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Five questions with Nike TW '14 designer Tobie Hatfield

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Including Sunday's win wearing the Nike TW '14, Tiger Woods has won eight times since switching to a sneaker-like golf shoe he designed with Tobie Hatfield, the mind behind the Nike Free running shoes. Hatfield answers five questions from Mike Stachura.

Cruel shoes: Tiger Woods' precision extends to Hatfield's shoe design. Photo: Marc Lecureuil

Q: What's the challenge in designing golf shoes?
Golf has been one of the more unusual sports for me to work on because the golfer is on so many different types of terrain in one round, even in one hole. I mean, a gym floor is a gym floor wherever you go. In track, everything's the same. In golf, it's crazy. It's anything and everything.

Q: What changes were made for this year?
Tiger wanted to build upon the idea of mobility with stability. We've brought the dynamic Flywire technology of our other shoes to the golf shoe. It works with his foot when he's moving, but when he's at address and the club is moving, then it holds him in really nicely, and he can feel that power translate into the ball.

Q: How is a minimalist, "natural motion" design important in a golf shoe?
You want to feel what's underneath, not in a bad way but in a good way. The easier it is for the computer that's your mind to understand those differences, the better you're able to make adjustments and stay balanced. Balance is so key.

Q: How is Tiger as a shoe designer?
It felt like I was talking to this amazing computer. He remembers every shot he's hit in his life, what it felt like at the moment of impact, and he's very precise in how he describes things.

Q: How important is it for Tiger to win with this technology?
I can have all the technology in the world, but if the greatest golfer wasn't wearing it, it would be much more difficult. If anyone is going to change what golfers wear on their feet, it's Tiger.

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Five questions with Holly Sonders

Thursday, March 7, 2013

A member of the Big Ten champion Michigan State golf team in 2007, Holly Sonders has been part of the Golf Channel's "Morning Drive" team since January 2011. Here she handles five questions from E. Michael Johnson.

Q: You just joined with Cobra-Puma. What kind of input might you have on its apparel line?
I've already spoken to them about that. For the Puma logo on my apparel, I'd like sequins or some kind of stones and have that be my signature. Girls like bling, and I think that would be cool to have on my Puma cats. I would love to have a say in shoes and developing golf dresses. I love fashion, and Puma is fashion-oriented.

Q: Is golf more frustrating or more fun since you entered the workforce?
A little of both. You have expectations for yourself, so when you chunk a chip or miss a five-footer, that's a little frustrating. I'm still a competitor. But the pressure is off. I played competitive golf for 16 years with teammates and coaches counting on me. Now I don't even have to keep score. That's a relief, so I think I enjoy it more.

Q: What have you learned from Martin Hall?
Martin is one of the most knowledgeable teachers on the planet. He thinks of items you might have around your house you can use as training aids. He's very visual and tailors tips to different players.

Q: What would you do on your first day if you were LPGA commissioner?
I'd like to see them move to a Friday or Saturday finish and get it away from the men's schedule.

Q: What time do you have to get up for work?
I used to live 30 minutes away and woke up at 1:45 a.m. to get in by 3:30 a.m. I got so many speeding tickets I had to move. I'm less than a mile from work now, and the call time is 5 a.m. I don't have to wake up until 4:15. That's a big 2.5 hours.

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Michael Phelps signs equipment deal with Ping

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

By E. Michael Johnson

When you've conquered one sport (as in winning 22 Olympic medals in swimming -- 18 of them gold) you might decide not to take on another sport. Not so with Michael Phelps. An avid golfer, Phelps has decided to make a concerted effort to get better at the game. And Phelps has chosen to play Ping golf equipment to do so. Ping announced Tuesday that Phelps has reached an agreement to play a full set of the company's clubs.

The bats Phelps will swing in pro-ams (he is slated to play with Bubba Watson at the Waste Management Phoenix Open pro-am) and on the Golf Channel's "Haney Project" highlight Ping's commitment to custom fitting. Standing 6-feet-4 with long arms and large hands, Phelps' Ping G25 irons were made one inch longer than standard and 3 degrees upright. His grips are 1/32-inch over standard size. Phelps also will play the company's G25 driver (9.5 degrees), 3-wood (15 degrees) and hybrid (20 degrees). Ping Tour Gorge wedges and a Ping Scottsdale TR Senita mallet putter round out the bag.

Ping added some custom touches to the 27-year-old Phelps' clubs, including red, white and blue paint fill on the irons as well as "Phelps22" on the irons, wedges and putter with the number 22 in gold paint. Gold highlights also are on Phelps' metalwoods. Here Phelps speaks with GolfDigest.com on the fitting experience as well as his thoughts on taking on his next sports challenge.

How did the relationship with Ping come about?

As soon as I picked up the Ping clubs -- I was able to get into a set of G25s --there were no other clubs I was able to get as comfortable with. The other thing that struck me is that they are a very family-oriented company and that is very important to me and I wanted to be a part of that. Other sponsors I have had have felt like a family away from home and I like that. When I walked into the headquarters here in Phoenix you could feel it the moment you walked in.

Plus they have the putter vault with all those gold putters from champions using Ping putters in their wins.

I just found out about that today [Jan. 29]. There's a lot of gold here so it seemed like a perfect fit.

Have you ever been fitted for clubs before and what was the fitting process like for you?

I've never been fit for equipment before like this. When I first got the clubs they sent me I was able to play with them for a week or two and get a feel for them but that was really it. But during that time I was able to pick up on a few things that needed some changing. And Hank [Haney] and I were able to see how that affected the ball flight, so when I got here for the fitting I had an idea of some things that we wanted to do, such as stiffer shafts, different grips that didn't feel like sandpaper, etc. We both felt the ball flight was super high. So we wanted stiffer shafts to bring that down. With the driver and 3-wood the shaft felt like a U, it felt like it was bending so much. So the Ping guys put me through a very thorough fitting. I never realized it was so technical. I never knew that there were 50-plus shafts to choose from or that a fitting was so technical.

How does that compare to swimming? Did you get fit for your suit, cap and goggles?

When I was in the pool you got a swimsuit, a cap and a pair of goggles and that was it. The last four years we had one kind of suit we swam in. With the cap it was small, medium or large and that's all. The suit goes up in waist size from 22 to 24 to 26 to 28 to however big you need it. There are about 15 types of goggles to choose from but we all have to follow the same guidelines. It's nothing like getting fit for golf clubs. It will be fun to become more educated about things such as the shaft in the driver and the loft gap in the wedges. I'm really looking forward to that. I want to be more knowledgeable about this.

What kind of improvement did you see?

As soon as we changed the grips and the shafts the improvement was noticeable. I'd hit one good one, one bad one. Then after some changes I hit three consecutive 7-irons from 170 yards to 180 yards and they were pretty much dead straight. At that point I knew what kind of improvement was possible. A lot of it is simply being comfortable with the club. Having confidence in it. When we added the length and some weight in the shaft it felt more comfortable. It didn't seem like I was swinging a wiffle ball bat like it did before. It's something I noticed just from holding the club and I liked the feeling.

Describe yourself as a golfer.

I'm learning. I think it is the same as in everything I do. I don't like to put limits on anything. This is a passion that I have and I'm going to do everything I can to improve and get to where I want to be. I have friends that are single-digit and scratch golfers that I would love to be able to compete with. I know it is a very challenging sport. It's the most humbling sport I've ever played in my life. And I know the small things can make a big difference. Eliminating three-putts and working on the short game are important. To get in a rhythm and be consistent is key. I know the more time I put into it the better I'll get.

You're a competitive guy. Does the challenge of the game appeal to you?

There were times that I've been really frustrated and didn't want to pick up the clubs anymore. But now it is hard to get them out of my hands. I know it's not going to happen overnight and I have to put in the time. There are ways to move forward and improve, but it has to be something you want. And this is definitely something that I want. I cannot stand to lose and I can't stand the thought of being beat every time I go out there with my friends. I don't want them giving me 15 strokes or even more than that sometimes. It's annoying for me. I'd like to play at the same level as them or even someday pass them.

Not to mention the golf course is a little more interesting than a pool I would think.

The playing grounds are much prettier than a pool. It is something that is very different from swimming. There we have the same pool. It's the same length, the same temperature and not much is different from one pool to the next. But being able to travel all over the world and see the courses, well, it's wild. At the Dunhill Links event I think I figured out I never want to go back to Carnoustie. That is the hardest golf course I have ever played. I was stuck in the rough so much and couldn't get out. It was so frustrating. There were times I wanted to just pick the ball up and move to the next hole. It was driving me insane! The greens at the Old Course were cool, though. They were the biggest I'd ever seen. So it's neat to play different courses with the weather changes and the different layouts. The different lengths of course. It's interesting to see how every course is different. I have a little board of all the top 100 courses and so far I don't have a lot on there but at some point I'd like to say I've played them all.

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Equipment Q&A with Nike's Tom Stites: How the club goes through the dirt

Friday, July 8, 2011

The concept of game-improvement in irons now extends quite dramatically even into the area that we refer to as Players Irons in the Golf Digest Hot List. Few current designers have been involved with the development of the concept of game-improvement irons as long as Tom Stites, director of golf club creation for Nike Golf. Indeed, one of the first projects Stites worked on when he started with the Ben Hogan Company in the 1980s was the legendary Hogan Edge iron, the first truly game-improvement iron made by the company. It was launched with a memorable commercial that featured the 74-year-old, cardigan-wearing company namesake striping shots on the range at Riviera Country Club. The club was a hit and not just because of the commercial. It ushered in the idea that even the greatest ball-striker ever might one day seek a little assistance from his equipment. Stites believes that's true for every golfer today, and probably more than ever.

For this week's Equipment Q&A, we asked Stites to give us a better understanding of what "game improvement" means in irons for various types of players. Here, from our research for the NBC/Golf Digest Equipment Special, is some of his insight.

Golf Digest: Can you make "players irons" with "game improvement features?

Tom Stites: For an elite player, someone that's really highly skilled, game improvement is a different thing, it's more about the trajectory of the golf ball, being able to control spin, being able to control the knock-downs, being able to score, and how the club goes through the dirt. That's one of the things Mr. Hogan talked about a lot, you know, how it engages the dirt. These players are usually at a little steeper angle than most of the amateur or less-skilled players and so those characteristics and specifications need to be understood. Like the centers of gravity are usually considerably higher in the blades themselves, so game improvement to these players is being able to make a specific kind of shot with the skill that they've been blessed with or trained themselves into.

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

Thursday, June 23, 2011

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.

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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What 'better' means: Equipment Q&A with Bill Morgan, Titleist

Friday, June 10, 2011

You would think we figured out the golf ball years ago. You would be wrong, and Bill Morgan, senior vice president of golf ball research and development at Titleist, has a never-ending supply of evidence to prove the point. In this week's Equipment Q&A, we talked with Morgan during our research for the NBC-Golf Digest Equipment Special, and he offered his thoughts about the introduction of the Pro V1 and Pro V1x balls, and on how golf balls can still be improved.

Much of the conversation centered on two themes: consistency and fitting. The goal of a designer is to figure out the best way to make a ball that equally meets the demands of the wildly different impacts of a flop shot and a driver smash. That challenge involves understanding how the inside of the ball works with the outside of the ball, and vice versa. In addition, Morgan takes issue with the idea that certain players should only play certain types of balls, and he also stresses that what gets lost too often in golf ball discussions and debates is how in the formula for what happens in a golf shot, the ball is subservient to the club and the club is subservient to the golfer. Hence, the value of fitting.

Golf Digest: What's your approach to ball fitting? Is it for everyone, or just a certain level of player?

Morgan: I think ball fitting is very important for all golfers. In our system, we will walk you through a process that is identical to what we use with tour players. The first thing we do is characterize the nature of your game, and then based on that select two golf balls that you can go onto the golf course and try in different shot scenarios. We think it's very important in ball-fitting to try the balls on the golf course because that's where you play the game, and that's where you can see the results of the shot you're trying to make. If you don't see it on the golf course, it's not real.

GD: What is the role of swing speed in ball selection?

Morgan: We believe it's a myth that moderate and lower swing speed players need special balls. We think in terms of influencing a golf shot that the club is more important than the ball and the golfer is more important than the club. Now, while we know different players apply a different level of force to the ball than others, it is clear to us that the range of force applied by a better player includes the level of force applied by by lesser players. We strongly believe that a ball must be designed for all speeds or it won't work for any golfer.

GD: So how do you make a ball better?

Morgan: When we work on how to make a ball that's better for Nick Watney, those are the same things that are going to help you and I play better, too. Of course, what's "better" is different every time. The change we're seeking for the next generation of golf balls is coming from what golfers want today. So "better" changes. What we call better today might not have been better in 2005. It might have been worse.

GD: Consistency is part of that improvement process, right? What have you done to make the ball more consistent?

Morgan: The entire history of dimple development has been one in which we've tried to make the surface of the golf ball more and more uniform to improve upon the consistency of the aerodynamic performance of the ball. We think we've taken a big step this year, which takes us to a place we've never been before. This year we've introduced what's called a spherically-tiled, tetrahedral layout, which has a different count and a different arrangement of dimples on the surface of the ball. In fact using the specific geometry of spherical tiling in the tetrahedral layout, we've subdivided the golf ball's surface into 24 identical tiles that are all exactly the same and produce the most uniform surface coverage we've ever had. We also dug into the process of making the core and in doing so we found a way to make cores more consistently. And if we can make a more consistent core, then we can be more precise with our formulations. So we developed a new formulation to go hand-in-hand with our new molding process. The two together have enabled us to make a core that's more individually consistent, and more consistent core to core to core.

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