Driver fitting at PGA Tour Superstore: Free vs. Paid

[SteveGH7]

21 hours ago, funkyjudge said:

Incidentally, that Tensei Orange AV shaft that you have used in the past is a counter-balanced shaft, which is both a good fit and a necessity in Ping drivers because of the fact that Ping has the heaviest driver heads in the industry. The same counterbalanced shaft can be a poor fit in most other drivers with “normal” clubhead weights.

I have this shaft in my G425, but I was not fitted for that driver.  When I did a fitting the other day, they recommended the new G430 10k but in the Alta.  They did not test the Tensei Orange in that head, and I did not think to ask as we tried various other shafts in other models.  Is the Tensei Orange similar to the Alta since both are counter-balanced?  I didn't see it listed as one of the shaft options for the new Ping, but curious if it would be a good option. 

[JohnSmalls]

@berkeleybob from on lefty to another, congrats on finding a new driver!  Also, thank you for the entertaining rendition of Berkeleybob goes to Wonderland.  Really great job on writing up and keeping us informed.  Hope the Aerojet treats you well out on the course!

[funkyjudge]

48 minutes ago, SteveGH7 said:

I have this shaft in my G425, but I was not fitted for that driver.  When I did a fitting the other day, they recommended the new G430 10k but in the Alta.  They did not test the Tensei Orange in that head, and I did not think to ask as we tried various other shafts in other models.  Is the Tensei Orange similar to the Alta since both are counter-balanced?  I didn't see it listed as one of the shaft options for the new Ping, but curious if it would be a good option. 

The similarities between the Tensei Orange and Alta CB driver shafts end at the fact that they are both counterbalanced shafts. The Tensei Orange has a profile that is significantly stiffer throughout the length of the shaft and it is definitely a lower-launch and “lower spin” shaft (I put that in quotes because I don’t like calling shafts low, mid, or high spin). However, the shaft profile can contribute to the amount of spin that the golfer will get.

Edited February 12 by funkyjudge

[RickyBobby_PR]

40 minutes ago, SteveGH7 said:

Is the Tensei Orange similar to the Alta since both are counter-balanced?  I didn't see it listed as one of the shaft options for the new Ping, but curious if it would be a good option. 

The Alta is a shaft designed by Ping and made by Aldila for Ping. To my knowledge there isn’t any EI profile data on the Alta.

Most counterbalance shafts have different stiffness profiles. So they have the concept of being counterbalanced but how each manufacturer makes it will have differences in feel, where and how much stiffness there is in each section 

[funkyjudge]

52 minutes ago, SteveGH7 said:

I have this shaft in my G425, but I was not fitted for that driver.  When I did a fitting the other day, they recommended the new G430 10k but in the Alta.  They did not test the Tensei Orange in that head, and I did not think to ask as we tried various other shafts in other models.  Is the Tensei Orange similar to the Alta since both are counter-balanced?  I didn't see it listed as one of the shaft options for the new Ping, but curious if it would be a good option. 

Steve,

Do you still have the Tensei Orange shaft, or did you trade-in that G425 driver with the Tensei Orange in it when you got the G430 MAX 10K driver?  If you still have the Tensei Orange shaft, you might want to try it in the G430 10K driver (preferably on a good launch monitor, where you can compare the numbers that you get with the two shafts).

[SteveGH7]

5 minutes ago, funkyjudge said:

Do you still have the Tensei Orange shaft, or did you trade-in that G425 driver with the Tensei Orange in it when you got the G430 MAX 10K driver?  If you still have the Tensei Orange shaft, you might want to try it in the G430 10K driver (preferably on a good launch monitor, where you can compare the numbers that you get with the two shafts).

I still have it.  That's a good suggestion, thanks.  My initial numbers with my G425 in the Orange Tensei showed fairly low launch and spin, which jumped up when I tried the Alta with the G430, so that may be why the fitter didn't try the Tensei in the G430.  But I will take them both in and compare in the same head.  I do like the feel of the Tensei.

[funkyjudge]

17 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

The Alta is a shaft designed by Ping and made by Aldila for Ping. To my knowledge there isn’t any EI profile data on the Alta.

Most counterbalance shafts have different stiffness profiles. So they have the concept of being counterbalanced but how each manufacturer makes it will have differences in feel, where and how much stiffness there is in each section 

I didn’t want to go too deeply “into the weeds” regarding shaft designs, EI profiles, etc. and what all of that means, but you summarized it pretty well on a basic level.

Some shaft manufacturers achieve a counterbalanced shaft design by using heavier (and often firmer) materials in the butt or upper third of the shaft. Others just use more plies (layers) of material in that section of the shaft. Either way, it adds weight to the butt of the shaft, and this almost always makes the butt end of the shaft feel and play stiffer. Thus, you will often hear or see the term “this shaft feels firm or stiff under the hands” when you see reviews of counterbalanced shafts.

[daver920]

As someone who is considering a new driver this spring and had the same questions about free vs. paid fittings at PGA Superstore, I have greatly appreciated everyone's contributions to this conversation.

[GaryF]

Last night was talking general golf topics with a friend and he mentioned increasing his driver carry with a few degree positive AoA. He mentioned a quick method of checking whether one has a positive or negative AoA is to take a golf towel, roll it up and place about one grip length in front of the ball.  With positive AoA, one would miss the towel.  Flat or negative the club head will hit the towel.  Seems simple and will try this weekend. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

18 minutes ago, GaryF said:

Last night was talking general golf topics with a friend and he mentioned increasing his driver carry with a few degree positive AoA. He mentioned a quick method of checking whether one has a positive or negative AoA is to take a golf towel, roll it up and place about one grip length in front of the ball.  With positive AoA, one would miss the towel.  Flat or negative the club head will hit the towel.  Seems simple and will try this weekend. 

Yea some people can get more distance from a positive aoa but it’s more than just aoa. Is where the club is coming from.

The goal should be to try and swing neutral. Aoa and everything else will take care of itself. Chasing aoa can lead to other issues. Such as getting too inside out and ending up with an open face leading lots of weak shots to the right for right handed golfers or to prevent that over rotating the hands/arms to square the face and hitting pulls.

contrary to what many believe one can have high spin from a positive aoa because the golfer hits low and towards the heel.

I would imagine someone over the top can hit the ball with a negative aoa and not hit the towel.

Edited February 14 by RickyBobby_PR

[GaryF]

49 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Yea some people can get more distance from a positive aoa but it’s more than just aoa. Is where the club is coming from.

The goal should be to try and swing neutral. Aoa and everything else will take care of itself. Chasing aoa can lead to other issues. Such as getting too inside out and ending up with an open face leading lots of weak shots to the right for right handed golfers or to prevent that over rotating the hands/arms to square the face and hitting pulls.

contrary to what many believe one can have high spin from a positive aoa because the golfer hits low and towards the heel.

I would imagine someone over the top can hit the ball with a negative aoa and not hit the towel.

Yes, just a followup from earlier discussion with @chisag, @funkyjudge, and @cnosil using my driver data with 95 SS, 134 mph ball speed, 12.1 launch, 2253 spin, 75’ peak height and 218ish carry, and if that can be approved upon to around 230ish yards as others have thought possible.  I certainly have swing flaws that I’m aware of and always working on.  I don’t intend to let myself to get into a chase mode but greater awareness of my characteristics and things that can be improved upon are a good thing to me. 

And I haven’t forgotten about the diy driver tips, but am out of town w/o golf clubs, doing grandpa things.
 

Edited February 14 by GaryF

[cnosil]

3 minutes ago, GaryF said:

Yes, just a followup from earlier discussion with @chisag, @funkyjudge, and @cnosil using my driver data with 95 SS, 134 mph ball speed, 12.1 launch, 75’ peak height and 218ish carry, and if that can be approved upon to around 230ish yards.  

You could play with this  https://trajectory.flightscope.com/  to kind of see how changing things influences ball flight

 

[GaryF]

1 hour ago, cnosil said:

You could play with this  https://trajectory.flightscope.com/  to kind of see how changing things influences ball flight

 

That’s interesting.  Definitely need more ball speed which will generate height.

I will correct myself about my statement regarding “chasing”.  I do enjoy the chase of improving and the value of routing range sessions.  I enjoy playing as much as anyone but I have friends who only want to  play and they could be so much better, and less frustrated (and sometimes less angry) on the course if they just worked on some basics.

Five or so years ago I was an unofficial mid 20 hdcp and now at 70 have the lowest hdcp of my life.  I worked in an organization that prided itself in lifetime learning so it’s one of the few good habits I might still have. 

 

Edited February 14 by GaryF

[funkyjudge]

1 hour ago, cnosil said:

You could play with this  https://trajectory.flightscope.com/  to kind of see how changing things influences ball flight

 

Interesting!  I entered some of my recent shot data, and it tells me that I need to launch my drives higher. I launch the ball pretty high (I think), with a launch angle between 15* and 17*.  The estimates of my peak ball height are about 20' lower than what I actually achieve, because I have a 3.0* to 4.4* upward AOA.

[cnosil]

31 minutes ago, funkyjudge said:

Interesting!  I entered some of my recent shot data, and it tells me that I need to launch my drives higher. I launch the ball pretty high (I think), with a launch angle between 15* and 17*.  The estimates of my peak ball height are about 20' lower than what I actually achieve, because I have a 3.0* to 4.4* upward AOA.

I'd have to do some comparisons of my shots to see, but  don't remember my launch data.   Did you use your local weather or turn it off?

[funkyjudge]

11 minutes ago, cnosil said:

I'd have to do some comparisons of my shots to see, but  don't remember my launch data.   Did you use your local weather or turn it off?

I used the local weather, and it was accurate for temperature and wind speed, but I don’t think that the barometric pressure was correct because it said 14.26 psi.

[cnosil]

23 minutes ago, funkyjudge said:

I used the local weather, and it was accurate for temperature and wind speed, but I don’t think that the barometric pressure was correct because it said 14.26 psi.

wonder how it would compare if you turned it off.   I don't think most launch monitors have weather set so it could impact ball flight data. 

[GaryF]

53 minutes ago, cnosil said:

I'd have to do some comparisons of my shots to see, but  don't remember my launch data.   Did you use your local weather or turn it off?

My numbers were off, shorter by about 10 yards for carry as well.  I linked to actual weather and turned off the wind.  Still worth playing around with as it allows some cause/effect relationships which give nice insight. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

3 hours ago, GaryF said:

Yes, just a followup from earlier discussion with @chisag, @funkyjudge, and @cnosil using my driver data with 95 SS, 134 mph ball speed, 12.1 launch, 2253 spin, 75’ peak height and 218ish carry, and if that can be approved upon to around 230ish yards as others have thought possible.  I certainly have swing flaws that I’m aware of and always working on.  I don’t intend to let myself to get into a chase mode but greater awareness of my characteristics and things that can be improved upon are a good thing to me. 

And I haven’t forgotten about the diy driver tips, but am out of town w/o golf clubs, doing grandpa things.
 

I would spray the face and see where contact is. Based on your numbers you are hitting at or above center. But not too high on the face. 

Do you know your current aoa? Do you know if your face is open or closed to path? Do you what your swing path is?

And if we use the swing speed x 2.3 formula 218 is pretty much the potential. Could you squeak out some extra yards with more launch, maybe, whether it’s yards or not it’s possible. 

Edited February 14 by RickyBobby_PR

[GaryF]

40 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

I would spray the face and see where contact is. Based on your numbers you are hitting at or above center. But not too high on the face. 

Do you know your current aoa? Do you know if your face is open or closed to path? Do you what your swing path is?

And if we use the swing speed x 2.3 formula 218 is pretty much the potential. Could you squeak out some extra yards with more launch, maybe, whether it’s yards or not it’s possible. 

Good questions.  I very possibly do hit a littlE high on the face but I don’t know my current AoA but perhaps seems a bit low with 12.1 launch and 75’ height.  I suspect I’m around neutral.  I do have a tendency for consistent tee shots with my “good” swing that varies from slight draw to slight fade. I fight the OTT but with 82-85% FIRs the last 2 years I keep it in pretty good check and happy with my drives, but I’d like more carry if possible.  In my first post in this thread I thought I was at the max for my SS.

I haven’t played in 2 months and on the range have been working mostly with irons to gain better accuracy and have made some changes that should help me improve but I feel I’ve got a swing path issue, based on ball flight, and trying to work that out. I’m playing 2x next week which will give me a better indication. Might get a tripod and record some videos. 

 

[RickyBobby_PR]

6 minutes ago, GaryF said:

Good questions.  I very possibly do hit a littlE high on the face but I don’t know my current AoA but perhaps seems a bit low with 12.1 launch and 75’ height.  I suspect I’m around neutral.  I do have a tendency for consistent tee shots with my “good” swing that varies from slight draw to slight fade. I fight the OTT but with 82-85% FIRs the last 2 years I keep it in pretty good check and happy with my drives, but I’d like more carry if possible.  In my first post in this thread I thought I was at the max for my SS.

I haven’t played in 2 months and on the range have been working mostly with irons to gain better accuracy and have made some changes that should help me improve but I feel I’ve got a swing path issue, based on ball flight, and trying to work that out. I’m playing 2x next week which will give me a better indication. Might get a tripod and record some videos. 

 

2-3° is ideal. As it creeps towards 5° the swing starts getting to inside. Rory is an outlier at 5° but he has the tendency to have the two way miss when he is slightly off.

If your good swing is between a slight draw to a slight fade you probably do have a path issue and depending on what you do with the club face is determining the shot shape.

smash factor will also tell us how efficient you are. 
 

seeing all the shots from a an lm session rather than the average.

if you get some videos we can look at what’s happening. Remember for dtl camera at hand height and pointing at the hands. From face on center of the body at hand height. 

[GaryF]

6 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

2-3° is ideal. As it creeps towards 5° the swing starts getting to inside. Rory is an outlier at 5° but he has the tendency to have the two way miss when he is slightly off.

If your good swing is between a slight draw to a slight fade you probably do have a path issue and depending on what you do with the club face is determining the shot shape.

smash factor will also tell us how efficient you are. 
 

seeing all the shots from a an lm session rather than the average.

if you get some videos we can look at what’s happening. Remember for dtl camera at hand height and pointing at the hands. From face on center of the body at hand height. 

WAs wondering if knowing the driver loft and launch angle and some reference where it’s hit in the vertical plane of the face imply AoA.  Feels like something might be missing though. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

9 hours ago, GaryF said:

WAs wondering if knowing the driver loft and launch angle and some reference where it’s hit in the vertical plane of the face imply AoA.  Feels like something might be missing though. 

I’m not aware of using driver loft and launch angle would help generate that.

The loft that is more important is dynamic loft. Some will say spin loft but Howard jones thru a bunch of data collection debunked spin loft and showed the people at trackman the data and its flaw. He’s done a lot of work with trackman due to his time as a fitter and proximity to their facility 
 

 

Edited February 15 by RickyBobby_PR