Mizuno Jpx One Driver & Fairway Woods

[saevel25]

JPX ONE Driver - Mizuno Golf Official Website

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Discover the JPX ONE Driver - /jpxone/jpxone-driver-hero-mobile.webp /jpxone/jpxone-logo-white-lg.svg The World’s first NANOALLOY™ DRIVER...

Mizuno is introducing new technology with their JPX One fairway woods and drivers. The new tech for golf but used tech for Mizuno since it is found in their baseball side of the business, is Nanoalloy. Nanoalloy is a microscopic polymer layer put on the face of their titanium driver. What this layer does is change the elasticity of the driver face and increases ball speed over a larger area of the clubface. Adding a bit more elasticity with this layer, they are conserving the golf balls energy from the impact. 

Due to USGA rules, this technology falls under their coating regulations. Which add a correction factor to the ball speed testing done for conforming golf clubs. This rule was introduced when Taylormade went to their carbon clubface. Which I didn't know existed. 

I am sure that center strikes are at the USGA limits like all other drivers. This has my interest. I am always, "window shopping", for new golf equipment 😉

 

[M2R]

I caught a video on this driver; the face tech seems crazy. Looking at the heat map for ball speed, hitting it basically anywhere on the face only loses a few percent ball speed.

The surprising and counter intuitive part to me was that for flat faced clubs, ball speed loss is directly proportional to distance loss. For clubs with bulge and roll this is apparently not true.

The surprising part of that story being that the max distance potential looks to be a tiny pee sized area for this driver, and I feel in general for drivers.

The counter intuitive part being (the myth?) that blade irons have a pee sized sweet spot and missing that tiny spot causes dramatic losses. And that modern drivers, maybe 2017 on, have massive sweet spots and are ultra forgiving. Where in reality, if this heat map data is valid and reliable, it might be a bit of the opposite.

This insane tech driver appears to have a pea sized "sweet spot" while Mizuno Pro 241 irons are 28% more forgiving compared to the average of all clubs measured. Not compared to other players irons, compared to all clubs from all categories, players to SGI! The Pro 241 being essentially just a solid chunk of metal with no "tech" at all.

Which for me devolves into a whole mess of what is forgiveness really? And in measurable and quantifiable results how many yards, or feet, does that translate into?
 

[saevel25]

4 hours ago, M2R said:

Which for me devolves into a whole mess of what is forgiveness really? And in measurable and quantifiable results how many yards, or feet, does that translate into?
 

Original definition use to or still is how far offline you hit it.

It might be better to think of it as consistency in retaining favorable launch conditions to optimize distance.

 

4 hours ago, M2R said:

The surprising part of that story being that the max distance potential looks to be a tiny pee sized area for this driver, and I feel in general for drivers.

 

That heat map showed a gigantic 0-3% loss in ball speed. That is absurd. The true 100% sweet spot is tiny for all clubs. Good luck telling the difference if the sweet spot is under 3% in a sizable area.

Especially considering variation in launch angle, spin, and outdoor weather.

[iacas]

48 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

That heat map showed a gigantic 0-3% loss in ball speed. That is absurd. The true 100% sweet spot is tiny for all clubs. Good luck telling the difference if the sweet spot is under 3% in a sizable area.

Especially considering variation in launch angle, spin, and outdoor weather.

I think you're saying it's preposterous to think that the areas on this club are anything like what's shown here:

30mm toward the toe or heel loses only 5% distance? Highly, highly doubtful.

So a guy who hits the ball there and normally hits the ball about 250… will hit it instead about 238. By missing the sweet spot by about 1.2 inches? Highly, highly doubtful.

Heck, the high heel barely gets into the red, and orange is only "up to" 10%!

@M2R, I've never heard of "Ask Golf Nut" but I'm dubious of his claims in the video and really, really dubious of what's on his site: "Why AskGolfNut Is the Most Trusted Data-Driven Golf Resource".

Hmmmmmm.

[M2R]

10 hours ago, saevel25 said:

Original definition use to or still is how far offline you hit it.

It might be better to think of it as consistency in retaining favorable launch conditions to optimize distance.

Yea but that is sort of my quandary, I sometimes see posts where people causally say this club is more forgiving, a little more forgiving, less forgiving, ad nauseum. But what the heck are they really quantifying? The proclamation of something as fact is not authoritative, even less so as I don't know what the basis for that statement is.

For my entire golfing experience, I thought of forgiveness as how much distance front to back is lost hitting the face in non-optimal locations. Anything right or left is on me and delivery issues. But I also have to clarify that my experience is only with irons, I never got to the point of having any confidence or consistency with anything longer.

10 hours ago, saevel25 said:

That heat map showed a gigantic 0-3% loss in ball speed. That is absurd. The true 100% sweet spot is tiny for all clubs. Good luck telling the difference if the sweet spot is under 3% in a sizable area.

Especially considering variation in launch angle, spin, and outdoor weather.

I feel that is rather the point, as much as possible, to quantify the losses by trying to eliminate all the variables except the one you want to investigate. Or, I feel like we agree. Compared to the variables introduced by a golfer's delivery and the variables introduced by lie conditions, the losses from missing the optimal strike location might be so small as to almost be noise over a larger area than a pea. 

In which case it seems that your objection is that the 0-3% area is being depicted as too large. Which I will address below. For statements that is absurd and true 100% sweet spot is tiny for all clubs. You will need to provide some objective data to back that up and also define what true 100% sweet spot is. If you mean the area where there are 0 losses, then yes.

While true, I do not feel like a not practical or useful definition for what I would like to know. For strikes on irons away from the optimal location "in measurable and quantifiable results how many yards, or feet, does that translate into?"

 

10 hours ago, iacas said:

I think you're saying it's preposterous to think that the areas on this club are anything like what's shown here:

30mm toward the toe or heel loses only 5% distance? Highly, highly doubtful.

So a guy who hits the ball there and normally hits the ball about 250… will hit it instead about 238. By missing the sweet spot by about 1.2 inches? Highly, highly doubtful.

Heck, the high heel barely gets into the red, and orange is only "up to" 10%!

@M2R, I've never heard of "Ask Golf Nut" but I'm dubious of his claims in the video and really, really dubious of what's on his site: "Why AskGolfNut Is the Most Trusted Data-Driven Golf Resource".

Hmmmmmm.

In my opinion it ok to be dubious but I feel like we need people attempting this sort of data driven investigation. Even if they are wrong in some things at least they are moving the discussion forward. And he has been changing the maps and the way data is interpreted along the way. So, he admits to some of the ideas he started with as being wrong. It is not like we all have not been in that situation 😄 And in any case to proceed forward I feel will require supporting or refuting data.

To which as I stated above, I do not have any experience in drivers so I cannot comment on that. But I would like to comment on irons as far as these heat maps. In a video by Elite Performance Golf Studios - The TRUTH About Forgiveness! Game Improvement vs Blade vs Players Distance SLOW SWING SPEED! and going back to ~12:50 will show the reference data for the Pro 241. I can use that to check AskGolfNut's heat map for the Pro 241: a 16mm heel, 5mm low produced a loss of efficiency from 1.3 down to 1.24 or ~4.6%. Looking at AskGolfNut's heatmap it predicts a loss of 3%. Is that good or bad? I do not know but given the possible variations I am going to say it is ok. That location is very close to where the head map goes to 4%, these are very small numbers, and rounding could be playing some part. But for sure I am going to say it is not absurd.

Looking at one data point is absurd, but I am not going to spend time on more because IME people who are interested will do their own research and those not interested cannot be persuaded by any amount of data. However, the overall conclusion that I got from that video was that between the three clubs there is a difference in distance forgiveness, but it is not very much. Without some robot testing or something similar the human element in the testing makes it difficult to say is it 1 yard, or 2, or 3?

 

[iacas]

25 minutes ago, M2R said:

In my opinion it ok to be dubious but I feel like we need people attempting this sort of data driven investigation.

Nah, man. People have been testing clubs like this for decades at this point. Even 35 years.

@M2R, are you AskGolfNut? If you're not, you seem to have fully bought into the cult or something. So many links to so many videos…

28 minutes ago, M2R said:

a 16mm heel, 5mm low produced a loss of efficiency from 1.3 down to 1.24 or ~4.6%. Looking at AskGolfNut's heatmap it predicts a loss of 3%.

Here's an issue, too:

- A drop of 0.06 is a drop with a 90 MPH 7I having a ball speed of 117 and dropping it to 111.6, which is going to be nearly 15 yards, which is far more than what a "3% distance loss" indicates (and is even more than a 4.6% distance loss).

- You're okay using a percentage with small numbers and saying "they're close" and "1.3 to 1.24 is only 4.6%," but then you excuse the massive 53% difference that going from 3% to 4.6% represents. That's a hell of an error!

- That guy in the Elite video is swinging his 7I at 70 MPH. C'mon. My 5' tall daughter swings hers faster than that.

[M2R]

9 hours ago, iacas said:

Nah, man. People have been testing clubs like this for decades at this point. Even 35 years.

Yea, if I were to make a post arguing against the heat map concept, citing some recent robot testing would be my first point. The heat map concept is what I find interesting, more on that below. The robot testing I have looked at, including the one you linked, do discreet point testing then provide that discrete data in various forms. Which as you said is old as the hills, if you know of any other heat map concept type testing, I would be interested in links to that though!

9 hours ago, iacas said:

@M2R, are you AskGolfNut? If you're not, you seem to have fully bought into the cult or something. So many links to so many videos…

No, and I did say in my first post "if this heat map data is valid and reliable" meaning I have my reservations as well. Heck beyond reservations. I have some fairly strong suspicions there are flaws. But all I have are hunches and guesses, if anyone has data to share, I would be interested to see it. 

My background is I quit golfing about 9 years ago and have been toying with the idea of returning. So far that has been limited to a dozen range sessions in late Summer through Fall when the range closed. Then primarily hitting foam balls indoors using a swing speed monitor as feedback. Between the range closing and the snow flying I did buy an R10 and hit a few balls into a backyard net.

9 hours ago, iacas said:

Here's an issue, too:

- A drop of 0.06 is a drop with a 90 MPH 7I having a ball speed of 117 and dropping it to 111.6, which is going to be nearly 15 yards, which is far more than what a "3% distance loss" indicates (and is even more than a 4.6% distance loss).

- You're okay using a percentage with small numbers and saying "they're close" and "1.3 to 1.24 is only 4.6%," but then you excuse the massive 53% difference that going from 3% to 4.6% represents. That's a hell of an error!

- That guy in the Elite video is swinging his 7I at 70 MPH. C'mon. My 5' tall daughter swings hers faster than that. 

The heat map concept is a graphical representation of efficiency (smash factor) loss mapped onto the face of the club. As I understand it to make the representation agnostic to swing speed or other golfer specific swing characteristics. It is more a graphical tool not a data tool. The areas are labeled numerically in discrete 1% increments while the raw data is changing at ~0.0017%/mm and these changes are represented as subtle changes in color across those discrete areas.

The only data we care about in terms of the heat map is the 1.3 to 1.24 SF loss and where was the strike location on the face - 16mm heal and 5mm low. From the video the SF loss is 4.6% looking up 16mm heal and 5mm low on the heat map it is on the edge of where the map changes from 3% loss to 4%.

For that data point in the video, 16mm heal, 5mm low, 71.3 mph swing speed (reference was 71.4 mph), the distance loss was 7.2% or 9 yards, 125 reference distance down to 116. However, distance loss is not part of a heat map discussion. Distance loss will be specific to the golfers swing characteristics not the club.

What I was trying to convey was that I do not have enough information to determine good or bad. Are the two systems referencing strike location the same? How accurate are the two systems in measuring even if they are referencing from the same location? What variation might have been introduced by the club delivery on the shot I picked vs the reference set of shots? However, based on the data I do have and making some assumptions and guesses the results seem ok, within reason, a good place to start from and possibly refine.

I do not see what is wrong with 70mph 7 iron, although that is one of my other areas of questioning. The title of the video has slow swing speed in all caps, and it seems like the videos I watch define 7i slow, medium, and fast as 70, 80, and 90. The whole question of mid iron swing speed and the implications for a players game and equipment choices is of interest to me as (according to my swing speed meter) over my ~decade break I lost 30mph swing speed on mine.