The Golf Lab
October 1, 2009 
 Golf Lab Members Only
 Presidents' Cup Preview - And the "Japanese Connection"
In This Issue


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Greetings!

I had a chance to play a round of golf at Harding Park last week - just two weeks before the Presidents' Cup. My friend John Norris is on the professional staff at Harding. That connection offered the rare opportunity. It was an unusual day; the first sunny day in a month. You wouldn't know the golf course. The PGA Tour has built a small city at Harding Park to get ready for the President's Cup. If you come out for the tournament, you will see what preparation for a "Major" looks like. You won't believe it. You should come out if you can.

I received my press pass for the tournament so I'll be sending updates from Harding Park during tournament week. It should be a great event for San Francisco and an important milestone for Northern California golf.

I'm hoping to get a few "scoops". I learned something last week. Sitting at the bar trying to make small talk with the bartender I said "It's going to be a lot of fun in a couple of weeks, no?"

He said, "Not for me". It turns out that the PGA Tour completely takes over all services. They bring in their own cooks, bartenders and wait staff. Current employees are invited to apply for temporary positions during tournament week but the interview process is described as "rigorous" with a serious background check. Is it all about security or do the stars get peeved if no one remembers how they want their steak cooked?

Course condition has been an ongoing problem. Since Harding is a public course and it's in San Francisco, the groundskeepers are all unionized city employees. That means the golf course management can't tell them what to do. You won't be surprised that the work ethic of the unionized employees is frequently questioned. It turns out that one unlucky union member set the fertilizer spreader to a "double dose" and came close to killing half the greens just a couple of weeks ago. He was exiled to Sharp Park, the current battleground between the City, the frogs, the snakes and the golfers.

Since then, multiple fixes turned out to not work. The last go-round of water and fog induced a fungus that required a dispensation from the city for fungicide.

Is the Presidents' Cup important to San Francisco? Try to get a permit to spread fungicide on your property. And even better, how about shutting down the police shooting range for five days? Harding Park "regulars" think that shutting down the shooting range changes the normal playing conditions at Harding. What do you mean you can't concentrate with the constant "pop, pop, pop?"

The PGA Tour has a full-time agronomist on site. We had a chat with him on the fourteenth hole where he was ministering to a sick green. With two weeks to go he was encouraged that they had found the cure and everything would be just fine by tournament time. Luckily, Tiger and Phil putt well on Poa Annua. If no other fixes work, look for a double cut and "hard roll" before every round. The putts will go in. The top 24 pros in the world will be polite. Look for silence about the greens.

Watch for another report from "inside the ropes" next Tuesday.

 Have a Close Look at Your Bag
 

The season is changing - only in California does golf weather get better in October. With most of the major amateur events over for the year, it's a good time to start thinking what went right, what went wrong and what can be improved for the next season. Handicaps go up in the fall anyway so we have some ideas at the Golf Lab that can put some fun in your bag and might surprise you next year.

We have all of our electronic gizmos tuned up and ready to go. We're ready to help improve distance and accuracy - not only with your driver but straight through your bag. We have learned even more about counterweighting, now bringing our advanced, "down the shaft" method to irons. If you haven't explored balancing your golf clubs with backweights, you're not hitting the ball as solidly as you could. For the month of October, we're continuing our "free" fitting for counterweights. An appointment is required.

And just in case you might be thinking about new irons or wedges, here's an overview of some of the best Japanese clubs that we have found.

 


 "The Relentless Pursuit of the Tap In"
 - Scratch Golf Marketing Slogan

Patrick Boyd - formerly Golf Lab "Shaft Boy" - and today the V.P. of Tour Operations for Scratch Golf joined us at Harding Park. We had five hours on a perfect afternoon to catch up on industry news. Patrick is getting to be one of the best informed guys in the golf business. Scratch is one of the very few really good stories in the golf equipment industry.

The leader at Scratch is Ari Techner, the guy with the vision who just loves golf. He founded the company with partner Jeff McCoy six years ago intending to build custom forged wedges. Jeff McCoy evolved into the "master grinder" while Ari put the company together. They started out with wedge blanks from the sputtering Hoffman foundry but soon found that their best alternative was to seek out a relationship with a high quality Japanese foundry. Luckily, they were introduced to Ishihara. Most sophisticated equipment aficionados agree that the best iron forgings in the world come from a small group of Japanese "boutique" foundries.

Scratch is an expanded ten person company today. If you want a job there, you have to love golf and it doesn't hurt to be a very good player.

Scratch brought innovation to the wedge business that has been copied by almost every other company. They were the first to deliver their wedges with different sole grinds - matching a player's swing characteristics. They teamed up with some important advisors - Stan Utley for example - to work out even more intricate custom sole grinds. If you haven't logged into the Scratch Golf website www.scratch golf.com , you should do that. You will understand more about your short game if you go through their online fitting process. But beware: online fitting never matches fitting in person. Check out the dealer listings to find a dealer near you where you can borrow test clubs and then you'll "know for sure".

Patrick has plenty of experience working with Nationwide Tour players. They have over 50 Nationwide Tour Professionals with Scratch wedges in the bags. That's saying something for a company that doesn't "pay to play".

Scratch has also been a source of "pure custom" - completely hand ground by their own Maestro Jeff McCoy. A Scratch wedge hand ground to your specifications, finished and decorated to suit, will cost around $300.

New for 2010 is the lower priced investment cast line - available in four grinds at a very attractive price point of $99. They're hoping to make a mark with the Big Box stores to help improve their brand recognition.

At Harding Park, Patrick was showing off the new custom "Damascus" finished putter. It was one of a kind - completely custom at 410 grams in the head and another 250 grams in the 36" shaft. The first ten examples out of "production" were bought by a collector for $1500 each. Luckily for most of us, the prices will not be that high across the board.

Also new for 2010 is a new Scratch raw wedge head. It comes in at 320 grams and is made to be custom ground by a Scratch-trained club maker. Next season will be a true "coming out" for custom grind wedges. Watch the Golf Lab Members Only newsletter for details.

 


 Is Forged Better Than Cast?
 

A high percentage of low handicap players think that forged irons are "softer" and thus "feel better" than cast irons. That is because on the Rockwell scale - the standard way to measure metal hardness, the metal blends that are forged test softer than the mostly stainless steel cast heads.

Alas, in blind tests, forged and cast wedges were tested by professional golfers. They couldn't tell the difference reliably. The one club that you would think feel would be important is the wedge. The most popular wedges on Tour, Vokey and Cleveland are both cast. Go figure.

You can't prove the case that forged is better than cast for feel or that forged performs better than cast.

Science will never deter the traditional golfer. The earliest golf clubs were forged by the town blacksmith because that was the only alternative. Tradition is in favor of forged. Forged irons with hard chrome finishes hold their looks better than cast.

The real difference in feel might relate more to sound than the vibrations that come up the shaft. Current thinking about feel is that it is just as much what sensations come through your ears as through your hands.

 


 The "Japanese Connection"
 

I think that 2010 is going to be a great year for forged Japanese irons.

The fundamental motivation behind the sudden emergence of Japanese companies in the American market is that they just got tired of living in the shadows. The largest golf equipment companies have routinely sourced their forged irons from Japan. Examples of great styles are common. Two of my favorites are the Titleist T-Stamp from the early 90's (when Tiger endorsed Titleist) and the Taylor Made RAC MB.

But in recent years there has been a lot of price pressure in the golf industry. Global companies with public shareholders seek the lowest prices. It became common for the "first edition" of an iron to be produced in Japan with near-identical versions to follow made in China and Thailand. Japan became known as a high priced producer.

So the time-honored method of solving a price problem was invoked. Sell direct and cut out the middleman.

First out of the blocks was Miura. Five years ago, Miura was a totally unknown brand in the US. Then a Canadian hockey player - playing out his career in Japan became acquainted with one of Mr. Miura's younger sons who happened to be a hockey fan. Together, they hatched a scheme to distribute Miura irons in Europe and the Americas under the Miura name. There strategy was to seek out custom clubmakers who could be trusted to build high quality clubs and command premium prices. Today, hockey player turned businessman Bill Holowaty manages distribution of Miura from Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Miura marketing strategy has been to make a folk hero out of Mr. Miura. The key description of Mr. Miura is "hands of God" referring to his supernatural touch and eye at the grinding wheel. Miura irons are indeed as perfect as any we've seen at the Golf Lab. In catering to the custom clubmaker, Miura offers a wider range of head weights than any other company. That's a huge benefit for clubmakers who are building over length and under length clubs and want to maintain balance without grinding or loading up the iron head with brass or lead weights.



 


 Kyoei Foundry
 

In one of the most interesting twists in the Japanese foundry business is that Miura is located just across the street from the Kyoei foundry. The Kyoei foundry is even older than Miura. Mr. Sakamoto, the founder of Kyoei, is Mr. Miura's father in law. Mr. Miura cut his chops at a grinding wheel in his father in law's foundry.

Kyoei has made a living selling through third parties - offering both custom and "foundry designs" that could be dressed up and personalized.

Eager to get on the direct sales bandwagon, Kyoei created its own in-house brand - Vega. They established a distributor in Los Angeles to do, guess what? Find the custom clubmakers who had a reputation for quality and a following that would spend a little more for something better.

Any golfer knows that the shape of a forged head is appreciated like a sculpture. What appeals to one player will look awful to another.

At the Golf Lab, we're much more concerned with technical details like size, offset, sole grind, durability and precision than we are with "top line" and "toe height". Our favorites are the best performers.

Kyoei has one finishing technique that I think is the most unique and, to my eye, the most beautiful as a work of art. The Kyoei finishing process is a "rough grind". But it is not rough as in "crude". It is a very precise grind, one pass on each surface that brings out the precision of grinding technique. It takes a highly skilled grinder to accomplish. I love the look.

To be fair, the finishing process may have been developed by another company. For many years we've loved the Zodia wedges that were finished the same way. Zodia came at a very high price. Finished wedges brought up to $300 at retail.

Kyoei wedges and irons with the same "rough grind" finish are priced to sell for $185 at retail.



 


 Endo Foundry
 

While Miura and Kyoei can be thought of as boutiques there is a Japanese giant in the forging business. Endo Foundry is a multi- national manufacturer that does business with a spectrum of golf equipment companies. Due to their size, they have been successful working with the large golf equipment companies.

Even Endo likes the prospect of getting a little more money for each iron they make. They have released their new proprietary line for the North American and European markets. It is branded "Epon".

As you might expect from a larger company, Endo has been able to bring some new features into their product line. Their finishing technique allows for different colors. I think that the most dramatic finish I've seen on any iron head is the Endo gold finish. It's absolutely spectacular if you don't mind something that might be a little too flashy for Augusta.

This year there has been a proliferation of pocket cavity forged models from almost every manufacturer. The concept is that moving the center of gravity back by leaving a little space between the face and the back of the iron head will increase the size of the sweet spot by a couple of millimeters.

For the most part, pocket cavity forged iron heads have been met with almost total silence. There doesn't seem to be much interest in pocket cavity designs - which is a mystery because the technical idea is sound. I'm working on building up a bunch of pocket cavity forged irons to test. It's possible that forged iron aficionados are just very slow to try something new. To my eye, the Endo AF-701 appears to be the most dramatic pocket cavity design.



 


 Are Japanese Forgings Really "Better"
 

This is a question that's been argued for years. If the metal is the same, the forging dies the same, the grinding and finishing the same, why are the heads not the same?

You can be sure of one thing: if you get your heads from Japan, you're going to say they're better. If you get them from China or Thailand, you're going to say they're "just as good" as the Japanese irons.

I'm putting my money on the Japanese foundries. Both Kyoei and Miura have been small, family owned businesses for over fifty years. They have a reputation for very high quality. They have manufactured their product through thick and thin. They have satisfied customers all over the world. The factory workers can easily be described as dedicated craftsmen. It's an attractive feature to me that my irons were made in a factory with generations of tradition. I like it that sons have followed fathers into the Miura and Kyoei factories.

Endo is a little different story. As a huge corporation, it lacks the sweet feel of family tradition. On the other hand, it has access to technology and manufacturing techniques that may be too expensive or too difficult for the boutique foundries to adopt. I mentioned the AF-701, it has an extremely refined look that is quite different from the more traditional styling of Miura and Kyoei.

 


 How to Buy Miura, Vega, Epon and Scratch
 

Forged Japanese golf clubs are more expensive than Mizuno, Titleist, Adams and Taylor Made. Ping is off the list because they're all cast.

But that's only really true if you are buying "off the rack". Most forged irons from major manufacturers cost about $120 per club. That's fine if you can use the standard shaft. If you want to reshaft a set of Mizunos, it's going to cost the same $120 plus the price of the reshafting job: $45 to $90 dollars. A good median price for custom shafted Mizunos or other forged irons from the usual suspects is about $185 per club.

Since Japanese iron heads are not sold only with shafts already mounted, you can pay a premium price for a Miura, Vega or Epon head, choose the shaft you like and end up paying the same price as customized mainstream brands. At the Golf Lab, the "base price" (Nippon, KB Tour, True Temper) is $195 for Miura, $185 for Epon and $175 for Vega.

Either way, you're going to be spending a lot of money. You should avoid making a mistake.

At the Golf Lab we eliminate mistakes. We have nearly every model of Japanese iron heads in demo form, available for testing. If you go through our iron fitting process, we will give you a demo club, built to the specifications that we recommend for you to test yourself, at the range or on your course. If you are undecided between two different shafts, no problem, we will give you both, mounted on the head of your choice.

Then if you decide on the shaft, we'll set you up to test different heads. If you're going to spend $1200 to $1800 for a set of irons and wedges, you might as well take the time to be absolutely, positively sure that you got the right model, with the right shaft, set up to your exact specifications.

In California, only the Golf Lab makes that possible.

Golf clubs should not be "disposable". The idea that you buy a new set of irons every year because you like the color of the foil medallion is ridiculous. A good set of irons will last a long time. You should spend time making sure that you have made the very best choice based on feel, performance and the shape you want to look at for the next five years. If you do that, your investment in custom forged Japanese irons will be satisfying every round you play.

 


Give us a call at the Golf Lab to set up your appointment for your counterweight or irons fitting. (650) 493-1770.

Best Regards,


Leith Anderson, Clint Smith, and Dian Terova
The Golf Lab

phone: 650-493-1770
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