Speaker 1: The guys from paying They've kind of showed me how
Speaker 1: much the equipment matters.
Speaker 2: I just love that I can hit any shot I
Speaker 2: kind of want.
Speaker 3: We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about
Speaker 3: what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pink Proven Grounds Podcast. I'm Shane Bacon.
Speaker 1: That is Marty Jertsen and Marty. I'm happy to announce
Speaker 1: that our first repeat guest on the podcast is not
Speaker 1: Victor Hovlin, It's not Tony Fenow.
Speaker 4: It's a man more famous and more popular.
Speaker 1: Kenton Oates is our first repeat guest on the Proving
Speaker 1: Grounds Podcast.
Speaker 4: What a moment?
Speaker 3: Kay, Oh, this is gonna be fun and we're gonna
Speaker 3: be talking about stuff today to help you get out
Speaker 3: of trouble out there in some trends we're seeing on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour that are taking the tour by storm
Speaker 3: and Ko has been a huge part of that and
Speaker 3: that's why we got him on today.
Speaker 4: Kenton, what is life like right now?
Speaker 1: Not being on the road, because I know you spend
Speaker 1: so much your year on the road. What's your what's
Speaker 1: it been like? How long have you been home? What's
Speaker 1: kind of the run you get at home before you
Speaker 1: kind of go back to the truck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 5: I've actually been on the road a little more than
Speaker 5: some people might think. The truck just made a stop
Speaker 5: off in Oklahoma and we helped out some Oklahoma and
Speaker 5: Oklahoma state players, and then we moved it on over
Speaker 5: to Fayetteville where we helped out the University of Arkansas.
Speaker 5: So I have had some weeks off, but I obviously
Speaker 5: did Vegas and then that, so we stay pretty busy
Speaker 5: even while the you know, the guys are you know,
Speaker 5: playing in Japan or wherever they might be playing.
Speaker 1: No truck in Japan. He didn't drive it over You're
Speaker 1: not going to make that trip.
Speaker 2: We didn't cargo that thing over there yet. So no,
Speaker 2: no truck in Japan.
Speaker 1: That would be next level. Kitten's on the boat across
Speaker 1: the pond, just sitting in the truck, going we got
Speaker 1: two more days of this.
Speaker 4: We can do it. Kenton.
Speaker 1: Today, we're going to talk about a couple of things
Speaker 1: that I find extremely fascinating. One of them, and we'll
Speaker 1: get to this in a bit, is the boom and
Speaker 1: the popularity of the seven would But I want to
Speaker 1: start with a term that I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of people might not know what it means, but they
Speaker 1: probably heard it, especially if they follow this podcast and
Speaker 1: follow what Ping has done over the last three and
Speaker 1: four years.
Speaker 4: And Marty, that term is spinsistency.
Speaker 1: Now, there's a video on YouTube from g four to
Speaker 1: twenty five days where some of the tour players were
Speaker 1: talking about spinsistency that were trying to spell the term.
Speaker 1: They were trying to explain what it is. Marty, You're
Speaker 1: the man that we got to turn to because I
Speaker 1: think you're a kind of person that can, I guess
Speaker 1: summarize what the term is and what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when we're designing new product chain, it always it
Speaker 3: all starts with the problem we're trying to solve for
Speaker 3: the golfer. And one of the most painful things I
Speaker 3: know it's been painful for me. I'm sure it's been
Speaker 3: painful for you. I'm sure it's been painful for Canton
Speaker 3: and all of our players, is when you're out on
Speaker 3: the golf course and you thin your three wood five
Speaker 3: wood driver and the thing balloons up in the air.
Speaker 3: You know, we've seen some graphics on the internet that
Speaker 3: show if you hit the driver high on the face,
Speaker 3: the spin's going to go down. You hit it low
Speaker 3: on the face, the spin's going to go up. That's
Speaker 3: a very painful thing, and one way we've always done
Speaker 3: to counter that in the design world is to make
Speaker 3: the moment of inertia higher so it counters it reduces
Speaker 3: the gear effect, which is when you hit low on
Speaker 3: the face, spike in the spin, you're gonna lose a
Speaker 3: ton of distance. If you're hitting into the wind, the
Speaker 3: ball is gonna kind of lose its stability. So there's
Speaker 3: more than one way to solve that problem. We can
Speaker 3: boost the MLI and we've done that a lot over
Speaker 3: the years to solve that problem. But spinsistency is a
Speaker 3: calculated changing of the curvature of the face to counter
Speaker 3: low spin high on the face. You get that you've
Speaker 3: hit that ball that's too high on the face and
Speaker 3: it falls out of the air, so your spin gets
Speaker 3: too low or the impacts low on the face where
Speaker 3: the spin gets spiked or increased. Now we can normalize
Speaker 3: that with spinsistency, so we make the bottom of the
Speaker 3: face have a little tighter curvature, and we balance that
Speaker 3: with the other properties of the head and then we
Speaker 3: make the top of the face have a little bit
Speaker 3: more loft so that when you hit up there, you
Speaker 3: retain the spin. So it's it's effectively. One way to
Speaker 3: think about it, what we've done on the G four
Speaker 3: to thirty driver, it's like making the moment of inertia
Speaker 3: of the driver ten percent higher without making the moment
Speaker 3: of inertia ten percent higher. Another way to look at
Speaker 3: it is a player hitting the G four to twenty
Speaker 3: five driver, which is already super stable from a spin standpoint,
Speaker 3: could increase their impact stat area by fifty six percent
Speaker 3: and get the same dispersion and strokes gain driving So
Speaker 3: now you don't have to hit the center of the
Speaker 3: face as often to play a great golf and Ko
Speaker 3: I think one thing we could talk about, which was
Speaker 3: just over a year ago we launched the four to
Speaker 3: thirty driver. I came out for it because I was
Speaker 3: so excited about launching it in Vegas and having our
Speaker 3: players hit it for that first time. And the words
Speaker 3: they use, Shane are like, oh, the flight is so stable,
Speaker 3: it's so tight, it's holds its line better and the
Speaker 3: crosswinds what they're experiencing is like miss it a little
Speaker 3: bit around the face. All the hits perform more like
Speaker 3: a center hit KO.
Speaker 1: When you have players come into the truck, went how
Speaker 1: much is spin brought up when they're looking to make
Speaker 1: a change or they're trying to dial a driver of fairway?
Speaker 1: Would even some irons in where is spin in terms
Speaker 1: of that conversation, in terms of like the popular topics
Speaker 1: that they come in to the truck with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean spin is it's up there.
Speaker 5: It's got to be you know, one, two or three,
Speaker 5: because the spin is really a direct derivative of what
Speaker 5: their fight's gonna look like down range.
Speaker 2: So that's what the player is seeing.
Speaker 5: They hit the ball and like the launch angle occurs, whatever,
Speaker 5: but like what they're seeing is that that spin rate
Speaker 5: down range, and if it's a seven wood or a
Speaker 5: higher loftic club, then that's that's gonna be a direct
Speaker 5: influence about how the ball lands and stops.
Speaker 2: And that's a massive deal to those guys.
Speaker 5: So, like Marty was saying, for drivers for that four
Speaker 5: point thirty, uh, it still happens.
Speaker 2: Like last week in Vegas, we had a non staff guy.
Speaker 5: Just wanted to try to reduce his spin a little
Speaker 5: bit on our drivers and then once we got that
Speaker 5: reduced like it lived at twenty four to twenty six,
Speaker 5: like no matter where he hit it on the face.
Speaker 5: Now he's one of the best players in the world
Speaker 5: playing on the PGA Tour. But the value of that
Speaker 5: just creates so much more consistency in your game when
Speaker 5: you thin it at twenty six and you high face
Speaker 5: it at twenty four and both those balls end up
Speaker 5: within five feet of each other in the fairway. So
Speaker 5: we see that and then with fairwy woods, like Marty
Speaker 5: was saying, that low hit off the ground, I think
Speaker 5: is why the four to thirty fairywood, it's been number
Speaker 5: one on tour for it. It's been a minute now,
Speaker 5: it maybe's six months.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: We can go back and look at that, but it's
Speaker 5: been the number one played fairyweod on tour for a while.
Speaker 5: And I think it's that it's so easy to thin
Speaker 5: a three wood off the ground, even for the best
Speaker 5: players in the world. If you can make that shot
Speaker 5: go ten to fifteen yards farther, which is what we're
Speaker 5: seeing because it spin's not going to forty four hundred,
Speaker 5: it's saying around thirty eight to thirty nine. It's just
Speaker 5: a massive deal in the strokes that you can gain
Speaker 5: throughout a four round tournament at that level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Marty, I mean I always joke that you're not
Speaker 1: a great player unless you've hit a thin three wood
Speaker 1: off the t and a golf turn before. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's something everybody, it feels like, in the world's done it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know I could name top ten players
Speaker 1: currently in the OWGR that I've seen thin three woods
Speaker 1: Like this isn't something that just high handicapped players deal with.
Speaker 1: How did you discover the technology that became spinsistency.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it kind of came down to Shane is like
Speaker 3: you know, in the design world, you're trying to figure
Speaker 3: out what levers you can pull on to improve performance, right,
Speaker 3: and you know, to make the moment of a inertia
Speaker 3: of a three wood, you're kind of fighting, Oh, I
Speaker 3: can make it more forgiving, but then you have to
Speaker 3: make the head bigger. As you make the head bigger,
Speaker 3: then the CG gets too high. Right, So oh, on paper,
Speaker 3: it could be a very stable club, but you lose
Speaker 3: performance off the ground because we're trying to balance. Okay,
Speaker 3: I need a really low CG on my fairway. Would
Speaker 3: but I still want to make it have that forgiveness
Speaker 3: or stability when you don't hit it perfect. So we
Speaker 3: have all these things that are kind of fighting each
Speaker 3: other in the design world, and I think that the
Speaker 3: innovation with spinsistency is just looking at Okay, yes, we
Speaker 3: can actually sacrifice giving our self permission that we can
Speaker 3: sacrifice a little bit of the launch angle. Because when
Speaker 3: we change the face curvature or the roll profile, which
Speaker 3: is the top to bottom curvature, if we make that
Speaker 3: tighter at the bottom, you'd launch it lower. So that
Speaker 3: always kind of sounded bad, like the initial launch angle
Speaker 3: is going to be a little bit lower. But it
Speaker 3: turns out there's a sweet spot. And this is where
Speaker 3: our modeling capabilities in the design innovation world have really helped.
Speaker 3: It's to say, Okay, we can move the CG a
Speaker 3: little bit lower, the moment of inertia can be a
Speaker 3: little bit lower. We're going to launch a little bit
Speaker 3: lower for those low impacts on the face, But the
Speaker 3: reduction in spin is going to be an overwhelming benefit
Speaker 3: right over those other factors. So it's this kind of
Speaker 3: tug of war that we're always having in the design world,
Speaker 3: and given our selves permission that a lower initial launch
Speaker 3: is OK, because we're gonna make up for it with
Speaker 3: more ball speed. When you have more ball speed low
Speaker 3: on the face, that's a big driver of that peak height.
Speaker 3: So the golfer you can't really see the initial launch angle.
Speaker 3: You can measure it on a radar obviously, but what
Speaker 3: the golfer really senses when they talk about launch is
Speaker 3: really kind of that peak height and how much it's spinning.
Speaker 3: And that was I think the big thing we gave
Speaker 3: ourselves permission to do. And it turns out that, you know,
Speaker 3: a higher ball speed low on the face and controlling
Speaker 3: spin is an overwhelming benefit.
Speaker 4: Ko.
Speaker 1: You know, we've seen the tour player turn to the
Speaker 1: cut with the driver, right. I mean, it seems like
Speaker 1: almost everybody it plays professional golf now is leaning on
Speaker 1: that cut because the ball can travel a lot further
Speaker 1: and the spins down on the cut than what we've
Speaker 1: seen in previous iterations. What's been the popular ballflight with
Speaker 1: the three wood because it's always felt like to me
Speaker 1: that the guys would cut the drivers but they could
Speaker 1: still turn those three woods over. Is that still the case?
Speaker 1: Do you still feel like if you've got to hit
Speaker 1: that draw, you're leaning on the three wood.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I always have said this, and this is something I think.
Speaker 5: Another feature of the four thirty that our team on
Speaker 5: tour and Marty's team with engineering did a great job
Speaker 5: of marrying was as we were adding this consistency to
Speaker 5: our fairy woods, they still felt like we would still
Speaker 5: do in four twenty five, we put a like three
Speaker 5: or four grams in the heel of a lot of
Speaker 5: three woods, because, like you were mentioning, no matter who
Speaker 5: you are, if you're like Harris English is a cut
Speaker 5: only guy. If he has one club in his bag
Speaker 5: he wants to draw, it's that three wood. So we
Speaker 5: kept on talking about that and the four thirty that
Speaker 5: has been a home run in terms of its ease
Speaker 5: to turn over because it gets up in the air
Speaker 5: so easy that the comfortability of turning it over is
Speaker 5: a lot more just because it's higher. And then it
Speaker 5: just naturally has a little quicker toe. So now, if anything,
Speaker 5: we've been able to put just a little bit of
Speaker 5: toe weight or no glue anywhere left or right wise
Speaker 5: and guys can still turn it over eas You get
Speaker 5: a club that's super forgiving great on thin misses and
Speaker 5: can turn over off the tee. I think that's why
Speaker 5: I've mentioned before it's been you know, number one on
Speaker 5: tour for so long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Marty, I mean the G four thirty three wood
Speaker 1: and driver have been incredibly popular, not just with Ping staffers.
Speaker 1: I mean you've seen so many players outside of the
Speaker 1: Ping family come to this golf club spinsistency was introduced
Speaker 1: with G four twenty five. When you saw spinsistency in
Speaker 1: those clubs, how did you tweak it, change it and
Speaker 1: prove it when you guys got to G four thirty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it got a lot more complex when we put
Speaker 3: it in the driver because you know, there's just so
Speaker 3: much more at stake there, the balls being hit further. Uh,
Speaker 3: there's a lot more optimization. Really fun to do that project.
Speaker 3: It's leaning on our three D motion capture system FOCAL.
Speaker 3: It's looking at how different players deliver the face to path.
Speaker 3: It's running a lot of models of Okay, what if
Speaker 3: we change the face curvature by this much, this much,
Speaker 3: and we actually have different face curvature on our different models.
Speaker 3: Because let's say, for the faster speed players at very
Speaker 3: high ball speeds, if they hit it off the tow,
Speaker 3: they're going to curve the ball more because their ball
Speaker 3: speed is higher, like the impact that that gear effect
Speaker 3: and then in the impact on the spin ax is
Speaker 3: going to be different than players that swing it slower.
Speaker 3: So we actually have different face curvatures, different levels of
Speaker 3: sponsistency on the different models, and we continue to refine that.
Speaker 3: So we gained a lot of confidence with the four
Speaker 3: to twenty five. We refine it even further with the
Speaker 3: four point thirty, both on bring it into the driver,
Speaker 3: which was a game changer. I think it's one of
Speaker 3: the kind of hidden secrets of the G four to
Speaker 3: thirty drivers, that sponsistency, which means you don't have to
Speaker 3: hit the center of the face more often. We're fitting
Speaker 3: players into longer lank drivers. You know. We talked about
Speaker 3: that a little bit with Victor when we talked to him.
Speaker 3: And then the fairway wood has been unbelievable, and I
Speaker 3: think it's not only the three wood has been an
Speaker 3: amazing club on the PGA tour, but then just bringing
Speaker 3: that into what does that mean on the five wood,
Speaker 3: seven wood, nine wood scenario, we're that same problem exition.
Speaker 3: You don't always hit it perfect right and you want
Speaker 3: that tight, stable flight and that's been a downside to
Speaker 3: fairwy woods that players in the past, including better players,
Speaker 3: like eh fairwywoods hybrids, there's too much distance variability, and
Speaker 3: sponsistency solves that. So now you can hit that number.
Speaker 3: Now you want the seven wood for the higher flight,
Speaker 3: but now you can hit that number with more predictability,
Speaker 3: more reliability, and that I think that's been also one
Speaker 3: of the secret ingredients on the high lofted fairywoods which
Speaker 3: have grown in popularity out there Kent.
Speaker 1: When you introduced these clubs, Marty was talking about going
Speaker 1: to Vegas and showcasing the new clubs to the tour players.
Speaker 4: I've been to the.
Speaker 1: Proving grounds, I've been fit multiple times at paying One
Speaker 1: of my favorite parts is the explanation of these golf
Speaker 1: clubs before you take them out and hit them. Do you, guys,
Speaker 1: ever not tell tour players what's going on, just to
Speaker 1: see the reaction to something like sponsistency Where in the
Speaker 1: air there's smart enough golfers and they're good enough to
Speaker 1: almost understand what they're hitting when they're hitting it, and
Speaker 1: they're seeing those types of results.
Speaker 5: Yeah, a lot of the times when we introduce new products,
Speaker 5: we're going to build it to either exactly to their
Speaker 5: spec or get with the engineering team and just like
Speaker 5: don't let us know, hey, guys, you might need a
Speaker 5: half degree west loft or have to agree more loft.
Speaker 5: And then we really like to get that raw initial
Speaker 5: reaction and learn from them. They're the best players in
Speaker 5: the world, right so I want to give Victor Hobin
Speaker 5: and Tony Feenaw that driver, have them hit it three
Speaker 5: or four times, and then have them come back to me,
Speaker 5: what do you like, what you don't like? What are
Speaker 5: you seeing it's different? And then that's how I think,
Speaker 5: you know, we get better, is that we take you know,
Speaker 5: we're not trying to change what we do in our drivers.
Speaker 2: I've worked here ten years. I feel like we've had
Speaker 2: the same.
Speaker 5: Goal in our drivers, and we've just finally we just
Speaker 5: keep making it a little bit better every every cycle.
Speaker 2: And I think part of that is the feedback we
Speaker 2: get from those guys.
Speaker 1: KO with the with the seven would because Martin'd hinted
Speaker 1: at it, and I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the lofted woods with you specifically, because obviously you're
Speaker 1: out there with the tour players. How many seven Woods
Speaker 1: did you guys carry on the truck six years ago,
Speaker 1: like were there were Was there a seven wood on
Speaker 1: the truck?
Speaker 5: Yes, So I have to give credit Christian Pane, who
Speaker 5: runs the tour department now.
Speaker 2: He's kind of like the godfather of the seven wood.
Speaker 5: He played one in Japan when he played, and he
Speaker 5: had great success with it, and I remember, I believe
Speaker 5: it was the US Open at Marion. He built one
Speaker 5: for every single player and a bunch of guys were like, oh,
Speaker 5: out of the rough, I can hit this. This is
Speaker 5: so much easier to hit into greens on par five,
Speaker 5: and you can fact check me. I believe Hunter Mayhon
Speaker 5: took out his six nine that week and played all
Speaker 5: of his woods three, five, and seven because he's like,
Speaker 5: I don't need a six irod. This course is short,
Speaker 5: I never hit it, and this seven wood is so valuable.
Speaker 5: So we've been doing fairy woods for my entire that
Speaker 5: seven wood for my entire time on tour, which is
Speaker 5: coming up on eight years, I think, And that's because Christian,
Speaker 5: you know, he really loved it when he played and
Speaker 5: he saw the value and it's credit to him to
Speaker 5: get us to have so many in play.
Speaker 2: But we have, so we have a ton in play
Speaker 2: Now from even that standpoint, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, is it rarer to find a tour player now
Speaker 1: that's not playing a third would?
Speaker 4: I mean, I just.
Speaker 1: Feel like it was always standard to have two head
Speaker 1: covers in your bag, and then you'd occasionally run into
Speaker 1: guys that would have three and four. Now it feels
Speaker 1: like it's rare to see a bag that just has
Speaker 1: two head covers.
Speaker 5: I mean, on our staff, I can, I'll speak to
Speaker 5: our staff. I'll call it thirty guys. I would say
Speaker 5: almost all thirty have a seven would and on a
Speaker 5: week to week The cool thing that's happened over the
Speaker 5: last two years, and I think it's because of how
Speaker 5: much better the product has would come. Speaking to Marty's
Speaker 5: point on that four thirty and this consistency and the
Speaker 5: ability to hit the shot because we've made the seven
Speaker 5: would so much better and it still has all the
Speaker 5: benefits that did in the past. I would say, week
Speaker 5: to week play, we have twenty in play. Almost everybody
Speaker 5: plays it on a week to week basis.
Speaker 1: Marty, how's your bag changed? I mean, like personally for you,
Speaker 1: I mean, what is your what was your bag like
Speaker 1: a decade to go versus now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think a decade to co, I was,
Speaker 3: you know, always playing a hybrid. So it's like driver
Speaker 3: three wood hybrid, then four iron. Now I love having
Speaker 3: multiple options between my three wood and my four iron,
Speaker 3: and even my foreign is kind of like we'll call
Speaker 3: it technology and fusion because I'm playing the you know
Speaker 3: I five twenty five that has a little more ball speed.
Speaker 3: I play it with retrospecs so I can launch it high.
Speaker 3: But then I will mix up playing hybrid five wood,
Speaker 3: seven wood or our crossover it depending on the course.
Speaker 3: So I carry a lot of clubs in there. They're
Speaker 3: all kind of dialed in, and I love being able
Speaker 3: to swap them and and that's what I've loved about
Speaker 3: these high lofted ferry these these high lofted ferrywoods, and
Speaker 3: even our hybrid option has consistency built into it as well.
Speaker 3: And I think Shane, we've talked about that. As you
Speaker 3: got your your irons fly the lowest, give you some
Speaker 3: different options with the flatter face or the crossover that's
Speaker 3: doing that with the flatter face. Then you got hybrids
Speaker 3: go medium high. Been great for a lot of players,
Speaker 3: and we see a lot of like you know, our
Speaker 3: LPGA tour players, for example, playing all the way up
Speaker 3: through our six hybrid and replacing six irons, which is awesome.
Speaker 3: Even the better players are doing that because of the spinsistency.
Speaker 3: That has solved that distance control issue. That's the biggest
Speaker 3: thing for golfers to realize out there, like, oh, hybrids
Speaker 3: go left or once in a while, I get the
Speaker 3: flyer that goes over. We've kind of solved that, so
Speaker 3: give it a shot, give it a chance, even in
Speaker 3: the hybrids. And then having those high lofted fairwywood options.
Speaker 3: And one thing I wanted to ask Ko about this
Speaker 3: was how you use length to fit for spin or
Speaker 3: control with those high lofted fairwoods. Because I'm going down
Speaker 3: the list of our tour players that have played a
Speaker 3: seven wood or or five wood. You know Tyrell Victor
Speaker 3: plated at the Masters. Maybe we could talk about that
Speaker 3: a little bit, Ko. You know, Mackenzie Hughes, Austin Cook,
Speaker 3: Taylor Moore, Corey Connors. All these guys are playing out
Speaker 3: seven wood at like forty one inches or let's see,
Speaker 3: Tyrell's even got his is forty and a half, so
Speaker 3: like an inch and a half short of our our
Speaker 3: standard length. How do you use length. Is that fitting
Speaker 3: lever to kind of dial in distance, launch and spin
Speaker 3: in the high loft of fairy woods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 5: I think that's actually kind of the secret to how
Speaker 5: we do it out there. That forty one inches has
Speaker 5: really become a great spot for launch angle. If you
Speaker 5: get it forty one inches in about nineteen degrees of
Speaker 5: actual waft, Guys start to launch it between nine and
Speaker 5: eleven degrees, and that initial lower launch angle makes guys
Speaker 5: a lot more comfortable with the club because all the
Speaker 5: resistance we get from it is Like Victor Hobbn's a
Speaker 5: good example. He's like, I'm like, dude, I think you
Speaker 5: could use a seven wood at Major's or really firm
Speaker 5: golf courses. And he's just his apprehension was that I
Speaker 5: was just gonna go so high, Kenn. It's just gonna
Speaker 5: go so high into the wind. I can't hit it.
Speaker 5: So it's not gonna be very versatile, right, because he
Speaker 5: just has this idea that's going to peek out if
Speaker 5: there's five miles in his face, it's not going to
Speaker 5: go the distance he needs. Well, at the shorter length
Speaker 5: and the little reduction in waft using the loft sleeve.
Speaker 5: They're launching so low relative to the loft of the
Speaker 5: club that they can hit penetrated flights if they turn
Speaker 5: it over. They get that, you know, they get The
Speaker 5: sweet spot on the seven wood is get him to
Speaker 5: forty four hundred RPMs of spin on a straight shot.
Speaker 5: And that's how Hatton got a little bit more reduced
Speaker 5: in length because he was over spinning it a little bit,
Speaker 5: so instead of taking off more waft, we just cut
Speaker 5: it down, reduces the launch, reduces the spin a little bit.
Speaker 5: You get him around forty four to forty six hundred
Speaker 5: on the straight ball. Well, then the draw spin at
Speaker 5: about four thousand, and it can go anywhere upwards like
Speaker 5: two sixty for those guys, and then you can still
Speaker 5: like swap a cutout there at five thousand, and that
Speaker 5: one goes about two forty, So then you're covering twenty
Speaker 5: yards of coverable yardage on the PGA tour. There's no
Speaker 5: other club in your bag that can really do that
Speaker 5: effectively as that seven.
Speaker 3: Would such a great it's just such a great fitting lever,
Speaker 3: I think for all of our fitters out there, of
Speaker 3: you know, why does going shorter work? You know, it's
Speaker 3: reducing the clubbet speed a little bit when you go shorter,
Speaker 3: and then when you go shorter, you can play the
Speaker 3: ball a little bit further back and you deliver with
Speaker 3: less dynamic loft, little more handle, lean at impact, so
Speaker 3: to speak. It's just a great use case. So it
Speaker 3: doesn't mean it's for everybody. Ko I think the flip side,
Speaker 3: we were talking about Cameron Champ who doesn't need a
Speaker 3: seven wood, but he plays a five wood is his
Speaker 3: three wood. I think a five wood maybe in the
Speaker 3: Big minus or something. Obviously, he's always had to play
Speaker 3: a lot of loft on his driver because his angle
Speaker 3: of attack is more down. You know, we have Corey
Speaker 3: Bacon on our team who plays a twelve degree driver
Speaker 3: as driver, and he's always played a five wood and
Speaker 3: he hits it way further than my three wood. Tell
Speaker 3: us a little bit about maybe about some of those
Speaker 3: guys who are playing a five wood and maybe cam
Speaker 3: is is the main one there as their three wood.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Cameron's definitely he does that on a day to
Speaker 5: day basis just because you know, it does help that
Speaker 5: he has so much clubhead speed and ball speed, so
Speaker 5: that five would still going probably two eighty five for Cameron.
Speaker 5: But the nice thing about the five wood that we
Speaker 5: do for Austin Cook will do it. If he gets
Speaker 5: a course that's actually a little bit softer, he'll go
Speaker 5: five wood. And other guys have done it from time
Speaker 5: to time, just when their swing gets off a little bit.
Speaker 5: Because one of the things that most guys hate on
Speaker 5: tours if they get under it and behind it and
Speaker 5: they can't get off the right side. So sometimes guys
Speaker 5: would do a five would just like, hey, I don't
Speaker 5: want to, you know, get under it and flip it
Speaker 5: over there. I just want to get a five wood
Speaker 5: and smash down on it, and you know, if it
Speaker 5: spins a little bit more, I'm okay. So that's one
Speaker 5: way that we use the five wood is just give
Speaker 5: guys some waft and with the consistency of the five wood,
Speaker 5: and when you turn it down in that wat suiteve,
Speaker 5: it's not like they spend that much more. There's only
Speaker 5: about a you can get a five would to spin
Speaker 5: out just a couple hundred RPMs more than our three wood.
Speaker 1: Marty, you mentioned that you carry a lot of clubs
Speaker 1: when you play competitive golf. I was thinking as you
Speaker 1: were talking, I know you probably have status with an airline,
Speaker 1: But what's this bagway.
Speaker 4: In an ad?
Speaker 1: I mean, are we like, are we nearing sixty five
Speaker 1: seventy pounds as we check in?
Speaker 3: Shane one of Okay, here's the golf hack right here.
Speaker 3: And I don't know if you do this, but I
Speaker 3: put a luggage, you know, one of those luggage scales.
Speaker 3: I have like a garage storage up top, and I
Speaker 3: hang it up there, and anytime I packed my bag, boom,
Speaker 3: I hang it on there and make sure it's at
Speaker 3: forty nine point nine, you know. So that's a little
Speaker 3: golf at for all the golfers out there.
Speaker 1: You're like, I don't need this extra sleeve of balls.
Speaker 1: It'll be okay. I'll just hit the same balls in
Speaker 1: the practice round. Always as stress. By the way, when
Speaker 1: you go to the airport put the bag for like
Speaker 1: a six or seven day golf trip and it's like
Speaker 1: this is gonna peak fifty.
Speaker 3: I think, exactly, yeah, you got you gotta you gotta
Speaker 3: have that scale at home and optimize it. And I
Speaker 3: usually end up putting training aids, balls, all that heavy
Speaker 3: stuff and bag number two.
Speaker 4: Over there and maybe carry on bag three.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: That's the key.
Speaker 5: You can even if it gets close, you can pop
Speaker 5: off all your heads nowadays that three heads and see
Speaker 5: a couple of pounds get those Yeah, I mean it
Speaker 5: can't go in at fifty one.
Speaker 2: That's just where we live.
Speaker 4: It can't get that. You can't do it. Ko, I
Speaker 4: wanted to ask you.
Speaker 1: We've talked seven woods and we dipped into the five woods.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the nine wood revolution because it
Speaker 1: feels like we're moving in that direction as well, where
Speaker 1: you're gonna see more tour players to go more loft
Speaker 1: on the woods than less loft.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So we've actually we've had probably i'll say five to
Speaker 5: ten nine woods in play over the last couple of years,
Speaker 5: and it's it basically comes.
Speaker 2: At extreme course setups.
Speaker 5: Okay, so like you get a course with super high
Speaker 5: wing foot already played there. We had a couple of
Speaker 5: guys put in nine woods that just it was just
Speaker 5: like I can hack this thing out of rough from
Speaker 5: one eighty to two hundred, and I can't do that
Speaker 5: with any other cup of my bag. So I don't
Speaker 5: need this four iron or seven wood even I'm just
Speaker 5: gonna play this club. And so when I get in
Speaker 5: that super thick rough, I can at least hack this
Speaker 5: down the fairway. I think Taylor Moore played one at
Speaker 5: Tory Pines for the same reason. It's such a long
Speaker 5: golf course that his seven wood was irrelevant. So just
Speaker 5: put the nine wood into play so that you can
Speaker 5: hack it down when you hit it in that primary rough.
Speaker 4: Kenton, what's a tour player hit a nine wood like?
Speaker 1: Not not a camp Champ, not a Tony Fenale, but
Speaker 1: what is like a middling tour player, middle and average
Speaker 1: distance tour player hit a nine wood, It's.
Speaker 5: Probably gonna go about two twenty five, two thirty, Okay.
Speaker 5: The coolest thing about nine woods in a tour player's
Speaker 5: hand is it's I mean, what is it? Twenty three
Speaker 5: is degrees of lots and we build them at forty
Speaker 5: inches with like a telephone pole shaft. They can't if
Speaker 5: they hit it to twenty seven like solid. They can't
Speaker 5: hit it to twenty nine like it just has like
Speaker 5: a governor on it because of all the loft. It's awesome,
Speaker 5: like they just it only will go to twenty seven.
Speaker 3: I gotta try it. That's on my list, man. I'm
Speaker 3: making a note. Tried nine wood.
Speaker 1: I mean, Marty, I mean you just add another add
Speaker 1: another club to the back. I mean, this is just
Speaker 1: one more thing you got to put into the travel bag.
Speaker 1: It's just again, I just go back to the I
Speaker 1: just find the waves of the golf technology where it
Speaker 1: was everybody played a hybrid, and then it was then
Speaker 1: it was driving irons and crossovers, and now the lofted
Speaker 1: woods and Marty going back to what we started the
Speaker 1: conversation with, a lot of this is due to the
Speaker 1: technology involved in these golf clubs, where now you can
Speaker 1: lean into other areas of your golf bag that you
Speaker 1: didn't know existed, because they're going to perform more consistently
Speaker 1: than they did fifteen to twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, Shane. I think I think one of the
Speaker 3: fun things for the listener that I think you've heard
Speaker 3: from me is very optimistic that we can keep making
Speaker 3: golf clubs easier to hit, right. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of I think a lot of golfers out there like, oh,
Speaker 3: the manufacturers are They're all constrained by all these rules.
Speaker 3: What more can they do? That is the furthest thing
Speaker 3: from the truth, Like we are doing things like sponsistency
Speaker 3: is a really innovative way to improve the face stability
Speaker 3: and to improve your spin consistency. I mean, one of
Speaker 3: the biggest things I remember going back to Camp Champ
Speaker 3: there in Vegas, Ko was he was there, he had
Speaker 3: the force, he had the quad, and Sean Foley was
Speaker 3: with him, so he had the quad shomp foling there
Speaker 3: hitting the four to thirty driver and his spin range.
Speaker 3: None of his drives changed spin by more than like
Speaker 3: one hundred RPMs. And I was there for like twenty
Speaker 3: or thirty straight t balls, and I'm going.
Speaker 4: Holy moly.
Speaker 3: So if the golfer's out there are there to go
Speaker 3: and in, you're gonna get a fitting. Look at that
Speaker 3: spin range. Look at how high your spin is with
Speaker 3: your GAMER driver, how low it is, or or for
Speaker 3: the techi's out there, look at this number that says
Speaker 3: plus or minus of spin, so you'll get your spin.
Speaker 3: You have your grouping. That plus or minus of spin
Speaker 3: is your spinsistency. That's how tight your window is. So
Speaker 3: your GAMER might be like plus or minus five hundred
Speaker 3: plus or minus four hundred. That means one time your
Speaker 3: spin might be thirty two hundred. Then it goes to
Speaker 3: twenty two hundred with the four to thirty you'll go
Speaker 3: in there and evaluate this and you might see your
Speaker 3: average spin being twenty six. Your high might be twenty eight,
Speaker 3: your low might be twenty four. That's that tight window,
Speaker 3: and we're just it's so fun shame to keep passing
Speaker 3: along those things to the golfer. And that's a real
Speaker 3: practical way for the fitters and the golfers out there
Speaker 3: to measure that in your fitting environment.
Speaker 1: Marty, I don't know if you have these numbers in
Speaker 1: front of you, So if you don't, you can obviously
Speaker 1: discard the question. But we talk a lot about spin,
Speaker 1: and we always urge people, if you gonna get fit,
Speaker 1: go find a pink fitter in your area, lean into them,
Speaker 1: lean into their their knowledge and the basis of what
Speaker 1: they have at their disposal. But let's say somebody doesn't
Speaker 1: do that. What is an average spin or an let's say,
Speaker 1: optimal spin for an average player. So let's say if
Speaker 1: you hit it two fifty to two sixty off the T,
Speaker 1: two seventy two ninety off the T, what should the
Speaker 1: spin look like with the driver?
Speaker 3: Shane, that man, that's a great question, and it's it's
Speaker 3: I think we want to encourage everybody now that fitting
Speaker 3: environments are so easy to find. We could give you
Speaker 3: a general number, but it's it's highly dependent on your
Speaker 3: club speed, which we could get from that distance range.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: But the other ingredient that is mandatory to know is
Speaker 3: your angle of attack. Right, You got to know your
Speaker 3: angle of attack, and that's hard to see with the
Speaker 3: naked eye. And now I think we're living in an
Speaker 3: age that's super easy to go find that out because
Speaker 3: all of our fitters out there have launch monitors that
Speaker 3: can measure that, and they have access to tools like
Speaker 3: pink co pilot or Optimal Launch and spin chart. So yeah,
Speaker 3: dial up, go to ping dot com, click on find
Speaker 3: a fitter, type in your zip code, find a fitter
Speaker 3: nearby you that's using ping co pilot, go to them
Speaker 3: and they will get you absolutely dialed uh Kenton.
Speaker 1: Before we let you go, we've talked seven Woods, We've
Speaker 1: talked to nine Woods. Are we are we going to
Speaker 1: eleven Woods? So like, where where does this stop? Like
Speaker 1: what's that next step? Or do you think nine Wood
Speaker 1: is the stop sign?
Speaker 2: I think nine Wood is the stop sign. I think
Speaker 2: we're good there.
Speaker 4: You don't think we're gonna go to eleven? Okay?
Speaker 2: No, I don't. I don't think so.
Speaker 3: Ka Oh you don't remember. Do you remember Daniel Chopro
Speaker 3: with the jepro Elwood he put it in at a US.
Speaker 4: Open, Marty. What was that? What was that like? I mean,
Speaker 4: what what was that comparable to?
Speaker 3: That was like in eleven wood? It was like an
Speaker 3: eleven wood and it was uh now granted it was
Speaker 3: for the US Open. I forget where it was that year.
Speaker 3: And he's looking for the ultimate hack out club, you know, uh,
Speaker 3: but we have had some tour players do it. But
Speaker 3: I think I'm kind of along the lines as Ko.
Speaker 3: I think on the PGA Tour nine wood might be
Speaker 3: it for for at least the foreseeable future.
Speaker 1: Still wild again to kind of see it, I mean,
Speaker 1: I will say this. I went out a couple days
Speaker 1: ago with the family to my club and we were
Speaker 1: just kind of driving around, and it's actually excellent practice
Speaker 1: because go out late in the day, nobody's really on
Speaker 1: the golf course. My son can run around like a
Speaker 1: crazy person. My daughter now has walking wild and she
Speaker 1: kind of likes to just run around as well. And
Speaker 1: I can just kind of hit shots. You know, I've
Speaker 1: never hit a shot from here. I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: hit this shot, and I threw the seven wood in
Speaker 1: the bag because I've kind of had it in the
Speaker 1: bag and out of the bag over the last few months,
Speaker 1: and I was hitting some of those two thirty five
Speaker 1: two forty yard shots with the seven wood and it
Speaker 1: doesn't deviate much left to right, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: you really can see it fly straight high and landsoft,
Speaker 1: and depending on the conditions of the year out here
Speaker 1: in the Northeast, it is going to be in the
Speaker 1: bag for twenty twenty four. I can guarantee that. And
Speaker 1: it's fun to see Kent. How was your second appearance?
Speaker 1: What would you say? Would you like it more or less?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 1: It's not as beautiful behind you as their first appearance?
Speaker 1: But what were your thoughts on appearance number two?
Speaker 5: It was? It was just as good as the first.
Speaker 5: I do enjoy those Majors are pretty fun. So hopefully
Speaker 5: our third one can be at Augusta, because that's a
Speaker 5: pretty special that.
Speaker 4: I like that.
Speaker 1: That's nudging the Powers to be to have us do
Speaker 1: the podcast exactly at the Masters across the street, of course,
Speaker 1: but we can do it, you know, near the parking lot.
Speaker 4: Marty.
Speaker 1: A lot of fun consistency is so cool and it's
Speaker 1: so fun to dive into. And obviously this world is
Speaker 1: seven woods. As we've talked about, the popularity of these
Speaker 1: woods have blown up, and it feels like the more
Speaker 1: people I play golf with, the more I see them
Speaker 1: in the bag.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been super fun. Go out, check them out.
Speaker 3: Give fit for him. I think, if you're one of
Speaker 3: our fitters out there, don't be afraid to play around
Speaker 3: with length and G four thirty family, Shane. Thanks to
Speaker 3: Ko and in our team and in the performance of it,
Speaker 3: has taken the PGA Tour by storm. It's been the
Speaker 3: number one model played on the PGA Tour I think
Speaker 3: like nine straight weeks or something this summer, and even
Speaker 3: a few times lately. It's been over double the most
Speaker 3: popular model than some of the other models out there.
Speaker 3: So go give a shot and enjoy having very stable spin.
Speaker 4: Marty.
Speaker 1: Here's how popular G four thirty is right now. Every
Speaker 1: time I play golf these days, I'll have somebody asked
Speaker 1: to hit my driver. To the point, now I'm a lefty,
Speaker 1: they can't hit my driver. They don't really think about it.
Speaker 1: I've got to the point now where I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: reaching out to Bill and saying, you might need to
Speaker 1: send me a righty G four thirty just to have
Speaker 1: in the bag, just to have it in the golf bag.
Speaker 1: And you go, yeah, actually, you can't hit this one.
Speaker 1: You can swing this one and see the performance that
Speaker 1: we all love because it is an unbelievable golf club
Speaker 1: and it's my favorite driver to hit, and I love
Speaker 1: it so much and I can't wait to see you
Speaker 1: know what you guys have kind of in the hopper
Speaker 1: because I cannot only imagine if it improves off of
Speaker 1: G four thirty, it's going to be in every golfer's bag.
Speaker 4: Canton appreciate the time. Marty. Always great to see you.
Speaker 1: This is the Ping Proven Grounds Podcast