Adam C

Unfortunately like many things in golf, a fitting will not be a suitable substitute for actually trying the counterbalance in some clubs. The snapshot moment in time that a fitting gives just doesn't offer enough time to let your body acclimate to the balance change and really know how it will work long term. I would also want to make sure you can hit off real grass with the adjusted clubs before making a decision as these changes can significantly change how you move the club head through the turf. Fittings can be helpful but they will rarely give you the whole picture.

Here you go.

I've installed them for a few people and then usually end up uninstalling them. Would suggest starting with just 1 or 2 clubs and playing with them for a week or so before going whole hog with it.

Okay, first the shop was right to not add the 12g of powder to the shaft. That powder would be sitting rather high up in that shaft so it would likely take more like 15g to get the result you want. While I don't think the powder would damage the shaft, it's just not a great idea in my opinion. While it won't damage the shaft, it will completely change it both in weight and the profile, so it might as well be a different shaft altogether. Options to fix. One would be to get a graphite tip weight and install that. With that weight shaft would probably want to use the rubber coated ones to lessen chance of shaft damage. Option 2 would be lead tape. Option 3 would be switching shafts to something heavier and more tip heavy. Option 4 would be hotmelt the head. 12g is a lot but I have done 12g of hotmelt and honestly that club felt awesome after. Of course this option can not be reversed once done so you need to be sure about it and take it to someone who know's their s---. Also never heard of anyone using a liquid metal product before, meaning likely a bad idea.

Not only do they push you into aftermarket shafts but notice how every shaft that you ended up with are not even available as upgrade options from the manufacturer. Unfortunately I have seen this far too many times for it to be the exception rather than the norm. Titleist for example has the largest available list of aftermarket options for their clubs, yet somehow every shaft on your list is not available from Titleist thereby making it necessary to buy the clubs from the fitter or try and piece it together yourself. I see this and question every "fitting" they do, as it completely undermines their authority. Seems pretty obvious that the goal is not to get you in the right shaft as much as getting you into a shaft that is not available as an OEM option thereby greatly increasing the chances of you buying the clubs from them.

2 questions. How did you get a 15% discount on the clubs? Pretty sure all this stuff is on price restriction lists for retailers. Second, did you end up buying from them? If you did, I will stop commenting on what I see here.

The appropriate corks are pretty soft so assuming they are the correct size to start with should only require ramming them down.

Usually need to factor a slightly higher amount of powder to hit your weights as the powder sits so much higher in the shaft than a tip weight or lead tape.

Thanks Bill. So you weren't interested in buying $800 fairway woods??

Wanted to see if anyone here has an order form from a high end fitting company that they wouldn't mind sharing here? Just wanting to get some pricing info from the current environment. Thanks.

He had the older version of that club at the PGA which is why trying to buy one on the secondary market got crazy expensive about a month ago, and probably also why this new 300 series is coming out now.

All fitting charts are based off of wearing shoes. Probably counting for something like 3/4 inch. As far as your questions about the clubs, first the Mizuno's should be taper .355 not .370 unless they have been modified by someone. With cutting down the shafts a half inch, they would get stiffer if you were measuring them on a frequency meter, however that's not the best way to look at it. When you trim from the butt end you are removing the stiffest portion of the shaft so the overall stiffness of the shaft is actually softer b/c less of the stiffest section remains. The best way to figure this out is just choking down on the shaft at different intervals and seeing the results from it. The club will play the same as far as swing weight and flex regardless of whether you choke down 1/2 inch for example or cut the shaft down that same amount and grip normally. The only differences will be that the static weight of the club will remain the same when choking down vs. cutting (but only by a very small amount), and the grip diameter will be smaller when choking down because of the standard grip taper. Even with these two small differences, this is still a far better/simpler/reversible testing method for shaft length. Once you figure out how much to grip down, you can then butt cut them to the new length. If you want to soft step the shafts (4 iron shaft into 5 head), you can do that also though most golfers will never notice a big enough change in flight to make it worth the effort.

Try Amazon. Of course Golfworks is my go to but the prices are all standardized and there is still a lot of backordered grips and shafts.

I think the old lie angles were all based on basic geometry which would give you lower needed lies. I think they now understand how the club act during the swing and the lies have moved accordingly. I don't recall the SW on the old stuff. The clubs were heavy overall but they were shorter so the swing weights were probably in the high C range. Ping for years, was always lighter in SW than the other major brands.

It was those Pings that probably forced the change to more upright lies.

Those are pretty standard for the time.

No downside. Simply used for the sound/feel and a little for weight in some cases. There is no getting it out but you shouldn't have any need to. Most golfers prefer the sound after hotmelt.

Again I will say it has very likely been hot melted. Does it feel "thin" when you hit it or is it more of a thud? If it's a thud, that tells me hotmelt.

Could have Hotmelt.

I believe from what I have read that the real purpose of that design is to lessen the golfer's back stroke length. Shorter back stroke with more acceleration is usually going to help more golfers than it would hurt. From that you would see less face rotation simply because of the shorter stroke. Personally I think that thing is awful looking but this shaft design idea has been around for decades and pops up every so often in a new iteration.

Loft and lie are completely independent specs. Changing one will not change the other. Changing loft will change the offset amount however just fyi. You are best served sending them to Ping for adjustments. Ping irons are very difficult to bend.

I say why not. Throw some inexpensive shafts and grips on them and see what happens!

That small difference probably won't matter for what you are doing here. In theory the 9 iron shaft will launch a little lower then the 6 or 7 shaft. Only definitive difference is the 9 shaft will play heavier assuming these were constant weight shafts and not blanks.

Correct. They are all basically set to 40 psi. Only times they aren't are with the old Taylormade wrenches from the cylinder movable weight days. Those were set to 30. They would still work I would guess without issues. However the 40s did cause issues with the cylinder weights back then.

That angle finder is sweet! If you have a modern smart phone from the last few years, you can use a leveling app and very easily check lofts. Just position the shaft straight and lean the phone against the club face. Lie angle is a bit tricky just making sure you have the head sitting level, but loft is straight forward, especially on irons. No additional tools needed.