are from another area of the country, and are looking for a great clubfitter to help improve your game, I suggest you get on the AGCP web site - www.agcpgolf.com - and look for an AGCP fitter in your area. You will be pleased with the results!
Tony
Monday, March 16, 2009
Opti Vibe Power Weights - The FEEL Word!!
I think there is an amazing trend in clubfitting in the area of Counterweighting. The concept of Counterweighting has been around a long time.....some of you probably know that Jack Nicklaus did this with his clubs - he put weight into the butt end of his clubs.
A company named Tour Lock Pro initially developed some counterweights to simply install in the butt end of golf clubs. They and their customers over the past few years have had a lot of success improving things like driver swing speed - in many cases increasing swing speed measureably, sometimes around 4 mph - and improving the performance of irons with counterweights.
They also have had great success with Putter Fitting - by putting more weight into the butt end of clubs players can often improve the Feel of their putting stroke. And particularly for folks who have some hand tremors, counterweighting of clubs can lead to great improvement in putting. I was told a year or so ago that most fitters have had about 85% success in improving putter feel using counterweights.
Now they have carried this a next step with what they call Opti Vibe Power Weights. In addition to putting some weight into the butt end of clubs (usually about 12 grams) they have developed weights that they can put DOWN the shaft to change the balance point and again FEEL of the golf club. I believe that they have usually used 15 or 25 gram weights down the shaft and again have had some great results with this to improve driver swing speed.
However, I think if you follow the golf world you are going to hear pretty soon about some great successes with professional golfers and the Opti Vibe Power Weights particularly for Putting. For improving putter feel, they typically put 50 to 100 gram weights down the shaft - between 4 inches and 12 inches down the shaft depending on what is the best feel. I cannot name names, but there are now a number of players on the Senior Tour using these weights in their putters and they love them.
I have not done much with the putting weights yet, but I am going to start experimenting with them soon. I bought the 50 and 100 gram weights, and in a week or so am going to "test" these with Des Mahoney at Centenial, and see if he experiences significant improvement in putter feel with them. I expect to find good results from these tests, and assuming so am going to start offering the opportunity for local players to test the Opti Vibe weights in their putters and see the results.
If you are interested in participating in some testing of these weights, email me at tony@gameimprovementgolf.com and I can arrange a time to do some testing with you.
In the meantime, if you are interested in more information here is a web site that you can go to for that:
www.golfclubcounterweighting.com
Tony
A company named Tour Lock Pro initially developed some counterweights to simply install in the butt end of golf clubs. They and their customers over the past few years have had a lot of success improving things like driver swing speed - in many cases increasing swing speed measureably, sometimes around 4 mph - and improving the performance of irons with counterweights.
They also have had great success with Putter Fitting - by putting more weight into the butt end of clubs players can often improve the Feel of their putting stroke. And particularly for folks who have some hand tremors, counterweighting of clubs can lead to great improvement in putting. I was told a year or so ago that most fitters have had about 85% success in improving putter feel using counterweights.
Now they have carried this a next step with what they call Opti Vibe Power Weights. In addition to putting some weight into the butt end of clubs (usually about 12 grams) they have developed weights that they can put DOWN the shaft to change the balance point and again FEEL of the golf club. I believe that they have usually used 15 or 25 gram weights down the shaft and again have had some great results with this to improve driver swing speed.
However, I think if you follow the golf world you are going to hear pretty soon about some great successes with professional golfers and the Opti Vibe Power Weights particularly for Putting. For improving putter feel, they typically put 50 to 100 gram weights down the shaft - between 4 inches and 12 inches down the shaft depending on what is the best feel. I cannot name names, but there are now a number of players on the Senior Tour using these weights in their putters and they love them.
I have not done much with the putting weights yet, but I am going to start experimenting with them soon. I bought the 50 and 100 gram weights, and in a week or so am going to "test" these with Des Mahoney at Centenial, and see if he experiences significant improvement in putter feel with them. I expect to find good results from these tests, and assuming so am going to start offering the opportunity for local players to test the Opti Vibe weights in their putters and see the results.
If you are interested in participating in some testing of these weights, email me at tony@gameimprovementgolf.com and I can arrange a time to do some testing with you.
In the meantime, if you are interested in more information here is a web site that you can go to for that:
www.golfclubcounterweighting.com
Tony
Monday, March 9, 2009
What You Do Not Know?....Can You Find Out??
I had another of those "is this really true?" golf club experiences last week.
In the first year or so of clubbuilding, more times than not I bought some shafts, thought they were a certain flex, and found out they were not close to that flex. Over time, and by being exposed to the folks from the Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals (AGCP) who will answer any clubfitting and clubmaking question, experiences with being surprised by a shaft have lessened.
BUT..........I truly never thought it would happen with a name brand grip. Last week (a little later than I had expected because of the arrival of my second grandchild, lovely little Julia!) I came home from my day job all pumped up to finish a set of clubs for a client. He chose some name brand grips, and all of my past experiences with these grips is that they are made to specifications to give a certain grip size (measured 2 inches and 5 inches from the end of the shaft) when you use a standard amount of grip tape on the shaft.
I tend to be anal about measuring grip sizes, but have to admit I was thinking of not measuring these grips because surely they would be at spec. But I thought I had better measure at least ONE grip to be sure it sized right. I measured the butt end size of the shaft to ensure it was 0.600 inches diameter (pretty typical), put grip tape on, installed the grip, measured it - and it was more than 1/16 inch diameter under standard. I thought no way, pulled the grip off, put another one on.....same results. Now, the client REALLY wanted to have the clubs the next day....so I put a substitute grip on the clubs (a good one) and wondered all night if I did something wrong, or what had happened.
The next day I contacted the grip company and they ASSURED me that these were standard grips. I came home that night, put another one on an 0.600 diameter shaft, and same result again. These grips would be good for standard women's grips, but way undersized for standard men's grips.
In the end of this, I felt frustrated about the fact that the grips did not really work as expected and as the customer needed (he really needs grips that are a bit oversized, easy to do by adding some additional build up tape....). But I also felt good that I provided a service to someone who really wanted great clubs. He might have never realized that the grips were undersized, and most likely would do some adjusting of his swing to compensate for having smaller grips.
I think golfers deserve better. We deserve clubs that at a MINIMUM are the right length for us, and grips that are the right size for our hands. To me, this should be expected. But I suspect lots of folks who REALLY play a lot of golf play with clubs that are too long or too short, or play with grips that do not fit them. And this is not even mentioning the value of proper club flex and weight fitting.
So the next time you have your clubs regripped, see if you can find someone who will take your Wrist to Floor measurement, and who can give you at least a preliminary estimate about the proper length for your clubs. And who will also evaluate your present grip size and provide advice on the right size for you.
PS............Another driver length data point... In Golf Digest this month, it is noted that Geoff Ogilvy (another pretty good player, no?) plays with a 44-1/2 inch long driver and a 15 degree 3 wood. Still no 46 inch drivers by these pro guys!!
Tony
In the first year or so of clubbuilding, more times than not I bought some shafts, thought they were a certain flex, and found out they were not close to that flex. Over time, and by being exposed to the folks from the Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals (AGCP) who will answer any clubfitting and clubmaking question, experiences with being surprised by a shaft have lessened.
BUT..........I truly never thought it would happen with a name brand grip. Last week (a little later than I had expected because of the arrival of my second grandchild, lovely little Julia!) I came home from my day job all pumped up to finish a set of clubs for a client. He chose some name brand grips, and all of my past experiences with these grips is that they are made to specifications to give a certain grip size (measured 2 inches and 5 inches from the end of the shaft) when you use a standard amount of grip tape on the shaft.
I tend to be anal about measuring grip sizes, but have to admit I was thinking of not measuring these grips because surely they would be at spec. But I thought I had better measure at least ONE grip to be sure it sized right. I measured the butt end size of the shaft to ensure it was 0.600 inches diameter (pretty typical), put grip tape on, installed the grip, measured it - and it was more than 1/16 inch diameter under standard. I thought no way, pulled the grip off, put another one on.....same results. Now, the client REALLY wanted to have the clubs the next day....so I put a substitute grip on the clubs (a good one) and wondered all night if I did something wrong, or what had happened.
The next day I contacted the grip company and they ASSURED me that these were standard grips. I came home that night, put another one on an 0.600 diameter shaft, and same result again. These grips would be good for standard women's grips, but way undersized for standard men's grips.
In the end of this, I felt frustrated about the fact that the grips did not really work as expected and as the customer needed (he really needs grips that are a bit oversized, easy to do by adding some additional build up tape....). But I also felt good that I provided a service to someone who really wanted great clubs. He might have never realized that the grips were undersized, and most likely would do some adjusting of his swing to compensate for having smaller grips.
I think golfers deserve better. We deserve clubs that at a MINIMUM are the right length for us, and grips that are the right size for our hands. To me, this should be expected. But I suspect lots of folks who REALLY play a lot of golf play with clubs that are too long or too short, or play with grips that do not fit them. And this is not even mentioning the value of proper club flex and weight fitting.
So the next time you have your clubs regripped, see if you can find someone who will take your Wrist to Floor measurement, and who can give you at least a preliminary estimate about the proper length for your clubs. And who will also evaluate your present grip size and provide advice on the right size for you.
PS............Another driver length data point... In Golf Digest this month, it is noted that Geoff Ogilvy (another pretty good player, no?) plays with a 44-1/2 inch long driver and a 15 degree 3 wood. Still no 46 inch drivers by these pro guys!!
Tony
Monday, March 2, 2009
Club Balancing - "Swingweight" and "MOI" Matching
I recently took a big step in moving toward being able to make better "matched" golf clubs for my golf club clients. I purchased a device called the "MOI Speed Match" system from Tom Wishon golf. Tom Wishon has long been a proponent of using MOI matching instead of Swingweight matching of golf clubs - particularly for irons.
MOI matching and Swingweight matching of a set of irons are based on the same premise - having the full set of irons feel the same when you swing them.
Swingweight and MOI are based on somewhat different principles....
SWINGWEIGHT - I believe the concept of swingweight has been best defined by Ralph Maltby of Golfworks - "the measurement of a golf club's weight about a fulcrum point which is established at a specified distance from the grip end of the club." Swingweight is all about the weight distribution between the head of the golf club and the grip end of the golf club. Increasing the head weight and increasing shaft weight make swingweight increase, increasing the weight of the golf grip makes swingweight decrease. A relative weight scale was developed to denote different swingweights - so a D1 swingweight is larger than a C6 swingweight.
MOI - this is an actual physical measurement that is made for a golf club, it has dimensional units of mass/(length*length). It is a measure of how easy or difficult it is to swing a golf club. Interestingly, the weight of the grip has little if any influence on the measured MOI of a golf club.
How do swingweight matched clubs differ from MOI matched clubs? If you have a set of MOI matched clubs, you will find that the swingweights of the higher irons are lower than the swingweights of the shorter irons. Some fitters actually attempt to approximately MOI match a set of clubs by "progressive swingweighting" - increasing the club swingweight by typically 1/2 swingweight point between clubs - for example, the 6 iron swingweight would be 1/2 point higher than the 5 iron swingweight.
Proponents of iron swingweight matching believe that you should determine the best iron swingweight - which produces the best performance - and keep that constant for your main irons - for example 5 iron through 9 iron. Most swingweight proponents I believe feel that the wedges should have a bit higher swingweights than the other irons.
Proponents of MOI matching believe that you identify the best iron MOI for the player and then build the full set of irons to that MOI. They also believe that if you have a set of MOI matched clubs, that you can ask a player to swing their 5 iron and 9 iron with their eyes closed and they will not be able to tell you which one they are swinging.
So why am I making a commitment to moving to applying MOI matching in all of my iron fittings? It is largely from feedback from some of the most influential clubfitters in the country and the world. I am aware of one fitter who has done more than 1,500 MOI iron fittings with excellent results, and of another who has done hundreds of fittings and had only 1 poor result. I also recently learned that MOI matched clubs are starting to make their way on the professional golf tours.
Having golf clubs that feel the same when you swing them to me is an edge that golfers should have available to them.
Tony
MOI matching and Swingweight matching of a set of irons are based on the same premise - having the full set of irons feel the same when you swing them.
Swingweight and MOI are based on somewhat different principles....
SWINGWEIGHT - I believe the concept of swingweight has been best defined by Ralph Maltby of Golfworks - "the measurement of a golf club's weight about a fulcrum point which is established at a specified distance from the grip end of the club." Swingweight is all about the weight distribution between the head of the golf club and the grip end of the golf club. Increasing the head weight and increasing shaft weight make swingweight increase, increasing the weight of the golf grip makes swingweight decrease. A relative weight scale was developed to denote different swingweights - so a D1 swingweight is larger than a C6 swingweight.
MOI - this is an actual physical measurement that is made for a golf club, it has dimensional units of mass/(length*length). It is a measure of how easy or difficult it is to swing a golf club. Interestingly, the weight of the grip has little if any influence on the measured MOI of a golf club.
How do swingweight matched clubs differ from MOI matched clubs? If you have a set of MOI matched clubs, you will find that the swingweights of the higher irons are lower than the swingweights of the shorter irons. Some fitters actually attempt to approximately MOI match a set of clubs by "progressive swingweighting" - increasing the club swingweight by typically 1/2 swingweight point between clubs - for example, the 6 iron swingweight would be 1/2 point higher than the 5 iron swingweight.
Proponents of iron swingweight matching believe that you should determine the best iron swingweight - which produces the best performance - and keep that constant for your main irons - for example 5 iron through 9 iron. Most swingweight proponents I believe feel that the wedges should have a bit higher swingweights than the other irons.
Proponents of MOI matching believe that you identify the best iron MOI for the player and then build the full set of irons to that MOI. They also believe that if you have a set of MOI matched clubs, that you can ask a player to swing their 5 iron and 9 iron with their eyes closed and they will not be able to tell you which one they are swinging.
So why am I making a commitment to moving to applying MOI matching in all of my iron fittings? It is largely from feedback from some of the most influential clubfitters in the country and the world. I am aware of one fitter who has done more than 1,500 MOI iron fittings with excellent results, and of another who has done hundreds of fittings and had only 1 poor result. I also recently learned that MOI matched clubs are starting to make their way on the professional golf tours.
Having golf clubs that feel the same when you swing them to me is an edge that golfers should have available to them.
Tony
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