Ping G400 Driver on the way

[inthecup]

I was playing a Ping G25 which I liked quite a bit.  I have regular access to a launch monitor and saw that my spin was pretty good with that driver, my recollection is 2300-2400 RPM.  Being the genius that I am I decided that a G30 LS would bring my spin to even better numbers.  I got my fitter to put one together for me.  And I was correct, my driver spin dropped to the 1800-2000 range on good strikes and that lead to some distance gains.  My miss is high toe on the face.  What I noticed is that on the course some drives that didn't seem that bad would come up short, very short.  I discovered on the monitor that some high misses on the face would make the spin drop way off, like 1500 and below.  With no spin the ball would just fall from the sky.

I demoed a Callaway EPIC at my home course and hit some absolute bombs with it.  It was very tempting.  I also found that (and my fitter agreed) with the EPIC miss hits high on the face were also very punishing.

So I ordered up a G400.  It will fit the shaft on my current G30 so it is fit to some degree.  The shaft is 43-3/4"  from butt to tip.  I really like the shorter shaft a current full length shaft feels like swinging a telephone pole.

I will get it Thursday and hit the monitor almost immediately.  Depending what I see I may play it in my clubs match play club championship Saturday.

Edited August 2, 2017 by inthecup

[pganapathy]

I go by the philosophy of "If it ain't broke don't fix it". Were you actually seeing any benefit of moving up from the G25 or was it like most shots were the same and maybe at best 1 in 10 was better and maybe 1 or 2 in 10 was worse off.  What I am trying to figure out is why you want to change when the potential margin for improvement is so small.  I agree if your spin was say in the 3000 rpm range it would definitely make sense but reducing from 2300 RPM is kinda like improving your game from a 3 handicap or so.  Lot harder to do.  More likely I would say that the shaft profile was not perfect in your G25 and the gains are more than likely from the shaft rather than the head of the club

[saevel25]

2 hours ago, inthecup said:

I discovered on the monitor that some high misses on the face would make the spin drop way off, like 1500 and below.  With no spin the ball would just fall from the sky.

This can happen.

It is one of the reasons why I got rid of the SLDR.

 

[inthecup]

Just now, pganapathy said:

I go by the philosophy of "If it ain't broke don't fix it". Were you actually seeing any benefit of moving up from the G25 or was it like most shots were the same and maybe at best 1 in 10 was better and maybe 1 or 2 in 10 was worse off.  What I am trying to figure out is why you want to change when the potential margin for improvement is so small.  I agree if your spin was say in the 3000 rpm range it would definitely make sense but reducing from 2300 RPM is kinda like improving your game from a 3 handicap or so.  Lot harder to do.  More likely I would say that the shaft profile was not perfect in your G25 and the gains are more than likely from the shaft rather than the head of the club

Yea, I alluded to that when I said, "Being the genius that I am".  I got hung up in the numbers.  I don't look at the shaft as magic as some do.  I can see the drop in spin relating to more distance for sure.  The shafts were nearly identical according to the fitter.

Edited August 2, 2017 by inthecup
added shaft comment

[kpaulhus]

I really saw some great numbers during my Epic Sub Zero fitting. I am impressed by the G400 as well. Im currently using the Epic Sub Zero 3 wood and playing with weights/shaft combos. I do want to hit the G400 3 wood before I pull the trigger, however.

[StefanUrkel]

No difference between 2014 driver and that. Do a blind test

[inthecup]

1 hour ago, StefanUrkel said:

No difference between 2014 driver and that. Do a blind test

Big difference between the low spin and regular version which is what the change represents.  

[saevel25]

6 hours ago, StefanUrkel said:

No difference between 2014 driver and that. Do a blind test

You'd be wrong. The CG locations are different. The launch profiles can be different. The combination of the clubhead and golf shaft can produce a difference on similarly hit shots.

 

[inthecup]

The head came in and I was able to hit 30 or so balls with it.  It appears to do what I thought it would.  Keep the spin up to reasonable numbers on a high/high toe strike.

I will have to hit lots of balls with it to really know what I have both on the monitor and on the course.

[inthecup]

I was able to hit more balls on Foresight GC2 with HMT.  In the amount of testing I was able to do the driver does exactly what I thought it would do.  It does not perform significantly differently than the G30 LS I was coming from.  With my inconsistency you would not really notice a difference.  The indian far outweighs the arrow.

 BUT, on high on the face/high toe misses the spin drops less so I achieved my goal.  The difference is 20 yards on a bad strike.  So it goes 220 instead of 200.  Thats a big deal on the course to me,  It will carry trouble and give me a shot at more greens.

For me this is a very low spin driver.  My average spin is 1800 rpm.  It will drop to 1500 if I get high on the face.  With the G30 LS it would go lower.  I tee it up high, off my inside heel and hit up on it.  Angle of attack is 5-6 up.  Average clubhead speed is 93 can climb to 99 or drop below 90.  Smash factor average 1.4.   Launch angle average of 16.

I played around with the Flightscope trajector optimizer and that combination is pretty good.  To increase my distances I need to increase clubhead speed.

 

[Typhoon92]

On 8/2/2017 at 8:19 AM, inthecup said:

I was playing a Ping G25 which I liked quite a bit.  I have regular access to a launch monitor and saw that my spin was pretty good with that driver, my recollection is 2300-2400 RPM.  Being the genius that I am I decided that a G30 LS would bring my spin to even better numbers.  I got my fitter to put one together for me.  And I was correct, my driver spin dropped to the 1800-2000 range on good strikes and that lead to some distance gains.  My miss is high toe on the face.  What I noticed is that on the course some drives that didn't seem that bad would come up short, very short.  I discovered on the monitor that some high misses on the face would make the spin drop way off, like 1500 and below.  With no spin the ball would just fall from the sky.

I demoed a Callaway EPIC at my home course and hit some absolute bombs with it.  It was very tempting.  I also found that (and my fitter agreed) with the EPIC miss hits high on the face were also very punishing.

So I ordered up a G400.  It will fit the shaft on my current G30 so it is fit to some degree.  The shaft is 43-3/4"  from butt to tip.  I really like the shorter shaft a current full length shaft feels like swinging a telephone pole.

I will get it Thursday and hit the monitor almost immediately.  Depending what I see I may play it in my clubs match play club championship Saturday.

" drops out of the sky"...u could not be more correct!  I had the same driver and got caught up in the high launch low spin game.  People don't realize that too little spin combined with high launch is as bad as hitting a ball that balloons from a negative launch angle and too much spin.

Wow...it's rare to see someone that realizes that.

So I had the LST and it looked great in the air....I realized it was shorter than my previous RBZ Tour.  My AOA was +3-4., launch angle around 11 degrees and spin down in the 1400 range.

I grabbed an off the shelf M1 and did a side by side on our monitor....big difference adding in some spin.  So I ended up getting fit for an M2, swapped the Ping for an M1 just to fool around with.  Now I'm getting a good amount of forward roll with my tee shots and more distance.

[Apoc81]

On 8/2/2017 at 0:13 PM, saevel25 said:

This can happen.

It is one of the reasons why I got rid of the SLDR.

 

My SLDR 3 wood is gold. That club does no wrong. It's the one club besides my Edels that I can't imagine replacing (but will, because i'm like that). 

Edited August 8, 2017 by Apoc81

[inthecup]

That is the Indian.  If you are at or near the center of the clubface it is magic.  If you visit other parts of the clubface crazy stuff happens and none of them are good.

[djake]

@inthecup your signature is hilarious!  Nice write up regarding the Ping G400 Driver

[inthecup]

37 minutes ago, djake said:

@inthecup your signature is hilarious!  Nice write up regarding the Ping G400 Driver

I tell my wife I play in golf league Wednesdays.  Golf league starts when the snow melts and ends when it snows.  That photo was towards then end, I think we had at least one more league day.

[Mr. Desmond]

Good luck with it and fixing the high face/toe contact. Some of that may be setup - high on face, try launching with a plus AOA -setup, spine angle, etc. A good instructor can help. Toe hits? For me, it was a combo of swing and tempo issues. Improving and working on it.

I am going into Epic v. G400 tomorrow during a lesson.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Mr. Desmond

[inthecup]

Hitting above center on the face is not necessarily something that should be fixed.  My spin numbers are pretty low which helps distance.  Strike location has something to do with that.

If you are going to have a miss I'd prefer the toe.   I'd like to eliminate all misses but with the time I have available that is probably not going to happen.

[Apoc81]

1 hour ago, inthecup said:

Hitting above center on the face is not necessarily something that should be fixed.  My spin numbers are pretty low which helps distance.  Strike location has something to do with that.

If you are going to have a miss I'd prefer the toe.   I'd like to eliminate all misses but with the time I have available that is probably not going to happen.

Missing to the toe causes Gear Effect, which causes horrible mishits (though so does Heel misses). I'd prefer center high, or center low.