Swingweight revolution

[Franzen]

Is the swingweight scale outdated?

I know this has been discussed a lot, but I can't find an answer to my question by searching.

If you change the grip weight of a golf club, the swingweight goes down.
Some say you "trick the scale" and the club feels the same, due to the fact the weight is in your hands.
Some say the scale can't be tricked.

Now, this is my question:

Why don't we change the scale?

If we measure from a, say, 4 inch fulcrum point (or the middle of the grip), we would get a number much closer to what we feel. Or am I missing something? I'm thinking this would make the scale more "realistic", as the club pivots around our hands, and not the 14 inch point we measure from.

I got the idea from reading this:
http://blog.hirekogolf.com/2010/02/tricking-the-swingweight-scale/

.

[DColton]

bump, very interested as well

[CarloGolfer]

I have been thinking that we need to establish pre-grip swingweights instead of post-grip swingweights. The grip has little to no effect on the torsional forces exerted on the shaft during the swing. Including it in the swingweight profile seems counterproductive.

Perhaps we should start referring to clubs as being E4 PG. PG= Pre-grip. E4 or E9 or whatever # you like.

[matt mohi]

[quote name='henrikdagfinrud' timestamp='1331202146' post='4460359']
I know this has been discussed a lot, but I can't find an answer to my question by searching.

If you change the grip weight of a golf club, the swingweight goes down.
Some say you "trick the scale" and the club feels the same, due to the fact the weight is in your hands.
Some say the scale can't be tricked.

Now, this is my question:

Why don't we change the scale?

If we measure from a, say, 4 inch fulcrum point (or the middle of the grip), we would get a number much closer to what we feel. Or am I missing something? I'm thinking this would make the scale more "realistic", as the club pivots around our hands, and not the 14 inch point we measure from.

I got the idea from reading this:
http://blog.hirekogolf.com/2010/02/tricking-the-swingweight-scale/
[/quote]

The Golf Equipment industry is loathe to change and tradition runs strong in many areas of design and production. Such is the case with swingweight and it has been the way clubs have been weighted for so long that few question it.

Those who are clubmakers know that you can have two clubs that are the same length and are the same swingweight, but play much differently. Indeed we can "fool" the swingweight scale because of the ability to change grip, shaft and headweights.

There is another weight distribution matching system called MOI Matching where we are matching the clubs so that they take the same effort to square and swing. Instead of using the arbitrary 14" fulcrum point of the lorythmic swing weight scale, it uses the butt end of the grip as it's point of reference. So any weight that is added or removed will raise or lower the MOI of the club. This system can't be "fooled". How much the MOI is changed is based on how much weight change there is and how far that weight is located from the butt end of the grip. The further away from the grip, the bigger the impact of the weight change.

This is the only way we've been building clubs for about 7 years now and I know that it is a better way to make a matched set of clubs. What it results in is a progressive swingweight set-meaning that as the clubs get shorter, they increase in swingweight.

There's more information about it in the PDF and I'm also putting down a link to our website.

[url="http://wishongolf.com/clubmakers/matching-golf-clubs-by-moi/"]MOI FAQ[/url]

I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[poppman2142]

[quote name='matt mohi' timestamp='1331222740' post='4461729']
[quote name='henrikdagfinrud' timestamp='1331202146' post='4460359']
I know this has been discussed a lot, but I can't find an answer to my question by searching.

If you change the grip weight of a golf club, the swingweight goes down.
Some say you "trick the scale" and the club feels the same, due to the fact the weight is in your hands.
Some say the scale can't be tricked.

Now, this is my question:

Why don't we change the scale?

If we measure from a, say, 4 inch fulcrum point (or the middle of the grip), we would get a number much closer to what we feel. Or am I missing something? I'm thinking this would make the scale more "realistic", as the club pivots around our hands, and not the 14 inch point we measure from.

I got the idea from reading this:
http://blog.hirekogolf.com/2010/02/tricking-the-swingweight-scale/
[/quote]

The Golf Equipment industry is loathe to change and tradition runs strong in many areas of design and production. Such is the case with swingweight and it has been the way clubs have been weighted for so long that few question it.

Those who are clubmakers know that you can have two clubs that are the same length and are the same swingweight, but play much differently. Indeed we can "fool" the swingweight scale because of the ability to change grip, shaft and headweights.

There is another weight distribution matching system called MOI Matching where we are matching the clubs so that they take the same effort to square and swing. Instead of using the arbitrary 14" fulcrum point of the lorythmic swing weight scale, it uses the butt end of the grip as it's point of reference. So any weight that is added or removed will raise or lower the MOI of the club. This system can't be "fooled". How much the MOI is changed is based on how much weight change there is and how far that weight is located from the butt end of the grip. The further away from the grip, the bigger the impact of the weight change.

This is the only way we've been building clubs for about 7 years now and I know that it is a better way to make a matched set of clubs. What it results in is a progressive swingweight set-meaning that as the clubs get shorter, they increase in swingweight.

There's more information about it in the PDF and I'm also putting down a link to our website.

[url="http://wishongolf.com/clubmakers/matching-golf-clubs-by-moi/"]MOI FAQ[/url]

I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.
[/quote]

Thanks for the info! Can you give a specific example of a full set of clubs and what their swingweights would look like in an moi matched set? Are the wedges swingweights higer than the irons? Are the woods lower? Thanks!

[matt mohi]

[quote name='poppman2142' timestamp='1331224880' post='4462047']
[quote name='matt mohi' timestamp='1331222740' post='4461729']
[quote name='henrikdagfinrud' timestamp='1331202146' post='4460359']
I know this has been discussed a lot, but I can't find an answer to my question by searching.

If you change the grip weight of a golf club, the swingweight goes down.
Some say you "trick the scale" and the club feels the same, due to the fact the weight is in your hands.
Some say the scale can't be tricked.

Now, this is my question:

Why don't we change the scale?

If we measure from a, say, 4 inch fulcrum point (or the middle of the grip), we would get a number much closer to what we feel. Or am I missing something? I'm thinking this would make the scale more "realistic", as the club pivots around our hands, and not the 14 inch point we measure from.

I got the idea from reading this:
http://blog.hirekogolf.com/2010/02/tricking-the-swingweight-scale/
[/quote]

The Golf Equipment industry is loathe to change and tradition runs strong in many areas of design and production. Such is the case with swingweight and it has been the way clubs have been weighted for so long that few question it.

Those who are clubmakers know that you can have two clubs that are the same length and are the same swingweight, but play much differently. Indeed we can "fool" the swingweight scale because of the ability to change grip, shaft and headweights.

There is another weight distribution matching system called MOI Matching where we are matching the clubs so that they take the same effort to square and swing. Instead of using the arbitrary 14" fulcrum point of the lorythmic swing weight scale, it uses the butt end of the grip as it's point of reference. So any weight that is added or removed will raise or lower the MOI of the club. This system can't be "fooled". How much the MOI is changed is based on how much weight change there is and how far that weight is located from the butt end of the grip. The further away from the grip, the bigger the impact of the weight change.

This is the only way we've been building clubs for about 7 years now and I know that it is a better way to make a matched set of clubs. What it results in is a progressive swingweight set-meaning that as the clubs get shorter, they increase in swingweight.

There's more information about it in the PDF and I'm also putting down a link to our website.

[url="http://wishongolf.com/clubmakers/matching-golf-clubs-by-moi/"]MOI FAQ[/url]

I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.
[/quote]

Thanks for the info! Can you give a specific example of a full set of clubs and what their swingweights would look like in an moi matched set? Are the wedges swingweights higer than the irons? Are the woods lower? Thanks!
[/quote]

It can be difficult to match the entire set with the way clubs are manufactured to have to accommodate tradition Swingweight builds and MOI builds. Where you do see the ability to match an entire set is when the golfer is using heavy weight steel in the irons and mid weight graphite in their woods. But if the golfer has graphite in both, the MOI of the Driver will be much higher primarily because the length is so much greater. Length has a big effect on the club's total MOI. In that case we'll match irons to irons and woods to woods.

Let's say after fitting the golfer for a #6 iron the proper length, shaft weight, shaft profile, head and grip we take the club over the to swingweight scale and it comes out to D1.5.... the set would look something like this:

#5-D1
#6-D1.5
#7-D2
#8-D2.5
#9-D3
PW-D3.5
AW-D4
SW-D6 ( we do build this to a higher MOI if it's primary use is out of the sand)
LW-D4

The Driver can range from C5-D6 depending on what the golfer fits into for shaft weight and length, so when we fit for those parameters based on performance we're already within an MOI range, so it's a fine tune adjustment. We would never be in the situation where a driver for a smaller stature, slow swing speed gofler would be build to a high MOI simply because they wouldn't have their best performance with a short, heavy club.

The fitting process is no different than what was done traditionally with Swingweight, it's just different measuring and matching method for weight distribution. We still take care of all the big things, but this is a tweak that the vast majority of people prefer. If you feel good about your #6 iron and its weight and heft, you can test it out yourself with some lead tape.

[Franzen]

[quote name='matt mohi' timestamp='1331225983' post='4462189']
It can be difficult to match the entire set with the way clubs are manufactured to have to accommodate tradition Swingweight builds and MOI builds. Where you do see the ability to match an entire set is when the golfer is using heavy weight steel in the irons and mid weight graphite in their woods. But if the golfer has graphite in both, the MOI of the Driver will be much higher primarily because the length is so much greater. Length has a big effect on the club's total MOI. In that case we'll match irons to irons and woods to woods.

Let's say after fitting the golfer for a #6 iron the proper length, shaft weight, shaft profile, head and grip we take the club over the to swingweight scale and it comes out to D1.5.... the set would look something like this:

#5-D1
#6-D1.5
#7-D2
#8-D2.5
#9-D3
PW-D3.5
AW-D4
SW-D6 ( we do build this to a higher MOI if it's primary use is out of the sand)
LW-D4

The Driver can range from C5-D6 depending on what the golfer fits into for shaft weight and length, so when we fit for those parameters based on performance we're already within an MOI range, so it's a fine tune adjustment. We would never be in the situation where a driver for a smaller stature, slow swing speed gofler would be build to a high MOI simply because they wouldn't have their best performance with a short, heavy club.

The fitting process is no different than what was done traditionally with Swingweight, it's just different measuring and matching method for weight distribution. We still take care of all the big things, but this is a tweak that the vast majority of people prefer. If you feel good about your #6 iron and its weight and heft, you can test it out yourself with some lead tape.
[/quote]

Great reply. Thanks.

I know the MOI Matching system, but why can't we use a swing weight with a 4" fulcrum? Allthough still arbitrary, it would be more relevant.

[avrag]

The OP is correct, and matt mohi is correct, for all of the following and probably more reasons:

[quote name='avrag' timestamp='1325338122' post='4009099']
I have posted this before, but the whole swingweight discussion is a topic I feel very strongly about, so I will post this again. I think that the method for measuring swingweight is completely random. It does have some merits when comparing clubs of the same length and of the same static weight, which simply have the weight distributed differently. But once it comes to comparing a 46" driver to a 44.5" driver, it won't do much good.
Swingweight is what a "lorythmic" swing weight scale will measure, whatever that might be, but it is not to be confused with the way a club feels.
The reason being, in my view, that the fulcrum of the swing weight scale is 14 inches from the butt end for all clubs, no matter which total length they have, whereas the fulcrum point of the club during the swing is somewhere in the area where the thumb and index finger of your top hand (left for righties) hold the club, so in effect about six inches from the butt end.
It is all explained here

[url="http://leaderboard.com/GLOSSARY_SWINGWEIGHT"]Link to "Golf Glossary"[/url]

and from a physics standpoint, this sounds extremely convincing to me.
The authors of "Search for the Perfect Swing", which is probably the most comprehensive scientific study of the game ever made, also agree with this and are extremely sceptical about the swingweight measurement method developped by Robert Adams. They also argue that the point 14" from the butt end is completely random. The current method only measures how much of the static weight of a club is situated in the part of the club that is more than 14" from the butt end.
I believe that if anything, some sort of relation between the balance point of a club and it's overall static weight could predict more precisely how a club will "feel". I do not know whether somebody has already tried to come up with a formula for that. But I have a feeling that one could start by either taking the swing fulcrum point I described above as the point of reference, or maybe even a point at a fixed distance from the clubhead, rather than from the butt end.
One of the funniest results the current method provides is the enormous effect a different grip can have on the swingweight, and it is just because the part where the grip sits, is always on one side of the fulcrum of the measuring device.
[/quote]

The SW discussion gets especially funny when it is about grips, whixh are really the "dead mass" of the club when it is swung. It is only the traditional way of measuring SW which makes the grip weight important. All that a different grip weight does is fool the traditional swingweight scale. This has been written here before by quite a few insightful people who are into making and fitting clubs. But still I read "put a [insert grip name] on it, and bingo! SW was back to D3" all the time.
If you really thought that the club felt and played differently afterwards, sorry, but it was placebo. You knew you had the deisred SW, and so it "felt right" again. Try the same thing without putting the club on a swingweight scale and your won't be so sure about your "feeling".

[Franzen]

[quote name='avrag' timestamp='1331238190' post='4463863']
The OP is correct, and matt mohi is correct, for all of the following and probably more reasons:

[quote name='avrag' timestamp='1325338122' post='4009099']
I have posted this before, but the whole swingweight discussion is a topic I feel very strongly about, so I will post this again. I think that the method for measuring swingweight is completely random. It does have some merits when comparing clubs of the same length and of the same static weight, which simply have the weight distributed differently. But once it comes to comparing a 46" driver to a 44.5" driver, it won't do much good.
Swingweight is what a "lorythmic" swing weight scale will measure, whatever that might be, but it is not to be confused with the way a club feels.
The reason being, in my view, that the fulcrum of the swing weight scale is 14 inches from the butt end for all clubs, no matter which total length they have, whereas the fulcrum point of the club during the swing is somewhere in the area where the thumb and index finger of your top hand (left for righties) hold the club, so in effect about six inches from the butt end.
It is all explained here

[url="http://leaderboard.com/GLOSSARY_SWINGWEIGHT"]Link to "Golf Glossary"[/url]

and from a physics standpoint, this sounds extremely convincing to me.
The authors of "Search for the Perfect Swing", which is probably the most comprehensive scientific study of the game ever made, also agree with this and are extremely sceptical about the swingweight measurement method developped by Robert Adams. They also argue that the point 14" from the butt end is completely random. The current method only measures how much of the static weight of a club is situated in the part of the club that is more than 14" from the butt end.
I believe that if anything, some sort of relation between the balance point of a club and it's overall static weight could predict more precisely how a club will "feel". I do not know whether somebody has already tried to come up with a formula for that. But I have a feeling that one could start by either taking the swing fulcrum point I described above as the point of reference, or maybe even a point at a fixed distance from the clubhead, rather than from the butt end.
One of the funniest results the current method provides is the enormous effect a different grip can have on the swingweight, and it is just because the part where the grip sits, is always on one side of the fulcrum of the measuring device.
[/quote]

The SW discussion gets especially funny when it is about grips, whixh are really the "dead mass" of the club when it is swung. It is only the traditional way of measuring SW which makes the grip weight important. All that a different grip weight does is fool the traditional swingweight scale. This has been written here before by quite a few insightful people who are into making and fitting clubs. But still I read "put a [insert grip name] on it, and bingo! SW was back to D3" all the time.
If you really thought that the club felt and played differently afterwards, sorry, but it was placebo. You knew you had the deisred SW, and so it "felt right" again. Try the same thing without putting the club on a swingweight scale and your won't be so sure about your "feeling".
[/quote]

Hurra! Just what I was fishing for.

I also suspect the feel of a new grip fools a lot of people. Getting a grip you're more comfortable with makes the whole club feel "right" again.

[avrag]

[quote name='henrikdagfinrud' timestamp='1331238721' post='4463935']


Hurra! Just what I was fishing for.

I also suspect the feel of a new grip fools a lot of people. Getting a grip you're more comfortable with makes the whole club feel "right" again.
[/quote]

You're welcome.
Since you seem to be very much into the physics side of the game, I cannot recommend "Search for the Perfect Swing" enough. Although from the 60s, it is still breathtaking. I ordered it from amazon for a decent price (abou € 35,- if I am not mistaken) last year.

[Franzen]

[quote name='avrag' timestamp='1331239004' post='4463969']
[quote name='henrikdagfinrud' timestamp='1331238721' post='4463935']


Hurra! Just what I was fishing for.

I also suspect the feel of a new grip fools a lot of people. Getting a grip you're more comfortable with makes the whole club feel "right" again.
[/quote]

You're welcome.
Since you seem to be very much into the physics side of the game, I cannot recommend "Search for the Perfect Swing" enough. Although from the 60s, it is still breathtaking. I ordered it from amazon for a decent price (abou € 35,- if I am not mistaken) last year.
[/quote]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

I'm fascinated by physics, absolutely, but I'm even more fascinated by the phenomenon of placebo in golf I have a friend who changed his putter three weeks after taking up the game due to [enter Scotty Cameron ad from his first golf mag here].

[coops]

[quote name='avrag' timestamp='1331239004' post='4463969']

You're welcome.
Since you seem to be very much into the physics side of the game, I cannot recommend "Search for the Perfect Swing" enough. Although from the 60s, it is still breathtaking. I ordered it from amazon for a decent price (abou € 35,- if I am not mistaken) last year.
[/quote]

Great book.... and they had the ball flight 'laws' correct back then.

Worth remembering the swingweight scale/system was developed to produce a decent approximation to having your set of clubs feel the same/simlair..... [b]BUT[/b] this is with 1/2" shaft length gaps and [b]same weight shafts[/b] ie STEEL shafts in everything.

As soon as you switch out say your 5 iron with a 'regular' weight steel shaft for some ridiculous 60g graphite shaft the swingweight is pointless.... what I mean is - if your other irons are D2 and you like how they feel, then having a hybrid replace your 5 iron with a 60g shaft @ D2 will not remotely swing the same as the same club with a steel shaft @D2. The total weights will be completely different as well as lengths to try to 'match' the Swing weight.... imagine a 50g head on a length of bamboo with gauze tape for a 'grip' but swingweighted to D2... then a club with DG X100 shaft and head etc to make up to same length and swingweight.... then you could even make a club from solid steel bar for a shaft, a suitably heavy head and a grip and get THAT to 'D2'.... will they feel the same to swing? (it's an exaggeration, but i'm ranting )

It was interesting to read Tom Wishon's books on drivers etc - and he recommends if you are using a lighter shaft in your driver (to increase swing speed) then you may prefer/need lead tape on the head (or heavier head) and a 'heavier' swingweight like E2 etc so you can feel the clubhead...

MOI weighting sounds interesting... even then I understand your preferred 'MOI' will probably be different for 3 wood/driver - perhaps due to the sudden shaft length increase (gap from the irons at 1/2" increments) and the sudden shaft weight change?

[PJ72]

[quote name='avrag' timestamp='1331238190' post='4463863']
The OP is correct, and matt mohi is correct, for all of the following and probably more reasons:

[quote name='avrag' timestamp='1325338122' post='4009099']
I have posted this before, but the whole swingweight discussion is a topic I feel very strongly about, so I will post this again. I think that the method for measuring swingweight is completely random. It does have some merits when comparing clubs of the same length and of the same static weight, which simply have the weight distributed differently. But once it comes to comparing a 46" driver to a 44.5" driver, it won't do much good.
Swingweight is what a "lorythmic" swing weight scale will measure, whatever that might be, but it is not to be confused with the way a club feels.
The reason being, in my view, that the fulcrum of the swing weight scale is 14 inches from the butt end for all clubs, no matter which total length they have, whereas the fulcrum point of the club during the swing is somewhere in the area where the thumb and index finger of your top hand (left for righties) hold the club, so in effect about six inches from the butt end.
It is all explained here

[url="http://leaderboard.com/GLOSSARY_SWINGWEIGHT"]Link to "Golf Glossary"[/url]

and from a physics standpoint, this sounds extremely convincing to me.
The authors of "Search for the Perfect Swing", which is probably the most comprehensive scientific study of the game ever made, also agree with this and are extremely sceptical about the swingweight measurement method developped by Robert Adams. They also argue that the point 14" from the butt end is completely random. The current method only measures how much of the static weight of a club is situated in the part of the club that is more than 14" from the butt end.
I believe that if anything, some sort of relation between the balance point of a club and it's overall static weight could predict more precisely how a club will "feel". I do not know whether somebody has already tried to come up with a formula for that. But I have a feeling that one could start by either taking the swing fulcrum point I described above as the point of reference, or maybe even a point at a fixed distance from the clubhead, rather than from the butt end.
One of the funniest results the current method provides is the enormous effect a different grip can have on the swingweight, and it is just because the part where the grip sits, is always on one side of the fulcrum of the measuring device.
[/quote]

The SW discussion gets especially funny when it is about grips, whixh are really the "dead mass" of the club when it is swung. It is only the traditional way of measuring SW which makes the grip weight important. All that a different grip weight does is fool the traditional swingweight scale. This has been written here before by quite a few insightful people who are into making and fitting clubs. But still I read "put a [insert grip name] on it, and bingo! SW was back to D3" all the time.
If you really thought that the club felt and played differently afterwards, sorry, but it was placebo. You knew you had the deisred SW, and so it "felt right" again. Try the same thing without putting the club on a swingweight scale and your won't be so sure about your "feeling".
[/quote]


Excellent thread.

I think this post explains SW better than any previous attempt i have read on here. I actually understand it now and can imagine how it works too.

This should be stickied or put in the Joe Kwok SW sticky.

[avrag]

[quote name='coops' timestamp='1331241928' post='4464325']

Great book.... and they had the ball flight 'laws' correct back then.

[u][b]Worth remembering the swingweight scale/system was developed to produce a decent approximation to having your set of clubs feel the same/simlair..... [b]BUT[/b] this is with 1/2" shaft length gaps and [b]same weight shafts[/b] ie STEEL shafts in everything.[/b][/u]

[/quote]

This is probably the most important point. And you managed to phrase it much more concisely and shorter than I did.

[turnbowm]

In the past, I've found that weight changes (+/-10gm) at the grip end really didn't seem to change the feel/balance of a club in any meaningful way. Recently, however, I was experimenting with a light driver and found a noticeable difference after installing a Winn Lite grip, which surprised me. The club was now easier to swing and seemed to have a more balanced feel.

Measurements before and after the grip change indicated that the total clubweight was 30gm lighter and that the balance point had moved [i]three inches closer[/i] to the head, increasing the SW from C9 to D5.

This begs the question... How can significant changes in the total weight and balance point of a club be made [i]without[/i] a noticeable difference in the feel/balance?

[Big Ben]

Aren't all of the measurements arbitrary to some degree?? It would seem very hard to build in true uniformity across a set of varying length clubs and even if you could that doesn't mean they necessarily will "feel" or "balance" correctly for you no? Just random thoughts, no science here...BB

[Awalkspoiled]

Swingweight as traditionally measured has another feature which I don't think anyone's mentioned yet - one swingweight increase translates to one CPM decrease in frequency. This was important when people were basically just freq-matching with Rifle blanks and such, and relying on freq to describe stoutness. With so many different designs available now, butt-freq is even more outdated as a parameter than swingweight, so the 14" fulcum is less mandatory.

With respect to gripweight - measuring swingweight grip-on without allowing for gripweight is ridiculous. I measure everything ungripped, and translate to standard swingweights given a 52 gm grip.

[Big Ben]

I always thought taking a frequency measurement should occur at three points, grip center of shaft and tip. Then do a mathematical calculation to determine one frequency average. This method should be uniform across the industry, who wants to do it??

[parpar41]

Great thread. An example of Golfwrx at its best.

Just to mix things up a little more, here is an overview that I thought was interesting at least : http://www.customclubsoffrederick.com/golf_articles.htm


Different Club Building Techniques

Iron Flex Matching – The latest in performance based club building

A club building method to assemble the most consistent and best feeling golf clubs in the industry.

There have been several methods over the years to try and replicate the same feeling from club to club. It has been believed for some time that the best performing clubs are those that generally have sameness or a consistent feeling from club to club. Over the years, the various systems that were utilized to try to accomplish this were:

[b]1. Swing Weight Matching[/b] – Is the theory of adding weight to the head area of the shaft to make all of the irons weigh the same on a Swing weight scale. Weight is usually added to the head to get them to weigh 8 grams apart. This has been the generally accepted method for the last 30 years. This along with frequency matching, are the two leading methods of building golf clubs.


[b]2. Butt Frequency Matching[/b] – The theory of matching all of the irons based only on the butt frequency measurement. A shaft is placed into a frequency machine and a butt frequency reading is taken. The measurement is in cycles per minute or CPM’s. This measurement is then compared to the other shafts and the softest butt reading shaft is then installed into the longest iron and the stiffest butt reading shaft is installed in the wedges. The shorter club heads both weigh more and the shafts are shorter which helps compensate for putting the stiffer shaft in the shorter club. The frequency reading generally falls into a “slope” of 4 cpm’s. This means that say for the 3 iron the reading is 280. The 4 iron reading will be 284 and the 5 iron will be 288 and so on right through to the wedges. The reading will get higher as you go through the set. The industry has accepted a “slope” of 4 cpm’s although many clubmakers will vary this based on the needs of the individual golfer.


[b]3. Flat Line Frequency Matching[/b] – The theory that all of the clubs will have the same butt frequency measurement. The shafts are tipped or not tipped and the heads are weighted in order to obtain the same frequency reading in all of the clubs. If the target for the golfer is say 290, every club in the bag will be at the frequency reading of 290. This of course makes the longer irons softer and the shorter irons not as stiff. This is usually done for the slower swingers to help make softer feeling shafts to get the ball in the air easier.


[b]4. Moment of Inertia Matching (MOI[/b]) – The theory that any object is a measurement of its resistance to being placed in motion. It is believed that each club requires a different amount of force to swing the club (set it in motion), therefore the golfer cannot be as consistent swinging each club in the set. The golfers MOI is determined during the fitting and the set of clubs is built to match that MOI. Generally in an MOI set of clubs the lengths of the clubs are 3/8” between each other as opposed to the industry accepted .5”. This along with the proper weighting of the heads will result in an MOI built set of clubs.


[b]5. Zone Profiling[/b] - A frequency reading is taken every few inches to obtain an overall determination of the relative stiffness of that particular shaft. This allows us to measure the shaft in detail and determine, based on the profile data that two shafts with the same profile will play and feel very much the same. This comes in very handy when replacing a particular shaft. We can get as close as possible to the performance characteristics of that original shaft by comparing that shafts profile data to others on the market.


[b]6. Iron Flex Matching[/b] – 3 frequency readings are taken. A butt frequency reading, a mid section frequency reading and a tip section frequency reading to determine the overall playability or stiffness of the shaft. Based on this data, we then determine which shaft should be in which club head to better match our overall frequency goal for the golfer. Recently this method has been gaining a lot of popularity among the world’s elite club builders and fitters.

[matt mohi]

[quote name='turnbowm' timestamp='1331256481' post='4466025']
In the past, I've found that weight changes (+/-10gm) at the grip end really didn't seem to change the feel/balance of a club in any meaningful way. Recently, however, I was experimenting with a light driver and found a noticeable difference after installing a Winn Lite grip, which surprised me. The club was now easier to swing and seemed to have a more balanced feel.

Measurements before and after the grip change indicated that the total clubweight was 30gm lighter and that the balance point had moved [i]three inches closer[/i] to the head, increasing the SW from C9 to D5.

This begs the question... How can significant changes in the total weight and balance point of a club be made [i]without[/i] a noticeable difference in the feel/balance?
[/quote]

The balance point is important and there is a group of clubmakers who match both the MOI and the balance point (relative to the club's length) and I think this has a lot of merit.

In terms of making changes to total weight and balance point and keeping the same feel/balance, I'm not sure what you're asking. If you change the balance point, that will definitely change the feel and balance-kind of the definition.

You could change the total weight and keep some feel the same, but the real issue isn't what you perceive, but what you don't perceive. I think that some of getting the right weight distribution in a golf club shows up on the performance side and there are things that happen on a subconscious level that makes it work for the individual golfer. But this takes some experimentation.

In your case, going with the lighter weight grip gave you more head feel and usually that's important at the beginning of the swing and at the beginning of the downswing from what we can perceive. Once the club gets momentum what we're feeling is the total weight/MOI of the golf club.

[matt mohi]

[quote name='parpar41' timestamp='1331306301' post='4469357']
Great thread. An example of Golfwrx at its best.

Just to mix things up a little more, here is an overview that I thought was interesting at least : http://www.customclubsoffrederick.com/golf_articles.htm


Different Club Building Techniques

Iron Flex Matching – The latest in performance based club building

A club building method to assemble the most consistent and best feeling golf clubs in the industry.

There have been several methods over the years to try and replicate the same feeling from club to club. It has been believed for some time that the best performing clubs are those that generally have sameness or a consistent feeling from club to club. Over the years, the various systems that were utilized to try to accomplish this were:

[b]1. Swing Weight Matching[/b] – Is the theory of adding weight to the head area of the shaft to make all of the irons weigh the same on a Swing weight scale. Weight is usually added to the head to get them to weigh 8 grams apart. This has been the generally accepted method for the last 30 years. This along with frequency matching, are the two leading methods of building golf clubs.


[b]2. Butt Frequency Matching[/b] – The theory of matching all of the irons based only on the butt frequency measurement. A shaft is placed into a frequency machine and a butt frequency reading is taken. The measurement is in cycles per minute or CPM’s. This measurement is then compared to the other shafts and the softest butt reading shaft is then installed into the longest iron and the stiffest butt reading shaft is installed in the wedges. The shorter club heads both weigh more and the shafts are shorter which helps compensate for putting the stiffer shaft in the shorter club. The frequency reading generally falls into a “slope” of 4 cpm’s. This means that say for the 3 iron the reading is 280. The 4 iron reading will be 284 and the 5 iron will be 288 and so on right through to the wedges. The reading will get higher as you go through the set. The industry has accepted a “slope” of 4 cpm’s although many clubmakers will vary this based on the needs of the individual golfer.


[b]3. Flat Line Frequency Matching[/b] – The theory that all of the clubs will have the same butt frequency measurement. The shafts are tipped or not tipped and the heads are weighted in order to obtain the same frequency reading in all of the clubs. If the target for the golfer is say 290, every club in the bag will be at the frequency reading of 290. This of course makes the longer irons softer and the shorter irons not as stiff. This is usually done for the slower swingers to help make softer feeling shafts to get the ball in the air easier.


[b]4. Moment of Inertia Matching (MOI[/b]) – The theory that any object is a measurement of its resistance to being placed in motion. It is believed that each club requires a different amount of force to swing the club (set it in motion), therefore the golfer cannot be as consistent swinging each club in the set. The golfers MOI is determined during the fitting and the set of clubs is built to match that MOI. Generally in an MOI set of clubs the lengths of the clubs are 3/8” between each other as opposed to the industry accepted .5”. This along with the proper weighting of the heads will result in an MOI built set of clubs.


[b]5. Zone Profiling[/b] - A frequency reading is taken every few inches to obtain an overall determination of the relative stiffness of that particular shaft. This allows us to measure the shaft in detail and determine, based on the profile data that two shafts with the same profile will play and feel very much the same. This comes in very handy when replacing a particular shaft. We can get as close as possible to the performance characteristics of that original shaft by comparing that shafts profile data to others on the market.


[b]6. Iron Flex Matching[/b] – 3 frequency readings are taken. A butt frequency reading, a mid section frequency reading and a tip section frequency reading to determine the overall playability or stiffness of the shaft. Based on this data, we then determine which shaft should be in which club head to better match our overall frequency goal for the golfer. Recently this method has been gaining a lot of popularity among the world’s elite club builders and fitters.
[/quote]

That's a good summary of some of the different matching approaches that are out there to build "sameness" or consistency. You could also add Same length golf clubs, same total weight golf clubs, and same balance point golf clubs.

I wouldn't group all of these together as Flex/Profile/Frequency matching is much different than MOI and Swingweight matching. One is looking at the stiffness of the shaft and how that relates to the golf swing and the other is looking at the weight of the club as it relates to the golf swing.

Usually both are done in concert-some kind of stiffness matching + some kind of weight distribution matching....

[pingman1]

Was the SW scale invented by Karsten years ago? Every club had steel shafts then. Is it really relevant today with the changes in materials, shafts, grips etc.

My dad had a 1955 Buick Roadmaster that was 5500 lbs. GVW, my car weighs 3500 lbs. GVW. They both will do over 100+mph, but it took his a lot longer to get there!!

[matt mohi]

[quote name='pingman1' timestamp='1331315473' post='4470493']
Was the SW scale invented by Karsten years ago? Every club had steel shafts then. Is it really relevant today with the changes in materials, shafts, grips etc.

My dad had a 1955 Buick Roadmaster that was 5500 lbs. GVW, my car weighs 3500 lbs. GVW. They both will do over 100+mph, but it took his a lot longer to get there!!
[/quote]


The Lorythmic Swingweight scale, if my memory is correct, was invented in the early 1900's. I think in the teens, but I could be wrong. I think it was Kenneth Smith who was an early proponent of it and it had a different fulcrum point.

For sure when everything was more standardized for shaft, grip and head weights-or at least the range was a lot narrower than it is now-swingweight had more relevance.

It's not that there is anything wrong with SW-certainly great sets have been built and played that are swingweight matched.

It's just that we feel there is a better way to do it....And it might be that we discover an even better way to do it in the future....

[Onyx Z]

hate to be negative nancy here, but aren't some of these methods just a little too nit-picky to make THAT big of a difference? sure, i think SW should be measured without the grip while still accounting for the weight of the grip. and these methods may help the pros a little, but a little help could be the difference between winning and 5th place on the PGA tour.

and i a perfectionist by all means. everything has to be EXACT for me, there is no "close enough" in my book, but i feel as though some of these methods are measuring/accounting for the smallest, minute differences...

FWIW, i know this is mainly for discussion purposes, i just want to hear some thoughts on this.

[Franzen]

Thanks guys - I'm having a ball here

Still, I wonder why we don't just move the fulcrum point to 4", and call a D2 from the old scale D2 on the new scale. See what I mean? Different/better systems is wonderful, but we could - if I'm not missing something obvious - keep the convenience of the swingweight system, with much more relevant results.

[matt mohi]

[quote name='Onyx Z' timestamp='1331319824' post='4470987']
hate to be negative nancy here, but aren't some of these methods just a little too nit-picky to make THAT big of a difference? sure, i think SW should be measured without the grip while still accounting for the weight of the grip. and these methods may help the pros a little, but a little help could be the difference between winning and 5th place on the PGA tour.

and i a perfectionist by all means. everything has to be EXACT for me, there is no "close enough" in my book, but i feel as though some of these methods are measuring/accounting for the smallest, minute differences...

FWIW, i know this is mainly for discussion purposes, i just want to hear some thoughts on this.
[/quote]


One thing that we're always mindful of when talking about different technical aspects of equipment-whether it's design or fitting-is what is a "measurable difference" vs. what is a "performance difference". It is definitely easy to get lost in the weeds and focus on minutiae that has a minor effect on performance.

From a fitting and building standpoint, all of these different ways of making a matched set have the goal to promote consistency. If we've done our job correctly in selecting the right specifications and parts of the club that work for the golfer, then the build out has to match up to what was determined in the fitting.

For some golfers these things make a bigger difference than for other golfers-it's not universal in effect or intensity.

For instance, if a golfer has a smooth swing motion and doesn't put a lot of force load on the shaft then that golfer will have similar performance results with a wider range of shaft flexes and weights than will a golfer with more aggressive swing motion that puts more bending action on the shaft. For those golfers, the shafts' stiffness and weight have to be more accurately determined for best performance.

To me, I like me equipment to be set so that I know that it's correct and then I can go out and work on every other part of the game and never question whether or not my equipment is right or if a different set up would work better. That kind of confidence and piece of mind allows me to better focus on other things.

It is mostly an academic argument about how much these little tweaks we do show up on the performance side, but my feeling is that if you take care of as much as you can (within reason) then all those things add up to better and more consistent performance.

[Bad9]

[quote name='CarloGolfer' timestamp='1331222039' post='4461601']
I have been thinking that we need to establish pre-grip swingweights instead of post-grip swingweights. The grip has little to no effect on the torsional forces exerted on the shaft during the swing. Including it in the swingweight profile seems counterproductive.

Perhaps we should start referring to clubs as being E4 PG. PG= Pre-grip. E4 or E9 or whatever # you like.
[/quote]


I do that when I put together my own clubs. I match to E1 ungripped and don't worry about (or even measure) what it is after I put a grip on.

[Franzen]

[quote name='Onyx Z' timestamp='1331319824' post='4470987']
hate to be negative nancy here, but aren't some of these methods just a little too nit-picky to make THAT big of a difference? sure, i think SW should be measured without the grip while still accounting for the weight of the grip. and these methods may help the pros a little, but a little help could be the difference between winning and 5th place on the PGA tour.

and i a perfectionist by all means. everything has to be EXACT for me, there is no "close enough" in my book, but i feel as though some of these methods are measuring/accounting for the smallest, minute differences...

FWIW, i know this is mainly for discussion purposes, i just want to hear some thoughts on this.
[/quote]

My thought on this is that it may be nit-picky, but if you don't understand the physics you risk adjusting yourself "the wrong way". I don't think every Average Joe should build clubs with these margins, I just feel sorry for these guys:

"put a [insert grip name] on it, and bingo! SW was back to D3".

[matt mohi]

[quote name='henrikdagfinrud' timestamp='1331321229' post='4471175']
Thanks guys - I'm having a ball here

Still, I wonder why we don't just move the fulcrum point to 4", and call a D2 from the old scale D2 on the new scale. See what I mean? Different/better systems is wonderful, but we could - if I'm not missing something obvious - keep the convenience of the swingweight system, with much more relevant results.
[/quote]

For sure as you move the fulcrum point to the butt end it is more difficult to trick the scale, but you're basically talking about trying to reinvent the wheel and find out what all the numbers would be.

MOI really is a better way to do it because it is a measurement that is indicative of what is happening in the dynamic situation of the golf club being swung. MOI is not a new concept. It was around when Swingweight was adopted, but lost out because there was no easy way to measure it and there was no machine that could do the job.

[Franzen]

[quote name='matt mohi' timestamp='1331322568' post='4471331']
[quote name='henrikdagfinrud' timestamp='1331321229' post='4471175']
Thanks guys - I'm having a ball here

Still, I wonder why we don't just move the fulcrum point to 4", and call a D2 from the old scale D2 on the new scale. See what I mean? Different/better systems is wonderful, but we could - if I'm not missing something obvious - keep the convenience of the swingweight system, with much more relevant results.
[/quote]

For sure as you move the fulcrum point to the butt end it is more difficult to trick the scale, but you're basically talking about trying to reinvent the wheel and find out what all the numbers would be.

MOI really is a better way to do it because it is a measurement that is indicative of what is happening in the dynamic situation of the golf club being swung. MOI is not a new concept. It was around when Swingweight was adopted, but lost out because there was no easy way to measure it and there was no machine that could do the job.
[/quote]

I agree. Just looking for a "better bad way".
I guess pre-grip measurements is the closest you get to a short cut.