A Publication of Tom Wishon Golf Technology   •   July 2006

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July 2006 TW eTECHreport

 

An item of note before we get down to business...

• The International Network of Golf has announced The Search for the Perfect Golf Club is the winner of their 2005-2006 Book of the Year.
  
  The ING Book Media Award rewards excellence in authoring a book based upon any aspect of golf. Entries are judged on a variety of criteria such as content and originality, style, readability, mechanics, technical quality, composition and production values.
  
  The International Network of Golf (ING) is a media-based, non-profit association formed in 1990 to enhance and promote communication and education in the golf industry.
  
  When asked to comment on the award, TWGT founder and Search book author Tom Wishon said, “We’re a lot more than thrilled that ING chose the Search book as their Book of the Year. Since the book was released, we knew that we had created something that truly was a win-win situation both for golfers and for custom clubmaking. Golfers finally have a source for truthful answers to their questions about golf clubs, and custom clubmakers finally have a vehicle which conveys to golfers that their game will benefit much more from going through a real custom fitting session with a skilled custom clubmaker than to simply buy standard made clubs off the rack.”
  
  The Search for the Perfect Golf Club is available at all major bookstores and internet bookselling sites.


• Logging in to the TWForum vs the TWGT Store
  Admittedly this is a bit confusing, but essentially the Forum runs on a different database than the Wishon Golf Shopping site, and requires a separate registration. We have to keep them separate for many reasons, but there's nothing stopping you from using the same login and password -- though we recommend not doing this. In fact, it's recommended to use a login and password for less sensitive web activities (like web forums) that is distinctly different from a more secure login/password for other web-based conveniences like shopping and banking. For example, an easy (non-critical) password might be "mypassword", but a more complex and secure version would be "MyP4$$w0rd".

 

TWGT Working Hard for Clubmakers and Custom Clubmaking

During the week of the US Open, TWGT continued our commitment to create more respect and demand for custom clubfitting by displaying two large advertisements in the national publication, USA Today. The ads promoted Tom Wishon’s award winning book, The Search for the Perfect Golf Club, as a must buy for any golfer.

While full results of the ad are still being compiled from major book retailers, during the run of the USA Today ads, statistics from Amazon.com revealed that Search climbed to #3 in all golf book sales and #491 among all of the 5 million books that the internet’s giant retailer sells. In addition, web hits and time spent on TWGT’s newly re-designed consumer site, www.twgolftech.com, more than quadrupled during the run of the USA Today ads.

Again, we urge all clubmakers who are either interested in growing their own business, or, clubmakers who simply want to pitch in to help build respect in the craft, to keep putting copies of Search and 12 Myths That Could Wreck Your Golf Game into the hands of as many golfers as possible.

Remember, the 12 Myths booklet is a 32-page collection of some of the compelling points contained in the main Search book that TWGT sells for its own cost so clubmakers can have an inexpensive way to keep getting the message to golfers that custom fit beats standard off the rack. If you haven’t gotten behind the campaign to stock books like Search and 12 Myths in your shop to put in the hands of regular golfers, we really urge you to think about getting involved.

“In the three years that I’ve had the shop in Kerrville (TX), the “Search” and “Myth” books have been my #1 Marketing tool. ALL clubmakers, whether you are full-time with a retail store or part time working at a driving range, should be giving out the Myth book to everyone they meet. It immediately legitimizes what we can do for golfers in a way that has never been done before. Recently, I put a Myth book with my card stapled to the cover, in every single give away bag at our County’s 2nd largest tournament which was on July 3rd. I supplied 220 Myth books (cost was about $180) and as of today (July 12th), I’ve already had 8 people book fittings. Most have visited the twgolftech.com website and are coming in for new irons and Drivers.

This is simply the most powerful tool I’ve ever used to get more people interested in better performing equipment and the services I offer. If you aren’t actively promoting the Myth book to golfers in your area, you are missing out on a great opportunity to significantly expand your business and the awareness of your services. My customer base is expanding daily as people pass around the Myth book to their golfing buddies and on average my customers are spending $850 on equipment after reading the Myth and/or Search books. I am thankful that Tom Wishon has done this for clubmakers and that is one of the many reasons I continue to support TWGT-no one else is working this hard on our behalf.”

Keith Chatham - PCS 2006 International Clubmaker of the Year

With your help, we all can make a difference and win the respect for real custom fitting that it so rightly deserves in the golf industry.

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A Fresh Look at TWGT Shaft Design and Fitting

In case you haven’t noticed, or in case we haven’t reminded you lately ( !! ), TWGT is completely unique from any other custom clubmaking supplier because we design every one of our clubhead, shaft and grip models from our own design concepts and our own research. We do not take “open models” of heads, shafts and grips and simply put a name or logo on the product to sell it as one of our own designs.

Why do we make it a practice to create, design and offer only original TWGT designed clubheads, shafts and grips? For one, because we feel that it just isn’t right to take some generic head, shaft or grip and pass it off as our own model. In short, we feel if a company does not have the knowledge and expertise to be able to create their own products, they are simply selling products to make money. We’re in business because we want to offer clubmakers and their golfers only the best performing and most cutting edge clubhead, shaft and grip designs. We believe if we deliver on that promise, the financial side of the business will take care of itself.

While it is a fact that clubhead designs always get the most attention, we are extremely pround of our shaft research and design capability. Acquired over decades of research, testing and analysis, the TWGT Shaft Design Line is designed first and foremost to offer shaft models created for specific player swing types.

TWGT is the first company to identify the specific moves in the golf swing which must be addressed when choosing the right shaft. Accurate shaft fitting is NOT simply a matter of picking shafts by weight and swing speed. Accurate shaft fitting requires identifying the golfer’s strength, swing speed, downswing transition, swing tempo and wrist-cock release and then matching those swing characteristics to the shafts that are best matched to those particular swing characteristics. Period.

To help you learn a little more about swing specific shaft fitting, we have created a brand new TWGT Shaft Fitting Matrix to help you make the most accurate selection of the right TWGT original shaft design for each individual golfer. And for more detailed and in depth information on this subject, we urge you to read Chapters 5 and 8 in the new book, Common Sense Clubfitting: The Wishon Method.

TWGT Shaft Fitting Matrix

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Has Mickelson Opened a New Door for Clubmakers to Offer More Game Improvement for Golfers?

Forget the fact that Phil Mickelson blew the 2006 US Open with a less than stellar club selection and swing off the 72nd tee. With his talent and experience, there will undoubtedly be several other opportunities for him to win major tournaments in the future.

One of the smarter things that Phil has done which may very well be a part of the reason he has found himself in contention more than in the past is his practice of changing his set makeup based on the shotmaking requirements of the courses on which he plays and competes.

Before the 2006 Masters, the golf world was amazed to read that Phil carried two different drivers in his bag. Basically one driver was for all out distance while the other was built to different specifications that would allow him more control. This summer, word surfaced from the tour that Mickelson had played some rounds carrying 5 different wedges in his bag. The point is, changing the set makeup to add clubs which have a specific use on specific course designs is an example of playing smart golf that could offer more game improvement to many golfers, not just the ones with the ability to compete at the game’s highest level.

As a clubmaker, you need to be aware of the fact that set makeup is one of the, if not THE most powerful tool you can offer golfers looking for every advantage possible to play and score better. While the most obvious examples of using set makeup for game improvement include subbing high loft fairway woods or hybrids for hard to hit conventional longer irons, or, adding a lob wedge or gap wedge to the bag, it has to be said that Phil Mickelson has been “thinking outside the box” and expanding the possible ways that a clubmaker can help golfers get a little more of an edge over the golf course.

1. Multiple Drivers

While the 3-wood has always been the alternative for tee shots on tight par-4 and par-5 holes, thinking about an alternative driver built with accuracy in mind may very well be a better option for many golfers. There are two reasons golfers have more confidence in hitting a 3-wood in play on a tight hole – the much shorter length and the greater loft. Both contribute to make the 3-wood easier to hit with accuracy than a typical driver.

Of the two spec differences between a 3-wood and driver, for most golfers the most helpful for improving accuracy is the shorter length. Hence, the concept of creating two drivers for a golfer is all about using a loft that is much closer to that of the golfer’s typical driver to prevent as much distance loss as may come from a 3-wood, but with a much shorter length to afford more control over the swing for more accuracy.

When it comes to distance, loft is much more influential than is length. When it comes to accuracy, length is more influential than loft. Yes, no question that a shot hit 20 yds further has more chance of flying into the rough. But it is a fact that the bigger reason most golfers hit 3 and 5 woods more accurately than their driver is because of their ability to control the much shorter length with respect to swing path and face angle at impact.

So, bottom line is that YES, the shaft can allow you to drop total weight to gain more swing speed, but how many golfers are in the position where they can do that when they already own a light graphite shafted driver, and possibly fairway woods too?

So what’s wrong with suggesting a “control driver” for your golfers who are looking for a little more edge on the course all the time. Guidelines that we like to ensure in a driver with good accuracy but with a little more distance than a 3-wood off the tee would be +1 to +2 degrees more loft and 2 to 3 inches shorter length than the loft and length specs of the golfer’s main distance driver.

And by all means do NOT forget to properly swingweight or MOI the control driver for the strength and tempo requirement of each individual golfer at its much shorter length. Yes, this is going to require a lot of headweight addition, but there are options there:

• 9 gram weight bore plug + 9 gram tungsten shaft tip weight
• Lighter grips to bring about the same effect of the golfer feeling a greater headweight presence from the effect of the grip weight reduction on the club’s balance point
• Injecting sticky glue through the sole and sealing the hole with a plastic plug
• And oh yes, lead tape!!

2. Optional “Second Longest Hitting Wood” clubs

As the new Common Sense Clubfitting book teaches, do not simply think all golfers need a 3-wood for their second longest hitting wood. Today’s standard made 3-woods, with their typical 43.5” length and 13-15 degree loft, are difficult for most golfers to hit well more than 50% of the time off the deck.

While such 3-woods can and have brought about greater shotmaking consistency off the tee for many golfers, it is very important for total game improvement to have a second longest hitting wood that can deliver a higher percentage of quality shots off the deck. Most golfers do not hit the driver over 250 yards. That means most golfers are going to need as much distance as possible for second shots on par-5 holes, and for a lot of golfers, for second shots on long par-4 holes as well.

If the golfer sees a need to hit a 3-wood for a second shot 3 or more times on a particular course, they need to choose a second longest hitting wood that they can hit consistently well off the deck. That might be a 3-wood with a more shallow face, in the area of 33mm or less face height. It also might be a 3-wood with more loft, in the area of 16-17 degrees. But it might also be a fairway wood with 18, 19 or 20 degrees, depending on the golfer’s swing speed, angle of attack and general ability to hit any woodhead off the ground to achieve a high launch angle.

Think of this. If the golfer were to go with a second driver with the same length as his 3-wood and +1 to 2 degrees more loft than the distance driver he uses for holes with spacious fairways, the second longest hitting wood MUST be the lowest loft fairway wood that he has no real problem hitting reasonably high when hit off the deck. Again, that second longest hitting wood might have a loft anywhere from 15 to 20 degrees, depending on the golfer’s ability to hit a wood high off the turf.

As to the length of an optional second longest hitting wood, always remember two things: 1) the shorter the length, the easier the club will be to get airborne off the ground, 2) loft is much more influential on distance than is length. Added together, these points urge clubmakers to be honest with golfers about how much loft to have on such a wood and to err on the side of shorter length.

3. An Arsenal of Wedges for Different Course Conditions

If you work with golfers who play a lot of “traveling golf”, you need to impress upon them the need to think about having alternative sand, lob and even possibly pitching or gap wedges which are designed with different loft and sole specifications. This is an area in fitting that is hugely expanded in the new Common Sense Clubfitting book. No less than 41 pages in the book are devoted to learning how to pick the right wedge set makeup for different golfer abilities, and most importantly, for different golf course conditions.

As the grass length, consistency and soil condition changes from course to course, so too the sole width and sole angle (bounce) design characteristics have to change to ensure the right match of sole design to turf. In other words, if the turf is firm, thin or otherwise responsible for a lot of very “tight” lies, the sole design cannot be too wide or have too much bounce sole angle – otherwise a higher incidence of thin or bladed shots can result. Vice versa, in thick, lush and moist turf, the opposite is accepted as a wedge fitting guideline — unless the golfer has a very masterful touch with his/her release, a little wider sole with a little more bounce sole angle will help reduce the incidence of “fat” or otherwise “heavy” shots.

With sand bunkers, the consistency and depth of the sand has a strong bearing on the sole design of the wedges to be used from the beach. The deeper and more fluffy or light the sand, the more tendency there is for a wider sole wedge and/or with more bounce to not dig too deep under the ball and be the cause of leaving the ball well short or worse yet, still in the bunker. In the opposite sense, the less sand before you run into dirt or the more coarse and heavy the sand itself, the more a wider or greater bounce sole angle will skim off the sand and result in that laser shot known as a “bladed shot”.

If your golfers do travel and play a lot of different courses, ask them if the grass length, thickness, turf conditions and sand are different from course to course. If so, you might want to give them a lesson or two in modern wedge sole design fitting principles so they can decide if adding wedges with different specifications might be of benefit to their play.

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Common Sense Fitting — If You’ve Read it, You Know Why All Clubmakers Need it

If you’ve added Tom Wishon’s new fitting book to your clubmaking educational library, you know you made a great investment in your education as a good clubfitter. If you haven’t, you’re missing out on a huge amount of new information that can not only make you a better clubfitter, but can generate a lot more interest in your skills among the golfers you encounter.

Written in the easy to read, totally understandable style that has been a hallmark of Tom’s technical writing, Common Sense Clubfitting dispels so many myths about equipment performance and opens the door to a huge number of facts about modern golf club performance that will ensure a higher quality fit in each golfer you serve than in the past.

Much has changed in our understanding of golf club performance, especially when it comes to identifying particular movements in the golf swing and how they indicate specific fitting changes in golf clubs. Fitting IS about finding the design specifications in the clubhead, shaft, grip and assembly that blend the best with the many different swing characteristics that different golfers possess. Common Sense Clubfitting devotes many of its pages to showing these different swing moves and pointing out what each indicates in the fitting recommendation — information that has never been revealed in clubfitting before.

Get your copy today and you’ll be amazed how much more effective you will be in each fitting you perform!

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GOLF Magazine Driver Test

We’ve received a fair number of comments about an article in a recent issue of GOLF Magazine article about driver length and the conclusion that their test golfers did better with a longer driver (46.5”). Since we were mentioned in this article as having supplied the drivers for the testing conducted by GOLF, and since their conclusions run counter to our experiences and those of scores of clubmakers when it comes to driver length, we want to address the problems with the test protocol that resulted in an unfortunate, erroneous conclusion.

When first contacted by GOLF Magazine to assist in the test, we expressed our concern that simply hitting ball after ball on a driving range was not representative of what happens on the golf course where golfers hit one drive at a time with 10-20 minutes before the next time they use the driver. It is possible for a golfer with average skills to be able to eventually hit a club reasonably well, given enough chances and the time to “adjust” to club they are using. This is how many companies sell their drivers and why you see so many off the rack drivers being built at over 45” of length. It’s what we call the “Miracle Shot effect” - the golfer hits one shot further than they’ve ever hit one before and forget about the other twenty that were all over the place.

Longer clubs can offer a slightly higher swing speed only for golfers with good swing fundamentals. However, unless contact occurs at or near the sweet spot they won’t see a ball speed increase. Unfortunately, we were unable to get GOLF to construct a more accurate test protocol that would take into account the percentage of off-center hits as a key element in the results. Their testing was only set up to record the infrequent shots hit on center.

Four golfers were selected for this test. When we built the test clubs we did so without any knowledge of the golfers’ swing characteristics, strength, athletic ability, etc. While we espouse the benefits of custom fitting for each individual, we were put in the very awkward position of building clubs that in all likelihood wouldn’t be right for golfers in the test. We selected identical heads and shafts to eliminate some of the variables, but we knew that our odds of getting the right fit were pretty slim.

For a variety of reasons we feel that the GOLF Magazine test was flawed and presented information that may lead some golfers down the wrong path for driver length. Therefore, we wanted to present this rebuttal to the test results published in GOLF, and verify our position that longer is not better for the vast majority of golfers.

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What’s the Deal with Sole Design? Tom's Blog for July

You’ve read it in marketing materials about iron designs — “designed with a tour grind sole, . . . Or perhaps you’ve seen one golfer hold an iron up to eye level, peer across the sole and comment to the effect that the iron has a good, bad or indifferent sole design.

Well, OK, I have even gotten to the point that I joke around about this a little. In the Search for the Perfect Golf Club book, I described to women golfers how to identify the sole angle on a wedge by holding the club head up in front of their eyes so any condescending sales person in a golf retail store would know he is dealing with a real golfer, and thus not approach the woman in a disinterested manner.

Are there sole designs on irons which are good, bad or indifferent? How do you know and what do they look like? And for that matter, are there different golfer types that should or should not be playing with certain sole designs? I might not get to all of these because this is one of those subjects that I can yammer on ad infinitum. So I’ll try to cover the high points and get to it so you know a little more about sole design and what it can do for who.

First of all, there is no sole design that will eliminate “fat shots”. There are sole designs that can get the club through the ground in a little more forgiving manner when the golfer makes a swing that creates a slight fat shot. But if the golfer makes the move that rolls the sod over the ball, excuse me but there ain’t no sole design that’s going to alleviate that swing error.

Basically the key element in any sole design intended to reduce the distance robbing effect of a slightly fat shot is how far up off the ground is the leading edge at the bottom of the face in relation to the ground when the club is put into its impact position. Note I said impact position and not address position. Because most golfers arrive at impact with the irons with the hands more in front of the clubhead than when they address the ball, the distance the leading edge is off the ground at impact is going to be less than it is when you address the ball or when you position the head in a specs measuring unit to measure its loft, lie and face progression.

Now granted, there are some golfers who really press the hands forward in the address position, i.e. play the ball a lot farther back than the usual center to forward of center position for each of the irons. These players will rarely end up with the hands even farther in front of the head at impact and thus do not lower that leading edge in relation to the ground anymore than it was in their address position. For all other golfers, the leading edge does get a little closer to the ground in the impact position than in the address position.

Take a look at the comparison of the position of the leading edge on a number of different sole designs both in their address/measurement position compared to a typical impact position.

But trust me, there is a difference in how one sole can travel through turf over another, and the chief element in this is the distance from the leading edge to the ground at the moment of impact. Leading edge up a little at impact so it is not the first thing that begins tearing up the divot, good. Leading edge down at impact so it is the first area of the iron to enter the ground, bad.

So remember, this matter of leading edge to ground at impact is NOT just a matter of the bounce sole angle on the head. That is certainly part of it, because the more bounce, the higher the leading edge will be up in the address or measurement position. But not necessarily so in the impact position.

The greater the bounce sole angle on the iron, the more the golfer can have their hands ahead of the clubhead at impact, OR, the steeper the angle of attack may be into the ball before “fat city” happens to the shot. What really gets the leading edge up at impact is the sole radius — and that can be the whole sole radius from face to back or it can be just the very front area of the sole, directly under the leading edge.

Here’s an interesting point to show you what I mean, hopefully a little more clearly. I have heard some golfers look at and/or feel the actual leading edge of an iron and comment that it is a bad sole design because the leading edge is too sharp, “like a knife.” That’s only a bad sole design if that sharp edge becomes the first part of the sole to contact the ground. It is possible to make an iron with a sharp leading edge, but with a lot of radius or a strong bevel edge that actually gets that sharp leading edge up above a part of the sole.

As long as the leading edge is well up from another part of the sole’s surface, it does not matter how sharp the leading edge is because the leading edge will not be what actually carves the divot from the ground — it will be whatever area of the sole contacts the ground first under the force of the downswing, based on the sole’s design and the golfer’s angle of attack into the ground and ball.

Typically it is better for an area on the front half of the sole to enter the ground first and not the leading edge (more digger effect) or the trailing edge (sole can actually bounce into the ball if the ground is very firm).

The other place it is advantageous to keep the leading edge from entering the ground first on a shot is in the rough, or on shots hit from creeping grasses like Bermuda or Kikuyu. Contacting the grass blades first is a given for the leading edge on shots from tall grass — but with a bounce sole angle that has a raised leading edge at impact or a raised leading edge from the front area of the sole being more greatly radiused or beveled, this “slow down the clubhead” effect of the tall grass is reduced enough to get 80% from the shot instead of only 50-60%.

When it comes to advising golfers on the best sole design:

• The steeper the golfer’s angle of attack into the ball, the deeper their current divot pattern on normal shots and the more the golfer’s hands are ahead of the clubhead at impact, the more they need a sole that is designed with a more raised leading edge either from a steep radius up from the sole to the leading edge or a distinct bevel that does the same thing. In the TWGT iron line, such swing tendencies would be well matched to the sole design of the 752TC or the 560MC.
• The more a golfer has the tendency to hit slightly fat iron shots, the same thing goes for the sole design as above – iron models like the 752TC and 560MC are going to deliver more distance from being able to “fight off” the slightly fat shot by allowing the sole to get to the ball before it continues to dig into the ground.
• The harder the ground, the less bounce sole angle and the less you want the leading edge to be up off the ground at impact. Hardpan or very firm turf with thin grass still can cause a bone jarring impact if the leading edge enters the ground first – therefore some sole radius or leading edge bevel or a slight bounce sole angle is ok but not an excessive amount.
• The more lush the ground, the more bounce sole angle and/or the more you want the leading edge to be up off the ground at impact.

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715CLC Driver Offer

= the 715 Package Deal! Buy 1 Get 1 free on the remarkable and unique 715CLC Driver. The 715CLC is the most innovative weight adjustment driver ever designed. With its rotating weight arm available in weights of 25g, 30g, 35g and 40g, the 715 allows more weight movement than any other weight adjustable driver design in the game. 10.5 loft with GRT face design, manufactured with an investment cast 6/4Ti body and plasma welded SP700 titanium face. Buy one 715 plus your choice of weight arm and we'll ship another 715 driver plus weight arm of your choice for no charge. One weight screw wrench is also included for no charge with both 715 drivers.

Offer expires may 31st or while supplies last. Limited to one “package deal” per clubmaker. Price does not include shipping or tax (where applicable).

Login to the shopping site now.

Or Call: 800-470-0072 today for more information.

 

TWGT General Advertising and Sales Policy

For all advertisements and promotions of TWGT designs and products (TV, radio, print, internet) a "Call/Contact for Pricing" policy is in effect.

TWGT designs and products are not to be sold or advertised on auction sites (eg. Ebay, Yahoo).

All and any use of Tom Wishon Golf Technology logos, trademarks and/or images shall be used in a manner consistent as outlined in the style guide Marketing CD.

If you have any questions please contact us at 800-470-0072 or 970-375-0411.