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Where is distance on the PGA Tour going?

Tuesday, March 6, 2012 Comments
For those who haven't been paying attention, the distance trend continues on the PGA Tour. After last year's driving distance average broke the 290-yard barrier for the first time, all eyes (or at least my eyes) are on an event-by-event comparison to see where distance is headed this year. 

Mind you, I'm not in a lather about it being a bad thing or a good thing. I'm just interested in whether last year was an insignificant recorrection from flat numbers or the relentless approach of armageddon. On the side of the former is the fact that viewed on the scale of the increase since 2003, driving distance is only up about half a yard a year, or close to what it was in the period from the 1980s to the mid-1990s. On the side of the former, though, is viewing last year in the context of one-year gains. Last year's  been the the largest one-year since 2003. If the trend is continuing this year, are we likely to see another three-to-four-yard boost?

Hard to say, but the pace is in that direction. Through the Honda, the driving distance average is about three yards ahead of last year's pace. (288.5 for 2012, 285.8 for 2011). 

One area of statistics that might offer an explanation: launch conditions. The PGA Tour has been cataloging Trackman launch monitor data among the statistics it supplies to players and the media since 2007. A quick look at those numbers show PGA Tour players are launching it higher with less spin and an extra mile per hour of ballspeed this year compared to 2007. Admittedly, the results are limited to just this year's 10 events, but still it makes you wonder. 

For fun, we put those numbers in Foresight Sports shot simulation software on the GC2 launch monitor. According to those calculations, the difference between current launch conditions and 2007 launch conditions could be more than six yards. The driving distance average in 2007 was 288.6. So one way to scare those afraid of the ball going too far would be to suggest that by adding six yards to 288.6 you'd get the driving distance average for 2012. 

But it's way too early to even suggest that. Way too early. Instead, I prefer the wisdom of our Hot List Technical Panel, a team of Ph.D.'s who can spot faulty logic a mile away. Their review of recent driving distance average trends suggests that the average for the end of this year seems like it should be within a range of 288.3 to 291.9. In other words, to butcher Ebby Calvin LaLoosh, it could go up, it could go down, or it could stay the same. 

--Mike Stachura
Follow me on Twitter @MikeStachura
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Expect more pink from Ping and Bubba

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Comments

blog_ping_pink_driver.jpgFor several years, Bubba Watson has used a driver with a pink-colored True Temper BiMatrx shaft. Now he has a clubhead to match. Watson will play the 2012 PGA Tour season using a 8.5-degree Ping G20 driver that has a bright, bubblegum pink clubhead. The rear crown of the club has wording that reads, "Made exclusively for Bubba" -- as if that were needed. The driver is built to the exact specs of Watson's previous G20, including a substantially built-up grip that has the Ping wording set slightly to the right of center as you look at the club from the address position.

The club is more than just a fashion statement for the three-time PGA Tour winner. It's part of his year-long "Bubba and Friends Drive to a Million" charity. Watson's equipment sponsor, Ping, has given an initial $10,000 to the cause and has pledged $300 for the first 300 drives Watson hits over 300 yards. Considering he had 483 such tee shots last year, Watson and his pink driver should easily max that out -- and that's a pretty good start. We'll do that math for you. Including the initial $10,000 that's $100,000.

-- E. Michael Johnson

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TaylorMade debuts RocketBallz, R11-S lines of clubs

Sunday, December 11, 2011 Comments
The follow-up to TaylorMade's highly successful white R11 and Burner SuperFast woods was officially unveiled today by TaylorMade and the name of the product line is certain to raise a few eyebrows: RocketBallz.

Although the moniker (originally conceived by the R&D team when they wrote the name on a prototype after gathering some impressive test data) is different, the technology goals of the clubs remain true to TaylorMade's focus on creating speed for golfers. Specifically, the fairway woods and hybrids each boast a slot in the sole designed to enhance the flexibility of the head and face.

The clubs (which boast a slightly deeper face) are cast from stainless steel and feature a web-like crown structure that gets as thin as 0.4 millimeters. The weight saved from the crown is then used to create a center of gravity position that is low and forward to create a faster ball speed with low spin.

To illustrate the club's performance, TaylorMade has provided a video of Dustin Johnson testing the RocketBallz fairway wood, complete with ProTracer graphics:


Dr. Benoit Vincent, TaylorMade's chief technical officer, explained the slot was positioned in the sole because it is an area that is normally not very flexible due to the amount of weight positioned there. The other benefit, he said, is that golfers tend to make contact with fairway woods and hybrids low on the face. Placing the slot in the sole adds speed to those shots.

Lofts on the fairway wood (street price: $230) are 15, 17, 19, 21, 21 and 24 degrees while the hybrid (street price: $160) comes in 19, 22, 25 and 28 degrees. A Tour version of the hybrid is available in 16.5, 18.5, 21,5 and 24.5 degrees. 

Although the fairway wood and hybrid are non-adjustable, the RocketBallz driver has an adjustable hosel with eight loft/lie angle settings, making it an attractive proposition at the $300 price point. The driver does not feature the slot technology (drivers have larger, springier faces that are already close to the USGA limit on flexibility and therefore a slot is not needed), 

The club also continues TaylorMade's work in the area of lightweight clubs (299 grams overall including a 50-gram Matrix Ozik XCON 5 shaft) with thin crowns and inverted cone technology in the face. The shaft, at 46 inches slightly shorter than the Burner SuperFast 2.0, is still long enough to help boost swing speed.

Two versions of the driver are available. The standard model features a larger appearance at address with a standard face height and a slight draw bias while the tour model appears slightly smaller with a deeper face and a neutral face angle. Lofts are 9, 10.5 and 13 degrees on the standard model and 9 and 10.5 degrees on RocketBallz Tour. 

Although the RocketBallz woods serve as the headliners, TaylorMade unveiled several other notable products. Rounding out the RocketBallz line are two irons models -- RocketBallz and RocketBallz Max.

The game-improvement RocketBallz set features 3-, 4- and 5-irons that are made from a high-strength steel alloy and feature a hollow construction to optimize distance. The large face is as thin as 1.8 millimeters in some areas to boost the springlike effect. The clubs (which come with 85-gram steel shafts as well as the ability to bend the hosel for lie and loft adjustments) cost $700 for a set of eight.

Those seeking distance in irons may gravitate to the RocketBallz Max iron set ($1,400). The strong-lofted irons use tungsten weights that are located inside the hollow areas of the sole (primarily in the heel and toe areas) to improve forgiveness. Designers also stiffened the clubface in the toe area to help promote a slight draw bias.

TaylorMade also followed up its R11 driver with the R11-S. The 460cc club ($400, two lofts: 9 and 10.5 degrees) have the same three areas of adjustability however the soleplate now offers five positions. In all the club boasts 80 combinations -- that's 32 more than last year's R11 that cover a range of 3 degrees of loft, 6 degrees of face angle and four millimeters of CG movement.

The R11-S fairway woods come in five lofts (14, 15.5, 17, 19, 22 degrees) and feature a thin crown that saves weight that is used to move the center of gravity forward in an effort to reduce spin and provide more ball speed. The club ($250) has an adjustable hosel and rotating soleplate provide 24 options. All RocketBallz and R11-S clubs will be available at retail Feb. 1. 

-- E. Michael Johnson
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It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Thursday, September 15, 2011 Comments
EClosetphoto.JPGThe equipment closet at Golf Digest Hot List Central is starting to fill up as the candidates start rolling in for the 2012 Hot List. While we can't reveal most of the new products we're seeing, we can talk about a few of the current arrivals. There are several hundred entries already (Example: 90 putters in the house, even some belly lengths), but here's a sampling of some clubs to be in stores before the end of this season:

BJ40.JPG
The updated forged iron design from the J38 Dual Pocket Cavity is aimed at low to mid-handicap players and utilizes milled out pockets in the cavity that are angled toward the perimeter for increased stability on off-center hits compared to the J38. The J40 line also includes more traditional blade irons, a hybrid, a forged wedge and a four-piece titanium driver that comes in 445- and 430-cubic centimeter sizes.




XFIron.JPGCallaway XF irons: The multiple-piece super game improvement iron includes a forged 1025 carbon steel frame and a high-strength Carpenter 455 steel face designed to enhance ballspeed and stability for hits across a large area of the face. According to the company, it marks the highest moment of inertia for any iron in Callaway history. The set includes two hybrids and the steel shafts are the lightweight True Temper GS95. 











CobraLT.JPG
The longest-shafted driver from a major manufacturer in history, Cobra's new entry features a 48-inch shaft (1 1/2 inches longer than TaylorMade's Burner SuperFast 2.0, for example), a sub-270-gram total weight and a weight-saving grip just barely big enough for two hands. The Grafalloy Blackbird shaft features a special textured coating designed to improve the shaft's aerodynamics.

More updates as they come available...
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A little lesson in projectile motion, from the R&A's Dawson

Tuesday, July 12, 2011 Comments
A lot of insiders were wondering what new math R&A Chief Executive Peter Dawson was using when he spoke up about changes to Royal St. George's for this year's British Open, which starts Thursday. It was confusing, but as it turns out, it is right.

Dawson is quoted in a piece by John Huggan on CBSSports.com, suggesting the difficult contours on some of Royal St. George's fairways lead to bounces that take the ball careening somewhat unfairly off line. He says, in part, "We were aware that a very low percentage of the field were able to hit those three fairways eight years ago. That was because of the severe contours on all three. And, I also think, because players tend to hit the ball so much higher these days. It's coming down more steeply, so it is more likely to go sideways on landing."

While I'm not sure that the best players best drives are designed to land "steeply," it is true that the trajectories are higher than in the days of persimmon drivers and wound balls. Generally speaking, the best drives land at an angle of less than 40 degrees, which should help produce more roll (although a much lower shot will yield an even flatter landing angle and will produce the most roll, provided there's not something to stop that roll, like a bunker or burn or sheep). Here's how I explained the concept of "angle of descent" back in 2006.  

But here's the bit that justifies Dawson's explanation of projectile motion. Basically, a projectile like a golf ball has two velocity components, a horizontal one and a vertical one, as Martin Brouillette, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Sherbrooke and a member of the Golf Digest Technical Panel explains: "Assuming two cases with the same landing velocity but with different landing angles, the case with the steeper landing angle has a smaller horizontal velocity component, therefore a greater vertical velocity component. This greater vertical velocity component, upon interacting with a tilted landing surface, is more likely to produce a greater sideways velocity component."

For those whose last science class was in high school, here's a translation: When the ball bounds off the the fairway from a steep landing angle, more of its energy (velocity) is given toward going up, not forward. Since the ball has more energy going up when it hits a wildly tilted fairway like some of those at Royal St. George's, it's going to direct more of its energy toward whatever direction the tilt is sending it. A low shot (remember Tiger Woods' infamous stinger, used so effectively in his 2006 British Open victory that he went the entire championship using the driver only once?) yields a landing angle with more energy going forward and thus could (theoretically) reduce the negative effect of an awkward landing angle in the fairway. Of course, a ball that's rolling over those awkward angles is going to be dramatically affected; one that's flying by those humps and bumps won't be bothered by them at all.

A lot to think about if you're a competitor heading to the first tee tomorrow at Sandwich, no?

--Mike Stachura
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Dialing in your swing: Equipment Q&A, Benoit Vincent, TaylorMade

Thursday, June 23, 2011 Comments
Six drivers on this year's Hot List utilize some measure of adjustability, whether it be lie angle tweaks, face angle effects or center of gravity manipulation. Or maybe all three. Certainly, it's long been clear that the leader among major companies in this area is TaylorMade. While some examples of adjustable drivers have been around literally for decades, it was TaylorMade's r7 Quad, introduced seven years ago, that launched the idea to the greater golfing public. 

Its most recent foray into adjustability, the R11, has dominated the industry in almost every conceivable metric since it debuted in January. The idea of adjustability, though it's continued to expand over the last seven years, remains fairly simple: allowing the golfer (or better, and what we prefer, a qualified fitter) to precisely set up a driver to match and or compensate for a player's specific swing tendencies or flaws. 

R11.jpg

Benoit Vincent, chief technical officer at TaylorMade-adidas Golf, has directed the company's innovation efforts throughout the adjustable era. In today's Equipment Q&A, we share some highlights of our conversation with him as we researched the NBC Golf Digest Equipment Special.



Golf Digest: What brought you to some of the challenges to creating a driver with triple adjustability? How did we get from the movable weights of r7 to the three layers of R11?
Benoit Vincent: From the very beginning for us, we have been trying to deal with manipulating the launch parameters of the golf ball. It's so complex because there are so many parameters and individual requirements coming from the golfers concerning the way the golf club is going to function at impact, to the way the golf ball is going to react, to where you hit it on the golf club and how that can change. There are so many things that contribute to the characteristics of the ball upon impact and the way it is going to fly. 
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Adams UL 9088: A new look at lightweight drivers

Wednesday, June 8, 2011 Comments
With the upcoming August release of the Speedline 9088 UL, Adams Golf is joining a rapidly growing number of club manufacturers offering a lightweight driver--but this one comes with a twist, literally. 

adamsUL.jpg

"We did a lot of fitting and testing with different builds," says Scott Burnett, Adams' director of advance development. "Right now, it's very popular to build these sub-280 gram drivers, but [most companies] do it by keeping the head weight about the same and making the shaft and grip very light, so they end up with very high swing weights. What we found through our testing was that the vast majority of players, especially when you averaged it out, tend to hit that type of build to the right. Even when we set it up in the GolfLabs robot, which is not a perfect thing but we did it because we were trying to understand the mechanics, the robot hit it right also. And the reason is that the balance point of the club is much farther out toward the head than in a normal golf club. It's about four inches farther out, which is a lot."

According to Burnett, with so much of a club's mass being positioned closer to the clubhead, the inertia "about the grip" (the resistance to twisting of the entire club, not just the clubhead) is higher, affecting the way the club turns over through impact. "It actually takes more torque to release those clubs," he explains. "The golfer has to put more force into it to get the club to do that final pendulum motion, even though it's a lighter club overall." 

To combat this problem, Burnett and his colleagues wanted to design the 9088 UL to be light--290 grams to be exact--but still balanced in a way that kept the swing weight, and thus the inertia about the grip, down. "We could accomplish this one of two ways: we could either use a standard 45-gram shaft and put a heavier-than-standard grip on it, or we could make the stock shaft a higher balance point and put a standard grip on there, that way people could re-grip it and not mess up the balance of the overall club. Since one of the feedbacks we got [from our accounts] was that everybody wants to be able to re-grip with standard grips, we went with the latter. So we had a high-balance-point, 45-gram Matrix shaft specifically designed for the club, which brought the mass up more toward the grip. We now have a lighter club with a lower inertia about the grip, and we found that players - almost all players, but especially players that need more speed - hit that club straighter than the superlight build. They don't have to put as much effort into actually releasing the club." 


The Speedline UL 9088 will be available in 9.5-, 10.5- and 12-degree lofts, and a draw version will be added to the line later in the fall ($300). 

--Stina Sternberg
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NEW: Ping G20 driver to be on the range at Memphis

Monday, June 6, 2011 Comments
It's been nearly two years since Ping unveiled its last G series driver, the G15, so as insiders know, it's just about time for the next version to land. Well, the G20 already has landed. 

An image appears on the USGA's list of conforming drivers, which is updated every Monday. Four different lofts (8.5 degrees, 9.5, 10.5 and 12) are included in the entry on the USGA's list. In additon, it's expected the driver will be making the rounds this week on the PGA Tour at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. 

Ping.jpg

The driver will feature further development in the innovation started by the G15, most notably the high-balance-point shaft designed to redistribute mass into the clubhead while maintaining the same overall weight and swing weight.


It's expected to be available late this summer, but it's already OK to use in competition. Many of Ping's staff players have been involved in testing the new club., including Hunter Mahan, Bubba Watson and Lee Westwood, who has been using an older G10 and is this week's defending champion.

--Mike Stachura
 
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Lighter is better: Equipment Q&A with Nate Radcliffe, Cleveland Golf

Friday, June 3, 2011 Comments
If there's one thing we've learned in covering equipment technology over the last 20 years, it's that the smart people behind club and golf ball innovation never seem to stop coming at you with new ideas. 


Over the next several weeks we'll devote some space here to recent conversations with some of the bright minds in equipment technology to see what they're up to and where they might be taking us next. More topics to come, but for now let's start with lighter total weight in drivers.

Lightweight1.JPG

So much of driver innovation over the last decade and a half has focused on making the transfer of energy at impact more efficient. Only recently have there been efforts at engineering the club in a way that might help golfers swing the club more efficiently so they can deliver the club more quickly to the ball. If the same effort could produce more clubhead speed, the result could be more driving distance. One idea is to reduce the total weight of the system. Where some drivers have topped the scale at 320-330 grams, now some new drivers are dipping below the 280-gram barrier. One company pushing those limits is Cleveland Golf, and during our research for the NBC-Golf Digest Equipment Special, we had a chance to ask Nate Radcliffe, metalwoods development manager at Cleveland, about what that technology is and what it can do.

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Mickelson's cracked driver a good omen?

Friday, April 1, 2011 Comments
If you're into omens, then Phil Mickelson is destined to win the Masters next week. Why's that? Because Phil says he cracked his driver during the first round of the Shell Houston Open. And for those who have forgotten, Lefty also busted his driver last year at the Shell Houston Open and went on to win his third green jacket the following week.

Of course if form really holds, then Mickelson will get his current driver fixed before he tees it up at Augusta National. Last year Mickelson's Callaway FT Tour TA driver required the golf equipment equivalent of a transplant. Performing the surgery was Dr. Alan Hocknell, Callaway's senior VP of R&D. Hocknell retrieved the club Sunday night prior to Masters week and got a text message from Mickelson, who was in Augusta, Monday morning asking, "How bad is it, Doc? Is she gonna make it?" 

Hocknell and his team performed, in their words, "an unprecedented repair," removing the carbon composite body from the clubface while never taking off the Mitsubishi Fubuki shaft in order to ensure the loft and lie remained untouched. 

"We had never done that before so everyone was a little nervous," said Hocknell. The same weights were inserted in the same location in the new shell before it was bonded to the titanium cup face and the same skid plate added to the sole. The driver was on a plane heading to Augusta by 3:30 that afternoon and delivered to Mickelson on the eighth tee during his Tuesday practice round at Augusta National and went on to rank second in the field in distance with a 297.1-yard driving distance average while winning by three shots over Lee Westwood.

So, anyone want to bet against Phil?

--E. Michael Johnson
Follow me on Twitter @EMichaelGW

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