I’m starting to get a feel for (and a liking for) this mass versus speed thing & am wanting to up the head weight in my gamers mp33 (i have a set of hogans which i play too swing weighted at d9 but they are a bit flat to game with at the moment). The mp33 are currently swing weight d4 - if I were to get them up to say d7 or 8 would that make much difference to the head weight ? How much lead tape does it take to up them 3 or 4 points & would it add much mass to my ball striking ?
Hey Tim,
Here is a way to calculate SW for your clubs. (you just need a kitchen scale and a ruler) leaderboard.com/SWINGWT.HTM
Hope this helps you out.
Cheers man. IoZ
total wt 463g; 700mm balance point = d4 Correct just what I thought they were
Now if I tape 7g of metal to the head I get total wt 470 & sw d8 which is what I wanted to do
My Q now is… is it worth doing ? will increasing the head weight with 7g of lead tape behind the sweet spot be a big deal to the ball ? Or are the heads in my mp33 probably too light either way to create the mass we are looking for ?
You are right in that the dead weight or total weight is more important.
I just had a look at Lag’s personal specs document: Lag’s 9 iron:
Swing Weight: D6
Dead Weight: 17 ounces = 481.941893 grams.
So these are 10 grams heavier overall. I think that adding 7 grams of lead to the heads will make a difference to the ball for sure. I’m not sure what shafts you have in there at the moment, but as you probably know the added weight will flex the shafts a bit more. I would just try it and see how the ball reacts. If the ball starts ‘ballooning’ you know that you have put on too much weight at the bottom…
Good luck.
I bumped the swingweights up substantially on my MP68’s a week ago. After putting heavier than stock grips on, the swingweights were down to around D1-D2. I did my own take on the Bradley Hughes graduated swingweights and I now have D4ish 3,4,5,6 irons, and D6ish 7,8,9 irons and D8ish PW,52,58. These swingweights are off the top of my head, I don’t remember exactly. It was easy to do, just sat down with a roll of tape and a digital scale and a swingweight scale, and tweaked until they felt right.
They felt ridiculously heavy at first, but a week of beating balls and playing later, I won’t ever go back. They feel totally normal now, and the ball sounds a little bit more compressed than before. Not much, and I doubt anyone but me hears it, but I know its there when I take a lighter set out to practice side by side with the 68’s. Also harder to over-accelerate a heavier club. I think I will eventually move even heavier, and then backweight them to maintain the current swingweights. Either that or shorten them a little.
I put my tape right over the Mizuno logo on the muscle, putting extra mass directly behind the 3rd groove. I used fairly wide tape, probably an inch or so. Much cleaner looking than thinner tape.
