Dave and gang:
I've added Mike at SMT as a member of the shoptalk list. He sent me a
reply to your post below to clarify a few things and I thought it
would be easier for him to send directly to the entire Shoptalk group.
Here's a pic he sent to me this morning to help visualize his
"welding of 2nd clubhead" example:
http://clubmaker-online.com/shoptalk.smt.html
Mike---simply reply to this message to respond to Dave and the entire
Shoptalk group will receive.
John
shoptalk
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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By the way, I send out monthly information on new golf equipment
called The Clubmaker Report, would you like me to add your email
address to it? Send me a quick note if yes.
Thanks!
John Muir
skype: jhmuir
AIM: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
810.923.7396
http://clubmaker-online.com
http://gripscience.com
clubmaker.mobi
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