October 2011: Hot List 365: Golf Digest

The Sound of Silence

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

There was a strange silence in our meeting room at the Wigwam Golf Resort and Spa yesterday. It was day one of our meetings with the retailer panel at the annual Hot List Summit, and no one was talking. Why? Simple. After four-plus hours of uninterrupted, lively discussion about all elements of the golf marketplace, it was time to eat lunch.

That's about the only thing that stopped this group of industry veterans and proven observers of the golf retail space from sharing the knowledge that we believe makes the Golf Digest Hot List a trusted, thorough analysis of the game's most intriguing products.

It's trusted because we feel an obligation to our readers to examine every resource possible to best understand the merits of one new product over another. As a team our six retailers easily combine for more than 150 years of experience in the golf industry. In short, they have seen and/or done nearly everything the business of golf has offered up. If you're looking to find the pulse of the golf consumer, this group lives it every day.

Hot List Summit Picture Of The Day

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

LITCHFIELD PARK, AZ -- Day 3 of the Hot List Summit brought brought together a panel of seven retailers from across the country.

Among many other things, the retailers were asked to grade every club nominated for the Golf Digest Hot List.

--Photos by J.D. Cuban

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Hot List Summit Picture of the Day

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

LITCHFIELD PARK, Ariz. -- Day 2 of academic meetings features some of the brightest minds in the business.

From left to right: David Lee; Associate professor of physics at Gordon College; Martin Brouillette; rocket scientist and professor at the University of Sherbrooke; John Axe; retired physicist; George Springer; Professor of aeronautics and astronomics at Stanford University.

John Axe; retired physicist; Tom Lacy: Associate professor of aerospace engineering at Mississippi State University.

--Photos by J.D. Cuban

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Reading the handwriting

Monday, October 17, 2011

The handwriting on my notebook is indecipherable, and not just because it is not my own. Martin Broulliette, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec and a member of the Golf Digest Technical Panel since 2005, is trying to illustrate to me in the simplest terms why an airplane taking off and a fairway wood coming into impact are (ideally) designed in a similar fashion, in particular when it comes to the tail section of each, er, vehicle.

I see what he's saying about the airplane. I understand what he's saying about the fairway wood. But only because Brouillette, like the rest of our panel, is a patient teacher. (It has to do with the concept of dynamic loft or the tendency of a club with a center of gravity well behind the face to add loft just prior to impact as the CG of the club races to catch up and line up with the shaft. Got that?)

In the end, I am encouraged somewhat. The mission of our two days (and nights) of discussions with our panel of scientists is fairly simple: to help us, where possible, to discern the various degrees of excellence between the new technologies we see in the hundreds of new products we consider every year for the Hot List. (This year, we're over 300 individual entries, and we'd easily expect less than a third of those to make it on the Hot List.) It is not simple, but while I am intrigued at Brouillette's scribblings (and the fact that he can outdrive me by 50 yards), he leaves me with a warning.

"We're only talking about a very small effect, maybe one degree," he says. "I doubt you could see how well they account for it just by looking at the bottom of your 3-wood."

Of course, the point of the discussion, of the scribblings, of the questions and answers is to continue to look for those new technology stories that are both imaginative and effective. The entire panel believes they probably could test several dozen hypotheses in this year's crop of entries. They believe some ideas might take an afternoon to prove, but they also confess some might take years.

They are a thorough, classy, whipsmart group, our collection of six Ph.Ds. Brouillette has invented a needleless syringe, but he's also created precise golf ball flight models. Thomas Lacy, a professor of aerospace engineering at Mississippi State, studies aircraft structure durability but also spearheaded a recent Golf Digest study in concert with the MSU Institute of Golf of the effect of cooking spray on driving distance that appeared in our September issue and had nearly every golfer raiding his kitchen cabinets. George Springer, Paul Pigott Professor of Engineering (emeritus) at Stanford, is one of the most significant and influential figures in the history of composite materials research, and the 78-year-old also can be found more often than not enjoying a round of golf at the Stanford Golf Course, pull cart and clubs in tow. John McPhee, is a professor of systems design engineering at the University of Waterloo in Ontario who led a team that recently invented the first hockey stick-testing robot. David Lee, is chair of the physics department at Gordon College in Massachusetts and coordinates all our mass property measurements of golf clubs, including moment of inertia, center of gravity locations and characteristic time. John Axe is a semi-retired research physicist, who spent nearly 30 years at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he studied condensed matter science and neutron scattering. More importantly, he made every putt that mattered in helping our team win our match yesterday afternoon.

And so our clan of scientists spent the last few days intensely inquisitive, chewing on each new topic and technology until there's nothing left but shards of bone. Today it was much talk of fairway woods and drivers, wedges and grooves and putters and, well, grooves. There was lively debate and often there were technical questions sent to manufacturers for clarification of their positions. We could go on and on about the strength of our panel, but perhaps it's most evident in this simple statement: Of the dozen or so extra questions our group took to the manufacturers, each was promptly answered. This group is respected and it makes us better.

--Mike Stachura

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Hot List Summit: When journalists meet with doctors

Monday, October 17, 2011

LITCHFIELD PARK, Ariz. -- It is not unusual for journalists to consider themselves the smartest people in the room, but each of the five present in this particular room on Sunday were smart enough, at least, to know better.

Golf Digest's annual Hot List Summit at the Wigwam Resort outside Phoenix began as it usually does, with the first of two sessions with its technical panel of six of the brightest minds in North America. Collectively they seem to have more degrees than a right angle.

They are here to help explain and evaluate the technology in the newest equipment, and the discussions are lively and at a level that would rapidly disavow any journalist of the notion that he or she was on the same intellectual plane.

Do we have validation for a CDF computation, one of the eggheads, as we affectionately call them, asked? We'll check on that after our academics explained to us that CDF stands for computational fluid dynamics. This is a perfect example of what we have maintained for years about the Hot List: We may not be experts in all things relating to equipment, but in the areas we are not, we have access to those who are.

Occasionally the conversations veer off on amusing tangents. For instance, if you're on an elevator that is in free fall, why can't you save yourself from harm by jumping up a split second before it crashes?

This led to a discussion of Galileo's "Dialogue Concerning Two Chief World Systems" and Zeno's Paradoxes.

What does this have to do with golf? We'll get back to you on that, after our headaches subside.

--John Strege

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Belly putter: Watch what you eat

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Lost in the hysteria over belly putters these days is one of the most crucial elements in making these things work: Fitting.

In fact, a survey of Golf Digest's list of America's 100 Best Clubfitters suggests that one of the reasons players may resort to the belly putter in the first place is, unknowingly, because of a poor fitting putter in the first place.

"With the recent peak in interest, those looking are generally trying to 'fix' their poor putting," said Dana Upshaw at Dana Golf in Warner Robins, Ga. "The overwhelming majority of these golfers have a poorly fit putter anyway whether it's an improper lie angle, or the wrong length, or the head's too light or too heavy, or even, and this happens a lot, the grip is on crooked. So there is little chance for them to putt effectively if the belly putter is also misfit."

While belly putters are flying off store shelves (a call to a local Golfsmith store in Norwalk, Conn., revealed belly putters were going out the door almost as fast as they were being delivered), many fitters urge patience to get the right setup.

"We see fitting the belly putter as strictly custom," says Brandon Collier at Pure Performance Golf Lab. "Not every golfer uses the same length or even same grip. Some do better with a round grip and some do better with a squared off grip. You really need to be custom fit with Tomi or SAM PuttLab to understand which belly putter works best for you."

USGA list shows new Callaway drivers

Monday, October 3, 2011

Those playing the golf club CSI game have another piece of hard evidence that Callaway Golf will get into the adjustable driver market fairly soon: Among the handful of drivers added to the USGA's list of Conforming Drivers in the last week are two from Callaway Golf, the RAZR X Black and the RAZR X Fit.

Of those two, the latter seems most intriguing for those wondering what Callaway plans to do with its driver line in 2012. The entry on the USGA's Conforming List describes the RAZR Fit as having a "weight screw" and a hosel with "orientation indicators." An attached photo of the RAZR Fit shows a sole with two weight screws (one in the heel and toe). The USGA listing of conforming drivers can be seen here.

Callaway representatives did not comment directly on the club, although it is believed that the club may be shown to some tour players at this week's Frys.com Open.

--Mike Stachura

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