Speaker 1: The guys from Ping.
Speaker 2: They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters.
Speaker 1: I just love that I can hit any shot I
Speaker 1: kind of want.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about
Speaker 2: what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Pink proven Grounds Podcast. I'm Shane
Speaker 1: Bacon in red is Marty Jerks and if you're watching,
Speaker 1: maybe you're just listen. If you're listening, you have absolutely
Speaker 1: no idea what we're wearing, no clue. That's true. We
Speaker 1: could be wearing Halloween costumes, we could be wearing New
Speaker 1: Year's Day costumes, or it could be on our ping
Speaker 1: stuff like we are. We got a pretty exciting guest today, Marty. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Jacob Clark is with us. He's kind of become the
Speaker 1: wedge guru at ping.
Speaker 3: Is that fair to say? Yeah, I guess by default.
Speaker 3: I don't know what else you call me.
Speaker 1: When did you get into wedges? When did wedges become
Speaker 1: your focus?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. So I started paying actually
Speaker 3: as an intern under Marty in twenty twelve, so it
Speaker 3: was the summer intern in twenty twelve. In twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: start a full time after I graduated in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: and my first project was Glide two point zero.
Speaker 1: Okays, Like growing up, I was always.
Speaker 3: An awful ball striker, like hit it all over the planet,
Speaker 3: didn't hit it far to be good, and just could
Speaker 3: get up and down from anywhere. Loved hitting weg shots
Speaker 3: and all the things that go into hitting web shots,
Speaker 3: the different techniques you can use around the greens. I've
Speaker 3: always loved doing that, and so when Marty assigns me
Speaker 3: my first project to do the ping Glide to Wedge lineup,
Speaker 3: I was a static and I remember going out working
Speaker 3: with a couple of tour players at the event in
Speaker 3: Vegas before I started the project, and then being able
Speaker 3: to launch that product with the players out there, I.
Speaker 1: Was over the moon.
Speaker 3: And basically since then, I've kind of carved out a
Speaker 3: little niche in that space. It's cool within our design team,
Speaker 3: we work on a myriad of different products just to
Speaker 3: have experience in different things. But I think we definitely
Speaker 3: all kind of pride ourselves. We all have one area
Speaker 3: of focus that we get really passionate about, and wedges
Speaker 3: have definitely been the one for me.
Speaker 1: Can you evaluate Marty's boss just the goods and the
Speaker 1: bads real quick.
Speaker 3: Oh that's a good question.
Speaker 1: Like what is this like YELP review going to be
Speaker 1: for you? What do we do?
Speaker 3: We go a five stars? Right, my professor, are you
Speaker 3: gonna Oh? Absolutely? I think what's cool about Marty is
Speaker 3: obviously fantastic golfer at the beginning, which is cool to
Speaker 3: be able to make really slight changes to designs and
Speaker 3: you just be like, hey, Marty, go tell me what
Speaker 3: you think. Hit if you And then he also had
Speaker 3: this very intense passion for all things golf, and like
Speaker 3: one of the things he's always referred to as having
Speaker 3: skin in the game. So even within our design team,
Speaker 3: like everybody is passionate golfers, and we're not just designing
Speaker 3: clubs to make other people better, because that's the mission
Speaker 3: of the company, but it's like, I want to play
Speaker 3: better golf personally too.
Speaker 1: Well. I mean, Marty, you've talked a lot about that.
Speaker 1: That exact thing on the podcast is you at times
Speaker 1: are trying to solve your own riddle with a lot
Speaker 1: of your designs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we did that episode Shane in the in
Speaker 2: the Archives with Rob Griffin yep, and he told the
Speaker 2: story of Carston that's what it's, you know, that's the
Speaker 2: the the original is our founder of Carston. He was
Speaker 2: trying to solve it, make the game easier for himself
Speaker 2: first and then he's like, hey, I can I can
Speaker 2: build a company out of this.
Speaker 1: Since Jacob gave you a review, can you give him
Speaker 1: a review of being employee? Real quick?
Speaker 2: Just Oh, Jacob Man. Jacob's the man. And I love
Speaker 2: that we've been able to align Jacob with what he's
Speaker 2: most passionate about, and he has poured his heart and
Speaker 2: soul into short game and in wedges and just what
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about today. There's so much like
Speaker 2: nuance to it, totally, so much nuance. We have to
Speaker 2: have a lot of options for different players, the styles
Speaker 2: and techniques to use your wedge for so many different shots.
Speaker 2: You have to go really deep on that one product category.
Speaker 2: And that's what Jacob's been awesomea doing here in the
Speaker 2: last you know, five to ten years.
Speaker 1: Just focusing on wedges. And I think for maybe the
Speaker 1: layman out there that doesn't know a lot about the
Speaker 1: designer obviously has the brains that you guys possess. You
Speaker 1: think about wedges, you go out, I mean, how much
Speaker 1: more can you change about this golf club. It doesn't
Speaker 1: travel really far, and you're hitting around the greens in
Speaker 1: a way you kind of manipulate manipulate the wedge yourself
Speaker 1: with your own hands. So how do you kind of
Speaker 1: keep pushing the envelope in the wedge space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think one of the first things that
Speaker 3: we look at when we're approaching a project is, like one,
Speaker 3: who's the target customer, not just for like the whole lineup,
Speaker 3: but for each individual grind. What's the player archetype that
Speaker 3: fits into that. And even though that a lot of
Speaker 3: those changes that we're making to soul grinds and designs
Speaker 3: aren't necessarily things that are revolve around a lot of
Speaker 3: technology and innovation. Better understanding how a golfer delivers the
Speaker 3: club is possible now through a lot of that technology
Speaker 3: and innovation. So we have our focal motion capture lab
Speaker 3: at Paining. We've been able to in the last year
Speaker 3: or so actually capture some really short shots. So I
Speaker 3: remember a couple of years ago, Stan Utley would come
Speaker 3: out and we couldn't pick up shots under like fifty
Speaker 3: yards because the system wouldn't trigger. And so we've had
Speaker 3: a whole team of engineers working on how do we
Speaker 3: kind of rig the system so we can capture these
Speaker 3: little five six ten yard shots that stands hitting with
Speaker 3: a lot of different techniques, and as we understand what
Speaker 3: the golf club's doing, we can design it more optimal
Speaker 3: sole configuration for that player to kind of have different
Speaker 3: levels of turf security, versatility around the greens. And then too,
Speaker 3: just approaching things from like a friction and performance side
Speaker 3: of thing. We have and we have multiple PhDs in
Speaker 3: our innovation department and our golf science team that their
Speaker 3: only focus is to find better friction on wedges. The
Speaker 3: learnings that we have kind of translate to other product
Speaker 3: categories as well. But I mean, as we'll probably talk
Speaker 3: about later, the importance of friction in the wedge game
Speaker 3: is so high just given the different spin lofts that
Speaker 3: golfers are delivering wedgs up.
Speaker 2: So Jacob, there's the delivery stuff we'll talk about. In
Speaker 2: being able to I think in my mind it's it's
Speaker 2: being able to measure things that launch monitors can't do
Speaker 2: currently maybe they'll be able to do in the future.
Speaker 2: So we'll get into that when it comes to friction.
Speaker 2: Give a little overview for the listener. The viewer here
Speaker 2: to the podcast on what what a groups do? I mean?
Speaker 2: I think we've heard these these stories right. Some listeners
Speaker 2: might be able to, Oh, grooves don't do anything. Grooves
Speaker 2: cause all the spin. What do grooves do? And what
Speaker 2: does the land in between the grooves do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 3: So looking at wedges, and I think one of the
Speaker 3: most eye opening things you can do is to take
Speaker 3: just your standard wedge that has grooves on it, and
Speaker 3: then if you have a wedge has absolutely no grooves
Speaker 3: on it, go out in the middle of the fairway,
Speaker 3: hit a couple of balls, and they're gonna fly the
Speaker 3: exact same They're gonna launch at the same trajectory, have
Speaker 3: similar spin rates. But the second you get any sort
Speaker 3: of grass moisture between the club and ball, those trajectories
Speaker 3: couldn't be any more different.
Speaker 1: Where if you.
Speaker 3: Have grooves on the face and other face blasts, milling, etc.
Speaker 3: It's going to preserve that launch window that players are
Speaker 3: looking for. But if you don't have the grooves or anything,
Speaker 3: the ball shoots straight up with no spin. It's like
Speaker 3: a top spin lib. Basically, there's no control over the ball,
Speaker 3: your distance is super inconsistent front back. But I think
Speaker 3: the primary role of all of those things on the
Speaker 3: face is just to kind of stabilize the ball flight
Speaker 3: as you get into different scenarios. I think one of
Speaker 3: the ways I like to represent it is your grooves,
Speaker 3: your face blast you're milling. That's kind of like MOI
Speaker 3: for your launch conditions to where you like on a driver,
Speaker 3: we design MOI in so if you hit it out
Speaker 3: on the toe, you're going to be able to preserve
Speaker 3: ball speed and generate a more optimal trajectory. But in wedges,
Speaker 3: as we add different elements of increased friction, we're adding
Speaker 3: MOI to the shot that you're hitting from the first
Speaker 3: cut of rough where you play in early in the
Speaker 3: morning with your buddies and you've got the do on
Speaker 3: the golf ball. We're just trying to normalize those launch
Speaker 3: conditions as much as possible.
Speaker 1: Marty, something you've told me is rarely do you have
Speaker 1: a shot that doesn't have something between the ball and
Speaker 1: the face. I mean, even from fairway if you're playing
Speaker 1: you know, like Jacob said, you're playing in the morning,
Speaker 1: or if you got it it's kind of a wet day,
Speaker 1: like there's going to be something that's going to get
Speaker 1: between the face of the club and the golf ball,
Speaker 1: even if you're in the fairway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, We've done some great high speed video at like
Speaker 2: thirty thousand frames a second where you think it's a
Speaker 2: perfectly clean lie and players are peaking up and the
Speaker 2: you know, the slightest amount of grass and debris and
Speaker 2: you can actually see the water dropless being squeezed out
Speaker 2: of the grass. Yeah, which is pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: Even like bone dry fairways. Something always something I think
Speaker 3: that's so wild. By the way, do we have a
Speaker 3: name for the area between the grooves?
Speaker 1: Can we? Should? We think of that?
Speaker 3: We call it like the land area. It's kind of
Speaker 3: what we refer to it internally. And I think looking
Speaker 3: at grooves are kind of like the macro level of
Speaker 3: face friction, and then you really get into like the
Speaker 3: micro level with the really small milling textures. But you
Speaker 3: can still see that with your eye. But then you
Speaker 3: go a step below that too, where you're face blasting.
Speaker 3: You're seeing all these tiny peaks and valleys and a
Speaker 3: lot of variety in the surface texture. And that's what
Speaker 3: really helps all those things working together. Is what really
Speaker 3: is going to drive that performance to have that constant friction.
Speaker 2: It's a lot like tires on a car, right, Like
Speaker 2: when it's dry out, you you don't can drive on
Speaker 2: ball tire. Yeah, you can drive on ball tires. A
Speaker 2: drag racer has they have no treads on the tire
Speaker 2: soon as it starts raining, especially in Arizona doesn't rain
Speaker 2: that much, and people drive. People always like, oh, people
Speaker 2: don't want to drive in Arizona. But you have so
Speaker 2: much oil, debris everything on the road. You need all
Speaker 2: of that technology in there, the treads and then the
Speaker 2: texture in between. Both of those things kind of peak
Speaker 2: the peak the friction. One fun way to do that
Speaker 2: test that Jacob was talking about, and it's great if
Speaker 2: you're a fitter listening to this, do this indoors. Okay,
Speaker 2: so indoor fitting. It's kind of hard to simulate the friction.
Speaker 2: The friction or the lies. Basically when we say friction
Speaker 2: is really the lies you get out on the course.
Speaker 2: Is to sprints the water, get a little spray bottle,
Speaker 2: sprints the ball with a little bit of water, and
Speaker 2: look out because you might get a launch angle you've
Speaker 2: never seen before in your hitting bay. And that's one
Speaker 2: way to showcase the technology of S one fifty nine
Speaker 2: R groove technology over maybe your game or wedge bring
Speaker 2: in there to evaluate, right Jae.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: I think that's the coolest part about that test that
Speaker 3: we've kind of developed over the last couple of years,
Speaker 3: is we want that fitter or just somebody who's on
Speaker 3: their own wanting to kind of test out some different wedges.
Speaker 3: We want them to be able to simulate as close
Speaker 3: to the conditions that they're going to see out on
Speaker 3: the golf course. So the spray bottle test is just
Speaker 3: a great way is not necessarily saying like hey, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be playing water and pouring out raining, but it
Speaker 3: just simulates anything that's less than that perfect environment that
Speaker 3: you would get from a mat or something like that.
Speaker 1: Can you walk us through the grinds, because I know
Speaker 1: you've introduced some new grinds with one fi nine, Can
Speaker 1: you just walk us through the different grinds you have
Speaker 1: with wedges? Sure?
Speaker 3: So I think looking at the wedges, kind of looking
Speaker 3: at where we have the most options, and that's going
Speaker 3: to be in a lob wedges, so it typically will
Speaker 3: start there. So we have six different grinds for wide
Speaker 3: variety of players techniques, et cetera. The first grind that
Speaker 3: is our s grind, so that one is kind of
Speaker 3: the I wanna say, bread and butter because it works
Speaker 3: in so many different conditions of firmer turf, softer turf,
Speaker 3: et cetera. But it accommodates a wide variety of players
Speaker 3: too and how they like to hit shots. So it's
Speaker 3: got a little bit more bounce in the middle of
Speaker 3: the soul, which helps on more of the distance wedges
Speaker 3: and some of the more square face shots around the greens.
Speaker 3: But as you open it up around the greens, you
Speaker 3: get a little bit of trail edge relief. Okay, the
Speaker 3: trail edge is basically like you look at the bottom
Speaker 3: of the golf club and usually you can kind of
Speaker 3: see like a little ridge where the soul kind of
Speaker 3: changes direction. So the trail edge is basically anything that's
Speaker 3: behind that little break point in the back across our line.
Speaker 3: There's a varying amounts of relief in that section depending
Speaker 3: on what the player is looking to do. So there
Speaker 3: is a bit of that trail edge relief on that soul,
Speaker 3: and it gives a player some flexibility to open the
Speaker 3: face and manipulate a little bit and still be able
Speaker 3: to generate the.
Speaker 1: Height that they're looking for around the greens. So that's
Speaker 1: the initial grind, and then if you can kind of
Speaker 1: just kind of walk us through some of the other
Speaker 1: ones that are available, if you will, just because again,
Speaker 1: I think what's nice about this episode is someone listening
Speaker 1: and trying to underderstand what the wedges look like and
Speaker 1: how many options there are, to just get a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a definition of what everything is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, so I think the I'll go ahead and
Speaker 3: go to one of our new grinds next to h grind,
Speaker 3: So that one's inspired by a lot of the work
Speaker 3: that we've done out on tour with our players, and
Speaker 3: for a long time we've had different options through ping works,
Speaker 3: the most popular being the half Moon grind.
Speaker 1: So what that grind.
Speaker 3: Does is it relieves material kind of in the heel
Speaker 3: to s actually the club and steepens the trail edge
Speaker 3: relief as well. So what that does is that gives
Speaker 3: the player some versatility to open the face keep the
Speaker 3: lead edge nice and tight to the turf. Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: sure Marty's used variations in.
Speaker 1: That that like lay in pretty flat, like if you're
Speaker 1: opening it up. Is it pretty flat on the ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's I think if you're a golfer that
Speaker 2: goes out to retail and you put on the carpet,
Speaker 2: you know, and you rotate it open, you're like, Oh,
Speaker 2: if it's me and you, we want to be able
Speaker 2: to hit those higher shots off of firmer turf. It's like,
Speaker 2: you don't want that lead edge to rise too much.
Speaker 2: You don't want to stay perfectly leveled to the ground
Speaker 2: and get knife eeds rest of things. Yeah, but you
Speaker 2: want to to kind of stay low with that. How
Speaker 2: you open the face and orient the handle right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: So that kind of is a great lead in to
Speaker 3: the the next new grind, the Bee Grind. So the
Speaker 3: Bee Grind also inspired by some work we've done out
Speaker 3: on tour.
Speaker 1: This is one that.
Speaker 3: Works really well for players that around the greens prefer
Speaker 3: to hit shots with the more square face, slightly open face, okay,
Speaker 3: and they kind of have a more neutral technique, I
Speaker 3: like to say, a little bit more powered by body rotation,
Speaker 3: not as dynamic with their wrists and stuff. But the
Speaker 3: Bee Grind has a wider, flatter soul, so it actually
Speaker 3: has the lowest bounce angle of any club in the line,
Speaker 3: which allows it to sit super low on square face shots,
Speaker 3: but it has the forgiveness through the turf because it's a.
Speaker 1: Really wide soul.
Speaker 3: So Chuck Cook, one of our brand ambassadors, great player,
Speaker 3: that's a club that's worked really well for him in
Speaker 3: the past couple of days as we've been doing some
Speaker 3: different testing, because like I said, he he's a pretty
Speaker 3: neutral chipper. He's not being really dynamic with his hands
Speaker 3: and how he delivers a club, so he's able to
Speaker 3: generate kind of height and spin with that configuration and
Speaker 3: it works really well for his more neutral shallow technique.
Speaker 2: So be wide but low angle correct exactly. That's kind
Speaker 2: of the kicker on the on the B yeah for sure. Okay,
Speaker 2: And in preceeded by that, we talked about the H
Speaker 2: grind H for half moon, Yes, right, so that's where
Speaker 2: you got all that relief. For those listening, you can
Speaker 2: just imagine us taking the grind like our works grind
Speaker 2: half moon grind and peeling off material from the heel
Speaker 2: and toe like that half moon shape, and then we
Speaker 2: have the W.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the W is a great grind for somebody like
Speaker 3: yourself who won, they might take either larger divits, or
Speaker 3: they play in the northeast where it's a little bit
Speaker 3: softer turf, maybe a little bit wetter.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're divid shaming me, but it can go
Speaker 1: ahead of teah, that's all right, We'll roll with it.
Speaker 1: I'll take it.
Speaker 3: So the W grind we actually do in fifty four
Speaker 3: through sixty, okay, And I really like players using the
Speaker 3: W in their fifty four fifty six because it gives
Speaker 3: them a higher bounce option that they can have, make sense,
Speaker 3: And it also works really well that player uses that
Speaker 3: club to hit a lot of their distance wedges, so
Speaker 3: kind of that three quarter to more full swing. It's
Speaker 3: really shallow through the turf on those shots, which helps
Speaker 3: generate a little bit of that flatter ball flight that
Speaker 3: great players look for. And it also works really well
Speaker 3: too for players who around the greens kind of like
Speaker 3: to move the ball back in their stance, lean the
Speaker 3: handle a little bit more, because as you lean the
Speaker 3: handle that too much. So as you lean that speaking
Speaker 3: of my soul, right, yeah, one more step over, a
Speaker 3: little more shaft ling, a little more.
Speaker 1: Back foot yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: So what I think a great thing to understand is basically,
Speaker 3: for every degree that you move your hands forward, you're
Speaker 3: removing a degree.
Speaker 1: Of bounce off the soul. Okay, makes sense.
Speaker 3: So if you're playing your web shots kind of middle
Speaker 3: to back in your stants to effectively make contact with
Speaker 3: the golf ball, you have to deal off the club
Speaker 3: to get it in the right spot. So as you're
Speaker 3: doing that, you need to have more security on the
Speaker 3: bottom of that golf club. So the W has the
Speaker 3: highest bounce angle, it's got a lot of wet and
Speaker 3: it's also got a lot of camber. So camber is
Speaker 3: basically the curvature from the lead edge to the bottom
Speaker 3: of the club. So there's a lot of volume of
Speaker 3: soul kind of below that lead edge that prevents it
Speaker 3: from getting really deep into the turf.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, Marty, this is a lot of information.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're talking about grinds and it can get
Speaker 1: pretty it can get pretty in depth obviously. I mean
Speaker 1: the explanations are awesome. I mean they can get pretty Golfye.
Speaker 1: What I find amazing about paying and what you guys
Speaker 1: have done is you've tried to simplify this information, not
Speaker 1: in terms of like sending out a press release or
Speaker 1: trying to you know, get like talking points, literally doing
Speaker 1: it with technology, and I mean there's an app now
Speaker 1: that's out that that everyday golfers can use to try
Speaker 1: to understand what grind and what wedge is going to
Speaker 1: make the most sense for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's awesome. This app we made, Shane is to
Speaker 2: take you know, we expanded our number of grinds so
Speaker 2: to a lot of golfers. They're already paralyzed by understanding grinds.
Speaker 2: What is bounce? What is angle? You guys have all
Speaker 2: these acronyms for your grinds. Which one should be for me?
Speaker 2: So we tried to solve that. So you answer a
Speaker 2: series of questions and these questions are basically not joking.
Speaker 2: They're kind of like decoding how Jacob works with our.
Speaker 1: Tour agree with you.
Speaker 2: So we took the process flow that Jacob used with
Speaker 2: our tour players and then the everyday golfer walk them
Speaker 2: through their technique. Jacob talked about do you play the
Speaker 2: ball back to play the ball forward? If you play
Speaker 2: the ball back, you're most likely to have more handle lean.
Speaker 2: As you lean, the handles get shaffling, you're gonna take
Speaker 2: bounce off. You'll probably be better towards our w grind,
Speaker 2: maybe our B grind, things of that nature. So this
Speaker 2: app you just answer a series of questions. Super not
Speaker 2: a lot of questions. This is a three minute ordeal
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, two where our promises two minutes are less.
Speaker 2: Maybe two minutes or less. You answer those questions and
Speaker 2: it'll give you the top two options. It'll give you
Speaker 2: one that'll probably going to work better, and then a
Speaker 2: secondary option. The ideal state is go through that app,
Speaker 2: get down to these final two and go do a
Speaker 2: little evaluation between those two. And Shane, the cool part
Speaker 2: is not only does it give you grind recommendation, so
Speaker 2: all the stuff Jacob just talked about and remembering what
Speaker 2: T and S and W and HR you can forget
Speaker 2: about that. Just go through the app. It'll tell you. Well,
Speaker 2: it'll also give a recommendation for your gapping, because that's
Speaker 2: also a major problem we see with a lot of
Speaker 2: golfers is how do you if your highest loft of
Speaker 2: wedge is sixty or fifty eight, how do you spread
Speaker 2: the right numbers to hit your gaps between that and
Speaker 2: your highest loft of wedge?
Speaker 1: Marty. Gapping is something we've talked a lot about on
Speaker 1: this podcast over the last year. And I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if there's a right answer for this, but I'm interested
Speaker 1: in what you both think on this is would you
Speaker 1: rather have tighter gaps in terms of shorter distance and
Speaker 1: have larger gaps or maybe have your gap issue being
Speaker 1: in longer clubs or vice versa, Because the way I
Speaker 1: think about golf now, it doesn't necessarily don't have it
Speaker 1: the ball three hundred yards to hit a lot of
Speaker 1: wedges on a golf course, and when you have a
Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty yard gap in that one ten to
Speaker 1: one fifty range, you're gonna have a lot of those
Speaker 1: golf shots on the golf course. It feels like that's
Speaker 1: the place you want to be the most locked up
Speaker 1: in terms of gappy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've done We've run some really cool analysis on this.
Speaker 2: Jacob's worked on this on some of the iron projects
Speaker 2: that he's done is looking at where players are on
Speaker 2: the golf course. So with our data partnership, with our cost,
Speaker 2: we can actually go out and say, okay, eighteen handicappers,
Speaker 2: twelve handicappers, scratch golfers, what is their kind of probability
Speaker 2: distribution of where they hitting a lot of shots on
Speaker 2: the course in the peak for everybody starts around that
Speaker 2: one twenty range and peaks out around one forty five.
Speaker 2: Then it starts a level out around one sixty one
Speaker 2: sixty five. So the answer to your question is yes,
Speaker 2: pitching wedge nine iron gap wedge is where you want
Speaker 2: to make sure you don't have an enormous game gap
Speaker 2: because you're gonna have a lot of those shots and
Speaker 2: they're very important for scoring. That's that range where you
Speaker 2: can stuff it in there and make a birdy one
Speaker 2: in a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think kind of speaking to that gapping and
Speaker 3: working with tour players, especially like in that transition from
Speaker 3: their iron set into their wedges. I remember very clearly
Speaker 3: working with the player a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 3: it's Wednesday morning before the tournament starts, and just getting
Speaker 3: numbers confirmed on track man before we get going, and
Speaker 3: going through pitching wedge. Pitching wedge is going let's say
Speaker 3: one forty two, the fifty degree is going one twenty nine,
Speaker 3: and then the fifty four degree is going like one
Speaker 3: to twelve, and they're like, this isn't acceptable. So it's
Speaker 3: down to the level of like, okay, we need to
Speaker 3: bend this a half degree strong. So we can get
Speaker 3: another two yards out of it. So those players on
Speaker 3: a week to week basis that are playing for their livelihood,
Speaker 3: they understand how important it is, especially in that section
Speaker 3: of their set, to have that high level of precision,
Speaker 3: because a lot of them kind of work off the
Speaker 3: systems of Okay, I know, my full goes this number
Speaker 3: for this club, and then they have a three quarter
Speaker 3: and a half shot or whatever percentage of and they
Speaker 3: have those numbers exactly dialed, and they have a system
Speaker 3: formulated to where they have every yardage covered from let's
Speaker 3: say sixty five to one hundred and thirty five yards.
Speaker 3: So just seeing that that level of precision that they require,
Speaker 3: I think it highlights the importance of the gapping app,
Speaker 3: especially kind of how it's linked in with the new
Speaker 3: Fine My Grind wedge app and our recommendations when you
Speaker 3: get into that portion of the set. And we've also
Speaker 3: added a new wedge in that space too, So typically
Speaker 3: we'd go from a forty six to a fifty degree,
Speaker 3: but based on the demands of some of our consumers
Speaker 3: and how iron sets have changed over time, we decided
Speaker 3: to add a forty eight degree, so that could be
Speaker 3: a new gap weedge for somebody. I mean, I remember
Speaker 3: growing up, everybody's gap wedge was a fifty two degree.
Speaker 3: You always went fifty two to fifty six sixty. And
Speaker 3: that's even probably new school for a lot of people listening.
Speaker 3: But then, like when I started at Ping, it was
Speaker 3: everybody was fifty to fifty four to fifty eight, Like
Speaker 3: it's everything's moved that way. So I think kind of
Speaker 3: the new wave is kind of here where in order
Speaker 3: for somebody to properly gap into their iron set, a
Speaker 3: forty eight degree option might be the best one for them.
Speaker 1: Do most tour players play four wedges? And when I
Speaker 1: say four wedges, I'm saying kind of not the wedge
Speaker 1: out of their set, but four actual wedges wedges. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a pretty good mix where you have I don't
Speaker 1: know the percentages off the top of my head, I
Speaker 1: can definitely think of a handful of guys that would
Speaker 1: play that specialty forty six degree wedge that we have
Speaker 1: right now, because because Marty you play, you play the blueprint.
Speaker 2: Wedge, right yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I find it so interesting that there are
Speaker 1: there's such kind of a I don't want to say debate, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's really what you prefer. I remember
Speaker 1: the first time I put a pitching wedge in the
Speaker 1: bag that was like from the wedge set and not
Speaker 1: from the I guess iron set if you will, it was.
Speaker 1: It was life changing for me because I felt like
Speaker 1: I could do a lot more with it around the
Speaker 1: greens than I could previously.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, when we talked to Joaquin, I think he
Speaker 2: was the same way as like, oh, when I hit
Speaker 2: my wedge, I just wanted to be like, have the
Speaker 2: psychology of his Yeah, totally didn't like your specialty, Jacob.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about about some of our tour players and
Speaker 2: some of the new grinds. Who's been a good matchup.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've worked hands on with a lot of
Speaker 2: our players, doing a lot of testing, evaluation on course
Speaker 2: at facilities, at PG tour events, and a couple of
Speaker 2: the new grinds, the B and the H grind are
Speaker 2: kind of catered towards a few spots in terms of
Speaker 2: performance we are missing there. So can you give a
Speaker 2: few examples there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think looking at when we just added the
Speaker 3: new Grinds to the line, definitely trying to just solve
Speaker 3: a problem that we have, whether it's out on the
Speaker 3: truck of it. We want to be able to pull
Speaker 3: a wedge straight out of the drawer and it be
Speaker 3: built for the player. Most of them have some slight
Speaker 3: refinements to theirs, but we want to have great starting points,
Speaker 3: so by adding the h grind in particular, one of
Speaker 3: the areas that we saw a lot of opportunity was
Speaker 3: for the player that might play in kind of softer
Speaker 3: or even more grain year turf. So think of a
Speaker 3: guys at play in Florida Sea Island, et cetera. They
Speaker 3: were kind of struggling where they're like, Oh, I really
Speaker 3: like to have this tea grind and open up the face,
Speaker 3: but then I get into these heavy Florida bunkers and
Speaker 3: it's hard to get enough speed on it.
Speaker 1: So we would we were.
Speaker 3: Doing the half Moon grinds pretty frequently for these players,
Speaker 3: and the more and more we've tested the H grind,
Speaker 3: I worked with players at Quayle Hollow earlier this year
Speaker 3: to do some testing get initial feedback. That was like
Speaker 3: the first immediate bit that jumped out. I remember was
Speaker 3: working with Tyrrell Hatton and we had hit some little
Speaker 3: chips around the grains, got some good feedback and for him,
Speaker 3: like bunker shots are really important with his lob wedge,
Speaker 3: and we get in the bunker and he gets in there,
Speaker 3: hit opens it up. He's getting settled in, hits this
Speaker 3: perfect thump one hot and.
Speaker 1: He turns around. He goes, we've got it. There you go,
Speaker 1: and so it takes one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, so that one is almost there. Just to
Speaker 3: soft a problem. Like I said of softer sand players
Speaker 3: want to open the face. He still manipulates face a
Speaker 3: lot around the green, so that versatility allows him to
Speaker 3: do that. And I think the bee Grind's gonna work
Speaker 3: really well with a lot of our LPGA tour staff.
Speaker 3: So one of the most common things that we do
Speaker 3: out there is taking their iron sets and taking a
Speaker 3: little bounce off the soul. It helps them get into
Speaker 3: the turf a little bit more so they can generate
Speaker 3: more height. And we see a lot of similar things
Speaker 3: that they do in their wedge shut up because their
Speaker 3: techniques are usually pretty shallow, a little more neutral in
Speaker 3: their delivery. So with that new bee grind, they're gonna
Speaker 3: be able to hit a lot of their shots around
Speaker 3: the green, generate more height and spin, and get that
Speaker 3: nice feedback off the turf and they still have that
Speaker 3: forgiveness through the width of the soul, where in the
Speaker 3: past they might have struggled to find a great option
Speaker 3: for them. So excited to take that out to them
Speaker 3: here in the next couple weeks.
Speaker 1: How about Sawhith because I know he's kind of got
Speaker 1: free can I don't want to say all the shots,
Speaker 1: but probably has all the shots. Oh, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Working with him is so much fun because one, he's
Speaker 3: a guy that in practice he will try these absolutely
Speaker 3: absurd shots, but you look and you go watch him
Speaker 3: play a tournament and it's like, oh my gosh, he's
Speaker 3: pulling these shots off in the tournament. I remember working
Speaker 3: with him earlier this year out of Bayhill and earlier
Speaker 3: at the Phoenix Open too, and just watching the variety
Speaker 3: of shots that he hits where he's got the face
Speaker 3: like pointing backwards by set up, swinging ten degrees left,
Speaker 3: and it's all over the place, hitting these just crazy
Speaker 3: high spinners, low hookers. He'll flip it over, hit it
Speaker 3: cross handed, so much variety. And I remember watching him
Speaker 3: at Players and I can't is it eight, that's the
Speaker 3: par five, nine, the par five and he was on
Speaker 3: one of those big mounds short right of the green brutal.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody gets that up and down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the pen was like front left
Speaker 3: and he's on this down slope and I'm still like
Speaker 3: sitting there watching on the TV and I'm like, oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, what's he gonna do? And he's leaning with
Speaker 3: the slope and he takes this quick at it and
Speaker 3: like snaps it back up like a whip. It takes
Speaker 3: one bounce and just skids right next to the pen.
Speaker 3: I was like, only this guy can pull that shot off.
Speaker 3: But then not only to like actually be able to
Speaker 3: pull it off, to think, like, you know what, I
Speaker 3: can pull it off right in tournament play too, so to.
Speaker 1: Have the shot in your brain to step into that
Speaker 1: shot and try it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So he's He's one that's so fun to evaluate wedges
Speaker 3: with because he's looking for something that he can do
Speaker 3: absolutely everything with and he hits a sixty everywhere.
Speaker 1: Do you guys lean into that? I mean, if you
Speaker 1: have somebody like sawhith On, you know that's an ambassador
Speaker 1: and the staff member and does so well with ping,
Speaker 1: do you guys lean into that and say, hey, can
Speaker 1: you try this grind or can you hit these types
Speaker 1: of shots or what would you like to see that
Speaker 1: you think would benefit you with X, Y and Z.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's something that our staff is really great
Speaker 3: at of. Even if they have something that they love
Speaker 3: and has been working really well for them, they're always
Speaker 3: very receptive to try something because at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, all of them are trying to get better.
Speaker 3: Always like, so, what Marty would you guys were talking
Speaker 3: about early with Marty, it's it's designing clubs too and
Speaker 3: prove everybody who's overall game, but it improves your game
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jacob, compare and contrast a couple of players on
Speaker 2: our staff that have very different techniques like maybe somebody steeper,
Speaker 2: somebody shallower, somebody ball for somebody a little you know,
Speaker 2: maybe pick up a little turf, a little you know,
Speaker 2: ground impact before they hit the ball.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think so we'd be remiss not to
Speaker 3: talk about Victor right now. Yes, and the huge changes
Speaker 3: that he's made to his technique in his short game
Speaker 3: had a pretty good twenty twenty three. Yeah, it worked
Speaker 3: out right for him. So Victor and a lot of
Speaker 3: his changes has definitely switched more to being very steep
Speaker 3: with his attack angle. But what's cool about Victor's technique
Speaker 3: is the way he opens the face so much. Yes,
Speaker 3: he leans the handle, but he's got the face so
Speaker 3: open that he's able to still have bounce at the bottom.
Speaker 3: He's he's definitely trying to get it more into the turf,
Speaker 3: but as he's opening the face so much, he's adding
Speaker 3: bounce to the golf club. Sure, he's leaning the shaft
Speaker 3: to deloft it a little bit to hit his windows.
Speaker 3: So he's kind of on one end of the spectrum
Speaker 3: where if you look at most of his chip and
Speaker 3: pitch shots, he kind of plays more ball forward in
Speaker 3: his stance, leans it a bit more, gets his sternum
Speaker 3: working forward, so he'd kind of be like in one camp,
Speaker 3: and then on the other side of things, Harris English
Speaker 3: is a good one where he'll play a little bit
Speaker 3: of variety and ball position to alter his trajectory, and
Speaker 3: he's worked well in the past with something that has
Speaker 3: a little bit of width in the center. Victor tends
Speaker 3: to gravitate more towards something that's a little bit narrower
Speaker 3: up front, and with Victor's technique, he uses a narrower
Speaker 3: soul that has a little bit more lead edge angle
Speaker 3: and that works well with his technique as he's liking
Speaker 3: to lean the handle little bit more forward, gets the
Speaker 3: ball captured in the right spot on the face. But
Speaker 3: Harris has responded really well to souls that have a
Speaker 3: little bit more wit to him, not saying it's a
Speaker 3: wider soul by any stretch, but a little bit wider,
Speaker 3: a little bit flatter soul where his technique has worked
Speaker 3: really well on some of those shots. So there's such
Speaker 3: a huge array of techniques and that I think that's
Speaker 3: one of the things I love the most about Wedges
Speaker 3: is that you go watch PGA Tour, LPGA Tour players,
Speaker 3: brand ambassadors, all the people within the pingdom, as we
Speaker 3: like to say, so many vastly different techniques and to
Speaker 3: be able to match up a soul grind that's going
Speaker 3: to work the best for them to have the best
Speaker 3: chance of success.
Speaker 2: Jacob, what advice do you have for the club golfer
Speaker 2: out there. They're listened to this pod, they're losing spin,
Speaker 2: they're questioning if they have the right gapping in the
Speaker 2: right grind. What advice do you have for them when
Speaker 2: they go out and start looking for wedges. Yeah, evaluating wedges.
Speaker 3: Sure, So I think the first thing that we've talked
Speaker 3: about all the different grinds face friction, et cetera. But
Speaker 3: when it comes down to getting a set of wedges
Speaker 3: and getting fit for wedges and trying new wedges, all
Speaker 3: we want to do is get the ball contact and
Speaker 3: the correct location on the face. So with the different
Speaker 3: soul grinds, it's going to match up with different technique.
Speaker 3: So as you're hitting little chips and pitches around the greens,
Speaker 3: we want to see ball contact somewhere around groove three
Speaker 3: grow four on the face. So what that does in
Speaker 3: that location it gives you a nice combination of height
Speaker 3: and spin. If you get it lower on the face
Speaker 3: than that, you can maybe generate a touch more spin,
Speaker 3: But it comes off with a lot of ball speed.
Speaker 3: It's a flat land angle. You're gonna have a big
Speaker 3: first bounce and not really be able to stop it effectively.
Speaker 3: It gets higher on the face and you're gonna lose friction,
Speaker 3: the ball might slip a little bit, it's gonna be
Speaker 3: pretty chaotic. So as you're hitting different shots after you've
Speaker 3: gone through the wedge, app really pay attention to where
Speaker 3: your ball impact is on the face, because that's going
Speaker 3: to be a huge driver of performance. Another thing that
Speaker 3: can't stress enough is play a premium golf ball. Using
Speaker 3: a premium golf ball, it's going to be hard. Press
Speaker 3: to spin it without one and clean your club face,
Speaker 3: club face.
Speaker 1: Please.
Speaker 3: Grooves, groom every time, get it and roll out of
Speaker 3: that well. I mean like, not everybody has a track
Speaker 3: man or or device at their house, but if you're
Speaker 3: ever around one, hit a couple of shots with a
Speaker 3: dirty lob wedge.
Speaker 1: And see what the numbers are versus a clean one.
Speaker 1: It is crazy. It's in life.
Speaker 3: Need to see it, yeah, for sure. And I think
Speaker 3: too when you go approach a wedge fitting, and we
Speaker 3: kind of cover this in our app is before you
Speaker 3: go look at actual wedges, think about what you want
Speaker 3: each one to do. So, I mean Marty personally, like
Speaker 3: when he's working on his lob wedge, his sixty degree
Speaker 3: or is it even.
Speaker 1: Sixty one one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's not optimizing that thing to hit ninety yarders
Speaker 3: from the middle of the fairway. There's sure he might
Speaker 3: have to pull off that shot from time to time.
Speaker 3: If he's got a tucked pen over a bunker or whatever.
Speaker 3: But the vast majority of those shots he's going to
Speaker 3: hit with that club are going to be around the green.
Speaker 3: So when Marty and I are working on when he's
Speaker 3: getting a new lob wedge and we're hitting some different shots,
Speaker 3: you put weight on the most important things to you
Speaker 3: and then think about your next wedge in the set.
Speaker 3: For most people they're fifty four fifty six, that's going
Speaker 3: to be kind of more distance control focus as they're
Speaker 3: getting out to the rest of their iron set, and
Speaker 3: really pay attention to the gaps within that space as well.
Speaker 1: Marty, do you manipulate your shafts and your wedges. I'm
Speaker 1: recently switched to that, and I'm doing softer shafts in
Speaker 1: sixty and fifty six and then kind of the same
Speaker 1: shafts I do in my iron. Said, do you do
Speaker 1: that all? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So I play X one hundreds of my irons, and
Speaker 2: I play s fours.
Speaker 1: I do the same thing.
Speaker 2: So just a little bit softer gives me a little
Speaker 2: more feel. I feel like I could be a little
Speaker 2: bit more artistic, not rush the tempo as much, you know,
Speaker 2: apply the force, spike the force quite as much there,
Speaker 2: but it still keeps the weight. I think the one
Speaker 2: of the biggest things we've done in shafts is, you know,
Speaker 2: make sure you have a good weight progression, not too
Speaker 2: heavy and also not too light, right, I mean, I
Speaker 2: think the weight and balance of the wedge is super important.
Speaker 1: Marty.
Speaker 3: Do you want to talk about what you do in
Speaker 3: your labledge? That's a little bit special.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So my my lab edge, I kind of play
Speaker 2: the uh uh anti or reverse of the single link set. Right,
Speaker 2: So starting at my seven iron, my irons get instead
Speaker 2: of a half inch longer per iron, they get three
Speaker 2: quarters of an inch longer, so that my fore iron
Speaker 2: is really kind of like three iron lengths, so to speak.
Speaker 2: And we've kind of built that in. So I get
Speaker 2: a little more club at speed, a little bit more
Speaker 2: dynamic loft. With more ball speed, I get more peak
Speaker 2: high generally a little bit more spin in my long iron,
Speaker 2: so they go higher. Why do the opposite on the
Speaker 2: wedges I get? I have my wedges, my fifty five
Speaker 2: degree fifty six to fifty five a quarter inch short,
Speaker 2: and then my lob wedge is a half inch short,
Speaker 2: and I leave the headweight the same. So the swing
Speaker 2: weight is quite light and so that lighter swingweight gives
Speaker 2: the lob wedge a little less momentum, which is mass
Speaker 2: time's velocity for the physics folks out there. And because
Speaker 2: you have a less mass, then the ball comes off
Speaker 2: with a little bit less velocity, so you can swing harder.
Speaker 2: I think it's one of the things Joe Mayo said. Yep,
Speaker 2: the good player can learn how to slow the ball
Speaker 2: down around the greens and speed the ball up off
Speaker 2: the tee. And so that's been one little tweak that's
Speaker 2: really helped me. Payne Stewart used to do it for
Speaker 2: light long wedge. Bubba Watson with his bill he's always
Speaker 2: played a really light long budge as well.
Speaker 1: Jacob. One last thing on the new wedges, it's not
Speaker 1: just the wedges we're talking about. You guys also manipulated
Speaker 1: the grips a bit, is that right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So looking at the wedges, it's not necessarily just
Speaker 3: the head that we're working, right, We're looking at the
Speaker 3: whole system. The golfer's going to interact with the grip.
Speaker 3: And so one of the things with our dialo weedge
Speaker 3: grip that we developed a couple of years ago is
Speaker 3: it's three quarters of an inch longer than your standard
Speaker 3: grip and it has a reduced taper rate. So what
Speaker 3: that means is that as you get closer to the
Speaker 3: bottom of the grip, the diameter of the grip in
Speaker 3: your hands feels is pretty similar to what it does
Speaker 3: up the top end of the grip where you're normally
Speaker 3: holding it. And then also on the grip there's a
Speaker 3: couple indicator three indicator marks at the bottom that give
Speaker 3: you some reference points if you're choking down to hit
Speaker 3: different shots. So that works really well for somebody who
Speaker 3: kind of says, I want to make the same swing,
Speaker 3: but I want it to go five and ten yards shorter.
Speaker 1: They I think they're one.
Speaker 3: Inch cremit's at the bottom, and you can have some
Speaker 3: different yardages that you can work off simply by just
Speaker 3: moving your hand further down the grip and you're gonna
Speaker 3: have that consistent hand place.
Speaker 1: But it's a reference point, Marty. I mean, it's like
Speaker 1: a simple thing for golfers to do. They can't spend
Speaker 1: the you know, six hours on the driving range.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I Shane, I grew up playing the
Speaker 2: ping Dialer grip which had the vertical lines, and I
Speaker 2: remember specifically as a kid learning to hit a flop shot,
Speaker 2: where I would turn the dial over and be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now I'm gonna the faces clock to open this amount
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna hit my my flop shot right day one.
Speaker 1: So I mean, there's a reason you do this, Marty.
Speaker 1: You get dialing.
Speaker 4: You now you got the modern day dialing grip. There
Speaker 4: dial a weedge grip. Dial it up, Jacob. It's it's
Speaker 4: fascinating to hear. Are you already working on the next
Speaker 4: iteration of wedges already?
Speaker 1: Or oh yeah, time we're a few months in l
Speaker 1: are you really? Goodness it stops?
Speaker 3: Do you get like a week off when the launch
Speaker 3: happens and you know you're like, all right, you don't
Speaker 3: have to think about wedges for a week or is.
Speaker 1: That just vacation.
Speaker 3: Uh, that's usually when I get to go out to
Speaker 3: the golf course and hit weaves.
Speaker 2: Exactly. That's exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, we appreciate the inside Marty.
Speaker 2: Got anything else for him, No, I just appreciate everything
Speaker 2: you've done in the wedge category, Jacob. And Uh, I'm
Speaker 2: looking forward to having a lot of folks out there
Speaker 2: check out if if they go through the app, do it,
Speaker 2: do what Marty saying, I'm not joking. It's like getting
Speaker 2: the start of your fitting from Jacob himself.
Speaker 1: Yes, twenty twelve to now senior design engineering intern for Marty. Anymore,
Speaker 1: get out of here, Marty Jameson, thank you Jacob for
Speaker 1: your time. This is the Pink Proving Grounds Podcast