Currently gaming irons some Mizuno Pro II irons which are 6 degrees flat and at the weekend noticed that my putter a TaylorMade Kia Mia blade which is bent to 58 degrees with 8 degrees of loft (Thanks NRG) was very light. As such I’m looking at putting in a heavy putter shaft to increase the overall weight which got me thinking about counter balancing irons & woods.
What is the general thought about this good or bad idea?
In theory you could have a driver with a modern light shaft in the region of 80g and with a 50g counter weight you could increase the overall weight to bring it more into line. Not suggesting it is a good or bad concept just interested to know what people think, I’m one for experimenting and may give it is try if people don’t think it is a stupid idea
I’ve found that there’s nothing wrong with counter weighting clubs (some vehemently are against it).
If you understand total club MOI and MOI matching, you can start to better understand why some golfers like counterweighting.
For me, I play a MOI in my irons of 2,725 kg/cm^2. My 6-iron weigh 430 grams. For me, I’ve experimented with various MOI’s, static weights, shafts, grips, etc, and I’ve found that I work best with a 50 gram grip (or thereabout), a 110-120 gram shaft and more of the weight in the head creating a heavier head. That creates a moderately heavier total weight.
But, I’ve made clubs for other golfers who have lower MOI’s but need more static weight. The solution is to countweight.
I believe it has a lot to do with the transition move and hand strength. The more aggressive the startdown, the stronger the hands, more likely you’ll need some weight up towards the hands. I think those against the counterweights are probably putting them in clubs that don’t fit the golfer’s transition and hand strength.
Having messed around with counter weighting, imo you are better off replacing your graphite driver shaft with a new steel shaft which would be about 120gms anyway.
Get your driver head upto at least 210gms, fit a steel shaft and you should be good to go in weight terms anyway.
Thought it was worth posting a follow up because I was playing around at a local driving range where you can hit your own golf balls and collect them as much as you like. The reason I’m posting is because the results where nothing short of amazing considering all I changed was the placement of 30g of lead tape. Because of all the rain and the softness of the ground there was zero roll and the ball often pitched backwards out of the pitchmark, additionally there was around a 1 club wind directly into on all of these shots and I hit around 5 balls with each setting.
Carry: 210ish
Flight: High with around a 15 yard fade
10g of lead tape on the bottom of the club
Carry: 210ish
Flight: Lower and straight although a slight pull
10g of lead tape on the bottom of the club and 30g of lead tape directly below the grip around the shaft
Carry: 210ish
Flight: Strong draw same height as 10g only on the bottom
40g of lead tape directly below the grip around the shaft, no lead tape on the bottom
Carry: 210ish
Flight: Strong draw but higher than with the 10g on the bottom of the clubhead
30g of lead tape directly below the grip around the shaft
Carry: 250ish
Flight: High but it had the look it would roll quite a bit on landing.
I have nothing to gain from posting these results and I tried the same with my 3 wood and noticed zero improvement, in fact I believe it was better without any lead tape added as it happens. I play to a 3 handicap in the UK and hit the ball pretty consistently and I’m convinced that there where no significant improvement in strike etc with the tape installed. I know that a lot of people will look at the 40 yard increase and not believe a word of it and that is completely their choice. All I know is that I’ve played with a number of really good players (+4 UK handicaps) and I’ve never been able to get the flight they get with their drivers when they hit them on the screws until I added 30g of lead tape below the grip of my driver. Yes I’ve been able to hit the odd shot with a driver where I really got it out there but never for 5 shots in a row.
I tried it with a 6 iron and after a little bit of trial and error found that around 10g of tape around the G of the Golf Pride logo gave the best results. If any one is interested I’ll post the results after playing a couple of around with the 30g of tape installed below the grip.
Interesting results and I do believe it. BUT the likely explanation is that you just hit upon either a) your ideal swingweight with that driver AND/OR b) your ideal shaft flex. 30g is enough to change the flex (weight at the grip would stiffen it). It also is more than enough to change SW by a few points.
If you notice in your results, 40g to grip end made no difference. But 30g made big difference. Could be that 40g SW was too much and a 10g difference to 30g was just right. Anything less than that 30g near the grip and it was too light.
Problem with golf equipment tinkering is that nothing is ever straightforward. I’ve done my share too. For example, what your results could actually show are many things:
You could just like a stiffer shaft than what is in there now. 30 grams changed the profile of the shaft.
Your driver in stock form or with tape to head is too heavy a SW and you actually like the lighter SW. But 40g was TOO light…
you liked the TOTAL weight of the club with 30g added.
Now you can’t change one of the above WITHOUT changing the others. So they are all correlated and enough to drive you insane trying to figure out why you got such good results with the 30g near the grip. You’d have to get the club blueprinted by a clubfitter to compare before/after to see all the actual changes. I just suggest you find an exact replacement or two for that driver ASAP as probably is your ideal everything when you add 30g to grip area.
Only reason I know this is because I went through it myself at one time, but with irons. I had a nice set of blades I couldn’t pass up because price was right. But despite same shafts/length I couldn’t just hit them right. I struggled at the range compared to a set I sold that were the SAME ones almost except for SW. So I added enough tape near bottom of grip to get to my old swingweight and it made big difference in feel. Much better is feel/swing contact but now I was hooking them badly!
So got to talking to a veteran clubbuilder near me. He explained what I just explained to you. Even though shaft flex and now SW was the same as my old set, I just ended up adding total weight to club which made them swing heavier which will also change shaft flex. So while they are the “same” by two measures, the other measures were still different.
