What ABOUT Adjustable Drivers?
I have not had the opportunity to work on too many of the new "adjustable" drivers - the ones that allow you to make loft and face angle adjustments. Recently though, one of my clients - who has a Taylor Made R11 and bought an R11S head - asked me to put the same shaft in both and set them both up the same way. I learned some lessons that should be valuable to others who have adjustable drivers.
First of all, the Taylor Made driver adjustment system is actually pretty neat. The R11S has 8 shaft settings and 5 face angle settings - so quite a number of potential options. While I do not have reason to believe that the Taylor Made head is any "hotter" than the Wishon and Alpha driver heads that I typically do fittings with, the adjustment feature can clearly be valuable to players if used correctly.
The client I worked with had his driver set up with 12.5 degrees of loft and a 3.5 degree open club face (he did not know it was open). We reset the driver so that the face was 0.5 degrees closed, 13 degrees of loft - and his driving improved significantly. In particular, he hit less shots that started to the right (open face angle?).
We made measurements for the R11S head to see how much the face angle and loft could be varied. We found that could vary loft about 2 degrees, but face angle could be varied by more than 8 degrees with different settings. Pretty amazing that this is possible.
So, if you have an adjustable driver, what does all of this mean for you?
1. We recommend that, when you first get one of these drivers, you find someone to help you measure loft and face angles for a number of the driver settings. That way you will know for sure what your club can be set at.
2. Most golfers, when they get an adjustable driver, do not test the club performance at different settings. Do not be that golfer! Go on the range, hit balls and see what the ball flight is and what ball flight you like. And if you did #1, you will know the loft and face angle of the setting that worked well for you.
3. We did a previous post where we talked about "Shaft FLO" - the fact that golf shafts have a preferential orientation where they oscillate straight up and down. The FLO position may not be the orientation of the shaft for the adjustment you like the best. When you find a driver setting that seems best for you, consider getting your shaft re-aligned in the shaft connector (a club fitter can pull the shaft, orient it correctly, and reinstall the shaft) so that it is in the FLO position.
Adjustable drivers certainly can help golfers play better - particularly when the adjustment features are used properly!
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Why Mess With Success?
About a year ago at this time, K. J. Choi won the Player's Championship, and he played with Miura CB-501 irons and KBS Tour Parallel tip shafts - built by a custom club fitter. One would think that winning something of this magnitude would lead to choosing to sticking with these clubs, but...
The link to the article below (article published by Golfwrx) is a fascinating discussion of the path that K.J. has taken away from the clubs that won him the Players back to these clubs. A club fitting friend of mine, Tony Curro from New York, provided the link to this article:
K. J. Choi and Clubfitting
There is so much interesting information in the article - about the value of club fitting, about how decisions can be made to switch from one type of shaft to another, etc. - but instead of quoting all of these I will just let you read this great article. Though I will pull one quote that should be of value to you...
"The club that you liked demoing so much - buy it.
But don't order it. Buy that exact club.
Because chances are, the one you order will be slightly different."
And one final piece of information related to the 2012 Player's Championship - the winner THIS year also played clubs built by a custom club fitter.
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Book Reviews Next Month - and the Edel Golf Road Show
Next month I plan to read a new book - "The Unstoppable Golfer" by Bob Rottella - and an almost 30 year old book - "The Short Way to Lower Scoring" by Paul Runyon (1983) and discuss some information from them that can hopefully help your short games.
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It is exciting to be one of about 70 U.S. club fitters using the Edel Putter and Wedge Fitting Systems - others using this are at well known clubs like Pebble Beach, Oakmont, Scioto, Baltusrol, and Congressional (pretty good company!). I encourage you to come by when you can to learn more about the Edel putters and wedges - and we are also looking for opportunities to do Demo Days at golf clubs throughout East Tennessee.
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Finally, we always welcome ideas and questions on club fitting that we can answer in future newsletter issues. Enjoy the good golfing weather!
The Fit Is IT!
Tony Wright (The Golfer's Clubfitter)
GAME IMPROVEMENT GOLF
Oak Ridge, TN
The PREMIER Short Game Fitting Center in East Tennessee!
tony@gameimprovementgolf.com
www.gameimprovementgolf.com
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