Club Weighting

I know Lag has talked a bit about using this method of weighting the grip end…found this article from a Golfweek a few weeks ago
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Here’s a rules question I have.

Let’s say you are playing and you have lead tape on the clubhead. In the middle of the round after a shot the lead tape comes off. Can you put the tape on? Can you still use the club? Can you put new lead tape on?

3JACK

Not much of a rules guy but I would think that would fall under Rule 4.3

Club damaged during the normal course of play…can be used so long as not unfit for play (snapped/significantly bent etc)…OR…can be repaired or replaced without undue delay
This is from the 2010-2011 USGA rulebook

So I think u would be good to go and fix or replace accordingly

When they say that they are putting lead tape “under the grip”, does that mean underneath the rubber of the grip between the grip and the shaft, or does it mean below the grip along the shaft but not covered by the grip? It seems like the closer you get it to the fulcrum point of the swing weight scale, the less effect it would have upon swing weight, but a constant effect upon static weight.

I’ve also read that Tiger has put lead tape near the hosel as well as under the grip to keep the swing weight of the club constant while increasing the static weight. But turning a making a 12 oz. static weight club into a 13 oz. club takes 28 grams of lead tape. That’s a lot of tape no matter where you put it!

dear twomasters - losing club head feel by weighting the grip end of the club seems contrary to what Lag advocates - it is definitely at odds with what I personally prefer - a heavy club head gives me much better feedback on shots - so what is the “feel” preference that the big names in the article are seeking and how do they believe it makes them a better ball striker? Slide4

I can’t find it right now but Lag has also mentioned butt weighting like this…I think he said Moe Norman used to do it…someone can chime in but I think that is correct

I believe Lag advocates heavy swing weights but also heavy overall club weights so if you get your clubs to the desired swingweight but the total weight is still relatively light, then you would/could add weight to both the grip end and the clubhead to keep the swingweight constant and increase total weight.

I have one of those ‘butt plugs’- unfortunate term… in my putter and it’s fantastic. It fits perfectly with what Lag says if you think about it. He talks about hand speed through impact and if there’s more weight in the grip, it will be more naturally inclined due to momentum to keep moving through space. A light grip and a heavy head(as in Winn grips) give the upper shaft and a grip less advantage to be naturally inclined to keep moving.
Personally, I’m a big fan of grip/butt weighting due to this momentum advantage. It’s a great help with the putter if no one has ever tried it- like I said, it keeps the hands/grip naturally moving through impact… that can only help imo.

This was a trick used mostly back in the 1950’s and 60’s. Obviously some of that practice has continued right up into modern times… but with the lack of weight in the heads in the game now… it would not be expected we would see much of this.

Again there is a hitting vs swinging issue at hand… as a hitter, we are working toward holding shaft flex, so when the club strikes the ball, the ball is going to be responding not only to the weight of the head, but also the stored energy in a pre stressed clubshaft, and right up through the hands and into the core of our body. Acceleration is key here…

The swinger on the other hand is going to be striking the ball with a fully released shaft, so the ball is going to be mostly effected by the mass and velocity of the clubhead. The clubhead could just as well be suspended on a string being held straight by CF alone.

So how we would weight our clubs would have different intentions.

Regardless, the ball likes mass… modern club designers are failing to realize this.

The butt weighting has more to do with personal feel… but in a practical sense, you can really up the head weights which the ball likes, then keep the swing weights in the range you prefer. Butt weighting a modern lightweight club would be senseless, if not even counter productive.

I seem to recall Nicklaus saying he back-weighted his gear so that he could get more hand/wrist pop action thru the ball. The backweight went thru slower, and almost puts the brakes on the hands, which then makes the head mass travel faster…made sense to me at the time. :slight_smile: RR

I’ve talked to numerous people who got to play with Moe and a few of them got to swing his driver and all of them said it was extremely heavy. One guy told me it felt like a sledgehammer. Moe also used to have some type of wrap grips that he could take off and put back on. I think he did something where he would soak the grips in soap water at night so they would never wear out or something along those lines. I believe Moe used very heavy static weight clubs that had a very heavy swingweight.

3JACK

Yes,

Moe had a lot of clubs in the trunk of his car… all kinds of stuff…One of the interesting clubs was his SW which was rounded all the way around the back, super heavy, and he was magic with it. I have one of them… I picked up Moe’s clubs a few times, and they were very heavy. I didn’t weigh them, but I would guess well into the E’s swingweight wise and statically very heavy.

The wrap grips are true… he could take them off and put them back on. He told me he liked them because he could wrap them with spaces between the wraps, and they had a fairly sharp edge, so his skin would sink between the grips so he had this great grip, and could hold the club fine in the rain or any conditions… humidity and so forth… and there’s lots of that in Canada, and in Florida where he spent most all his time.

Lag, you mentioned somewhere that you recently got hold of a club with a bunch of lead under the grip. Did you get a chance to hit it yet?

I’m curious as to how it felt; for instance did it make it easier to ‘delay’ the release?

In the Florida clinics Moe said his clubs were an “E3”.

I finally put together a 5 iron from my Golden Rams XPD 100s (The details of the stuck shafts are in the Stuck shafts thread). Having used an F3 swing Weight wedge all this summer I was really anxious as to what the swing weight will come to be. To my surprise the 5 iron with 37.75 inches X100s measured out to be an E1 swing weight. I bent it 4 degrees flat with the idea to use it as gamers when using 6 flat irons for practice rounds. I hit a few balls and played it during my round today. Very good first impressions. I am holding out on reshafting the other irons as I thought I should measure the head weights for reference for any one looking to set something like that. Might take a while as I dont have a kitchen scale.

Sorry twomasters, not trying to jack your thread but I spoke with a club fitter about making a set of clubs heavier (swingweight). I was looking for an alternative besides lead tape because I don’t like the look of it cosmeticly and it’ll take to much lead tape to get it to the weight I want. Well, he told me that you could put tungsten (ground) and a cork in the end of the shaft at the hosel and get the same effect as led tape. I just want to know is this possible before I call bull!#%$ on him? thanks

That will work fine. I still think ideally, if you are already a decent striker, putting the weight right behind the sweetspot
is ideal.

You might be best to hunt down a set of old MacGregor M85’s. That way, no lead tape needed, tons of weight right behind the sweetspot, and a great looking muscle back head. The flatten out nicely if you want to go down that road, and with the long necks, is easier to remove any offset.

But if you go with the lead tape, you’ll likely get over the look of it if you start really flushing them.

the set of Scratch irons I recently had made did such a thing…tungsten weights down the end of shaft which brought the weight up to about D4 in irons and D8 in the wedges
i did it this way as the clubs looked too pretty to whack lead tape all over them!!..but I wouldn’t hesitate to lead tape some older more worked in clubs to get the same result

Thanks twomasters, the clubs i wanted to change the weight to are Wilson DynaPower buttonbacks. The clubfitter I went to see told me the swingweight of my 5 Iron was C-7. I don’t know if when I changed the grips that’s what might have changed the swingweight, but that 's the only thing I can think. I would also have to add alot of lead tape to get it to up to say D-5.

TM wrote

Are these solid tungsten or powder and can they be put into the shaft ends from the tip side (with the grips on). Also what is the maximum weight one can put there; I am thinking close to an ounce.