Ha… I got this confession from a guy who got the latest and greatest Driver with a $300 dollar shaft, and frying pan head… Stepped on 1st tee with my 43.5 inch steel shafted driver. He hits this LOVELY weak balloon cut off to the right (like he did all day), take out my driver and bust one down the middle about 50 yards past him… That’s was the common theme through 18 holes… He admitted in his mind that he thought “Who does this guy think he is with a steel shaft in his driver”… After a few cocktails of course… It was long wide open track so I could let the driver fly… I let him hit my driver, and hits a piercing draw about 30 yards longer than his latest and greatest and no ballooning off to the right… He was baffled… I shared some things I’ve learned here and knew all along, yet don’t think he’ll bite the bullet because he doesn’t want to let go of that expensive POS driver… Oh well… I did an experiment a while back, "Tony, you need to try this driver’’ More clubhead speed yet I was all over the map with , and this is no joke, I hit my driver 30-50 yards further and with much better accuracy even though these ridiculous launch monitors stated otherwise… Nothing beats some mass in the club hitting the sweet spot, I know you all already know this but thought I’d share…
For those who have never opened up a persimmon driver, you should… and take a look. Right behind the sweetspot is a big chunk of lead. There is usually about a half inch of persimmon wood between the insert and the lead. With the mass right behind the sweetspot, you are really going to feel those perfect flush strikes where the moving center of the mass strikes the center of the golf ball. That flush amazing feeling is due to no torquing or twisting of the clubhead on a solid pure strike. It’s an incredible sensation that rings right up through the shaft and into the body.
The hollow modern driver is based upon the theory that you are not going to strike the sweetspot. All the mass is distributed away from the center as far a possible and the bigger the head, the more this is the case. You will never have the experience of a flush drive with a modern driver that you would with a persimmon. It’s not possible. The hollow drivers basic premise is that you are a hacker and will remain one. It screams “you can’t do this” even before you strike the ball compared with “yes you can do this and I will reward you with an amazing feeling when you do”.
On a persimmon, you will feel exactly where on the clubface you struck the ball. On a modern driver you will not know nearly as precisely because the sweetspot has been diluted. It’s no different than drinking a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice compared to “this can contains 10% real fruit juice processed from concentrate”.
Your brain wants to know. For you to improve your swing, you must have the best most precise feedback from your clubs, even with the irons. If you play cavity backs or a hollow driver you are stunting your improvement over time. If you are a good player you will slowly lose your swing over the months and years.
It is not a coincidence that we are not seeing the next great ball striker in the modern age. It won’t happen. The great strikers understood that a properly struck shot is delivered by force, and not just velocity. f=ma. If you don’t understand this you need to… even if it is just from hitting zillions of golf balls. The greater the mass, the greater the acceleration, the better the compression. It’s the laws of physics at work. The stiffer the shaft, the quicker the feedback into the hands and the more the mass of the shaft and your body becomes engaged and connected into the shot. This is why it is critical to have your gear set up properly.
A proper golf swing will set you up so that you can play persimmon and blades because with a firmer grip pressure and pre existing cohesive tension in the body… YOU will be resisting any off centered hits and the torquing of the clubface. You don’t need the gear to do that for you and be subjected to the negative downside of cavity back or perimeter weighting.
If you want to get really good at this game, you need true professional gear in your hands, just as the great strikers learned on.
My next door neighbor has a bunch of persimmon drivers… I took some out, and although they felt different coming off the face at first, I quickly got used to them and was rippin em… I hardly lost any distance, because I compare my distance vs. accuracy over the long haul rather than one bombed drive… I did hit some low cuts in the rough off the tee when I missed, but rather be there than long and left… I’m going to get an ABS driver as well… Looking forward to it… Tiger uses persimmon in practice quite a bit, and he even said he doesn’t lose but 10-15 yards and hits way more fairways… Why not use em in competition? With Merion coming up next year, driver only needed once all day on 18th because they stretched it out… The 10th screams hit driver because it’s a short par 4, but the fairway next to the green is about 10 yards wide… Lot’s of bogies will be made on 10… I can care less anymore, I want to be consistent, not play bomb and gouge and have a few good days here and there…
If you want to develop the best technique possible… you should play persimmon and blades. That’s how you train your swing, just like the greats did. Once your swing is trained… you’ll play better golf with them also assuming you are playing a golf course where accuracy is even slightly a premium.
You’re making a good decision to become a better golfer.
Still practicing with the blocks and blades and it makes all the difference in the world, no need to tell anyone @ ABS that. I even think my forearms are getting a touch bigger, and way firmer…not close to Popeye’s but I can give Mighty Mouse a run for his money.
Then, when I switch out to something lighter and less stiff, it’s a blast.
In all my years a first happened yesterday. Can’t tell you how many times people have stood fairly close by, lurking, watching me hit balls into Nowheresville, asking an occasional question. Of couse, pretty easy to get into a good groove and look good at a range.
So a guy wanders up and says…“Do you mind if I pull up a chair and watch you, and I will pay you for it?” He was serious.
I asked him why, and he said…“I just want to see what you are doing”. I told him don’t worry about paying because you won’t be able to see what I am doing unless your eyes can feel and discern my intentions. His summary afterwards was that it looked like I wasn’t doing anything, no strain, no effort, just ball after ball into the same pattern. I said…“ya know, that’s funny because I feel like I’m in the fight of my life on each and every one of those shots”.
And the funny thing was I was struggling a bit with pureness…it was pretty close, but just one of those days when things get off a wee bit for some reason- all from the feedback received from a little block of wood. It was hot and humid so I wore a glove after a short time, an older glove and it just didn’t feel as firmly gripped while wearing it. Oh well…or maybe just one of those days.
Had a question come to mind about offset on irons. If a club has just a fraction of offset…wouldn’t that help promote even more turn to prevent flipping the lagging sweetspot into the ball.
If the rotation is working correctly, aggressively, then you are able to save more of it… more of the range of motion for post impact. With offset, there is a tendency to over rotate too soon to square up the clubface, and or flip the hands at it independently to square up the face.
Swingers and hitters are different. Most club designers are making clubs for swingers in mind. The offset is designed into the club to keep the face open longer for the OTT move particularly with upright gear. Offset is the right thing to do for a faulty golf swing. But then you become entombed in that move.
For a hitter, the removal of offset encourages the face to square up earlier. So to counter this… you then can safely flatter your gear, flatten your swing, work the pivot harder and forearm rotation more aggressively. This discourages the need for OTT. Holding shaft flex opens the clubface on the downswing. It pins the toe back. So this helps you want to do this. So with offset, a better striker tends to fear this.
Swingers are seeking to time the inline straightening of the shaft. Hitters want shaft flex backward and impact. So hitters really get the green light to strike hard with the pivot and work the shaft left to counter the slight bit of forward face progression… and it also allows you to comfortably flatten your gear to take advantage of flat lie geometry which really is one of the games lost secrets.
I asked this before, but didn’t get an answer… The big companies say that lie angle doesn’t matter in the driver, so why build em so upright then? My wedges aren’t even close to being that upright… Anyway, this was taught to me long ago and goes against what most teachers talk about… When I want to work the ball left to right, I take my normal grip and turn the toe in without re-gripping the club, the club head naturally opens up and ball goes left to right… For a draw, same procedure except turn the toe out facing to the right and the hands and forearms naturally slightly close the clubface and can hit a high draw… The left to right shot really works wonders with a pin tucked on right side of the green, the ball will skip, then spin toward the flag… Good stuff…
I live 20 min. from PING and they offer free fittings, so I think I’ll go down there some time and ask about the driver lie angle. I’m curious as to why anyone would think that it would make sense to have a driver that long and upright. If it’s going to be 46 inches, shouldn’t it be really flat?
You are spot on Tony, with bigger heads (cog further away from the shaft ine) and with longer more flexible shafts, you get more toe droop. Swingers releasing shaft flex before impact will get more droop on too.
How smart you. For all the technology and inovations they still don’t get it right when it comes to lie angle on woods. I have a daughter that plays college golf. She really gets hosed when it comes to buying equipment as she is a better player but only 5’ . You just can’t get a driver that is Mens standard or even mius 1" that doesnt’s have the toe way up. I have been able to find her a Sonertec fairway that I can bend as well as a hybrid that I can move but there is not driver that sits right. You do have the adjustable hosel drivers but in my opinion they are not as solid and you still only get maybe 2 dergree. I don’t think they are as solid due to having to distribute mass in the hosel to be able to adjust it. For all the hype and cost of todays clubs they really don’t give you the ability to fit people like you should be fitted when it comes to lie. Really it’s the same problem I have with shafts. Try finding a .355 taper tip graphite or even steel in most. They make a million different driver shafts but when it come to irons?
I know Taylormade has made some Tour-Issue heads recently with long hosels for lie adjustment, but they are very expensive because they’re hard to come by. As a lefty, I’d probably have to pay $500 for just the head if I ever found one. I’d rather buy 4 or 5 nice sets of classic blades and reshaft them. It’s really a shame golf has taken the turn it did and tech has gotten so out of control. I have persimmons I practice and play casual rounds with, but there’s no way I could compete with them right now. I just can’t justify giving up the distance yet.
When i hit my persimmon well, the distance lost, compared to my frying pan is negligable. My home course is 7000 yards at the tips, built in the 50’s. I can only reach 1 of the par fives in 2, its 520 yards. The othe 3 are all 560 plus yards. Ive not seen anyone play my course, EVER, hit these par 5’s in 2.
Ive no doubt if the PGA tour turned up, prob all would hit our par 5’s in 2, but im not botherd by what those cowboys could or would do. The arthitect of my course was a genious. Certain boards members have come and passed thru the years , and tried to " Modernise" the course, with horrendous results. All modifications are now abolished, and the course is as it was first deisgned.
I use just about every club in my bag when i play my course, i think thats sounds volumes for the designer.
I use to get jibes and laughs when i first pulled the persimmons out, now i get asked serious questions as to why. Its open a great discussion within my circle, and the circle is growing.
He was serious.
