While there are times when purchasing a used driver is a good idea (price-wise), golf technology continues to improve, but most of us apparently have little faith in the golf club engineers, and continue to play with decade-old clubs that are really obsolete. In fact, golf shop retailers have reported that the most sought-after clubs are used drivers and discount drivers. Oftentimes greens fees are high, and to play a nice course with technologically inferior golf clubs doesn’t make much sense. It certainly doesn’t make any sense to for anyone who cares what they shoot to play with obsolete clubs.

Why do golfers (who are often forking out a lot of money in greens fees) want to play with inferior, cheap golf clubs? I think it’s because the marketing efforts of the manufacturers are trying to impress us with scientific terms like “moment of inertia.” While moment of inertia isn’t a difficult concept to understand, most people haven’t studied up on it, and even those who have taken a physics class don’t understand how it would affect golf club design. I think people are generally turned off when someone tries to impress them with a bunch of technical jargon, and so they decide that it’s better to stick with the clubs they have.

The other problem is that we often believe that the problems in our golf game come from our swing, and not from our clubs. Certainly, there is always truth in that, but having up-to-date clubs can help overcome many problems. Average golfers are the focus of club design engineers, and there are many design methods for eliminating much of what ails the average golfer’s swing.

The bottom line is that if you are playing with clubs that date from the last century, it’s time to update your clubs. Technology is advancing rapidly. Your handicap will thank you.

Two teens were caught burglarizing B.J. Discount Golf in Cookeville, Tennessee within the first couple hours of the new year. A bystander called the police when he heard glass breaking, and the police officer found that the store had been broken into, and golf clubs and the cash register were on the floor.

One of the suspects came walking around the corner of the building, and obeyed the officer’s command to get down on the ground. The officer handcuffed him, and other officers found that the man had a toy gun. They also found the other suspect in a car parked nearby. That suspect claimed that he was asleep, and was unaware that his friend was burglarizing the golf store. Back at the police station, he contradicted that story, in a conversation with his friend. Had they gotten away, they would have stolen $950 worth of golf clubs, and $100 cast. Their bail has been set at $10,000, and they have a January 26th court date.

The owner of the golf store was also recently robbed at home, where the thieves stole almost 2000 golf balls, some video tapes, and clubs, all valued at $8500.

There are usually several lofts for the club face of a driver, and it is left to the consumer to choose the proper loft for their swing. The lofts range from 8.5 degrees to 13 degrees. Of course, the greater the loft, the higher the ball should fly. A lower loft would cause the ball to fly lower. The tradeoff comes in that the higher the ball flies, the less it will roll, and the lower it flies, the farther it will roll. For many years, studies have shown that it’s generally better for higher handicappers to have more loft on their drivers, and in general, they don’t have enough loft. But the most recent studies indicate that it’s better to have too little loft than too much.

It’s been found that higher-handicap players hit a low-loft driver farther than a high-loft driver. The lower-loft driver gets much more roll than a high-loft driver. In fact, the high-loft driver gets zero roll, and on average, the lower loft driver went five yards farther.

The best way to determine what the best loft is for you, is to have your clubs fitted using a ball launch monitor. This computer will tell you what the best choice is by measuring your swing speed, and all of the other characteristics that make up your swing.

One thing that the computer won’t be able to tell you is the type of course you usually play on. If you usually play on a course where the ground is usually hard, and there are often windy conditions, you may want to choose a lower loft, so that the ball will stay low and out of the wind, and run farther on the hard ground. However, if you play on a course where the fairways are usually soggy, you wouldn‘t want to be relying on much of your distance coming from the run the ball would get. The soft, soggy fairways will kill any run the ball might get.

One other consideration would be your philosophy. If two lofts would go the same distance for you, and the distance that comes from the lower loft relies on 20 yards more of running distance, you have a decision to make. While we hope to be able to control the distance and direction of our drives, no one can control the bounce the ball gets when it lands. By having a higher-loft driver, you may have more control.

At least this time there is a happy ending. A 71-year-old man was driving down the highway when $3000 worth of golf clubs went flying out of the back of his pickup. It included a Ping G-10 driver, a Cleveland 3-wood, three Cobra hybrid woods, Taylor Made irons, and a White Hot Odyssey putter. Before he had time to turn around and pick up the clubs, some guys picked it all up and drove off in a white van. However, the victim got a phone call the next day from a friend of a friend, and the man returned all of the victim’s stuff.

Recently, some airlines have begun to charge extra for checked bags. United charges $15 for the first checked bag, and $25 for the second checked bag. If you can manage to pack your other items into the carry-on, you can count the golf bag as the first checked bag. They charge a huge penalty of $150 if you go over the 50 pound limit. My golf clubs are currently very heavy, with a bunch of extra junk, and they weigh 26 pounds, so weight shouldn’t be an issue. They charge $175 if the bag is over 63 inches long, but unless you are a trick shot artist with a six foot long driver, you’ll be O.K.

However, there are some alternatives to consider when checking your clubs. With clubs being so expensive, it is probably a bad idea to just put the rain hood that came with your clubs on the bag and hope everything works out. You’ll want to have some protection for your clubs.

Club Glove may be the most popular way to travel with clubs among those who do so regularly, like the touring pros, but some people complain that they’re too hard to get your clubs into. The larger models from Club Glove are wasteful, since if you packed them full, you’d be way over the weight limit.

A relatively new option is the hybrid travel bags that provide protection for the set of clubs, and a hard base, but are fabric in the middle. This helps with the weight issue.

Another option is to ship the clubs to your destination. This can be pretty pricey at up to $100 each way, but is better than getting to the airport and finding out they’re going to charge an arm and a leg because your stuff weighs too much. You don’t have to worry about whether the airline will lose your clubs, but you may have to worry about some goof ball playing with your clubs when they arrive at your destination. But if you’re paying to have your clubs shipped, you’re probably going to a nice-enough place that you don’t have to worry about it.

A set of golf clubs worth $1600 were stolen last week from an Athens, Georgia apartment. The victim was in the process of moving out, and left the clubs in his locked apartment. After returning the next day, he found that workers were renovating the apartment. They told him that when they arrived, they found the door wide open.

I guess that’s good motivation for all of us who may be renters to acquire renter’s insurance.

In another incident in Denton, Texas, King Cobra golf clubs were stolen along with a drill were stolen in a series of garage burglaries. The items were valued at $2160.

I recently found out that there is a company that still makes woods. Titleist, Cobra, TaylorMade, Callaway, you name it, don’t make real woods anymore. They’ve long since switched over to metal woods. But, Louisville Golf /www.louisvillegolf.com makes real wooden golf clubs--actual persimmon fairway woods and drivers.

Their Original SMART driver is smaller than the hot drivers on the market at only 250 cc. However, not everything with this club is old fashioned. It comes with a graphite shaft. All of the clubs are hand made in the United States.

Persimmon is a wood that is particularly suited for use in golf clubs. It weighs 52 pounds per cubic foot, and is harder than other woods. The hardness of persimmon means that it will provide less cushion at impact, and therefore transfer more of the energy to the ball at impact.

For those who may be thinking that these wooden clubs are only for the terribly old, there is evidence that persimmon may be a better material than titanium. In lab tests, persimmon drivers have been shown to be more accurate than metal woods, and sometimes provide even longer distance. The company’s founder, Elmer Just, says that there is no doubt that persimmon woods are easier to work the ball with.

Louisville golf says that after testing with a swing robot, their driver was just as long with sweet spot hits. For hits that were ¾ of an inch of in either direction, the persimmon driver was 5-10 yards shorter, but was more likely to end up in the fairway.

Tour pros don’t play persimmon woods for two reasons. Louisville can’t afford to give any player a big endorsement contract. And the advantages for persimmon woods start to dwindle for players who have higher than 110 mph swing speeds. The advertised benefits of metal woods start to kick in at that speed.

As always, I’m skeptical about the claims of any golf club company. But I’d be interested in testing out Louisville’s products for myself.

I’ve been looking through some of the patents for Callaway golf clubs. I thought this might be a good way to verify if all of the technical jargon they use to sell the clubs to consumers is valid or a load of hogwash. It turns out that they’re telling the U.S. Patent Office the same thing that they’re telling regular people. I guess it’s reassuring that they’re saying the same thing to the two different parties, but I’ve always questioned the effectiveness of spouting a bunch of technical lingo at people who don’t know what a center of gravity or moment of inertia means. Furthermore, many people who may know what those terms mean (e.g. engineers, physicists) may not know how they apply to golf clubs.

Most golfers aren’t going through their round, wishing they had a set of irons with a lower center of gravity. But all the companies market their clubs as if everyone knew what the implications of a low center of gravity means. Here are a few excerpts from some of Callaway’s patents. It turns out they’re pretty interesting to read. From a patent for FT i-brid Irons:

Irons are typically composed of a stainless steel or titanium material, and are typically cast or forged. Most golfers desire that their irons have a large sweet spot for greater forgiveness, a low center of gravity to get the ball in the air, a solid sound, reduced vibrations during impact, and a trim top line for appearance. Unfortunately, these desires are often in conflict with each other as it pertains to an iron.

The use of iron club heads composed of different materials has allowed some prior art irons to achieve some of these desires.

From a patent for the FT-i Driver

When a golf club head strikes a golf ball, large impacts are produced that load the club head face and the golf ball. Most of the energy is transferred from the head to the golf ball, however, some energy is lost as a result of the collision. The golf ball is typically composed of polymer cover materials (such as ionomers) surrounding a rubber-like core. These softer polymer materials having damping (loss) properties that are strain and strain rate dependent which are on the order of 10-100 times larger than the damping properties of a metallic club face. Thus, during impact most of the energy is lost as a result of the high stresses and deformations of the golf ball (0.001 to 0.20 inch), as opposed to the small deformations of the metallic club face (0.025 to 0.050 inch). A more efficient energy transfer from the club head to the golf ball could lead to greater flight distances of the golf ball.

The generally accepted approach has been to increase the stiffness of the club head face to reduce metal or club head deformations. However, this leads to greater deformations in the golf ball, and thus increases in the energy transfer problem.

Callaway seems to have some of the best patents to read, but maybe I’ll find some from other companies. Callaway-golf-clubs-patents.html It’s interesting to read through some of Callaway’s patents on golf clubs, both drivers and irons. Callaway golf clubs, driver, irons, FT-i, FT-i-brid, patents, Moment of inertia, center of gravity

I have written on the problems that KiS Golf was having a few weeks ago. They had filed chapter 11 bankruptcy, but this week they converted their chapter 11 to chapter 7. There was some hope for customers with the chapter 11, but all hope vanishes with the chapter 7. KiS provided custom golf club sets, access to practice facilities, instructors, and opportunities to play at courses around the southeast, but they will be unable to fulfill their agreements.

But that isn’t even the worst part. This is the part that really makes me queasy. Many of their customers had paid between $4,800, and $19,000 for their packages from the company, and financed their purchase with credit cards or through GE Money and Wells Fargo. Most likely, barring a surprise decision from the judge, people will still end up having to pay their loans and credit card bills. The people who paid with their credit cards may have the best chance of coming out whole, as their credit card company may help them collect. Those who paid cash are the least likely to get any of their money back.

North Carolina is one of the states where the company operates, and that state requires many companies to purchase surety bonds to ensure that their customers won’t end up getting the short end of the stick. Unfortunately, the golf clubs business isn’t one of the industries required to obtain the surety bonds.

Getting fitted for custom clubs is a great idea, and it may have sounded like a great idea to get a package for practice and play at KiS golf courses. It’s terribly sad that it didn’t work out. The company must have been terribly run. They should have provided the clubs right away, and then set aside the money to pay for the membership fees. Then, they may have still have had to go bankrupt, but at least the people could either get their money back, or the company could have honored their commitments.

Nike is coming out with the next in its series of SQ drivers in February. They’re touting the SQ Dymo and the SQ Dymo² drivers as being custom tuned. That means that for each available loft they custom designed the club head to optimize the center of gravity, head size, moment of inertia and other characteristics. So each available loft has a different club head.
 
The smallest-lofted club head weighs less than the others, and has a center of gravity nearer the face of the club. This helps put less spin on the ball. Each higher level of loft weighs more, and the center of gravity moves farther back in the club head.

The SQ Dymo has a more traditional shaped club head, and makes it easier for players to shape their shot. The SQ Dymo² has more of a square shape, and offers more forgiveness. I think I’d have to go with the SQ Dymo², even though the square shape is less appealing to me than the SQ Dymo.

Nike is currently bragging that their clubs are the winningest on the tour in 2008. Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open, the Buick Invite, the Palmer Invite and the World Match Play Championship; Trevor Immelman won the Masters; KJ Choi won the Sony Open, and the LG Skins Game; Stewart Cink won the Traveler’s Championship; Anthony Kim won the Wachovia Championship; Justin Leonard won the St. Jude Championship; and Carl Petterson won the Wyndham Championship.

Chad Campbell is actually one of my favorite players. It’s not that I really know that much about him, but I’ve been paying attention since he was on the Hooter’s Tour. On the Hooter’s Tour he completely dominated for a year or two before moving on to the PGA Tour. Off the top of my head, it seemed like he won at least half of the tournaments in 2000.