At 03:27 PM 10/3/2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Mike Tait of SMT Golf has written a series of articles on golf
equipment and I've added the first two to my resource pages at
http://clubmaker-online.com/resource.html
Thanks, John and Mike.
Interesting articles.
I agree 100% with the "Which is more important" article.
I agree in principle with the "Adjustable screws" article, and have
said so repeatedly over the years -- even before adjustable screws,
when the only available mechanism was lead tape. (It's worth noting
that Tom Wishon has also been saying that for years.) But I have a
correction and a reinforcing comment:
CORRECTION: Mike's table of numbers -- how much weight moves the
center of gravity (CG) how much -- is too generous. It is correct at
the weights that make sense in terms of adjustable screws, say under
20g. But, at the larger weights, he is allowing too much movement.
For instance, he says that 100g at the toe will move the CG 1";
actually, it will only move it 2/3". And NO AMOUNT of weight added at
the toe, not 200g and not 2000g, will move the CG all the way to the
toe. (Mike's example of welding a second 200g head to the toe works
ONLY because the 200g of the new head acts 2" OUTBOARD of the toe of
the original head -- not at the toe. If the whole 200g were
concentrated at the toe (as Mike said originally), the CG would only move 1".
I know Mike knows this, and it was just a careless error. More
important, the table is correct for weights under 20g, which is the
sort of weight you can actually move in practice.
REINFORCING COMMENT: Mike makes the point that the screws are
literally a placebo, that all its effect is really between the ears
of the golfer. I have heard (second hand) of a pretty good experiment
that proved that. Here's what I heard:
A club pro (in Connecticut, I think) with a degree in science had his
own suspicions about the weight screws in the R7 when it first came
out. So he set up an experiment. Realizing some of Mike's comments
about swing repeatability, he recruited the three best players in his
club to test the screw theory. He took three R7 drivers (each set up
to be well fitted to one of the golfers), and had them each hit three
drives. The golfers' comments and the actual trajectory was recorded.
Then he'd go into a shed at the range and move the screws. He would
come back out, give the clubs to the golfers, and tell the golfers
what he did to the screws (e.g.- draw, fade, high, or low). Then
they'd hit three more shots for recording. This went on through quite
a few screw positions, including some repetition -- probably around
10 cycles of change-and-hit-three-drives.
The kicker was that he had put together a COMPLETELY RANDOM schedule
relating what he actually did with the screws and what he told them
he did. When he analyzed the results, he found that:
(1) There was very little correlation between the actual
screw positions and trajectory.
(2) There was pretty good correlation between what he TOLD
them he did and the trajectory.
Q.E.D.
Cheers!
DaveT
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