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by David Lake
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Swing-weight and MOI Matching
The purpose of swing-weighting and the reason it was devised in the first place was an attempt to make each club within a set feel the same during the golf swing. It is not important what the actual swing-weight designation is, but rather, that they are the same within a given set. For instance, a set of irons from one manufacturer may have a certain swing-weight while a set of irons from another manufacturer may have a different swing-weight, but in both cases the swing-weight is constant within the respective sets.
Moment of Inertia (MOI) matching attempts to do the same thing but from a different perspective. In MOI matching the idea is to make each club feel the same at the beginning of the downswing (ie: the feeling of the same load and force applied).
In either case the basic concept is flawed simply because it is impossible to make each iron within a conventional set of irons feel the same during the swing when they are all different lengths. Since 1 Iron Golf clubs are built to the same length with the exact same club-head weight and identical shafting it becomes apparent that 1 Irons are, in fact, the only truly swing-weight and MOI matched set of clubs in the entire golf industry. It is interesting to note that conventional varying length sets of clubs can be either swing-weight or MOI matched but not both.
Single-flex Matching and Strategic Shaft Matching
The design of our golf shafts in combination with our proprietary Shaft Optimization Process produces a perfectly balanced golf club (all other brands use stock shafts with no balance criteria whatsoever). Once this perfect balance is achieved the concept of shaft flex disappears and the golf club will perform at its peak performance level regardless of swing speed or strength and, unlike all other sets of golf clubs in the industry, our shaft flex is identical throughout a set (Single-flex Matching). You can liken it to a precisely balanced bull whip where there is a perfect transfer of power along its length from the butt to the tip regardless of the strength of the person using it. Our golf clubs are played by professional golfers with extremely high swing speeds and played by women and senior golfers with low swing speeds. The results of our studies and testing over the past thirteen years have shown that our shafting method produces the highest level of performance for any golfer.
Also, we are the only golf club manufacturer to perform shaft flex plane orientation as part of our proprietary Shaft Optimization Process (Strategic Shaft Matching). If a golf club is shafted without regard to its inherent flex plane the shaft will try and rotate around its axis to a position of stability during the swing which creates an oscillation of the shaft and club-head. This oscillation results in the club-head literally wobbling through impact. When the shaft is correctly oriented in respect to its inherent flex plane it will resist twisting to any other position when placed under load and will remain stable through impact. It is as if the club-head is riding on rails through the impact zone.
In our production model every single shaft is tested for specification tolerance. Then the inherent flex plane is determined on every shaft for proper orientation in relation to the club-face. For those not familiar with this process, determining the inherent flex plane and proper club-head orientation is crucial to a consistent shaft flex and balance throughout a set of golf clubs and greatly enhances overall shaft performance. The fact is that it is impossible to manufacture a shaft that is perfectly round, also, the thickness of the walls of the shaft vary throughout the length of the shaft. Add to this the presence of the weld seam running the length of the shaft, and common sense will tell you that a shaft will not flex the same in every direction 360º around its perimeter. In fact, if the same shaft is tested for deflection in six different alignment positions you will get six different flex ratings. The only way to attain a consistent shaft flex within a set of golf clubs is to go through this flex plane determination process with every single shaft. None of the large equipment manufacturers perform this process because it is far too labor intensive to economically include in a mass production model. Instead, they all downplay the importance of determining the inherent flex plane simply because they do not wish to include the process.
Conclusion
What is interesting to note is that our 1 Irons have incorporated all of the innovations mentioned by James Achenbach ever since we began manufacturing golf clubs thirteen years ago. Note: this was prior to any of the listed innovations being developed by their respective proponents.
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