Your Questions Answered
Is innovation in golf equipment dead? Not by a long shot
Don Price
Question: There doesn’t seem to be a big difference between club models from year to year anymore. What industry disruptors do you foresee in the near future or do you foresee any at all?
Answer: Although we don’t know now who the disruptors are going to be in the months and years ahead, we can pretty much guarantee they'll be there. But we understand your question. The Rules governing equipment seem to have boxed in manufacturers, and the gains from one model to the next seem to be small. Innovation, however, simply does not relent.
We recall an article in 1998 when driver heads were reaching 300 cubic centimeters. Dick Rugge, who at the time worked in R&D for TaylorMade, commented, and we're paraphrasing here, that driver size was probably maxed out. Clearly that wasn’t the case, and when he was later read back the quote as head of the USGA’s equipment standards, Rugge said it was a good reminder that while presently things might look stagnant, you never know what design, material or manufacturing process is right around the corner.
If you look back over time, you can see that equipment manufacturers have always found ways to innovate, even when the rules seemed restrictive. The "groove rule" was supposed to squash spin. Stewart Cink even went so far as to practice with duct tape on the face of his wedges, fearing the reduction would be that severe. But now you'd be hard pressed to notice any difference in spin. We’ve seen so many companies go down the road of artificial intelligence, too. As Albert Einstein once said, “If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”
As manufacturing improves and new materials are used, clubs will continue to get better. As we said earlier, year-to-year improvement might be incremental but over time those add up. Since 2012, PGA Tour driving distance is up about a yard per year (289.1 to 300.7). That's for guys who find the the center of the face a lot, so they're getting better results because of better spin control, stability and lighter weight. Not everything is about maximizing speed.
We remember posing a question similar to yours to one prominent club designer. He got up from his seat, drew the head of a driver on a white board and tapped about a hundred dots all over the face. He said, “When I make each of those behave like a hit in the center, that’s when I’m finished.” In other words, there’s still some room on the runway—especially in the area of the off-center hit, which is where everyday golfers benefit most.
Need proof? Check out our Jonathan Wall and Gene Parente’s Robo Report, which has compared generations of drivers from the major manufacturers on the Golf Laboratories swing robot. The gains from the oldest to the newest are significant.
More importantly, you now have access to tools that explicitly tell you how much better that new iron or driver is than the throwback gem you’re currently gaming. A fitter worth his reputation will happily test your clubs versus the latest and show you the difference. Then you get to decide whether “that much better” is worth the investment or you’re content being “that much worse.” The choice is yours.