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 Ping Proving Grounds Podcast. I'm Shane Bacon.
Speaker 1: That is Marty Jertsen.
Speaker 3: Marty.
Speaker 1: Today, we're going to talk about something that I'm very
Speaker 1: interested in because I feel like, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of things in golf we talk about our age
Speaker 1: old debates. I feel like this is a exact debate.
Speaker 1: This isn't age old. I mean, for years, the thought
Speaker 1: process for professional golfers and good players was get the
Speaker 1: ball in the fairway. You think about US Opens and
Speaker 1: you know tough golf courses that we play each and
Speaker 1: every week, and players were dedicated to find the fairway first,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of irons off tas and
Speaker 1: that mentality over the last decade or two has totally
Speaker 1: flipped and you're seeing I feel like it kind of
Speaker 1: started back in the Tiger VJ days, when VJ would
Speaker 1: just pound driver up fairways. They didn't care where it went.
Speaker 1: And it's he's on from find the fairway, and that's
Speaker 1: the benefit to beat it off the t as far
Speaker 1: as you can hit it and go find it, and
Speaker 1: that's the advantage. So today I want to discuss with
Speaker 1: you driving in terms of distance versus accuracy and what
Speaker 1: is more important. And I want to start with this,
Speaker 1: when did technology shift? When did the idea of you
Speaker 1: guys building golf clubs for distance in theory over accuracy,
Speaker 1: or maybe distance being more important than in theory accuracy
Speaker 1: shift like it did for the modern day player.
Speaker 3: This topic is so juicy, and I think you brought
Speaker 3: up the examples of VJ and Tiger. Tiger was that
Speaker 3: great example where he was like one hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 3: or one hundred and eightieth in fairways hit driving accuracy,
Speaker 3: but he was obviously he was hitting it on average
Speaker 3: at the time back in Tiger two thousand days or whatever,
Speaker 3: like thirty yards twenty five thirty yards past the to
Speaker 3: or average, and he had driving advantage. So I think
Speaker 3: it was that culmination of like, okay, Tiger's doing this,
Speaker 3: and then that con that metric of strokes gained and
Speaker 3: we got to get we all the industry has to
Speaker 3: give Mark Brody tons of credit for that absolutely writing
Speaker 3: his book. So it's like, okay, then we're still kind
Speaker 3: of connecting dots on those things to develop that kind
Speaker 3: of you know, to answer this question really is and
Speaker 3: it's really I think this is why I love doing
Speaker 3: this podcast. It's not a binary answer. It's like what's
Speaker 3: more important distance or accuracy in the answer. It's not
Speaker 3: yes or no, right, this is there's nuance between those things.
Speaker 3: And what's really cool is that we've used some of that,
Speaker 3: like those analytics to help answer that question that we
Speaker 3: could talk about today, which is really fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I kind of go back. I'm thirty
Speaker 1: nine years old. You know, I was playing high school
Speaker 1: golf in the late nineties early two thousands, and I
Speaker 1: always felt like driving accuracy for me was the thing
Speaker 1: I struggle the most with. You know, I would always
Speaker 1: lean on the two iron. I went through a time
Speaker 1: in college and just after college, or I don't want
Speaker 1: to say I necessarily had the driver yips, but I
Speaker 1: would hit this two iron all the time off teas
Speaker 1: because I could hit it in the two fifty range,
Speaker 1: you know, as a twenty two year old, and I
Speaker 1: could live with that, and it's funny because now I
Speaker 1: feel like the most reliable club in my bag in
Speaker 1: terms of finding a fairwear having to hit a pressure
Speaker 1: pack golf shot is the Driver. I mean, the Driver
Speaker 1: has become one of my favorite clubs in terms of reliability,
Speaker 1: and it's just so wild to think of, like the
Speaker 1: old Shane and the way I thought about the driver
Speaker 1: versus you know this twenty twenty three version where when
Speaker 1: the hole's tight, I will tee the driver a little
Speaker 1: bit lower and kind of squeeze it out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's why you're seeing all the tour guys
Speaker 3: do as well, so you're seeing the driver go straighter.
Speaker 3: It's more forgiving. I think players know that driving is
Speaker 3: super important, so they're practicing it a lot more. And
Speaker 3: then certainly a lot of as Shane, which is we
Speaker 3: can get into, is golf course dependent. I mean that
Speaker 3: two iron going down there two fifty. You come back
Speaker 3: here at Arizona and place some of these courses, and
Speaker 3: that's like the only shot that the golf that the
Speaker 3: hole gives you. Obviously, so there is a golf course
Speaker 3: dependent condition around this, which is quite fun because then
Speaker 3: we build tools to help answer that question. What's more
Speaker 3: important distancer accuracy, and today we're going to talk about
Speaker 3: this ratio of the two, Like what your golf course
Speaker 3: penalty is is a big part of that equation, that
Speaker 3: calculus for you as a golfer. But yeah, I think
Speaker 3: we've seen a lot of players just both I think
Speaker 3: embrace the analytics of it as well as the driver
Speaker 3: being more forgiving and spending more time on that technique.
Speaker 3: And I think you're seeing that kind of the modern
Speaker 3: day and what you're experiencing me and the tour players
Speaker 3: is that culmination of that intersection of both of those things.
Speaker 1: And Marty, something I do want to do during this
Speaker 1: conversation is really kind of separate maybe what a professional
Speaker 1: golfer or a really good amateur golfer might think on
Speaker 1: this topic versus that middling handicap player, because I do
Speaker 1: feel like, and maybe this is just me, I like
Speaker 1: your thoughts on this, but I feel like there's so
Speaker 1: much talk about technology in the game, and it feels
Speaker 1: like we always lean on what the pro is doing.
Speaker 1: And I've had a couple buddies in my life that
Speaker 1: when driving went from like leaning a little heavy on
Speaker 1: the spin to be a little bit more accurate to
Speaker 1: taking spin off of these drivers and launching it really
Speaker 1: high and trying to get the most out of it
Speaker 1: in terms of the way you're hitting the golf ball.
Speaker 1: You know, you see Rory McRoy swing up at the
Speaker 1: golf ball so much and launching at whatever thirteen or fourteen,
Speaker 1: and you feel like people should be doing that. And
Speaker 1: I'm interested in your thoughts on how players a ten handicap,
Speaker 1: at twelve handicap, a fifteen handicap should approach driving because
Speaker 1: it's their course dependent, Like you said, how do they
Speaker 1: play their particular golf course, but it's also maybe what
Speaker 1: suits the way they swing the golf golf club as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Shane, The way I like to frame this, the
Speaker 3: very simple, is that the goal of a driver fitting
Speaker 3: and just driving the golf ball is to maximize distance
Speaker 3: while being mindful of dispersion. Right, Because so it's like
Speaker 3: your goal is to hit as far as possible, but
Speaker 3: you want to eliminate grow tesque misses that are going
Speaker 3: to cause you penalty shots out of bounds, water, what
Speaker 3: have you. Right, So it's to maximize distance while being
Speaker 3: mindful of that dispersion. And for your club golfer, a
Speaker 3: gain of twenty yards off the tee is going to
Speaker 3: improve your strokes gain driving, ultimately lowering your score by
Speaker 3: two point three shots. So twenty yards is going to
Speaker 3: be two point three shots. If you're a PGA Tour player,
Speaker 3: twenty yards is one shot, right because your your game's
Speaker 3: already you know, everything's kind of already tightened up right,
Speaker 3: so to speak. So that shows the value of gaining
Speaker 3: distance for your club golfer is even more important from
Speaker 3: a scoring standpoint, because after you drive it down there further,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have kind of less chances to compound errors
Speaker 3: between where you drive it and getting to the green right,
Speaker 3: So it shows that there is even more importance for
Speaker 3: the club golfer to hit the ball further. Now, let's
Speaker 3: talk about accuracy. If for you to gain one shot
Speaker 3: in accuracy, which is left right dispersion, the PGA Tour player,
Speaker 3: if they tighten their their cone or their dispersion by
Speaker 3: seven yards, that would improve their strokes game driving. They
Speaker 3: would effectively save one shot around. But if you're that
Speaker 3: same eighteen handicap er club golfer player, you would have
Speaker 3: to improve your dispersion by ten yards. So you see,
Speaker 3: we got in dispersion, we got seven yards. Ten yards
Speaker 3: is one shot, but from distance we have twenty yards
Speaker 3: being one shot around or two point three. So when
Speaker 3: you kind of do the math on that ratio for
Speaker 3: your club go, it's way more important or a bigger
Speaker 3: premium even than your tour player to emphasize gaining distance.
Speaker 3: And I think that's something we even the good fitters
Speaker 3: out there might still have a little bit of that
Speaker 3: that you know, bias from the past, where hey, we
Speaker 3: need to tighten somebody's impact dispersion, We need to get
Speaker 3: you to hit more fairways. Well if somebody's already hitting
Speaker 3: it relatively straight. We've seen great success kind of shifting
Speaker 3: that mindset in your fitting to be a little bit
Speaker 3: more give yourself permission. Is the fitter to consider a
Speaker 3: driver that might go further with uh maybe even the
Speaker 3: same or a little bit more offline it could be
Speaker 3: more beneficial for the player.
Speaker 1: What's been so interesting about getting fit in my time
Speaker 1: with ping is you'll get in the right head, or
Speaker 1: you'll get in a head that is going to be
Speaker 1: the one you're gonna use kind of your gamer head.
Speaker 1: And then I and again, this is why it's so
Speaker 1: important to get fit, in my opinion is then you
Speaker 1: can manipulate loft, you can manipulate shaft. There's so much
Speaker 1: to do, and I feel like so much the time
Speaker 1: golfers blaming themselves for bad shots or bad swings or
Speaker 1: to your point, dispersion issues. Right, Oh, this driver's going right,
Speaker 1: I must be coming over the top of it, or
Speaker 1: I must be doing something to pull this golf shot.
Speaker 1: And it could simply be that shaft isn't right in
Speaker 1: your golf club. And one of my favorite parts about
Speaker 1: the fitting process is getting the head dialed, is getting
Speaker 1: the loft dialed, and then going through those processes with
Speaker 1: the shaft, because that shaft can do so much in
Speaker 1: terms of kind of tightening things up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the shaft's a big deal. Shame when it comes
Speaker 3: to when we're talking about that this topic of distance
Speaker 3: and accuracy, because you can use the shaft and the
Speaker 3: both the stiffness properties and all the weight and center
Speaker 3: of gravity properties to change that left right dispersion right.
Speaker 3: And a lot of times what you want to do
Speaker 3: is maybe not change the shaft and the balance point
Speaker 3: to get more draw bias to eliminate that right miss,
Speaker 3: and then your psychology is freed up. You can have
Speaker 3: more of your natural release pattern right type of thing,
Speaker 3: and then you can swing harder and you hit it further,
Speaker 3: and you know that that one out of four, one
Speaker 3: out of five foul ball to the right is no
Speaker 3: longer going to be in there. So a lot of
Speaker 3: times it's gaining freedom from a specific miss type of thing.
Speaker 3: But one of the fun things Shane and shafts, we're
Speaker 3: talking about the concept of shafts here. The topic shafts
Speaker 3: is how do we use shaft technology to influence this
Speaker 3: distance versus accuracy topic? And a big thing that we've
Speaker 3: done a lot of folks. I think for a while
Speaker 3: we were a little controversial because we had our driver
Speaker 3: at forty five and three quarters inches standard length right,
Speaker 3: and everyone's like, oh, you know, the tour players are
Speaker 3: playing drivers that are forty four and a half. You
Speaker 3: need a tighten dispersion, you go shorter, you're gonna hit
Speaker 3: it straighter. All these things are kind of floating out there.
Speaker 3: We kept doing the research and we were like, well,
Speaker 3: we don't really see a compelling reason to go shorter
Speaker 3: as our stock length. We see that at a relatively
Speaker 3: longer length the golfer's gonna have their is getting a
Speaker 3: little technical, but shift their swinger actually a little more
Speaker 3: to the right. They're gonna hit more up on the ball.
Speaker 3: You mentioned Rory hitting more up a pod, more positive
Speaker 3: angle of attack. Swinging more right is generally what a
Speaker 3: lot of the club golfers that come over the top
Speaker 3: and hit the wipe ye kind of slice out their need.
Speaker 3: But how do we have that longer length without losing
Speaker 3: without the club getting too heavy? Right? That's kind of
Speaker 3: the where we needed to innovate, and we spend a
Speaker 3: lot of time. We've evolved this technology over the last
Speaker 3: decade plus of having super counterbalance shafts. So you look
Speaker 3: at our quote unquote stock shaft we like to call
Speaker 3: them proprietary, is called the Alta CB, and that CB
Speaker 3: stands for counterbalance, Okay, and that really is the secret
Speaker 3: sauchine of like the G four to thirty driver ALTA
Speaker 3: shafts being forty five and three quarter, that's the swing
Speaker 3: weight still perfect for the player. It's D two D
Speaker 3: three whatever we need to do to optimize it, and
Speaker 3: we still have a lot of mass in the head
Speaker 3: so you can go longer, doesn't feel too heavy. To
Speaker 3: the golfer, but we still have that mask to get momentum.
Speaker 3: That's kind of all this is kind of working towards
Speaker 3: that concept. We're putting a premium on our default build
Speaker 3: to be biased for distance and while being mindful of accuracy.
Speaker 1: All right, Marty, take me back to your initial designs
Speaker 1: with the driver, because I can only imagine that as
Speaker 1: you're designing drivers and you're going through that process, which
Speaker 1: is so cool to see. I mean, you're literally building
Speaker 1: these new clubs. You're you're finding I mean you've told
Speaker 1: the turbulator story on this podcast before, but you're finding
Speaker 1: ways to change the look or the feel or obviously
Speaker 1: the design of a driver. What are you looking for
Speaker 1: as you're going through that design process in terms of
Speaker 1: both accuracy and distance, Like what are the numbers that
Speaker 1: gets you excited? Are you gaining the five yards? Ten yards?
Speaker 1: You know, ping man swinging this thing? And it's a
Speaker 1: little tighter dispersion, like what are those numbers that you
Speaker 1: guys are looking to see before you maybe take it
Speaker 1: to your boss and go, hey, I think this is
Speaker 1: the one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like trying to eke out some improvements. It
Speaker 3: starts in the design world where we're just doing things
Speaker 3: on the computer, Shane, It's like just modeling. Okay, if
Speaker 3: I change this geometry, if I could get the wall
Speaker 3: thickness thinner in this one area, if I can save
Speaker 3: some weight from the crown, if I can save some
Speaker 3: weight from the face, I can move that weight to
Speaker 3: move the center of gravity lower and deeper. And when
Speaker 3: I do that, the moment of inertia goes up. And
Speaker 3: then we know predictively because we've made like we've made
Speaker 3: some really cool prototypes here, Shane, where we can have
Speaker 3: the same CG, but we can vary the moment of inertia.
Speaker 3: We'll put on the robot, we hit it all over
Speaker 3: the face, and we can kind of prove that hypothesis
Speaker 3: that higher moment of inertia will help you hit it straighter. Right.
Speaker 3: But the challenge is, and this is where I think
Speaker 3: we have really done it ping, is we want to
Speaker 3: have high MOI. And this was kind of a thought
Speaker 3: in the market place for a long time. Oh, HIGHMI
Speaker 3: drivers always spin a lot, right, Well, well, we broke
Speaker 3: through that, right, you can have a high MOI driver
Speaker 3: that spins low. It's what our LST is. And some
Speaker 3: of these other things. So we're really trying to move
Speaker 3: center gravity low, deep, but the right amount while maximizing MOI,
Speaker 3: and then the payoff to the golfer is being able
Speaker 3: to measure that both in player testing where we see
Speaker 3: increases in ball speed, distance, carry and dispersion, and also
Speaker 3: put it on the robot. And we put on the robot,
Speaker 3: we can heat map the face, hit it all over
Speaker 3: the face in a nine position test and see, Okay, yes,
Speaker 3: I improve the moment of the inertia on this driver design,
Speaker 3: or I change the face shaping like our sponsistency, and
Speaker 3: we see higher ball speed across the face, we see
Speaker 3: better dispersion, and then connect those dots. Ultimately, Shane, it's
Speaker 3: the player testing because that's the real world what me
Speaker 3: and you and our golfer out there is going to experience.
Speaker 3: That is the most fun to look at in our
Speaker 3: data analysis.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: I know you've already kind of answered a little bit
Speaker 1: of this, But let's say Guy A hits fourteen of
Speaker 1: fourteen fairways, averages two to sixty off the tee versus
Speaker 1: Guy B hits seven of fourteen fairways, and it's at
Speaker 1: three hundred yards off the tee who is at the
Speaker 1: advantage in golf in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if you're on an average penalty golf course,
Speaker 3: that player that's forty yards down there. For those same
Speaker 3: reasons we talked about, as long as as long as
Speaker 3: those seven that missed the fairway aren't crazy exotically offline, right, So,
Speaker 3: as long as your dispersion grows kind of like a cone.
Speaker 3: That's a good way to kind of think of it,
Speaker 3: is there's this cone out there, and that ratio of
Speaker 3: distance to accuracy for the everyday golfer. We kind of
Speaker 3: talked about that a little bit. What those numbers are
Speaker 3: is two to one. So for every two yards you
Speaker 3: gain in distance, you can live with one more yard
Speaker 3: of offline. What does this mean? If you go get fit,
Speaker 3: if you go take your game or driver, then you're
Speaker 3: gonna go try our G four thirty with the alta
Speaker 3: CB might be a little longer than what you're used to.
Speaker 3: You got the launch conditions dialed in. It's twenty yards further. Right,
Speaker 3: if your dispersion. Most of the time we see our
Speaker 3: dispersion decreases because of all of our technology and inertia
Speaker 3: and things of that nature. But if your dispersion is
Speaker 3: is it doesn't grow by more than ten yards right,
Speaker 3: you gain twenty down the fairway. As long as you
Speaker 3: didn't grow by more than ten yards of offline left
Speaker 3: or right, that will be a positive from a strokes
Speaker 3: gain driving or a scoring standpoint. And quite frankly, it's
Speaker 3: like it's fun. You can hit it by your buddies
Speaker 3: and things of that nature. So what's really cool is
Speaker 3: that when you can hit it twenty yards further, and
Speaker 3: this is what we quite often see, and also keep
Speaker 3: your dispersion or tighten it, then you're really gonna compound
Speaker 3: those gains. And that's where you get more into the
Speaker 3: You know, your your driver fit gained you three or
Speaker 3: four shots around. We see that very often.
Speaker 1: How do you find more distance all the time? I
Speaker 1: think this is something that consumers ask a lot about
Speaker 1: a new driver. Yeah, you know, this is the longest
Speaker 1: driver ever made. This one's going longer. I can tell
Speaker 1: you four thirty is longer than four to twenty five.
Speaker 1: I mean that's been my personal experience.
Speaker 3: It just is.
Speaker 1: But how do you keep finding this distance in these
Speaker 1: drivers while also maintaining a regulated driver by the USGA
Speaker 1: and the RNA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Shane. For us, it's all about compound interest.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's stacking things. It's okay we come out
Speaker 3: with a new technology, let's not take away something that
Speaker 3: we already gave the golfer, right, and that is really
Speaker 3: hard to do. It sounds easy, but it's really hard
Speaker 3: to do so, and looking at the driver we were talking about,
Speaker 3: shafts is a system. So our counterbalance shafts is a
Speaker 3: super important part for most golfers that are playing our
Speaker 3: all to CB at forty five and three quarter, optimizing
Speaker 3: the headway and being able to deliver that to the golfer.
Speaker 3: So I think stacking things like the shaft the system
Speaker 3: design going a little bit longer, stacking with the G
Speaker 3: four to thirty. It's the thinnest face we've ever had,
Speaker 3: and a lot of that is borne through our modeling techniques,
Speaker 3: a lot of super compute and things we're doing on
Speaker 3: the golf physics side. It's s consistency because you don't
Speaker 3: want to go out and pick the driver that you
Speaker 3: hit the furthest with your one best shot. That's something
Speaker 3: that I think you've seen our fitters and golfers get
Speaker 3: more used to is go out and evaluate drivers and
Speaker 3: look at your dispersion on all ten or twenty shots
Speaker 3: and your average distance on all those hits, because things
Speaker 3: like sponsistency, you're going to give you more distance when
Speaker 3: you hit it low on the face. So Shane, when
Speaker 3: you're experiencing the four thirty going further, me too. A
Speaker 3: lot of it is we're not hitting it perfect. Every
Speaker 3: time your team at low you're hitting your stingers out there,
Speaker 3: they're going further. A lot of that is impacts that
Speaker 3: aren't perfectly centered right, So it's adding that up. It's
Speaker 3: adding moment of inertiaup. It's more ball speed through materials,
Speaker 3: face design, more clubheits be through turbulators. You start stacking
Speaker 3: all these things up and that's where you get that
Speaker 3: compound interest and you can have drivers and we're we're
Speaker 3: doing it. We're seeing in real life that keep going
Speaker 3: a little bit further and or a little bit straight
Speaker 3: every time we launch one out in the market.
Speaker 1: How much is the sweet spot focused in design versus
Speaker 1: around the face? Because you know, like that hot toe
Speaker 1: has been a big top topic over the last few years.
Speaker 2: You know, if you hit the ball.
Speaker 1: On that top left part of the driver, it's a mishit,
Speaker 1: but it can still go plenty far. That was not
Speaker 1: the case, you know, fifteen twenty years ago. How much
Speaker 1: I don't know. You mentioned the nine spots on the
Speaker 1: driver you do with the robot test team. How much
Speaker 1: is the focus on not just the sweet spots in
Speaker 1: terms of where you're hitting these golf clubs specifically a driver,
Speaker 1: but the mishits, Like, how can you gain the most
Speaker 1: out of a mishit for the average player?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's huge, and we've done a lot of research
Speaker 3: on what does that dispersion pattern look like for the
Speaker 3: better player, what does it look like for your everyday golfer?
Speaker 3: And for your everyday golfer, that impact dispersion where you
Speaker 3: hit around the faces of the obviously way bigger. So
Speaker 3: we put more of a priority on a moment of
Speaker 3: inertia on our max driver that's going to spin the
Speaker 3: appropriate amount for that golfer, right because their impact dispersion
Speaker 3: is a little bit bigger. This gets pretty nuanced, though, Shane,
Speaker 3: because what we've come to find out in this kind
Speaker 3: of fresh research is that the tour player also benefits
Speaker 3: from super high inertia, and the reason why is because
Speaker 3: the consequence of their misses at more distance and more
Speaker 3: speed is more severe. So very high inertia driver for
Speaker 3: a high speed player is also super beneficial. I think
Speaker 3: the conclusion is high inertia and high forgiveness. Basically what
Speaker 3: your question was, impact around the face is a very
Speaker 3: big deal for all levels of golfers, and so we
Speaker 3: prioritize that through our testing that we do. I think
Speaker 3: using the CG shifter can kind of move where that
Speaker 3: perfect quote unquote sweet spot is or where the CG is,
Speaker 3: and it's a really big deal. I think we can
Speaker 3: evaluate it in the fitting process. That thought, that kind
Speaker 3: of concept of the high toe shot, which is high
Speaker 3: you know, top left of the face for you, top
Speaker 3: right of the face for me, is a little bit
Speaker 3: that that that idea that you need to hit it
Speaker 3: in the high toe to get your furthest distance has
Speaker 3: kind of gone away. It was a it was something
Speaker 3: that exists, existed when when drivers had too high of
Speaker 3: spin to be perfect if you hit it in the
Speaker 3: middle of the face. So what would happen with that
Speaker 3: high toeball You would hit it in the high toe
Speaker 3: and you would actually lose ball speed, right, Okay, but
Speaker 3: you spun it way less, and because you spun it
Speaker 3: way less, the ball would go further. So it actually
Speaker 3: wasn't the quote unquote hot spot from a ball speed standpoint,
Speaker 3: but it was the hot spot from a distance standpoint.
Speaker 3: Now we've innovated on our drivers, moved the CG lower.
Speaker 3: Now your centered hit hopefully we'll have those perfect launch conditions. Right.
Speaker 3: So if the high towball goes the furthest for you,
Speaker 3: it means that your center hit is probably too high
Speaker 3: of spin to begin with. So that's just kind of
Speaker 3: something to be mindful of in the modern day of
Speaker 3: how we're kind of trying to dial in launch and spin. Marty.
Speaker 1: There was a time in I believe it was the
Speaker 1: early two thousands and it wasn't so much a paying thing,
Speaker 1: but some other manufacturers came out with some different design
Speaker 1: golf clubs, and I think a lot of this was,
Speaker 1: as you said, you know, throwing some information into a
Speaker 1: computer and they basically you know, putting out the output.
Speaker 1: Was this design is going to make the most sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember there were triangle golf drivers, there
Speaker 1: were square drivers. Do you think we'll ever go back
Speaker 1: to that? Is there ever going to be a point
Speaker 1: where that is, again what the computer tells us makes
Speaker 1: the most sense.
Speaker 3: I think what we saw with those it was, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, yes, you had a rule, or something like,
Speaker 3: you have a rule, let's try to go right to
Speaker 3: the edge of the wall of the room. Right. So,
Speaker 3: for example, if we wanted to make the highest MOI
Speaker 3: driver from a heel toe impact standpoint, something square ish
Speaker 3: might make sense. But as a golfer Shane me and you,
Speaker 3: we don't miss our drivers on a perfectly straight line
Speaker 3: heal in tight totally. We miss them high and low
Speaker 3: and an ellipse pattern, and all of us have different
Speaker 3: ellipse patterns and shapes that are a little bit tilted.
Speaker 3: So if you get myopically focused on maximizing one thing,
Speaker 3: I think the lesson learned is that that will cost
Speaker 3: you an overall performance. So that is I think the
Speaker 3: big challenge that we're after in product development and fitting
Speaker 3: and this topic of distance versus accuracy. There's nuance to
Speaker 3: all these things, and so how do you maximize overall performance?
Speaker 3: How can you have high inertial heel toe and high
Speaker 3: inertia high low and marry those two things together. And
Speaker 3: that's where our driver's designs have kind of been geared
Speaker 3: towards that overall on the course, all around performance. You
Speaker 3: can have distance and accuracy together. It's not a it's
Speaker 3: no longer a choice like high m I H high spin,
Speaker 3: you're gonna hit it shorter, right. You can have both.
Speaker 3: You can have the ball speed, you can have the
Speaker 3: perfect launch conditions, you can have the M I. And
Speaker 3: it's all positive some and it's going to compound together.
Speaker 1: Marty, I mean shout out to the stack system for this,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure this is an answer at times. But
Speaker 1: what do you think or what do your fitters tell
Speaker 1: you when they have players come through. How often are
Speaker 1: they speaking of I want more distance versus I want
Speaker 1: to hit it straighter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I'm so.
Speaker 2: Distance right right right? I'm assuming that's the that's the
Speaker 2: point people make.
Speaker 3: Is I want to hit the ball longer, Yes, it is.
Speaker 3: I mean we do run into this scenario, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, you get some players that hit like foul balls, right,
Speaker 3: that's what you don't want, right that that's where we
Speaker 3: can do some things in the club design to help
Speaker 3: eliminate the foul balls. You might need to work on
Speaker 3: your swing a little bit as long as you're not
Speaker 3: here in the foul balls. Exactly, as long as you're
Speaker 3: not hitting the foul balls, you should be focusing on
Speaker 3: distance to accurate versus accuracy at a ratio of three
Speaker 3: to one if you're a tour player and two to
Speaker 3: one if you're a club golfer. We have some great
Speaker 3: examples of the Shane like Victor Hoblin is an awesome example.
Speaker 3: This from let's see two thousand and twenty to right now.
Speaker 3: He has gained like eight to ten yards. If you
Speaker 3: go to Data Golf, look up his data, he has
Speaker 3: gained eight to ten yards and he's lost like one
Speaker 3: or two percent accuracy, but his strokes gained driving per round.
Speaker 3: So he's an example that gained distance, lost a little
Speaker 3: bit of accuracy. But the net benefit I think is
Speaker 3: he's he is a strokes gain driving improved like point
Speaker 3: three shots around some are right in there. That's a
Speaker 3: shot of tournament right and the distance he's gained in
Speaker 3: the speed has helped his iron play. And Shane. One
Speaker 3: thing we interviewed Joaquin and we also know this about Victor.
Speaker 3: Both of them play a driver that's forty five and
Speaker 3: three quarter or Joaquin's like almost forty six, right, okay,
Speaker 3: so give yourself permission. I think for the listener out
Speaker 3: there to consider a driver over forty five in a quarter,
Speaker 3: right our tour average. I did a poll on Twitter actually,
Speaker 3: I said, hey, what do you think the average driver
Speaker 3: distance is with our tour staff? And I put like
Speaker 3: forty four, forty four and a half, forty five, forty
Speaker 3: five and a quarter or something like that, And I
Speaker 3: kind of did it in that way on purpose. The
Speaker 3: right answer is forty five and a quarter. What most
Speaker 3: people picked was forty four and a half. I cannot
Speaker 3: believe people still think the average driver length is shorter
Speaker 3: than it actually is. And again, a lot of that
Speaker 3: goes to the fact that our driver's so forgiving you
Speaker 3: can play a little bit longer, and Victor has really
Speaker 3: enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: Marty, I know you're always a guy that's trying to
Speaker 1: simplify this for the player. You're always looking at online
Speaker 1: tools and things to get to your fitters, to make
Speaker 1: it easier for someone at home to understand, because there's
Speaker 1: so much nuance that goes into these types of topics.
Speaker 1: Is there a tool you're working on or a tool
Speaker 1: you have developed that can help people kind of understand
Speaker 1: driver distance versus driving accuracy and maybe kind of marry
Speaker 1: those two things together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Shane, let me see if I can share my
Speaker 3: screen here a little bit.
Speaker 1: A reminder, by the way, these are the podcasts are
Speaker 1: all on YouTube, So if you ever want to see
Speaker 1: what Marty's talking about, if he mentions that, just go
Speaker 1: to YouTube and check it out. Because a lot of
Speaker 1: these tools are very, very helpful to understand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this one, Shane, is super cool, and this
Speaker 3: answers that nuance question like what is more important distance
Speaker 3: or accuracy? Right, so you can go into this tool.
Speaker 3: This tool is awesome. We use this tool. This is
Speaker 3: in our Pink copilot so our fitters will have access
Speaker 3: to this. We've been using it internally at the proving grounds,
Speaker 3: kind of proving it out, using it with our players,
Speaker 3: and it's basically like a strokes gained calculator to determine, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm hitting this driver a little bit further. The dispersion
Speaker 3: is this because it's hard to like take two drivers
Speaker 3: in a fitting and go simulate fairways hit or take
Speaker 3: them on the course and things of that nature. That's
Speaker 3: what tour players do. We want to build a tool
Speaker 3: that gives you that same level of access. So we
Speaker 3: built this tool. It's called Club Compare, and you can
Speaker 3: go in here and pick like, okay, I got the
Speaker 3: G four to thirty versus my gamer, and you can
Speaker 3: put in how much the distance you're hitting the four
Speaker 3: thirty and then you take this number that you can
Speaker 3: get on a launch monitor. So this is really cool.
Speaker 3: You can actually have a measurement of your dispersion and
Speaker 3: either in a track man or foresight, both of them.
Speaker 3: It's kind of this plus or minus of side or
Speaker 3: plus or minus of offline, and that gives us a
Speaker 3: quantitative metric for your left right dispersion. So you can
Speaker 3: go into this tool and put in your offline that
Speaker 3: you had with the four thirty in your fitting. They
Speaker 3: could say, okay, my gamer I came in with when
Speaker 3: a little bit shorter and the dispersion Let's say this
Speaker 3: version was the same, but you picked up like ten yards.
Speaker 3: And this also answers that question of nuance Shane, if
Speaker 3: of it's dependent on your handicap, So if you're a
Speaker 3: higher handicap golfer, it's going to have that intelligence in
Speaker 3: there that it's going to put more importance on distance
Speaker 3: relative to accuracy versus a tour player or a lower
Speaker 3: handicap golfer. So you will get right here, you see
Speaker 3: we caught. Okay, we have the same dispersion. We gain
Speaker 3: ten yards and I think I put in eighteen handicapper.
Speaker 3: That's one point one strokes gained from your distance, and
Speaker 3: obviously you have you have the same offline, So the
Speaker 3: strokes gains is not going to be an improvement and offline,
Speaker 3: but your total strokes gain is going to be one
Speaker 3: point one to eight. And we give you this little
Speaker 3: picture of on course. What does that mean from you
Speaker 3: from an Ellipse standpoint? So this tool, let's go in
Speaker 3: here real quick and say, okay, let's say if your
Speaker 3: dispersion with your gamer was also so we gained distance
Speaker 3: and decreased dispersion, you click find a winner, right and
Speaker 3: you will get Now you gain two point six strokes
Speaker 3: game driving, we have you hitting it further and tighter.
Speaker 3: So not only can you use this tool to compare
Speaker 3: your gamer versus our four to thirty if you go
Speaker 3: get fit for you can also compare I want to
Speaker 3: try the four to thirty at a longer length, different
Speaker 3: shaft versus the four to thirty with our tour shaft
Speaker 3: shorter and do that ab comparison and get some real
Speaker 3: quantitative analytics on on a driver comparison in a fitting.
Speaker 3: So our fitters here at the proving groundsmen absolutely loving
Speaker 3: this tool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for those that are listening that aren't watching
Speaker 1: this on YouTube, I mean just to kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: talk you through how simple this is. When you input,
Speaker 1: you put your handicap in, you put how difficult your
Speaker 1: golf course is. There's three options in terms of your
Speaker 1: home club and where you're playing easy, medium or hard,
Speaker 1: which is very very important obviously to understand where you're
Speaker 1: playing your golf and then from there you just basically
Speaker 1: to Marty's point, can input and use this slider device
Speaker 1: to compare the four point thirty versus the game or
Speaker 1: you're using and boom, you hit a button and it
Speaker 1: explains it both with picture and information.
Speaker 2: So uh, I love Marty. I love this stuff.
Speaker 1: I love what you're doing in terms of the technology,
Speaker 1: not just for the player but for your fitters at home,
Speaker 1: because it's not always easy to explain to golfers what
Speaker 1: you're trying to have them understand. This helps them understand
Speaker 1: that without the fitter having to slam it in their.
Speaker 3: Head exactly, Shane, and I think you brought up a
Speaker 3: good point that actually missed on the tool, is you
Speaker 3: put in your golf course difficulty. So right, let's get
Speaker 3: some real life examples in Arizona. A very hard, penalizing
Speaker 3: driving course here would be like true country club or
Speaker 3: desert for us, right, right, So if you play most
Speaker 3: of your golf there, you can put that in, and
Speaker 3: now that priority is going to be way more geared
Speaker 3: toward dispersion over distance. Let's say you put in Papago
Speaker 3: or Dobson or something like that. Yet that would be
Speaker 3: quote unquote easy driving course because there's not a lot
Speaker 3: of penalty right on the end. We actually develop those
Speaker 3: metrics based off of Kapalua on the PGA Tour is
Speaker 3: quote unquote the easiest driving course. It has the least
Speaker 3: penalty you kind of hit it anywhere. Then a very
Speaker 3: hard driving course is a Honda event. It was a
Speaker 3: pg National. Yeah, very penalizing if you missed the fairway.
Speaker 3: So that kind of gives folks a spectrum, and that's
Speaker 3: what's important to consider where you play golf. Obviously, if
Speaker 3: you move all around, play all over the place you'd
Speaker 3: put medium because that kind of handles everything. But this
Speaker 3: tool handles all that level of complexity, math and nuance,
Speaker 3: and it makes it super actionable for our fitters. So
Speaker 3: you can have this conversation and go figure out what's
Speaker 3: more important versus accuracy for you in your fitting.
Speaker 1: So bring it back to the start Marty. It sounds
Speaker 1: like we have an answer here. It sounds like there
Speaker 1: is an answer to the question what's more important, And
Speaker 1: it feels like in twenty twenty three, distance is more important.
Speaker 2: Is that fair to say.
Speaker 3: Distance is more important? It's not a binary question, but
Speaker 3: if we frame it that way, distance is more important.
Speaker 3: But but we've cracked the code. There's a ratio. There's
Speaker 3: a ratio of distance accuracy, and we got tools to
Speaker 3: evaluate it. It's important for both fitters and golfers alike
Speaker 3: to kind of understand that ratio. And hopefully this is
Speaker 3: help some fitters. Give yourself permission to consider having your
Speaker 3: driver go further. Our high inertia allows you to get
Speaker 3: away with it. Our shafts, our counterbalance allow you to
Speaker 3: go to a little bit longer. The tour players are
Speaker 3: playing longer length drivers than you think Victor, Joaquin, all
Speaker 3: these guys, So hopefully this is help folks, and it
Speaker 3: quite frankly, Shane, it's fun to hit it far.
Speaker 2: It's a lot more fun.
Speaker 1: I'll say that it's more fun when you're vomited by
Speaker 1: your buddies. How often is distance brought up by tour players?
Speaker 1: You mentioned Victor, You've obviously mentioned Joaquin. Tony is a
Speaker 1: guy that's kind of effortlessly long. I mean, he can
Speaker 1: hit it much further if he wanted to on tour,
Speaker 1: but he's a little bit more of the guy that's
Speaker 1: kind of take a distance off to hit a little
Speaker 1: bit more controlled t ball. How often are they talking
Speaker 1: about distance on a week to week basis, considering how
Speaker 1: obsessed it feels like we are with the players that
Speaker 1: hit it the longest.
Speaker 3: Shane, that is such a great question. The super long
Speaker 3: hitters like Tony, he used to be longer. He could
Speaker 3: hit it longer. We've seen him hit at four hundred
Speaker 3: yards in Utah if he wanted to write. The guys
Speaker 3: who are already really long there, they just want to
Speaker 3: be mindful of the just the dispersion, because after you
Speaker 3: hit it so far down there, there's kind of a
Speaker 3: there's an ass toad to with you reach, or a
Speaker 3: ceiling that you reach. We're hitting it. For Tony to
Speaker 3: hit a ten yards further won't actually gain him that much,
Speaker 3: Like it's more about hitting the fairway. But if you're
Speaker 3: Victor who was more average speed four years ago when
Speaker 3: he first came on tour. Now he's way above average,
Speaker 3: but when he was average, I mean I played with
Speaker 3: him in the Phoenix Open and he was I was
Speaker 3: hitting it by him, you know a little bit, but
Speaker 3: he was. He was asking me about it. He was
Speaker 3: you could tell it was on his mind, Like, Man,
Speaker 3: I wish I could carry those bunkers that are those
Speaker 3: cross bunkers that Tony doesn't have to worry about, but
Speaker 3: I do. Like this is very agitating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the bunker on three, the par five, It's
Speaker 1: like if I can just kind of get it past
Speaker 1: those after us.
Speaker 2: Then it makes that a par five now is a
Speaker 2: par four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that is on the mind. So your tour
Speaker 3: players that are average speed in below, it's always on
Speaker 3: their mind. And that's where you see him doing speed training.
Speaker 3: They're working on the stack. They're the ones that asking us, hey,
Speaker 3: trying a different scheft trying to go a little bit longer,
Speaker 3: experimenting with it. So it's you have these two groups.
Speaker 3: I would say the ones that are average in below
Speaker 3: they're trying to eke out because they know there is
Speaker 3: that real value. And then you have the players that
Speaker 3: are super long. They're more about being mindful of of
Speaker 3: of you know, hitting more fairways.
Speaker 2: Marty.
Speaker 1: Have you seen Tony just go after like just unleash one,
Speaker 1: because I mean you can see it when he's playing
Speaker 1: torquelf you can see that it's seventy ish percent. Have
Speaker 1: you seen them really go after one before?
Speaker 3: Not lately, Shane, but when he was playing like the
Speaker 3: Mini Tours and all heah break and all that stuff,
Speaker 3: that's when his swing, that's when he used to used
Speaker 3: to go after it. So I remember seeing him do that, like,
Speaker 3: you know, twelve twelve years ago, twelve fourteen years ago,
Speaker 3: when he was when he was playing the little mini
Speaker 3: Tours and his swing was you know, before him and
Speaker 3: Boyd kind of tightened it up into the world class
Speaker 3: player that he is. But I have not seen him
Speaker 3: do that lately outside of when he was having fun
Speaker 3: in Utah there a couple summers ago.
Speaker 1: I remember playing with Bubba years ago. I mean this
Speaker 1: was this was probably ten eleven, twelve years ago, and
Speaker 1: I think it was the last hole.
Speaker 2: We were playing a scramble.
Speaker 1: It was a charity event, and the last hole he
Speaker 1: looked at me and he goes, do you want me
Speaker 1: to hit the draw? And I said I I'd love
Speaker 1: to see it. And he hit just this dead straight ball.
Speaker 1: It probably cut a yard or two, but he probably
Speaker 1: went twenty twenty five yards longer than any t shot
Speaker 1: he'd hit throughout the day.
Speaker 2: And he kind of turned around and smiled. He said,
Speaker 2: did you like my draw?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: And that was him just having that he had a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a gear, right.
Speaker 2: He's not gonna lean on that in an event.
Speaker 1: May he does if it's an open fairway or wide
Speaker 1: open golf course like Kapalua, but he knows he can
Speaker 1: go in the bag and grab fifteen more yards if
Speaker 1: he really needs to. And what a benefit that is
Speaker 1: to a professional golfer to just have that back in
Speaker 1: the bag if you need it.
Speaker 3: I think a good example. One of the Masters that
Speaker 3: he won thirteen at Augusta was kind of downwind. H
Speaker 3: had the straight ball that went way down, way down,
Speaker 3: there and he had sand wedge in or whatever.
Speaker 1: I remember fourteen, Yeah, I mean he hit hit like
Speaker 1: three fifty over the trees and everybody, Marty, remember it
Speaker 1: was in the air, and everybody thought he'd hit it
Speaker 1: in the trees.
Speaker 3: And he was gonna lose the mask exactly same. Yeah, No,
Speaker 3: I thought the same thing. But I've seen him here
Speaker 3: in the launch pad out the proving grounds. He's hitting
Speaker 3: his his cut that he's hitting down on it like
Speaker 3: four or five degrees, three degrees, hitting down, swinging to
Speaker 3: the right for him as the lefty like you, and
Speaker 3: hit that big cut and then he'll he'll he is
Speaker 3: the most amazing in changing his delivery because then one
Speaker 3: swing later he hits up six. His angle attack goes
Speaker 3: from down four to up six and he hits it
Speaker 3: like thirty yards longer. And I think the lesson learned
Speaker 3: for the everyday golfer is that straightening your ballflight will
Speaker 3: gain you distance. Okay, and uh, if you have ample
Speaker 3: speed like you, you can hit little cuts for control
Speaker 3: and things of that nature, but you don't want to
Speaker 3: be curving it too much, because then that's going to
Speaker 3: start costing you too much distance. Going back to this,
Speaker 3: topic today, which is what is more important distance or accuracy.
Speaker 3: So you know, we see the only the very long
Speaker 3: tour players hitting it with a significant amount of curve,
Speaker 3: most of them when they're hitting draws and fades, it's
Speaker 3: pretty minor, like your beautiful little cut you've been hitting
Speaker 3: down hitting down there lately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just so tight.
Speaker 1: When you go watch the modern day professional hit t shots,
Speaker 1: they're just tight. I mean, they don't want this a
Speaker 1: whole munch. Like their goal or what they're practicing is
Speaker 1: hitting that ball is straight as humanly possible and launching
Speaker 1: it without much side spe in. And that is again
Speaker 1: so different than what we saw, you know, a decade ago,
Speaker 1: where players would lean a little bit more on the
Speaker 1: side spin to help them get the ball in the fairway.
Speaker 1: It's just so wild how all of this stuff changes
Speaker 1: and deviates and improves, and a lot of it comes
Speaker 1: down to the technology that people like you and Ping
Speaker 1: do to make it easier on the golfer.
Speaker 2: So it's very cool to see.
Speaker 1: I'm playing golf after this podcast, and I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to go out there and just try to hit straight
Speaker 1: balls like that's my aunt of golf.
Speaker 3: Don't need to move it.
Speaker 1: Let's hit it straight, Let's get it in the fairway,
Speaker 1: and let's let the distance do its job.
Speaker 3: Shane I called the not so dreaded straight ball because
Speaker 3: the straight ball goes the furthest.
Speaker 1: Don't be scared of the straight ball. And you know
Speaker 1: what else, don't don't be scared of the straight putt.
Speaker 1: They go in as well. Everybody always gets so weird
Speaker 1: when the puts straight. You go, no, just knock that
Speaker 1: in the back of the hole.
Speaker 2: Just hit the driver straight.
Speaker 1: You don't have to move it, even if the whole
Speaker 1: kind of miable's left to right a little bit. But
Speaker 1: a very interesting topic, and I think one people are
Speaker 1: going to really like because you know, the driver has
Speaker 1: become the most important club in the back. I think
Speaker 1: the putter used to be it, but it feels like
Speaker 1: the driver is the most important and it's the one
Speaker 1: people are the most intrigued by and the one I
Speaker 1: think people are always looking at in terms of changing
Speaker 1: the club in their bags. So great insight, Marty. And
Speaker 1: again just a reminder if you're listening to this, If
Speaker 1: you downloaded the podcast and you want to kind of
Speaker 1: see what Marty was talking about, go on YouTube. You
Speaker 1: can even fast forward to the time stamp in terms
Speaker 1: of when this landed and when we really got in
Speaker 1: to the tools. But I think it's great to visually
Speaker 1: look at what Marty was talking about because it'll help
Speaker 1: you understand the benefits of bringing up some of these
Speaker 1: tools that you guys have and some of the tools
Speaker 1: you guys have out there for your fitters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Shane. I think what we've tried to do is,
Speaker 3: like you know what, you can get very confused or
Speaker 3: stuck in a fitting in even our fitters, like what
Speaker 3: numbers should I be looking at? Right? So these tools
Speaker 3: that we're building into Copilot helped make that super actionable.
Speaker 3: Trying to make again that make the complex simple. Which
Speaker 3: driver's going to be better, Like you know, this one
Speaker 3: a little further but that one went a little bit straighter,
Speaker 3: and and it doesn't mean you need to lean on
Speaker 3: this to one hundred percent make your decision, but use
Speaker 3: that with all the other things that you're experiencing in
Speaker 3: the fitting to to help upgrade your decision. And uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is a super fun topic. I think folks are
Speaker 3: gonna enjoy this. Uh you know, it's it's kind of
Speaker 3: like a never ending debate, you know, distance versus accuracy.
Speaker 3: So hopefully folks will level up their knowledge a little
Speaker 3: bit after this pod.
Speaker 1: Marty, let's mark it down in two years. Let's do
Speaker 1: this topic again and see if it's the same.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love it.
Speaker 2: We'll do it. We'll do it at twenty five and
Speaker 2: see what comes up. That is Marty. I'm Shane and
Speaker 2: this is the Paying Proving Grounds Podcast.