Speaker 1: The guys from Ping.
Speaker 2: They've kind of shown me how much the equipment matters.
Speaker 2: I just love that I can hit any shot.
Speaker 1: I kind of want we're gonna be able to tell
Speaker 1: some fun stories about what goes on here to help
Speaker 1: golfers play better golf.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Ping proven Grounds podcast. I'm Shape Bacon,
Speaker 2: joined as always by Marty Jerts and Marty. I remember
Speaker 2: the days when Ping had a couple of offerings irons
Speaker 2: and that was kind of it. That is not the
Speaker 2: case anymore, and with these new lines coming out, the
Speaker 2: options are relatively endless for the golfers. So I wanted
Speaker 2: to dive into all the new irons that Ping is
Speaker 2: offered in twenty twenty four and maybe give people at
Speaker 2: least a directional idea of where they might go. So
Speaker 2: are you up for it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? That sounds good, Shane. I mean that was my
Speaker 1: first kind of familiarity with the brand. Is the I too.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter who you were, you're playing the two
Speaker 1: iron back in the day. But we got a lot
Speaker 1: more options now, we could get a lot more nuanced
Speaker 1: in how we design these things.
Speaker 2: It's not just options, Marty, I think what is so
Speaker 2: cool and we've seen this happen over the last couple
Speaker 2: decades in golf. But I feel like Ping is almost
Speaker 2: pushing golfers to consider mixing up their golf bag. It's
Speaker 2: something I do in my own bag. I mix up irons.
Speaker 2: I have I two thirty four iron and then I've
Speaker 2: got blueprint s throughout the bag to that point, I mean, there,
Speaker 2: it feels like that's not just an option now, but
Speaker 2: it feels like it's it's almost an avenue for players
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we can we can do mixed sets within
Speaker 1: your irons and then also even open the door for
Speaker 1: playing like a four hybrid or a five hybrid or
Speaker 1: high lofted fairway. Would I mean, we've built some amazing
Speaker 1: tools for our fitters out there within ping co pilot
Speaker 1: our gapping app to help answer those questions, because it
Speaker 1: does it can be overwhelming for the golfer, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: should I play a you know, a hybrid? Should I
Speaker 1: play high lofted fairwood? Which one should I piece together?
Speaker 1: How far are they going to go? You know, we've
Speaker 1: seen golfers get a you know, a five wood and
Speaker 1: then a three hybrid and then going too similar in distance.
Speaker 1: So we want to build the tools to help optimize
Speaker 1: and dial in your gapping. But doing blended iron set
Speaker 1: Shane is a big part of that equation. And when
Speaker 1: it comes to our iron family in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: we have built our players irons, so our players iron
Speaker 1: Shane our irons where basically one way to think about
Speaker 1: it is the player themselves is bringing the speed to
Speaker 1: the table. Right. We got our other irons, like our
Speaker 1: G four thirty iron, where we're going to supplement some
Speaker 1: of the distance, like the face is going to flex
Speaker 1: a little bit more, We're gonna infuse some ball speed
Speaker 1: into it and supplement the player speed. But with the
Speaker 1: I two thirty and then the blueprints in the blueprint
Speaker 1: t that's where the players bring in the speed to
Speaker 1: the table and those are all built to be able
Speaker 1: to configure in any number of different ways from a
Speaker 1: blended set or mix set perspective.
Speaker 2: So, Marty, when you hear the term blueprint, I'm sure
Speaker 2: a lot of people's mind immediately goes to that small
Speaker 2: blade that Tony Fenow has played for years. That's not
Speaker 2: the case in terms of what the new lines look like.
Speaker 2: So could you just kind of run through the new lines,
Speaker 2: what they look like, how they play, and maybe the
Speaker 2: differences between the new families.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think golfers are gonna think Blueprint. They're gonna
Speaker 1: think the small blade iron, the Tony Fenw iron, the
Speaker 1: Preston Summer Hayes iron that's played on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: We basically bifurcated that iron into two irons, so now
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a two iron family. We have the
Speaker 1: Blueprint T that's gonna be very similar. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: like the ultra pure muscle back, small blade, length, thin sole,
Speaker 1: the optimal for workability and extracting the golf blow the rough.
Speaker 1: It's gonna generate different performance in different conditions, different turf
Speaker 1: interaction with the T and the way I kind of
Speaker 1: think about the branding of it is the T stands
Speaker 1: for Tour. That's our tour inspired iron. Then we have
Speaker 1: the blueprint S, which is this iron is gonna be
Speaker 1: most similar to our I fifty nine iron, And we
Speaker 1: chose S because it's a lot of the inspiration in
Speaker 1: terms of the turf interaction we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: today came from the S fifty five iron. We had
Speaker 1: a lot of tour players who love that S fifty
Speaker 1: five iron, and a big part of it was the
Speaker 1: turf interaction in the Soul design. And so now we
Speaker 1: have the Blueprint as bifurcated into two irons, the T
Speaker 1: for tour, the S which is kind of inspired by
Speaker 1: our S series iron S fifty nine and S fifty
Speaker 1: five family Historically.
Speaker 2: Marty, are you seeing a lot of tour players that
Speaker 2: are marrying those two together to make up their iron
Speaker 2: set up? I mean it feels like it would only
Speaker 2: make sense to have you know, you have a player
Speaker 2: that has the S in the four, five, and six
Speaker 2: perhaps and then maybe seven eight nine is the T
Speaker 2: Are you seeing that so far?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think a good example and he actually got
Speaker 1: a couple wins on the DP World to or the
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty three was Louis Eustasen. He's he
Speaker 1: was like we worked with him a lot on our
Speaker 1: blade style irons over the years. Louis obviously a pure
Speaker 1: ball striker, you know, has played the blue the original
Speaker 1: blueprints over the years. He's playing the Blueprint as in
Speaker 1: the four and five iron, then he switches to the
Speaker 1: Blueprint T in the sixth through pitching Wench I think
Speaker 1: that is the perfect example and what you're gonna get
Speaker 1: if you play the blueprint ass in some longer irons,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a little more ball speed and a
Speaker 1: little more launch and spin, and ultimately you're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to hit the ball a little bit higher, and
Speaker 1: with the blueprint s a little larger blade length and
Speaker 1: more forgiveness, just a little more protection, a little more forgiveness. Obviously,
Speaker 1: even even a player like Louis might not hit those
Speaker 1: long irons perfectly every single time, so you're gonna get
Speaker 1: that benefit. But then every golfer is going to be
Speaker 1: a little bit different maybe where they pick that transition
Speaker 1: point if you are going to do a blended set
Speaker 1: into the blueprint tee in terms of impact, centerness, turf
Speaker 1: interaction is a really big deal and being able to
Speaker 1: flight the ball a little bit lower. So I think
Speaker 1: Louis is like the perfect example in terms of being
Speaker 1: able to elevate a few of those long irons that
Speaker 1: he needs a little bit of that assistance with and
Speaker 1: then transitioning into those those ultimate scoring clubs where he
Speaker 1: wants to fly them a little bit lower. Anytime you
Speaker 1: make the blade length a little bit shorter, You're also
Speaker 1: going to be able to work the ball a little
Speaker 1: bit easier. You're going to be able to kind of
Speaker 1: like having a you know, a sports car. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to you turn the wheel and it's responding immediately.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That's a really good analogy when it comes to, you know,
Speaker 1: smaller blade length irons and the benefit you get as
Speaker 1: a player.
Speaker 2: What about gaping when you start to mix sets, because
Speaker 2: you know, you go, like even somebody like Louie Righty
Speaker 2: goes from blueprint S five iron into a Blueprint T
Speaker 2: six iron. How do you make up in terms of
Speaker 2: gapping to make sure there isn't a gap in a
Speaker 2: set of for somebody's skill level of luiustes And I
Speaker 2: mean obviously he wants to know the exact number he's hitting.
Speaker 2: He doesn't want to have a ten or fifteen yard
Speaker 2: gap between irons, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. I think we made a very concerted effort
Speaker 1: to design the loft. Standard lofts on our I two
Speaker 1: thirty blueprint S Blueprint T are exactly the same. Okay,
Speaker 1: And remember these irons don't the face doesn't really deflect
Speaker 1: a lot the players bringing the speed, So the loft
Speaker 1: is the primary factor. Then because of that, that's going
Speaker 1: to drive the gapping. But there is also a way
Speaker 1: to think about gapping. It's not only distance gapping. You're
Speaker 1: also gapping the height right the peak height in the
Speaker 1: landing angle. So we've actually launching with this iron. In
Speaker 1: pin Co Pilot, our ultimate one stop shop fitting software,
Speaker 1: we have our gaping app, which is my favorite app.
Speaker 1: In there, we now have the ability to do a
Speaker 1: virtual what if experiment to say, hey, what if I
Speaker 1: played I two thirty four iron instead of blueprint ass
Speaker 1: how much higher will that go? It also does specific
Speaker 1: to the golfer's launch conditions, tell you will it increase
Speaker 1: their carry yardage, their impact on their rollout. But you
Speaker 1: can really now make without having to go hit all
Speaker 1: those irons. That's the power of Copilot. The power of
Speaker 1: the Gaping app is you can go in there, get
Speaker 1: your seven iron fitting numbers, so hit our AFS Fitting Club,
Speaker 1: put it into the gaping app, and now you can
Speaker 1: do trade off experiments because we know how all these
Speaker 1: different models are going to perform. With our robot testing,
Speaker 1: player testing, tour player testing is you can do that
Speaker 1: virtual gapping analysis and you can say what if I
Speaker 1: played I two thirty four and five iron then went
Speaker 1: to Blueprints. Or you can do this same thing between
Speaker 1: Blueprints and Blueprint T. You can say, what if I
Speaker 1: played the Blueprint S four, five six iron then switch
Speaker 1: to the T What'll that do to my carry and
Speaker 1: peak height and be able to play around with that
Speaker 1: without having to go hit all those clubs or do
Speaker 1: a lot of trial and air experimentation. Shane, I am
Speaker 1: so excited about this feature. It's the first time we've
Speaker 1: been able to do blended sets within the Gapping app.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned turf interaction being a huge part of
Speaker 2: kind of the options for the player out there. Can
Speaker 2: you dive a little bit more into maybe the turf
Speaker 2: interaction between the blueprints.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, I think to talk about turf interaction blueprint s.
Speaker 1: We had a few of our tour players that absolutely
Speaker 1: love the S fifty five and the big part when
Speaker 1: we were diving into it was just how it went
Speaker 1: through the turf. I mean, Bubba was a heavy user
Speaker 1: of the S fifty five over the years. Handful of
Speaker 1: other players, some non staff players that have now switched
Speaker 1: into the blue Print ass we're using fifty five for
Speaker 1: a very long period of time.
Speaker 2: Marty, what are tour players looking for in terms of
Speaker 2: turf interaction? What is you know, what's the note that
Speaker 2: hits the year for them?
Speaker 1: It's I think to me, Shane, it's a very mysterious
Speaker 1: thing to think about. It almost feels like an artistic thing.
Speaker 1: But we when we get to the science of it,
Speaker 1: the science of the art, it's all about the timing.
Speaker 1: It's the timing of the turf interaction and creating the
Speaker 1: right pressure. Which pressure is spreading the force over a
Speaker 1: certain area right, So it's getting the right pressure in
Speaker 1: the right timing. For when for a player with a
Speaker 1: certain delivery characteristic when they hit the golf ball, the
Speaker 1: ball launches upward and you get a downward force applied
Speaker 1: on the club. Right equal and opposite force applied to
Speaker 1: the club. That's what creates the dibot. So a player
Speaker 1: like Bubba Watson, he we all know he takes huge
Speaker 1: dibots and he manipulates the face a lot, so he's
Speaker 1: got a very open face to path on some shots.
Speaker 1: He's got a very close face to path on others.
Speaker 1: He has very high speed. He tends to have a
Speaker 1: downward angle attack with that as well, so he takes
Speaker 1: very big dibots, So a player like him can be
Speaker 1: very hyper sensitive to the timing of that turf interaction
Speaker 1: in the impact of that timing on the expected result.
Speaker 1: In the expected result is the size and shape of
Speaker 1: the divot, how that's going to give them feedback acoustically
Speaker 1: to their ear and if the timing that is not right,
Speaker 1: it can definitely influence the ball flight with their expected
Speaker 1: trajectory as well. And so we're looking at things how
Speaker 1: do we influence all that in the design chain would
Speaker 1: be we can influence the heel toe camber, how flat
Speaker 1: this curvature is from the heel to toe. We can
Speaker 1: influence the kind of initial bounce, the lead edge bounce,
Speaker 1: the bounce height, and then the surf the camber or
Speaker 1: the curve mature from front to back, and then how
Speaker 1: wide the soul is. So all of those factors kind
Speaker 1: of go into us creating the right timing that's gonna
Speaker 1: I think the player they want to get a certain
Speaker 1: reaction to their shot that matches what they expect. And
Speaker 1: when we can marry those two things together, which we've
Speaker 1: done on the blueprint, ass the player is just infused
Speaker 1: with a lot of confidence.
Speaker 2: So if you have players that come to you and
Speaker 2: they go, we love turf interaction with the S fifty fives,
Speaker 2: how do you take technology from I mean, what is
Speaker 2: that a five six seven year old iron? Is that
Speaker 2: probably how old those those irons are? How do you
Speaker 2: go back to that level of technology and infuse that
Speaker 2: into a new iron with updated technology? How do you
Speaker 2: find that kind of perfect marriage because it seems like
Speaker 2: it'd be extremely complicated to grab something from twenty fourteen
Speaker 2: and put it into something that's out there in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think in this case, we just needed to test.
Speaker 1: We just needed to test it and prototype it, and
Speaker 1: I cannot think of an iron in my twenty years
Speaker 1: at Ping that We spent more time doing very detailed
Speaker 1: nuance testing with our tour players with both the Blueprint
Speaker 1: ASS and the Blueprint t Now, the Blueprint TEA is
Speaker 1: a little more of an evolution on the original blueprint,
Speaker 1: so we spend a little less time with the tour
Speaker 1: players on that one, But we really hunkered down with
Speaker 1: the Blueprint ASS and prototyped it and went out and
Speaker 1: tested it with our players in a variety of different lies,
Speaker 1: turf conditions and The big part of these Irons, Shane
Speaker 1: is shot making. And when we look at the players
Speaker 1: that are playing the Blueprint ass they are pure shot makers.
Speaker 1: They like to carve it against the wind. I mean,
Speaker 1: we look at Louis, he loves carving a little draw
Speaker 1: and carving a little fade and he hits little baby shots.
Speaker 1: I mean, we look at Bubba as another example of
Speaker 1: somebody who curves the ball a lot. We talked to Sahith,
Speaker 1: he is a shot maker. He loves manipulating the golf
Speaker 1: ball and hitting a number of different shots. He won
Speaker 1: with these irons on tour immediately, which was really really
Speaker 1: fun to watch. And I think that's a testament in
Speaker 1: the case of marrying the sole design of the AS
Speaker 1: fifty five into the technology of the blueprint s, which
Speaker 1: we can talk about was doing a lot of product
Speaker 1: testing with the tour players because they are so nuanced
Speaker 1: in their feedback.
Speaker 2: When you introduce a new club and you bring it
Speaker 2: to tour players, is the level of success in an
Speaker 2: engineer's mind, how quickly it goes into the bag. Because
Speaker 2: you know, tour players are finicky, right, I mean great players.
Speaker 2: It feels like it takes a lot of time to
Speaker 2: maybe get something new in the bag. But on the
Speaker 2: other end of that, if they see something they love,
Speaker 2: they might throw it in right away. So when you
Speaker 2: bring a new iron blueprint s out on tour and
Speaker 2: you show it to Baba or Tyrrel Hatton or Thigala
Speaker 2: and they fall in love with it right away, I mean,
Speaker 2: what does that do to somebody like you, who's obviously
Speaker 2: kind of awaiting what they have to say about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of It's almost like us in engineers.
Speaker 1: We sometimes take bets and how good, how viral we
Speaker 1: think a product's going to do on tour. I personally
Speaker 1: was so bullish about the blueprint ass interest before we
Speaker 1: launched it, and it was awesome to see at the
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty three how many players won with it.
Speaker 1: I mean we had non staff players playing it, winning
Speaker 1: with it immediately putting into play right after some the
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup, for example, we had sawhith win with it.
Speaker 1: We had Walkee Nieman win with it. Down in Australia,
Speaker 1: we had Louis win with it two weeks in a
Speaker 1: row there doing the split set designs. We had Harrison
Speaker 1: Endicott dominated Q School with the blueprint ass So it's
Speaker 1: been amazing to see how viral this iron has gone,
Speaker 1: and it just has a buzz amongst it on the
Speaker 1: professional tours, which is really fun to see. So I
Speaker 1: was bullish on it, but at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: once it gets out there in the wild, you kind
Speaker 1: of you never know what exactly is going to happen.
Speaker 1: And I'm excited finally in early twenty four here that
Speaker 1: we're going to get this iron finally into our customer's hands,
Speaker 1: because this has been one of those one of those
Speaker 1: products that we were very we can't wait to get
Speaker 1: it into our customer's hands. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had a couple of buddies of mine I was
Speaker 2: playing golf with a couple of weeks ago, and they
Speaker 2: hadn't seen the s yet, and they pulled it out
Speaker 2: and they said, this is the best looking ping iron
Speaker 2: that I've ever seen. I mean, they were I would
Speaker 2: be surprised if my friends have not purchased or ordered
Speaker 2: these or early early adopters to the blueprint. Ess, can
Speaker 2: you take us through the ballflight differences between the two
Speaker 2: blueprints and maybe include I two thirty on there as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely it's going to be very easy for the
Speaker 1: golfer in our club hitters to understand the I two
Speaker 1: thirty is going to go the highest blueprint s a
Speaker 1: little bit lower right in between, and blueprint T the
Speaker 1: low st and that's a combination of ball speed and
Speaker 1: launch primarily that's going to create those three windows. So again, Shane,
Speaker 1: when we come back, when it comes back to if
Speaker 1: you want to do a blended set or a mix set,
Speaker 1: very easy to understand. That very easy to understand. I
Speaker 1: two thirty is going to go the highest blueprint s, medium,
Speaker 1: blueprint T the lowest. Now, one really fun thing on
Speaker 1: the blueprint s that's allowed us to kick the ball
Speaker 1: up in the air a lot with the long irons
Speaker 1: has been this really cool pocket forging technology that allows
Speaker 1: us to create a cavity in the middle of the club.
Speaker 1: And this is really fun when we look at blade irons. Historically,
Speaker 1: if you ever go to like look at antique blades
Speaker 1: and you lay them down on a table and you
Speaker 1: look at the heel toe length, the wedges actually used
Speaker 1: to be bigger, like longer heel to toe than the
Speaker 1: long irons, right. And the challenge that designers had back
Speaker 1: then is you had to make the heads lighter in
Speaker 1: the long irons. The only way they could do it
Speaker 1: was to make them smaller. Right. It wasn't like, oh,
Speaker 1: let me make these long iron small and the wedge
Speaker 1: is big for any other reason. They just couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: So what this pocket forging does for us, it allows
Speaker 1: us to put a lighter density material in the middle.
Speaker 1: We get a little face flexing out of it, But
Speaker 1: the primary reason we do that is to save about
Speaker 1: ten grams of mass from the middle of the club.
Speaker 1: That allows us to make the iron a little bit bigger. Right,
Speaker 1: not they're not big, but we don't have to reverse
Speaker 1: the sizing of the iron like the old school traditional blades.
Speaker 1: So it's really fun to combine some modern technology into
Speaker 1: a very pure looking blade iron. And again the benefit
Speaker 1: there is we can kick the ball up in the
Speaker 1: air in the long iron, so we have that technology
Speaker 1: in the three four five iron with the blueprint s.
Speaker 2: When you at paying think about game improvement irons versus
Speaker 2: a blade iron, what are you trying to accomplish? I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm assuming with the blade to work a bill, he
Speaker 2: is an important part of the iron. Game improvement might
Speaker 2: be more consistency, or maybe hitting the ball a little
Speaker 2: bit farther. What are the main focuses when you're kind
Speaker 2: of looking at those two worlds, because those worlds are
Speaker 2: so different when you're really thinking about the golfer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my colleague Eric Henderson has a great visual. Maybe
Speaker 1: we'll grab it and throw it in as a screen
Speaker 1: chair and those folks can go on YouTube and check
Speaker 1: it out. Where in our focal system we can look
Speaker 1: at the impact stat area on the face and how
Speaker 1: that changes by players handicap Shane and it is amazing.
Speaker 1: You see the tour players. It's a heat map that
Speaker 1: we have. We'll put this image together and show it.
Speaker 1: And the heat map for the tour players is tiny, right,
Speaker 1: what is that penny? Oh? Yes, it's like a dime
Speaker 1: or a penny. You know. We can throw statistics at that,
Speaker 1: and then the question is, well, what do we do
Speaker 1: with that information? Because the better player hits the center
Speaker 1: of the face more often, we can on prioritize and
Speaker 1: we did this on the blueprint, ass maximizing the inertia
Speaker 1: of the iron because they simply put that is a
Speaker 1: less important attribute. It's it's still important. We want to
Speaker 1: do it and we have done it. But it's relatively speaking,
Speaker 1: a less important attribute and we can then focus on
Speaker 1: things Shane, which what we did on the blueprint as
Speaker 1: of lowering the CG. We have found that lowering the
Speaker 1: CG better aligns where the tour players hitting the ball
Speaker 1: a majority of the time, and that is a main
Speaker 1: reason why the blueprints feels so good. We're aligning the
Speaker 1: CG better with where they're hitting, and then we can, again, Shane,
Speaker 1: put priorities on different things like making the blade smaller
Speaker 1: right so the clubs can get through the turf better.
Speaker 1: They're better at shots out of the rough for the
Speaker 1: better player. And one big thing we found why when
Speaker 1: we've made the blade length shorter is that the tour
Speaker 1: player can turn the ball over a little bit easier.
Speaker 1: And again that's something that better player. If you give
Speaker 1: them a big iron, even if it has some offset
Speaker 1: on it, they'll struggle to draw the ball and a
Speaker 1: lot of the tour players want to be able to
Speaker 1: hit this nice, tight little trap draw with their ballflight.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, Shane, a big thing we've
Speaker 1: worked on with the tour players is they don't want
Speaker 1: an iron that has too low of spin. Okay, when
Speaker 1: when you give the tour player an iron that doesn't
Speaker 1: spin enough, that freaks them out right, that says flyer
Speaker 1: to them, that says unpredictability. They want to be able
Speaker 1: to put an ample amount of spin on the golf ball.
Speaker 1: So we have more relaxed lofts. We have a face
Speaker 1: friction and groove design pattern that generates more spin for
Speaker 1: the tour player because they, unlike the everyday golfer, which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about, they hit a majority of their shot.
Speaker 1: Seventy percent of their sh with their irons are from
Speaker 1: the fairway or the tee. Now, if you look at
Speaker 1: the everyday golfer, and when we're talking about distance iron Shaine,
Speaker 1: they hit only fifty percent of the shots from their
Speaker 1: fairway and then fifty percent from the rough, and the
Speaker 1: everyday golfer comes up short a lot with their irons.
Speaker 1: We see this in the ARCOS data. I think strategically
Speaker 1: you could take more club, but from a design standpoint,
Speaker 1: we're okay with them having a little bit less spin
Speaker 1: because it's going to help get that ball trundling up
Speaker 1: on the green. Right. So there's those are some of
Speaker 1: the big high level differences in between a tour iron
Speaker 1: precision iron versus maybe our distance iron for the high handicapper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, with a blueprint te the rough performance
Speaker 2: was big for somebody like Tony Fenow. I know that
Speaker 2: was something that he talked a whole bunch about when
Speaker 2: he introduced Blueprint into the bag for the first time,
Speaker 2: was rough performance and spin out of the rough and
Speaker 2: kind of working to improve that with blades because as
Speaker 2: you said, you know, I mean a lot of blame,
Speaker 2: especially old school blades out of the rough can kind
Speaker 2: of come out a little bit nucky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, rough performance is a big deal, and we spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time with our tour players on blueprint
Speaker 1: S and T talking to them about the groove design
Speaker 1: and the face friction. A big part of that rough
Speaker 1: performance with the blueprint T is the surface area. Right.
Speaker 1: You just make the surface area that iron small, it's
Speaker 1: going to be able to basically knife through the rough
Speaker 1: you know, a lot easier, right. But the big thing
Speaker 1: we kind of made a little transition in our groove
Speaker 1: design with the blueprint S and T this go round
Speaker 1: was the tour player said, Hey, when I'm in the
Speaker 1: fairway or when I'm hitting T shots on a par three,
Speaker 1: I want this ball to spin. Right, I need spin.
Speaker 1: That's what they're asking for. Give me spin, Give me spin,
Speaker 1: Give me spin. Now, if a tour player needs less spin,
Speaker 1: they tweak it through loft, shaft length and golf ball right,
Speaker 1: So those are all fitting levers we have if you
Speaker 1: have a tour player that needs to reduce spin. So
Speaker 1: we put a big priority on our groove design, and
Speaker 1: what you'll see from us is that we have we
Speaker 1: kind of approach grooves very differently across our Our groove
Speaker 1: optimization on wedges, very different than our groove optimization on
Speaker 1: long irons, short irons of mid iron.
Speaker 2: So you're gonna see, Marty, what's the difference, Like, what
Speaker 2: what is the difference in the like if you're thinking
Speaker 2: about a wedge groove versus a four iron groove, is
Speaker 2: it is it deeper? Is it thicker?
Speaker 1: Like? What?
Speaker 2: Just for the layman, what's the difference?
Speaker 1: Yeah, great, great question, Shane. So what you'll see from us,
Speaker 1: like in our S one fifty nine wedges, is we
Speaker 1: have more grooves, right, So more grooves. It's like having
Speaker 1: more treads on your tire. And how you use your
Speaker 1: wedges is fundamentally different than how you use your irons,
Speaker 1: you're going to use your highest lofted wedges a ton
Speaker 1: hitting chips and pitches out of the green side rough, right.
Speaker 1: We see that from our big data. That's what the
Speaker 1: tour players want and need, and so by having more grooves,
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna shed more of that debris or
Speaker 1: matter out of the way. Right. But with your irons,
Speaker 1: for a tour player, they're telling us, Hey, when we're
Speaker 1: in the fair way, that's our time to score. Give
Speaker 1: me a groove design that's gonna spin so I can
Speaker 1: control the spin, control the distance, control the trajectory. So
Speaker 1: you're gonna see less grooves from us in the irons
Speaker 1: and the blueprint s and t or you're gonna see
Speaker 1: more grooves in the wedges.
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, Interesting. What do you say to people, Marty
Speaker 2: that you know there's always kind of been the stigma
Speaker 2: about blades, right, I mean, blades are only for the
Speaker 2: professional golfer. Nobody that's an average player or even a
Speaker 2: five handicap can hit them. They're scary. You're always introducing
Speaker 2: new technology into a blade if somebody is interested, like
Speaker 2: I've always been interested. I played blades when I was
Speaker 2: twenty three you know, I've always been interested in maybe
Speaker 2: getting back into the world of a true blade like
Speaker 2: the Blueprint te What do you say to people that
Speaker 2: maybe are fearful of giving them a shot, or maybe
Speaker 2: scared of the inability to hit them. What do you
Speaker 2: say to those people that look at them like it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's an it's an old school technology,
Speaker 2: if you will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, we've we've even though like our Blueprint T
Speaker 1: looks very traditional like a muscle, right, we have a
Speaker 1: lot of tech.
Speaker 2: They're beautiful, they look they look off, they look like
Speaker 2: you'd put you'd frame them and put them on your wall.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, like Marty's holding up you know,
Speaker 2: one of the blades right now if you're watching on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Blueprint T is designed to inspire you, you
Speaker 1: know when you pull out the bag, and that's a
Speaker 1: big part of it, right, that's a big part of it.
Speaker 1: But we have a we have a lot of technology infused.
Speaker 1: Even though this looks like a very traditional blade iron,
Speaker 1: you know, it has relatively high MLI for the size.
Speaker 1: That's a good way to think about blade irons. Like,
Speaker 1: we've also done some fun research, Shane, this is super
Speaker 1: cool that if you give a one skill level of
Speaker 1: golfer a smaller club a smaller blade, their impact stat
Speaker 1: area will get smaller with it interesting, very very very
Speaker 1: cool study. Right, It's kind of like the aim small
Speaker 1: miss small type of approach. So that being said, blades
Speaker 1: should be considered even if you're like a single digit
Speaker 1: handicap player. Let's call it the you know, I would
Speaker 1: consider blow both the blueprint ass and the blueprint T
Speaker 1: blade irons. Blueprint as is going to have a lot
Speaker 1: more cavity to it, but the blade length itself isn't
Speaker 1: a ton bigger. It's just a little bit bigger. It's
Speaker 1: a much bigger jump to go all the way to
Speaker 1: I two thirty, for example. But we also pack in
Speaker 1: a lot of forgiveness into both of these irons. High
Speaker 1: density toe weight tungusen toe weight counterbalanced with a high
Speaker 1: density weight that we put in the hozzle when we
Speaker 1: go to build these irons. Right, we've walked through our
Speaker 1: assembly area, and I think that's a really big deal.
Speaker 1: When folks see our toe weight, they think, oh, there's
Speaker 1: weight on the toe, there's cg's in the toe somehow,
Speaker 1: But what they don't see is the invisible weight that's
Speaker 1: embedded in the halls, and so if you get a
Speaker 1: set where you order them at a heavier swing weight
Speaker 1: or based on the build, the heads need to be
Speaker 1: lighter heavier. We are perfectly balancing the mass we put
Speaker 1: in the toe weight with the weight in the heel
Speaker 1: so that it keeps our SIGs nearly perfectly centered right,
Speaker 1: And going back to your question, Shane, that also boosts
Speaker 1: the moment of inertia the iron relative to the size.
Speaker 1: So I think our blueprint t to be honest with you, Shane,
Speaker 1: you got to be a ball striker to hit this thing.
Speaker 1: It is pretty small, but our blueprint ass is going
Speaker 1: to have some massive appeal for the scratch golfer, single
Speaker 1: digit handicapped player, and a big part of it this
Speaker 1: year is that the cig is very low, so they
Speaker 1: feel amazing and we've been able to get higher ball
Speaker 1: speeds out of them, not ball speeds from the face flexing,
Speaker 1: but better lining the CG with the golf ball during
Speaker 1: the impact interval.
Speaker 2: Do you like the blended set that I've got going
Speaker 2: the I two thirty four iron in the blueprint s
Speaker 2: I mean, do you do? You do you think that's
Speaker 2: gonna be something that is popular or you are you
Speaker 2: into this planet set? Do you feel like I should
Speaker 2: go blueprint s four iron as well?
Speaker 1: Now, one hundred percent, Shane, if you're if you're loving
Speaker 1: the two thirty love that is absolutely why we designed
Speaker 1: the lofts and uh, you know, the shaping everything to
Speaker 1: be very blendable like that. I think we're gonna we
Speaker 1: see it on tour, you know. I think the fore
Speaker 1: iron for faster swing speed players like you and I
Speaker 1: as always that kind of tipping point club. Like you know,
Speaker 1: should I still be in the blueprints or BLUEPRINTEE, or
Speaker 1: should I go to the next model up? It's a
Speaker 1: little bigger, a little more forgiving, gets a little more height,
Speaker 1: a little easier to get that golf ball in the air.
Speaker 1: I think the fore iron is a great club there.
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna see, Shane, some players play I
Speaker 1: to thirty three or four iron, go Blueprint as up
Speaker 1: to maybe a six seven eight iron and then transition
Speaker 1: to the Blueprint te We could see a three club
Speaker 1: combo set. For sure, we're gonna see that.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's just again, I mean, we've talked
Speaker 2: so much about the technology, we've talked so much about
Speaker 2: the offerings online and as you've said, I mean so
Speaker 2: many options to dial you're set in without actually having
Speaker 2: to go to a range and hit a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of golf balls. But the fact that the offerings are
Speaker 2: available is so cool because again you think about the
Speaker 2: old Schooway of order and irons, and it was the
Speaker 2: order set irons and they show up and that's what
Speaker 2: you had, and then to get a blended set was
Speaker 2: a bit of a backbreaker. And now you can literally
Speaker 2: go online. You can literally go on Copilot and boom,
Speaker 2: build the blended set that makes the most sense for you,
Speaker 2: and see what the distance is and the carry and
Speaker 2: the launch and I almost think, you know, there are
Speaker 2: times on this podcast that we've had guests on that
Speaker 2: have said things that have given me confidence in my
Speaker 2: own game just by simple statistics. And I feel like
Speaker 2: with Copilot a time, it actually adds confidence to the
Speaker 2: golfer as well, because you can actually see what the
Speaker 2: numbers are going to be and you can believe in
Speaker 2: those numbers even before you go to the driving range.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, Shane. And one thing, the note on the
Speaker 1: fitting on the custom fitting side of the blueprint S
Speaker 1: and T is. This is our first iron we launched
Speaker 1: with the Ladies product. With the latest product in fall
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, a brand new fitting Technology fitting
Speaker 1: head called the AFS three D. Okay, so what is it.
Speaker 1: We've had an AFS fitting iron, which is our Fitting
Speaker 1: Club seven iron spin in the market pretty much the
Speaker 1: same design for over ten years. Now we launch AFS
Speaker 1: three D which is now part of Blueprint S and
Speaker 1: Blueprint T. It's all of our fitting accounts have this
Speaker 1: iron which you can fit multiple color codes with one head,
Speaker 1: and you can also hit the blueprint S and the
Speaker 1: Blueprint T in our power spec setting. So if you're
Speaker 1: a player that wants to get a little distance back,
Speaker 1: see how the iron will behave for you with a
Speaker 1: little less bounce in a little less loft and see
Speaker 1: if that's better for hitting your spin window for you.
Speaker 1: You can do that with our AFS three D head
Speaker 1: and this head. Shane uses a sleeve that looks like
Speaker 1: our driver metalwood sleeve and the iron. A lot of
Speaker 1: times you hit a fitting iron, it doesn't look so
Speaker 1: good like our previous fitting iron had a kind of
Speaker 1: a big nut look, kind of mechanical looking. The ANFS
Speaker 1: three D looks pure in the playing position. Right. So
Speaker 1: what's great now about fitting blueprint s and t is
Speaker 1: you can go hit both of them, get launch and
Speaker 1: spin numbers. Then our fitters can plug that those launching
Speaker 1: spin numbers from their launch monitor into Pink Copilot gapping
Speaker 1: app and you can have a lot of fun playing
Speaker 1: with potentially doing a mixed set design. Marty.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite questions to ask on this podcast,
Speaker 2: what's in your bag right now?
Speaker 1: Oh? I got blueprint ass all the way through. I
Speaker 1: got them all the way through. I got the fore iron.
Speaker 1: I build a half inch longer and that gives me
Speaker 1: a little boost in speed and a little more dynamic law.
Speaker 1: And so my gamer set right now is is blueprint
Speaker 1: as four through pitch. And I think time is going
Speaker 1: to be a really good judge of this Blueprint ass iron.
Speaker 1: How viral it's been on the PGA Tour and all
Speaker 1: the worldwide tours early is a really good sign. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's got a lot of virality to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like I said, I mean I had
Speaker 2: I had people looking at the iron that I would
Speaker 2: consider critical golf people, and I mean to them for
Speaker 2: them to say this is you know, one of the
Speaker 2: more beautiful irons I've ever seen is obviously a testamon.
Speaker 2: You know, it's so funny, right, We talk so much
Speaker 2: about technology that goes into it, but the way certain
Speaker 2: things look is very, very important to a golf bag.
Speaker 2: I mean you mentioned it about blueprint tea like blade.
Speaker 2: People like blades because they look beautiful.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, the blueprint ask for me. Shane has
Speaker 1: checked all the boxes, like I want. I wanted to
Speaker 1: sound good and feel good. It's got a kind of
Speaker 1: a quiet It might sound a little cliche, but it's
Speaker 1: got that kind of quiet, muted sound to it and
Speaker 1: impacts which I've absolutely fell in love with. The turf
Speaker 1: interaction matches what I think is going to happen with
Speaker 1: the turf interaction happens right right, but it's forgiving, Like
Speaker 1: if I get a little steep on it, it's got
Speaker 1: ample bounce to get through the turf. I've been able
Speaker 1: to manipulate the trajectory in both the vertical plane and
Speaker 1: the horizontal plane so I can hit them. I can
Speaker 1: hit the short irons high and low on command. I
Speaker 1: can hit little cuts, little jaws. If I need to
Speaker 1: playing around with wind or pin positions and the long
Speaker 1: irons go high, right that I want a blade iron
Speaker 1: where the long irons go relatively high. And that pocket
Speaker 1: forging has really been the kicker with the blueprint s.
Speaker 2: It's so you know, I didn't realize S for blueprint
Speaker 2: s stood for S fifty five in that same family.
Speaker 2: And I don't think you know this. I probably I
Speaker 2: would say that the S fifty five's are the irons
Speaker 2: that I've had in my bag the longest. If you
Speaker 2: look at my golf bag the last twenty years, I
Speaker 2: I remember I had S fifty fives. Remember when you
Speaker 2: put the W for the works that were on the
Speaker 2: toe of the club. I had those S fifty five's
Speaker 2: probably in my bag for six seven years. Love those
Speaker 2: irons so so cool that you know, you you learn
Speaker 2: that a lot of the inspiration for the blueprint s
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four is playing off of set irons
Speaker 2: that I liked as much as so many other tour
Speaker 2: players did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Shane, you're you're you know a lot in common
Speaker 1: with a bunch of players, and we wanted to crack
Speaker 1: that code, like what is it about that iron that
Speaker 1: gave it the magic? And we put that right into
Speaker 1: the blueprint s. So if you're one of those, if
Speaker 1: you're one of those that's like Shane out there that's
Speaker 1: hanging on to your S fifty five, the time is now.
Speaker 1: The time is now to go check out the blueprints
Speaker 1: we've got.
Speaker 2: We've got very good news for you, Marty. This was
Speaker 2: this was great. I was I was fired up to
Speaker 2: open the box when it came. I was fired up
Speaker 2: to put them in play, And uh, they're gonna be
Speaker 2: a big part of my twenty twenty four sou blueprint
Speaker 2: S is gonna be mine. Maybe Blueprint T is yours.
Speaker 2: But check out Copilot and get in and everything that's
Speaker 2: out there in terms of potential blended sets as well,
Speaker 2: because again, the options are endless at this point, and
Speaker 2: you'd be silly not to lean into that if you're
Speaker 2: looking at a new set.
Speaker 1: Irons couldn't agree more. It's gonna be such an exciting year.
Speaker 1: This is the most excited I've been for our comprehensive
Speaker 1: Iron family, both on the hot you know, kind of
Speaker 1: the everyday golfer irons and the G four to thirty
Speaker 1: and what we have going on in that space and
Speaker 1: our tour irons are precision Irons could not be more
Speaker 1: excited and optimistic and golfers are going to have a
Speaker 1: field day with these in the new year. Here Shane,
Speaker 1: this is a blueprint ass podcast apparently. I mean the
Speaker 1: whole team's playing blueprint as for goodness sakes, I mean
Speaker 1: get on board, get.
Speaker 2: Involved as well, Marty, great stuff. We'll chat with you
Speaker 2: next week. This is the Paining Proven Grouts podcast.