Measuring bounce is simpler than you think

I recently had a nice long conversation with a professional club fitter regarding the bounce article that I had written a couple years ago that prompted me to write this Blog posting. One of the questions he had was related to finding a way to accurately measure bounce. While this might sound like an easy answer, it was not. You really need to have pictures there in front of you to explain it better, after all a picture is worth a thousand words.

To measure bounce, we first need to measure the loft of the club with the shaft perpendicular to the ground line. This is often done in a specification gauge or even in a good quality loft and lie machine. If you take a look at the diagram to the right, this is the same view as how you would measure the loft, but upside down. We will show you why in a second.

If there is bounce on an iron or wedge, then the contact point of the sole will not occur in the center of the sole. If there is positive bounce, the contact point with the ground or surface will be toward the trailing edge of the club and negative bounce the contact point of the sole will be nearer the leading edge.

To measure the bounce we want to mark the center of the sole. Start by measuring the width in the center of the sole with your calipers or a very good machinist ruler. With a Sharpie pen, place a small mark on the center of the sole. Double check that you mark is indeed located in the center. If not rub off the mark and try again.

There are commercially available bounce gauges that can run in the couple of hundred dollar range. While extremely accurate, most club fitting shops will not have invested into one. So what is the simple solution?

I had a machinist protractor that I picked up at my local hardware store a few years back. I am sure I didn’t spend more than $20 on it, but it has come in handy many times. One use is for measuring the bounce angle of a golf club.

Place the base of the protractor against the flat face of the iron or wedge. Loosen the wing nut or thumb screw so the arm is free to move. Adjust the club in the protractor so the face is good and tight against the base of the protractor and the arm of the protractor is just making contact with the mark you made on the center of the sole. It might take a little practice to make sure that it is just touching that mark and not to one side or another as it will through off your reading.

Next, measure the angle. Chances are the protractor will measure the supplement angle so you will need to subtract the reading from 90 degrees. For example, this was a 4 iron. The protractor read 69 degrees, therefore 90 – 69 = 21 degrees.

To obtain the bounce measurement, we simply take the loft reading (either from our specification gauge or loft & lie machine) and subtract the loft we obtained in the machinist protractor at the center of the sole.

If the loft was originally 23 degrees, this means the bounce of our club is 2 degrees. See, there is always a simple and often inexpensive solution to everything. The only time it doesn’t work is in the case where you might have a wedge with a concave sole, which are far and few between.

At Hireko we make every attempt to make all our newer models conform to the Rules of Golf.  If you see this Tournament Ready icon next to one of our clubheads, it means that it has been submitted to the USGA to receive a ruling that they do conform to the Rules of Golf. This means that you can safely use these clubs in competition, maintain a handicap or post a score and know you are following the Rules of Golf.

This past weekend, and on his wedding anniversary no less, Hireko’s technical Director Jeff Summitt attended the first ever Upper Midwest regional meeting of the International Guild of Clubmakers (ICG) at the McGolf Custom Golf Center in Waverly, OH. The ICG is a new independent organization designed to promote the growth of custom clubmaking, club fitting and repair.

The first guest speaker was Mike Stevens who is the representative of Zelocity, a manufacturer of golf performance monitors. Mike spoke at length about the features and upgrades of their Pure Launch system plus he gave us a hint of a new product on the horizon that they were very excited about.

Next, Jeff Summitt spoke about how Hireko develops and then models their original designs and to share some of the new technologies and products Hireko will be offering in the coming months. Lastly Jeff talked about some of the trends for next year. A raffle concluded the meeting with products donated by Aldila, Golf Pride, UST, SK Fiber and Hireko.

The attendees hailing from Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana spent two days discussing issues that affect their business and sharing stories, not to mention the camaraderie they shared at dinner or on the golf course. If you are interested in clubmaking, all I can say is get involved!

For addition information on the International Clubmakers Guild, please go to their website at www.clubmakersguild.com.

Putter grip size is an important fitting factor

After my 3 putt laden round I wrote about last week, I decided to do something proactive about it.  For one, the putter was quickly banished from the bag and rightfully so and exchanged for a shiny new model.  You see, this is the best time of the year when it comes to equipment as a lot of the future products you will see later this fall or next year, as I am receiving final prototypes of. Hey, it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

The new putter model (Acer CB7 coming at the end of November) was quickly put to test.  Yes, I did spend a few minutes on the practice green before teeing off for a quick nine after work.  So I do happen to practice what I preach.  Any way, after the round was over, tallied and statistics for number of fairways hit, GIR’s, etc. where entered in my computer, I noticed that I had a record low number of putts for the year and possibly for a long, long time.

Could I attribute it to the new center-shafted, high MOI mallet model or practicing a few minutes before the round?  Perhaps, but I found one other clue; that was the grip size.  On this particular putter I had installed a much smaller

Golf Pride Tour Tradition Putter Grip Orange $5.13 each

grip that I had been using for the majority of the year.

In my neck of the woods, the greens are getting slower as it sadly becomes cooler, damper and there is less daylight.  The super jumbo sized putter grip worked fine when the putting stroke used little to no wrists and I relied on the big muscles in shoulders to propel the ball.  But as the greens slowed down I could no longer get the ball to the hole and taking a longer putting stroke no longer felt natural or comfortable.  The smaller putter grip allowed a wristy stroke by making it feel more head heavy and voila, the ball got to the hole with less effort.

To test my theory, I decided to re-grip my old CB8 putter (yes, it is coming too) with a smaller sized grip and head to the practice green to spend a good half hour comparing it to the CB7 putter.  By simply re-gripping, it totally transformed my once banished putter back into the rotation in the bag and now I got two

Karma Supra Orange Putter Grip $9.95

gamers to choose from. Who knows, I might re-grip to a larger putter grip next year when summer arrives, but for now the smaller sized putter grip is going to be a stroke saver.

If you are struggling on the green, re-gripping your putter may be a quick and inexpensive way to improve your score.  But also, make sure to hit the practice putting green as well.

Buy Golf Pride Tour Tradition Putter Grip Orange $5.13 each

Buy Karma Supra Orange putter $9.95 each

Quick Callaway Re-Shaft Tips from Technical Director Jeff Summitt

Since I have had what seems as a rash of inquiries of late on re-shafting Callaway irons, I decided there must be more clubmakers that might not have experienced this repair situation.

One of the most confusing questions to answer is what is the hosel diameter of a Callaway iron, at least the non-Tour models like the X-22 Tour or X-Forged which are 0.355” tapered?  This might sound a little confusing but they are neither a true 0.370” parallel nor 0.355” tapered bore, rather a modified bore.

If you remove the shaft, you will notice six slits running up the shaft tip.  This is by design as Callaway starts out by using a 0.370” parallel tip shaft.  Callaway’s hosels are slightly tapered so that when the shaft is inserted it pinches in the split shaft and forms a pseudo-mechanical lock.

Aside from trying to split the tip with a thin blade like they had done, there is an easy solution.  You can run a 9.4mm drill bit into the hosel to accept a 0.370” shaft.  One more thing, you will want to tip trim the shaft 1” less than called for (if at all possible). The reason this is necessary is to adjust for the deeper insertion depth caused by the thru bore design.  Failure to do so will make the shaft play stiffer than designed.

The Callaway irons will also need special ferrules that are designed to fit the counter-bored hosel.  The Callaway replacement ferrule will not only make the job easier, but provide that professional look.

You will also need plugs for the shaft for the models with the Bore Thru or Modified Bore Thru design. We do offer these but at this time they are non-catalog items. The code is TBP for graphite shafts and TBP1 for steel shafts and these tapered plugs come 25 to a pack ($2.75).  After you have epoxied and hammered the pins in place, epoxy has dried and you have sanded them flush with the bottom of the sole, you can wipe them with acetone to get the nice factory finish.

Hopefully you have a learned a tip or two for that first time or your next time re-shafting a Callaway iron with the thru bore or modified thru bore design.

Buy 9.4mm Drill Bit $5.99 each
Buy Callaway Replacement Ferrrule $3.80 per dozen

Think you know your toe show?

Avid golfers and professional club fitters love to try different clubs to find that magic combination to help lower the score. Let’s say you have two different #5-irons that you or your customer is evaluating. Both have the exact same length, lie, loft, and shaft, flex (frequency), swingweight, grip and grip size. On paper these two clubs should be identical, correct? But you hit one better than the other and can’t understand why. We wanted to investigate and show you the reason you may not have even considered why these two clubs may not be the same.

You have a ball resting on the ground. You grab your #5-iron and start to address the ball by setting the club head behind the ball. You stand far enough away from the ball that your arms feel comfortable, and then you alter your hand height. Chances are you are using the center of the sandblasted area of the face where the score lines reside as your focal point. At this moment your only intent is to hit the back of the ball with the front of the face toward a target.

How Length is Measured
How far we stand behind the ball or how high our hands are positioned is directly related to the length and the lie of the club. Let’s go back and revisit how the length of the club is measured. The method most used involves placing the club in the playing position with the center of the sole touching the ground. Then a 48” ruler is placed along the backside of the club with the correct lie angle with the tip of the ruler touching the ground by the club’s heel. The final length is measured at the edge of the grip cap. This method is used in all cases except putters that the shaft is not located at the heel.

However, what is wrong with this picture? Think for a second what we are attempting to do. We want to hit the back of the ball in the center of the face. The length of the club, as shown, would be fine and dandy if the goal was to hit ball with the bottom of the hosel. On an iron, we have a sandblasted area where the score lines are present. This helps us to frame the ball and it provides us with aiming point. Therefore we have to factor in this additional 1.8” (approx.) in how far we stand from the ball.

Blade Length
As previously mentioned, we have two clubs with identical specifications, except for one thing I did not add; one of the clubs has a longer blade length than the other. If you look closely at the diagram on the left, you will see two club head profiles superimposed over one another. The club head outlined in black has the shorter blade length of the two. The one in red is the longer.

The longer the blade length, normally the wider the sandblasted area or score lines area. Thus two clubs with the same length and lie, the focal point (CL) will now be further away from the golfer.

If a professional took the same swing with these two clubs, but blindfolded so they couldn’t make the visual adjustments, they would hit the club with the longer blade length more in the heel of the club relative to the center of the sandblasted score line area. While you might not think this is very much, it could be off slightly over 0.4” using a club with a very long blade length to the very same numbered iron or even hybrid that has a much shorter blade length. That even includes that the length and the lie of the two clubs are exactly the same!

How it Affects Impact
The iron on the top pictured to the left is one with an elongated blade length set into a specification gauge. The red vertical is the center of the sandblasted score line area and the circle is representative of the ball.

A hybrid club with the same lie angle is positioned in the specification gauge (as shown below). This hybrid has a shorter blade length. Now look at the same position from above of the red vertical line and outline of the ball. With the same set up, a golfer would consistently hit the ball out near the toe relative to the center of the face (depicted by the blue outline of the ball). Effectively the golfer is hitting the ball with a shorter club even though the assembled length is the same.

Also don’t always assume the center of the sandblasted score line area is the best place to hit the ball because it doesn’t always coincide with the center of gravity (CG). But it is helpful if the manufacturer can provide the proper aiming point at which is optimal to hit the ball. Realize the further away impact occurs relative to the CG, the result will be less distance as well as diminished feel at impact.

Self Check
One way to check to see why you might hit one club better than the other with all things equal is to look at where impact is made on the face of the club. You can use impact decals or just look at where the grass stains or wear pattern occurs on the club face. Let’s say your impact is made toward the heel of the club. Aside from standing further away from the ball, this can be corrected by making the lie of the club more upright. This effectively reduces the distance you stand from the ball and makes your swing plane more upright. The further out the sandblasted score line area effectively flatten out the swing plane will be possibly causing miss-direction.

If you find yourself hitting in the heel, then either try gripping down ¼ – ½” on the grip to see if that might help you more consistently hit the center of the face on. Custom fitting / repair shop may be able to alter your length or adjust the lie properly. So it should come at no surprise to see game-improvement irons that have elongated blade lengths to be more upright than the traditionally shorter blade length player’s irons when you look at the specifications. Don’t assume that if you use a 38” #5-iron with a 61º lie, your next #5-iron needs to be exactly the same length and lie to obtain the same results; it is only a starting point.

Toe Show
There is also one more consideration that you may not have even though of and that is called the “toe show”. The toe show is simply the area out on the toe of the face of the club that is devoid of score lines or decorative sandblasting.

This is depicted by the red area in the diagram. If the toe show is reduced, then the center of the sandblasted score line area is position further away from the golfer, the same affect as if the blade length increased. While the blade length of these two clubs are the same, the golfer would likely set up behind the ball differently because of the position the manufacturer located this area.

However it is more commonly that a manufacturer may increase the toe show or effectively shift of the sandblasted score line area to the heel. This can made an iron with a longer blade length appear a little shorter than what it might be or help frame the sandblasted score line area closer to where the center of gravity should be. It is something you cannot be fit for or altered, but you might wonder why on one iron or wedge the toe show might be as little as 0.6” to as much as 0.8”.

I’ll end on this thought, there was one time I was testing a particular iron. No matter how many different shafts I tried it never did quite feel solid. The ball flight would show it as well with the ball more prone to fade pattern. Even after making the lie more upright helped a little, but not like I expected.

Finally it dawned on me to align the ball at address closer to the toe in order to get the solid feel at impact and the ball flying straight. To make a conscious effort to do this each and every time requires practice, something the average golfer doesn’t have the luxury of. You may find that you will have certain preferences when it comes to club head style. I came to the realization that I don’t fare well with clubs with a long blade length without some additional alterations.

If you have been playing a long time with a game improvement set with an elongated blade length to a more traditional iron with a relatively short blade length, you may have to retrain yourself on how far you stand from the ball in order to have the same success. Just remember to watch where the impact marks are on the face of the club.

How will putter grip sizing help your game?

When clubmakers and club fitters discuss grip sizing, many understand exactly what each size should be.  For instance we have ladies, men’s standard, mid-size and jumbo nomenclatures.  What these dimension mean is that when we measure down 2” below the grip cap, the grips have specific dimensions.  The 2” mark is the approximate position of the upper hand on the grip and has been the standard reference point for quite some time. Most clubmaking books show these dimensions for regular grips, but do not have these same references for putter models.

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So a ferrule is a ferrule, correct?

Hireko’s Technical Director Jeff Summitt thoroughly discusses not only the different types of ferrules and their applications, but also how to properly install them. For many clubmakers, installing ferrules can be a huge challenge. Jeff will walk you through the process so it will become second hand. Free webinar is divided into 3 parts. Enjoy!

Download Only The PDF Version Of The Basics of Ferrule Installation Slideshow Here.

Non-profit guild represents clubmakers

Hireko is proud to announce that we are the latest sponsor of the International Clubmakers Guild (ICG).  This non-profit organization was founded to serve a wide array of individuals from golf clubmakers, club fitters and club repairmen to PGA professionals, swing instructors, component suppliers, equipment designers, engineers and even golf scientists.

The ICG is an independent; member owned and operated organization, where the membership determines the benefits and programs of the organization.  The organization is open to professionals and hobbyists alike, which is a great way to foster growth.  So if you want to learn more about the crafts of clubmaking, club fitting and repair this would be a great place to join.

Hireko is excited to be involved because we know the value of what a professional can do to service the customers in their immediate area.  Working one on one with prospective customers is the absolute best way to ensure a quality fit with the wide variety of products we distribute.  Even hobbyists who possess the willingness to learn and have a network of colleagues to call upon will develop better skills and knowledge that creates a solid foundation if they wish to advance further.  If you do decide to join, the best advice I can give you is to get involved.

For addition information on the International Clubmakers Guild, please visit www.clubmakersguild.com.

View Free Webinar Video Below and Learn More About Shaft Abrading

Are you deciding what methods are safe and efficient ways to prepare the shaft tip for a good epoxy bond? Hireko’s Technical Director Jeff Summitt will discuss in-depth the principals of shaft abrasion techniques, including both manual methods and motorized equipment for properly preparing steel and graphite shafts.

DOWNLOAD SHAFT ABRASION SLIDE SHOW HERE! (PDF FILE)