RE: ShopTalk: Tom Wishon-GS Backflow irons from "94" catalog

[Tom Wishon]

PAT: Yes I designed the Backflows in my first season of design with Golfsmith.  They were intended to be a transitional set where the long irons were more game improvement moving to the short irons being lower in MOI and less game improvement.  As is the case with virtually all of the irons that I design, I try to put the CG on the heel side of the face centerline – with this location being a little more so on the longer irons and then gradually through the set as the loft increases, moving the CG back toward the center of the face.  I believe STRONGLY that there is NO iron that should ever have a CG located out on the toe side of the face center, ever.  Reason being that even in a good golf swing, the clubface has to rotate back to square on the downswing and the more you put the CG away from the shaft centerline, the harder this is to do.    With regard to looking at an iron and seeing how many scorelines up the face the CG is located, you CANNOT judge the height of a CG this way because of LOFT combining with blade height throwing your visual judgment out of whack.   When you talk about the vertical location of the CG, you have to talk about location on the VERTICAL plane, and that means 90 degs to the ground line.  Irons all have different lofts, so when you put them in the playing position, a measurement straight up the face counting scorelines to the CG is not going to tell you how far up the vertical plane the CG is located.  To do that you have to have a gauge to hold the iron in the playing position, and then another gauge to measure straight up on the vertical plane and then 90 degs from that across to the CG on the face plane.  Or you can use trig to figure it if you don’t have a vertical height gauge with a long enough arm.      In addition, you have blade height that controls and affects this CG location as you see it on the face plane too.  Take a 5-iron for example.  There are 5-irons out there in bags today with a toe height from 52mm up over 60mm, to give you a working range.  Taller face 5-irons in the range of over 57mm will always show their CG location as being more scorelines up the face because toe height increase does that to a CG in an ironhead.  Sure, things like wide soles help to bring the CG back down, but once that blade starts going higher, it takes a heckuva lot of sole weight to keep it down.  So the point is that you can take a bunch of 5-irons with different blade heights and look at them all straight on into the face and you can see some with the CG point a scoreline up from some others, but when you really put the heads in the playing position and measure real vertical CG that ranking can easily change.    Also, one more thing – you guys are going to be seeing some new things with regard to what it is about head weight distribution that has a SIGNIFICANT effect on shot height and it is not going to be as simple as the vertical position of the CG high or low.  So start now beginning to open your minds to accepting some new points from a technical standpoint about horizontal movements of the CG and how they can change shot height, in addition to what we have all been thinking about vertical positioning of the CG.  High or low CG location is not the only thing nor likely the main thing outside of loft that controls the head’s contribution to shot height.    Take care, TOM  W   -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Pat McGoldrick Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 9:57 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: ShopTalk: Tom Wishon-GS Backflow irons from "94" catalog   Bernie, I am so glad to hear that. These clubs have been driving me crazy. What made it harder is that the man(a Pro) wanted his clubs built @ D2, standard lengths, with Winn XF grips. I had to backweight to get to D2 using corks and lead powder, hoping that the corks don't work their way down the shaft. These heads would work well with graphite shafts. Pat  ----- Original Message ----- From: Bernie Baymiller To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 9:05 PM Subject: Re: ShopTalk: Tom Wishon-GS Backflow irons from "94" catalog   Pat,   I have a set of Backflows that I played for about a year in a box on the shelf. Looking at the 5-iron, the cg appears to be a smidgen inside the center dot and between the sixth and 7th scoreline...almost dead center of the face and a bit high for my preference. They are big heads and head-heavy with steel shafts. A 38" 5-iron swingweights at D7 with an oversize GP Tour Wrap. I hit them well when I was up above the Mason Dixon line...the soles seem to cut right through bent grass and good dirt and I'd get good shots and good divots. But here in Tennessee, they were really bad on Bermuda grass over hard clay...they seemed to hang up on the Bermuda and dig...and nearly every shot was a clanker. When I went to the Chicago 944Cs with a Bermuda grind, I suddenly hit solid shots again. If anybody wants these heads, make me an offer.   Bernie Writeto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: Pat McGoldrick To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 7:19 PM Subject: ShopTalk: Tom Wishon-GS Backflow irons from "94" catalog   Tom,   Would you remember anything about these heads, or is this before your time with GS?  These heads produced high swingweights compared to other heads of the same weights. Did these heads have a COG more towards the toe? Does the vertical weight transfer have anything to do with having higher than normal swingweights? Any information would be helpful. TIA     Pat McGoldrick On Target Golf