Tom Wishon on being fit for clubs

[LankyLefty]

The idea of a golf swing is to rotate your body in such a way that you get about back to the point you were at during address at impact. How you get from address to he top of the backswing and then back down to impact doesn't matter(as far as club length) becuase If you get back to that point then the club is square with the ball. So the only time that club length matters is at address and impact. Clubs need to be lengthened or shortened when your body is not  in a proper position to make a swing at adress.

Sorry to Mr. Wishon but math doesn't lie at least for club length 70% of America doesn't need you.

[Stretch]

Not quite sure why you continue to focus on just one of the maybe two dozen key specifications that contribute to the performance of a golf club for a specific golfer. But I'm glad you've resolved the whole issue so neatly in your own mind.

The only thing I'd say about length is that a lot of golfers would be well advised to listen to "Mr. Wishon" and play a considerably shorter driver than the one that the marketing dept. at TaylorMade (or Ping or whoever) has managed to put in their hand.

[LankyLefty]

I dwell on height because it is one of the key statistics widely available. Im not trying to say nothing he has to say is true and Im sure that if you got custom fit by him then those clubs would match you quite nicely and you'd probably hit them well.

I am saying that the majority of people they can walk into a store, grab a set of clubs off the shelf, go figure out how to swing em and do just as well.

Oh and by the way Taylormade employs over 100 engineers with specialties ranging from materials to aerodynamics to everything in between to figure out the optimal length of the shaft on their drivers. Weather or not you think what they come up with is right for you is personal opinion.

Tom Wishon has a lot of good things to say and makes a great case for custom fit clubs but dont think for a second that he is doing anything but marketing his own brand same as Taylormade or Ping or whoever.

I dont take what the marketing dept of any company says at face value and Tom Wishon's books are just that... marketing

[Stretch]

Originally Posted by LankyLefty

I am saying that the majority of people they can walk into a store, grab a set of clubs off the shelf, go figure out how to swing em and do just as well.

Fair enough. We'll just have to agree to differ on that.

Originally Posted by LankyLefty

Oh and by the way Taylormade employs over 100 engineers with specialties ranging from materials to aerodynamics to everything in between to figure out the optimal length of the shaft on their drivers. Weather or not you think what they come up with is right for you is personal opinion.

If you seriously believe it's the actual golf club designers who've been driving the increase in average length of woods (and decrease in average lofts of irons) across the industry over the past few decades, then my personal opinion is that you are smoking crack.

[Gerald]

Hihi ...... yes, there is a lot of marketing out there .......

Sofar the basis for fitting is being very statical, same with the average sales clerk at a golf shop will tell anyone over 5'9" that they will need lengthened clubs........ by just noticing the shadow a 6 footer will cast while entering through the entrance door of the shop

I know a club fitter who to about anyone says they need lengthened clubs, even if the client doesn't need such, because in the mind of the client ........ the client feels he has to buy from the fitter and not to go for a standard of the rack set in any other shop (clever sales trick ...... isn't it).

The fitter has also I kind of standard sales talk, letting people strike balls at his monitor and always saying people take too less time between the shots, or have the highest speed before hitting the ball, demonstrating he can hit the ball as far with a chipswing with the driver as the client can with a full swing (by maybe knowing exactly how the monitor can be fooled) ...... if you hear the talk for the first time...... it sounds fair, but if you hear it over and over to 30 different clients ..... it is just marketing.....

We all know that if you want to improve smashfactor, just cut 1"-1.5" of your too long driver shaft, but there are many recreational golfers that actually benefit more from the added swingspeed a 46" shaft brings over a better smashfactor.....

I think the standard deviation of letting the arms hang freely in a position as you would hold a golfclub, might be even less than the standard deviation based on statical measurements (have no proof of that).

There is a lot of myth on fitted clubs, and the myth is kept ...... It would suprise me if the difference is more than a few strokes per round, I have been playing aswell with standard clubs as with 1.5" lengthened clubs (perfectly fitted, spined shafts, frequency matched, optimum swingweight flow, etc. to my posture, swinspeed and swingplane, etc.) ........ certaintly the fitted club give me more comfort, but playing better golf ....... uhh, maybe not........

[LankyLefty]

Yes its the club designers. Its really rather simple.

For irons as you get more weight to the bottom outside corners of a club you get more upward force on the ball while still imparting the same forward force on the ball. This has been named Moment of Inertia by someone or another but basically means that more of the clubs inertia is transferred to the ball in the form of extra height. The effect is that you can maintain the expected trajectory of the ball and increase distance by delofting clubs.

It is true that this has created a huge gap between the PW and SW because this effect is reduced greatly at low swing speeds such as are used on pitches and chips.

As for longer shafts on woods again it has to do with a modern advancement.

The graphite shaft has allowed club makers to do 2 things they could never before.

Graphite shafts are now able to be both extremely stiff and very light.

This allows a club maker to lengthen the shaft without effecting the weight or center of gravity of the cl hiub adversely.

The high level of stiffness gives the golfer a similar level of control to that of the older more floppy shafts but at increase lengths.

Now whether the average golfer needs all this? I don't know but the physics of it are simply not debatable these advances allow golfers to hit the ball longer and stop it quicker with out a significant loss in accuracy.

[LankyLefty]

I have said my piece Im done with this argument.

Truth is Tom Wishon and Taylormade are both right just not for the same people.

I think more people fall into Taylormades range. You think more people fall into Tom Wishons area.

Unless this was something like height that you can measure we may never know.

In my opinion simple logic (and more complicated math and physics) point to golf clubs being more like a computer mouse then shoes. Can you spend a bunch of money to get a nice ergonomic computer mouse that makes your hand nice and comfy? Sure. Do you need to? Nope. Are their some people with unusually small or large hands that will need a fancy mouse? Yes but most of the population is gonna be just fine with that stock shape and size that the engineers at some huge company came up with so they wouldn't have to produce 7 different sizes.

[Stretch]

Originally Posted by LankyLefty

Yes its the club designers. Its really rather simple.

For irons as you get more weight to the bottom outside corners of a club you get more upward force on the ball while still imparting the same forward force on the ball. This has been named Moment of Inertia by someone or another but basically means that more of the clubs inertia is transferred to the ball in the form of extra height. The effect is that you can maintain the expected trajectory of the ball and increase distance by delofting clubs.

It is true that this has created a huge gap between the PW and SW because this effect is reduced greatly at low swing speeds such as are used on pitches and chips.

As for longer shafts on woods again it has to do with a modern advancement.

The graphite shaft has allowed club makers to do 2 things they could never before.

Graphite shafts are now able to be both extremely stiff and very light.

This allows a club maker to lengthen the shaft without effecting the weight or center of gravity of the cl hiub adversely.

The high level of stiffness gives the golfer a similar level of control to that of the older more floppy shafts but at increase lengths.

Now whether the average golfer needs all this? I don't know but the physics of it are simply not debatable these advances allow golfers to hit the ball longer and stop it quicker with out a significant loss in accuracy.

I'm sorry to be blunt, but you don't know what you are talking about.

The term Moment of Inertia describes the resistance of an object to a change in its motion around a defined axis of rotation. In the case of a golf club, there are two main applications. First, the MOI of the club head around the vertical axis of its center of gravity -- ie. how much the head will resist twisting in a horizontal plane from impacts on the toe or heel sides of the face. This will do a lot to determine how much energy loss occurs with off-center hits and how solid those hits will still feel -- and is a pretty good proxy for the commonly-used term "forgiveness".  Second, the MOI about the axis of the club shaft -- which basically determines how hard it is to rotate the head back to square during the course of the golf swing. Neither of these have anything at all to do with the trajectory of a shot.

What you seem to be groping around for is the effect of design changes that seek to alter the position of the iron head's center of gravity on the Y-axis (how far it is above the sole of the club) and Z-axis (how far it is behind the trailing edge). Both of these can influence the height of a shot, however neither will have anything close to the comparable effect of a change in loft. Vertical CG position is largely determined by the vertical dimension of the iron head, which can't really vary enough within the usual parameters of club design to make a truly significant difference. Even a theoretical 1/4" lowering of the vertical CG (which would be a lot) would be expected to produce less than a single degree change in launch angle. By comparison, your average 5 iron has shed six degrees in club face loft from the 1970s to today. Similarly, face-to-back CG position (which basically determines how much the shaft can bend forward into impact and add loft to the club face) is also very limited in its effect with the iron clubs because of how relatively stiff and weighty iron shafts need to be to maintain control for most players.

There are no magic bullets that allow any designer to blow holes in the relationships between club length, club loft, distance and accuracy. You are welcome to your opinion, but spouting pseudo-scientific gibberish like that isn't going to do much to convince anyone of its basis in any semblance of fact.

[newtogolf]

Wishon makes many valid points in his books regarding the direction the "big" manufacturers have taken with off the shelf clubs.  I agree that the 3i - 5i in most iron sets are too delofted for the average weekend golfer to hit consistently and forced the creation of hybrid clubs.  I also agree that the push to extend driver lengths to increase swing speeds may come at the expense of accuracy and control.

The problem I have is he has a vested interest in promoting custom fitting and custom built clubs.  Just like Apple might have some valid arguments why their product is better than PC's and Windows it's hard to sift through the facts and marketing hype to get a honest answer.  If he wasn't a custom fitter and club builder who is competing against the "big" manufacturers he's targeting in his books it would make his claims even more credible.

What he also fails to properly acknowledge is the "big" guys he's targeting are the ones that spend money on R&D; to come out with different head shapes and designs along with new composite materials for shafts and club faces that he ultimately benefits from.  He, like other clone makers wait for the "big" guys to do all the work to develop a breakthrough club they then reverse engineer and write books and blogs that claim his are better because he'll custom fit and build them to your specifications.

I also wonder how many beginners (which he seems to target most) have a consistent enough swing to benefit from his custom fitting beyond determining the proper club length, shaft stiffness and grip size.

[Stretch]

Originally Posted by newtogolf

The problem I have is he has a vested interest in promoting custom fitting and custom built clubs.  Just like Apple might have some valid arguments why their product is better than PC's and Windows it's hard to sift through the facts and marketing hype to get a honest answer.  If he wasn't a custom fitter and club builder who is competing against the "big" manufacturers he's targeting in his books it would make his claims even more credible.

What he also fails to properly acknowledge is the "big" guys he's targeting are the ones that spend money on R&D; to come out with different head shapes and designs along with new composite materials for shafts and club faces that he ultimately benefits from.  He, like other clone makers wait for the "big" guys to do all the work to develop a breakthrough club they then reverse engineer and write books and blogs that claim his are better because he'll custom fit and build them to your specifications.

Jeez, I feel like Tom Wishon's bitch for all the time I'm spending fighting his battles. But seriously guys, how about doing even the most perfunctory amount of research before wandering in here and posting bullshit as fact?

Wishon (the company) is not a "clone maker" and Wishon (the dude) is one of the most respected club designers in the golf business, having been in it for over 30 years and working for several big names before going out on his own. He's credited with a number of design firsts that you might recognize as having subsequently become quite popular across the entire industry, such as the first titanium metal woods available in the U.S., the first draw-biased metal woods (for good or ill) and the first driver with an adjustable hosel.

As far as the books constituting marketing for his company, well of course they do. In olden times, back when people could still read, writing a book was considered quite the nifty way to propagate your own particular belief system. See Karl Marx, or the authors of the New Testament. So I can't really fathom how it's somehow more morally suspect to make a reasoned case for the utility of your own products in (several) well-written treatises than it is to pay a few genetic freaks millions of dollars to play distant variants of them and then take out ads insisting that: "All You Need To Know Is They're Long."

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by Stretch

Jeez, I feel like Tom Wishon's bitch for all the time I'm spending fighting his battles. But seriously guys, how about doing even the most perfunctory amount of research before wandering in here and posting bullshit as fact?

Wishon (the company) is not a "clone maker" and Wishon (the dude) is one of the most respected club designers in the golf business, having been in it for over 30 years and working for several big names before going out on his own. He's credited with a number of design firsts that you might recognize as having subsequently become quite popular across the entire industry, such as the first titanium metal woods available in the U.S., the first draw-biased metal woods (for good or ill) and the first driver with an adjustable hosel.

As far as the books constituting marketing for his company, well of course they do. In olden times, back when people could still read, writing a book was considered quite the nifty way to propagate your own particular belief system. See Karl Marx, or the authors of the New Testament. So I can't really fathom how it's somehow more morally suspect to make a reasoned case for the utility of your own products in (several) well-written treatises than it is to pay a few genetic freaks millions of dollars to play distant variants of them and then take out ads insisting that: "All You Need To Know Is They're Long."

I take the Wishon produced information with the same grain of salt as Ralph Maltby's. It's good information to have whether you're getting "custom built" clubs or something from an OEM.

I would consider the clubs sold by Wishon, KZG, Nakashima, Maltby etc as essentially OEM clubs anyway since they're designed and built to stand on their own merit. They don't apear to be dressed up with decals and names insinuating they're anything other than what they are, but I digress. The truth is that unless you're getting your irons, woods, wedges, and putter hand custom made right from the drawing board, to the ingot, to the forge (or whatever) to the grinder, etc then you're probably playing something identical to a set that many other people ended up with as well, regarless of whether you went to a fitter or bought your irons from Golf Galaxy.

If someone's big box golf shop irons fit their typical swing to a T, then right on! If they happen to only fit a somewhat unnatural poser swing they were hoping they could reproduce as they hit balls in the shop (or with a professional club fitter) then they can waste money no matter which way they go.

[LankyLefty]

Id have to agree that Wishon is not exactly a clone maker. Clones are clubs explicitly designed to match a big companies product using less then optimal materials and methods to reduce price.

Wishon designs his own clubs and builds them out of the finest materials he can get using the finest methods he can.

I really also don't think his books are JUST a marketing ploy. He really believes what he says.. but that doesn't make him right.

[glock35ipsc]

Originally Posted by Stretch

Wishon (the company) is not a "clone maker" and Wishon (the dude) is one of the most respected club designers in the golf business, having been in it for over 30 years and working for several big names before going out on his own. He's credited with a number of design firsts that you might recognize as having subsequently become quite popular across the entire industry, such as the first titanium metal woods available in the U.S., the first draw-biased metal woods (for good or ill) and the first driver with an adjustable hosel.

IMHO, if it wasn't for the likes of guys like Wishon, Ralph Maltby, Jesse Ortic, Karsten Solheim, Gene Sarazen, Stan Thompson , etc, we wouldn't be playing the clubs we have today.

[LankyLefty]

Originally Posted by glock35ipsc

IMHO, if it wasn't for the likes of guys like Wishon, Ralph Maltby, Jesse Ortic, Karsten Solheim, Gene Sarazen, Stan Thompson, etc, we wouldn't be playing the clubs we have today.

This is true but I think the era of a single designer pushing change in this biz is over with. They just cant compete with a company like Callaway or Taylormade who already have their next 5 years worth of lines in development and testing.

[glock35ipsc]

Originally Posted by LankyLefty

This is true but I think the era of a single designer pushing change in this biz is over with.

I don't think there's a whole lot of change to be pushed anymore, the USGA has seen to that.  Driver heads are already at their 460cc limit, they can't make them bigger.  There are at their .830 COR limit, they can't make them any hotter.  But the can make them white, thats better, right?!

Originally Posted by LankyLefty

........... a company like Callaway or Taylormade who already have their next 5 years worth of lines in development and testing.

And therein is partly my distaste for the big box companies.  They seem to have a solution to a problem that may only exist 5 years from now.  Good grief, TaylorMade is possibly one of the most notorious for coming out with a new model of XXXX every couple months or so.  If they build such a great product, do they really need to spit a new one out before the general public is even familiar with the last one?

Designers like Ortiz won't build a new model unless he is certain it will out perform the last one he designed.

One thing I can say for certain..... the marketing departments of companies like Taylormade and Callaway are certainly earning their salaries!

[glock35ipsc]

I was thinking about this at lunch awhile ago.  I can actually make a similar comparison between my company (the Wishon/Maltby gang) to the OEM's we compete against (the Callaway/TaylorMade gang).

We are a small company; 3 engineers, 1 finance dept person, and 5 welders.  We design and manufacture components for coal mills in power plants to enhance their performance.

We compete against the large OEM's who have hundreds of engineers, and literally thousands of welders to make their products.

When plants need replacements parts that get the job done, they call the OEM's.  They pull parts off the shelf and ship them.  When they want their mills to perform better, or parts that last longer, they call us.  We build the parts based of tons of data we collect based on their operating parameters for that particular mill, and design that particular part based on how that mill is set up.

We are driven to make our customer happy, get them what they need as quickly as possible, reduce their emissions, and to increase their power output capacity.  Making our shareholders happy, increasing our EPS, and worrying about increasing our share price is not our big concern.  But you can bet Callaway is concerned about their stock price.  I'm sure Titliest, Nike, and TaylorMade are too.  And what happens when a company (think Apple in particular) creates a big buzz ahead of the release of their "new big bad ass" product?  Stock price goes up.

If I want the straightest answer on what I need for clubs, I'm going to a local custom builder, not Dick's or Golf Galaxy.  The name brand golf companies and their marketing departments are there to make the big money, and to make money for their stock holders, and the big box stores are their outlet to do just that (but my boss is always pleased if we accidentally make more than expected!).  The custom builders/fitters/designers like the ones previously mentioned are in it to make the best products they can for their customers.  And of course, make money.  They have to eat and pay their employees too. Otherwise, what's the point of owning a business?

[newtogolf]

I was wrong to use the word "clone" as it's seen as derogatory meaning a knock off and I agree Wishon is not that, sorry for the poor choice of words.

As for using books to spread a belief system, I understand what you are saying, but even you have to admit that the way he writes and names his books makes him appear to be objective when in reality he benefits from getting the reader to accept his viewpoints beyond supporting his book sales.   I thought his books were well written and informative, but the information becomes less valuable because of his vested interest in convincing the reader to abandon the "big" manufacturers clubs and go with custom built and fitted clubs which he just happens to provide as his main business.

It would be like someone claiming to be a food critic writing a book on great restaurants and fine dining and after reading it you find out that every restaurant the author mentioned happened to be owned by his company.

Originally Posted by Stretch

Jeez, I feel like Tom Wishon's bitch for all the time I'm spending fighting his battles. But seriously guys, how about doing even the most perfunctory amount of research before wandering in here and posting bullshit as fact?   Wishon (the company) is not a "clone maker" and Wishon (the dude) is one of the most respected club designers in the golf business,

As far as the books constituting marketing for his company, well of course they do. In olden times, back when people could still read, writing a book was considered quite the nifty way to propagate your own particular belief system. See Karl Marx, or the authors of the New Testament. So I can't really fathom how it's somehow more morally suspect to make a reasoned case for the utility of your own products in (several) well-written treatises than it is to pay a few genetic freaks millions of dollars to play distant variants of them and then take out ads insisting that: "All You Need To Know Is They're Long."

[LankyLefty]

Originally Posted by glock35ipsc

I don't think there's a whole lot of change to be pushed anymore, the USGA has seen to that.  Driver heads are already at their 460cc limit, they can't make them bigger.  There are at their .830 COR limit, they can't make them any hotter.  But the can make them white, thats better, right?!

This is precisely why big companies will now have the upper hand. Can Tom Wishon afford to spend 10s of millions to develop a new materials for golf clubs if there is any chance of it failing? Callaway or Taylormade could just say OOPS and move on.

And yes their are advances to be made in terms of weighting, materials and internal structure. Hybrids are now wide open with no crazy restrictions on them. Cavity back Irons have a long way to go before they are stretched to their potential. Their are advances to be made, but the risk of failure is higher now more then ever and as such small custom companies like Wishon cannot afford to take risks.