Question for Mr. Kobayashi on his driver designs

[bogeydog]

J & B, what about with drivers do you notice any difference in a flatter lie vs more upright?

Toe hits are thin. Direction not much change. Mostly mental with drivers rather than performance.

[+TourSpecGolfer]

Toe hits are thin. Direction not much change. Mostly mental with drivers rather than performance.

There's gotta be a good simple reason for this. It just makes no sense to me that FW lie adjustability is a no brainier.

[idrive]

J & B, what about with drivers do you notice any difference in a flatter lie vs more upright?

Seems almost every Driver I've purchased for the last 5 years or so has had a 60* Lie

Being able to Tee the ball offsets the lie issue. I haven't yet purchased, just played around with

an adjustable driver. They'd take me away in straightjacket at some point fiddling with that thing.

How can someone make an adjustment, hit 3-5 shots, adjust hit another 3-5 shots, adjust it and

on and on when we can't make the exact same swing every time? Once I had it set my swing would

change and I'd have fiddle with it again anyway ... and again...

I'd rather learn the driver and make it work. But obviously I'm becoming more and more the

minority.

[RLL33]

I'm with you on that. I did go for the very first TM adjustable back in the day, and I kept fiddling with it so much that I was more concerned with the settings than my swing. Taught me a good lesson (about myself). Then of course they went white and all the adjustables have followed, getting more and more gaudy it seems by the day. I think it's a fad that'll slowly disappear, like the square head drivers. And man, if someone on the tour got onto what K-san has done with this driver and started using it, maybe the 460cc would go away too.

[coops1967]

Just to be clear - teed up or not, a too upright lie causes your driver face to be pointing more left than it would do otherwise - which is very bad news for an in to out (or in to straightish swing) with a clubface normally slightly closed to the path ie someone who normally hits a nice push draw with irons....

My previous driver was (...is, still have it and love it) an Adams 9015d - quite legendary, and with alie of 58 degrees the major factor in its popularity is its dramatically more open face angle off the shelf. It was the saviour for all the draw/hookers out there...

I understand until last few years, Callaway was using 56 degrees as standard drive lie angle. 60 and higher is getting out of hand... like 46" clubs and 50g shafts.

Perhaps some chicken and egg problem here..... i suspect an upright lie encourages high hands/goat humping etc - we under rate our own ability to adjust to clubs, and end up with clubs that push you to get the shaft too steep.

With all this upright lie angle, and closed faces I STILL see huge slices as a matter of course from most players - look at it from this way :-

Take a player with a 15 yard slice with the driver.

Tell him to aim 15 yards to the left of the fairway - after all that 15 yard slice will put him slap bang in the middle, right? He knows it, undertands it too... and what happens? He hits a 30 YARD SLICE (!!) His subconscious knows it should work, but it also 'feels' he's aiming off left and tries to fix it.. and generates an even worse open face, out to in swing...

And this works(fails) for in "reverse" for a chronic hooker like i am/was....

The Pro's will have their clubs fitted to them - there are plenty with Nunchuk shafts resprayed in the TM colours so to speak, so i hear... and you may have heard how they can get their driver heads bent flatter (just like irons) - I understand Sellingers Golf can also do this for some Adams heads (? ,or used to?)

If Pro's are about 44 1/2" or maybe 45" long drivers why are Amateurs choosing longer clubs? Absolutely the reverse of what they genuinely need to consistently hit the ball better... but a 46" 50g shafted driver will once in a blue moon produce a longer drive.... ah, well.

Note swingweights are only useful as a rough guide to having clubs feel the same when swung when ALL the clubs have the SAME shaft at 1/2" length increments - and back in the day of steel shafted drivers was ok.... but having your 46" 50g shafted river at D2 to 'match' your irons with 120gm shafts is a placebo.

Rant over ;-)

I'll try and do the sharpie test with the Mizuno when i get home to see how flat/upright the 56.5 is for me - it seems to work well on the course...

Edited April 26, 2013 by coops1967

[theblake]

Interesting topic, was talking to my coach the other day and we both use the Nunchuk shafts, which virtually eliminates droop, so he was thinking that our fairway woods and hybrids need to be made even more flatter.

[ant]

thanx Chris! been away for a little while. if i only had one quick question to ask i would ask this

how many degrees of shaft droop on average they design their driver heads for ?

granted different shafts plus different shaft lengths and different swing types would produce different droop angles but they must have some testing data at least for their stock shafts (like Mr K picking specific stock shaft for 388 being one example) that can show at least a spread of min/max kinda numbers. there is no need to name names or go on record for any of them if that info is sensitive or confidential, like head A / shaft B would suffice. if you can get such numbers it would sure help alot to understand this issue.

This thread has got me curious so I'll ask Mr.K and others for their thoughts on this. If you could put your question into one simple sentence or paragraph what would you ask?

I'll ask 2 mold makers and 3 designers what their thoughts are on this. I think the answer could be one of the theories already in this post.

[coops1967]

Toe droop.... just how bad are these graphite shafts?

Check out the Mizuno Europe site, the MP-64 ... the 6 iron at standard length is 61 degrees lie.

6 iron!!! .

A driver... driver, ffs, at the same lie angle as a standard 6 iron?

Madness.

And the longer your driver shaft, the more mad this is.

Taking the irons as an example, they go down in lie one degree per one inch in length increase... so. as reasonable first guess we could say that from a 38 1/4" long 4 iron at 60 degree lie, then to get to a 44 1/4" driver needs an extra 6 inches length... 6 degrees of lie down = 54.

54.

And that's for a 'short' driver by modern standards.

45 1/4" you're looking at 53 lie... and if you need flatter lies in your irons you're so way way sh@t out of luck - unless you're on the tour or know a specialist who can bend Ti drivers a good 4 degrees flat for a start.

If you need 8 degrees to account for toe droop... then we need better shafts.

[gocchin]

thanx Chris! been away for a little while. if i only had one quick question to ask i would ask this

how many degrees of shaft droop on average they design their driver heads for ?

granted different shafts plus different shaft lengths and different swing types would produce different droop angles but they must have some testing data at least for their stock shafts (like Mr K picking specific stock shaft for 388 being one example) that can show at least a spread of min/max kinda numbers. there is no need to name names or go on record for any of them if that info is sensitive or confidential, like head A / shaft B would suffice. if you can get such numbers it would sure help alot to understand this issue.

I am meeting with Kobayashi-san next week but honestly I doubt we will get much of an answer to this at least when it comes to numbers. Yes he picked a stock shaft for each head but even with the stock shaft, droop will vary from player to player depending on swing speed and swing style (just as you said yourself) so its impossible to pick a number. Plus, he considers that shafts besides the stock shafts will be used as upgrades and again, droop will vary among all the shafts times all the different players that use them. Finally as I noted, he already said its the best spec for his design and in the case of the XV a broader market product that reaches many different players.

I don't think shaft droop is his main concern when choosing a shaft or testing it with the head but rather that the shaft profile, torque, and feel match the head and its intended performance for a wide audience. However as I mentioned he did mention that 60* was indeed to counter the shaft droop based on a 45.25" spec (he has actually told me that compared to the "old" days, shafts are considerably more flexible which is probably something he considered then. Pros go for flatter lies because there is less droop with their shorter lengths and they are very good at swinging inside out vs recreational golfers.

As I said, none of you have said anything that is wrong and in fact all the info is very useful and valid. But in the end we are reading into a technical spec that is most likely being generalized for the wide market not just by S-Yard but all mainstream manufacturers today. And that probably is what it is.

But I guess I will try and ask him anyway (^_^)

Everybody's technical input is very sound and the droop and upright lie angle and how it affects the face angles make sense. So do the points about pros wanting flatter lies. The bottom line is if all the great club designers in the world for all the top brands thought that a 56* lie angle (or less) was the way to go, why don't they do it? Because 60* unfortunately works for the masses. Again with manufacturers keeping in mind that lower lofts equal less direction lost and drivers have the lowest lofts of any club.

[ant]

thats the thing coops, i just find it hard to believe that modern premium graphite shafts are that bad when it comes to droop. its very difficult to tell how much droop there really is by looking at videos but all the quality high speed camera footage that does not have rolling shutter distortion shows very little droop for tour players and even long drive hitters. if i had to guess i would say its about 2 degrees, maybe 4 degrees max and 2 degrees shaft droop just cannot justify 60 degree lie angle. originally when graphite just started to make it to drivers they had to deal with whippy shafts and then shaft length went longer so whippy+longer=more droop so they might have had to deal with 8-10 degrees droop maybe dunno just speculating. so they started jacking up lie angle to compensate and now ended up with new standard. meantime shafts got much better, you see steel like torque numbers and its actually possible to make them tougher than steel with modern materials and manufacturing so theoretically you can have a graphite shaft at longer length with very little droop so droop becomes non issue they were trying to solve with more upright lie angles.

[Vegaman]

Cant find it now, but Ive seen many videos where the droop is very pronounced, couple that with 99% of players having higher hands through the hitting area = lie angle up. Plus, the longer the shaft, the more it will droop. You'd probably see considerable droop in a steel shaft too, if it was 45 inches long.

[ant]

Tario, please do. i know it can be a bit of pain to ask these kinda questions because it quickly starts to sound like armchair 'club designer' questioning industry veteran real designer but since you got direct access to the guy there is much to learn and i hope that he can sense and understand where its coming from.

personally i disagree that flatter lies are only for pros and masses should stick to 60 or so standard. i'm just a hack but just happen to have a much flatter entry and battle a hook constantly and pretty much hate hitting my driver because of that, especially when in play where there is no place to fit a hook or draw safely. it sure can be rectified with swing changes but i found that my persimmon drivers are much easier to fade than anything modern that i have tried even stuff with movable weights and all those gimmicks. that might have to do with persimmon face roll or flatter lie or both dunno but it is what it is and i'm just trying to figure out wrt modern drivers what affects what and how much to understand all of this better and give me some ideas of what to look for in a modern driver plus i'm genuinely interested in club design.

But I guess I will try and ask him anyway (^_^)

Everybody's technical input is very sound and the droop and upright lie angle and how it affects the face angles make sense. So do the points about pros wanting flatter lies. The bottom line is if all the great club designers in the world for all the top brands thought that a 56* lie angle (or less) was the way to go, why don't they do it? Because 60* unfortunately works for the masses. Again with manufacturers keeping in mind that lower lofts equal less direction lost and drivers have the lowest lofts of any club.

[ant]

many videos are done with cameras suffering from the rolling shutter like distortion effects that i have mentioned. there are few real high quality videos available that show true shaft bend thruout the swing. most stuff you see on youtube is distorted and cant be trusted. the cameras that dont distort are very expensive scientific or military grade gear. even expensive high quality digital cameras such as RED produce distorted results at very high speeds.

Cant find it now, but Ive seen many videos where the droop is very pronounced, couple that with 99% of players having higher hands through the hitting area = lie angle up. Plus, the longer the shaft, the more it will droop. You'd probably see considerable droop in a steel shaft too, if it was 45 inches long.

[gocchin]

Tario, please do. i know it can be a bit of pain to ask these kinda questions because it quickly starts to sound like armchair 'club designer' questioning industry veteran real designer but since you got direct access to the guy there is much to learn and i hope that he can sense and understand where its coming from.

personally i disagree that flatter lies are only for pros and masses should stick to 60 or so standard. i'm just a hack but just happen to have a much flatter entry and battle a hook constantly and pretty much hate hitting my driver because of that, especially when in play where there is no place to fit a hook or draw safely. it sure can be rectified with swing changes but i found that my persimmon drivers are much easier to fade than anything modern that i have tried even stuff with movable weights and all those gimmicks. that might have to do with persimmon face roll or flatter lie or both dunno but it is what it is and i'm just trying to figure out wrt modern drivers what affects what and how much to understand all of this better and give me some ideas of what to look for in a modern driver plus i'm genuinely interested in club design.

Anton, I hear you. Truthfully we can pretty much question the design thinking of every and any club out there today, but at the end of the day its how it performs on the course. The truth is the T.388 and now even the XV have performed much more admirably than I would have imagined especially on the forgiveness side.

Have you considered giving one of them a whirl?

Email me and we can talk about it.

[Vegaman]

Here is a pretty comprehensive explanation from Tom Wishon.

:

Over the past 2 yrs we have done a LOT of work in this area of understanding exactly HOW the shaft bends and under what conditions for each golfer. I really do believe that we have a good level of understanding about this to be able to explain and predict shaft performance.

The droop bending of the shaft is caused initially by the force of the transition move the golfer makes between the end of the backswing and the beginning of the downswing. When the club is at the top of the backswing, the golfer has rotated the club and shaft about 90 degrees open from the position the club was in at the address position. This means that the 12 o'clock/6 o'clock plane of the shaft is pretty much lined up so that plane is straight up/down with respect to the ground. Thus when the golfer starts the club down, the weight of the head presents resistance to this reversed movement of the club to start the downswing.

That causes the shaft to bend in a "toe up" position initially. The amount of bending from the transition is determined by three things - 1) the transition force of the golfer 2) the overall stiffness of the shaft compared to the golfer's transition force, 3) the weight of the head.

As the club now starts down toward the ball, the golfer has to rotate the club back around as he turns his body back toward the target. In a good golf swing as you know, the golfer is able to keep accelerating the club and retain the angle between the arms and the shaft (wrist-hinge angle). If this happens, the golfer is now applying a good amount of radial acceleration (AKA tangential acceleration) all through the downswing and this keeps a bending force on the shaft.

As the club gets closer to impact, there comes a time when the golfer has to unhinge the wrist-hinge angle to straighten out the club so it can hit the ball. when this release happens, now you have centrifugal force being applied to the club in addition to the radial acceleration. Now also remember, during this time in the downswing, the club has been rotated back around toward being square at impact. Thus if the golfer is still applying a good deal of radial acceleration to the club when they release the wrist-hinge and also start applying the centrifugal force, these forces now act on the weight of the head to now cause bending of the shaft in a droop manner (toe down bending). This happens because the head reacts to the force by trying to get its CG in line with the axis of the shaft, which thus causes the toe down bending just prior to impact.

And again, the amount of droop is determined by 1) amount of radial acceleration and centrifugal force applied by the golfer, 2) stiffness design of the shaft in relation to those forces, 3) weight of the head, 4) distance that the CG of the head is away from the centerline of the shaft.

Now also remember, all of this applies for the golfer with good swing fundamentals, so that means any golfer with a good swing (acceleration on the downswing for a longer time + later release of the wrist hinge) will have a tendency to show more shaft droop (and more shaft forward bending as well). Golfers who unhinge the wrists early are applying their centrifugal force before the club has rotated back around and are losing their radial acceleration force early on the downswing. In this case the shaft will have done its droop and forward bending way before impact such that these bending actions will dissipate before the club actually gets to the ball. Thus golfers with an early swing and loss of acceleration on the downswing will not see as much droop or forward bending of the shaft right before impact.

[coops1967]

Ant, as a fellow hooker ( and worse, a pull hooker) I'd advise first trying a Nunchuk shaft - such a stiff tip it gets rid of toe droop issue, which. will give easier repeatability. Heavier but doesn't feel it when swung and deosn't feel boardy like a usual very low torque shaft.

Of course, less droop means the head will come in steeper, more upright, than a droopy POS noodle... oops. But, the Nunchuk should only be max around 44" long made up so this offsets some of the issue ( a shorter club would ideally need a higher upright anyway ).

Then a flat lie drive or a open face driver.

The open face will compensate for the upright lie - upright points the face left, open face points it right...

And the golden boy for this is an old head the Adams 9015d - get it cheap, it's one of the best ever ( and even more so for anyone with a left tendency). Maybe even contact Sellingers Gofl in the US, as they used to stock loads of these and picked my head out heavier to suit a bblueboard 80 shaft at 44 1/2" at that time.

Flat lies are not so easy to find - my Miz 611 can be ordered at 56.5 deg lie which is something... but if i find a guy who can bend Ti drivers i'll be using him...

ps Vegaman - thanks for the wishon info. His drivers are standard at 58 degrees... and he himself has been banging on for a long ,long time how the average golfer needs to play shorter shafted drivers ie LESS than 44 1/2" .

Edited May 7, 2013 by coops1967

[ant]

very much so but not until i can figure out this stuff. i really like what you have shared on his designs wrt cg placements in his driver and wedge designs and it makes alot of sense to me but this lie angle stuff just doesnt (to me). i was also looking at mp 611 per suggestions of coops and vegaman and i like that they can do 56 degrees and the hosel looks like it can allow further bending too. any chance mizuno will be doing the same kinda custom thing with drivers like they do with yoro irons i read about in your posts, maybe do factory bending even further and open the face some for custom order ? right now i plan on buying a long hosel tour head and experimenting with it to figure this out.

Have you considered giving one of them a whirl?

Email me and we can talk about it.

[coops1967]

very much so but not until i can figure out this stuff. i really like what you have shared on his designs wrt cg placements in his driver and wedge designs and it makes alot of sense to me but this lie angle stuff just doesnt (to me). i was also looking at mp 611 per suggestions of coops and vegaman and i like that they can do 56 degrees and the hosel looks like it can allow further bending too. any chance mizuno will be doing the same kinda custom thing with drivers like they do with yoro irons i read about in your posts, maybe do factory bending even further and open the face some for custom order ? right now i plan on buying a long hosel tour head and experimenting with it to figure this out.

A Yoro 611... count me in. I'd order another head custom tomorrow... fraction open, even flatter, and matte black. Or raw nitrided titanium. Oh, little heavier.. 203 gm. ;-)

[hocko]

Ant, as a fellow hooker ( and worse, a pull hooker) I'd advise first trying a Nunchuk shaft - such a stiff tip it gets rid of toe droop issue, which. will give easier repeatability. Heavier but doesn't feel it when swung and deosn't feel boardy like a usual very low torque shaft.

Of course, less droop means the head will come in steeper, more upright, than a droopy POS noodle... oops. But, the Nunchuk should only be max around 44" long made up so this offsets some of the issue ( a shorter club would ideally need a higher upright anyway ).

Then a flat lie drive or a open face driver.

The open face will compensate for the upright lie - upright points the face left, open face points it right...

And the golden boy for this is an old head the Adams 9015d - get it cheap, it's one of the best ever ( and even more so for anyone with a left tendency). Maybe even contact Sellingers Gofl in the US, as they used to stock loads of these and picked my head out heavier to suit a bblueboard 80 shaft at 44 1/2" at that time.

Flat lies are not so easy to find - my Miz 611 can be ordered at 56.5 deg lie which is something... but if i find a guy who can bend Ti drivers i'll be using him...

ps Vegaman - thanks for the wishon info. His drivers are standard at 58 degrees... and he himself has been banging on for a long ,long time how the average golfer needs to play shorter shafted drivers ie LESS than 44 1/2" .

Totally agree!

[ant]

@vegaman i read that stuff from Wishon while back. problem is he doesnt go into enough detail or share any numbers which is what i'm after. they do iron byron like testing that should produce specific swing neutral numbers then those numbers can be further spread by real player testing. maybe i should just go try and ask him directly or his club making forum or over at wrx.

@coops i did try nunchuk and totally hated how it feels. its not a hook proof shaft no shaft can do that. for me it would actually be worse because my worst shot would be a real low snap hook. tried it briefly at the range so kinda hard to tell with crappy range balls in terms of exact ball flight but i could hook it just the same. i'm used to heavy shafts, my 3w shaft is ~105g, so thats not a problem. plus like you and another member here mentioned reduced droop would keep it more upright. btw did you do that little test with marker/tape that you have mentioned earlier ? i'm curious what kinda results you got.

[coops1967]

Ant, just be careful with the Nunchuk.. as in do NOT throw it in at 45" or whatever just to see. I first had the Nunchuk made up with the Yonex 380 while i was in the USA... just on spec as it were, without any testing of the head or shaft ( madness ! haha) but I knew i'd never have the chance back in Bangkok.

Oddly the shaft felt fine immediately, but the guy in florida who it has experience with that head and shaft so... it seems to me that at 44" made up with a head around 200 gm or so giving SW of d0 it is oddly wonderful. Two drivers now, the Adams and the Mizuno both 44" , both Nunchuk and they both are the dog's bollocks... and yes i can still hook an Adams 9015 in a Nunchuk, sadly ;-)

I'll get down the range with the impact tape and marker and give it a go on the lie angle side of things... i'm curious, too. Want to know what custom lie option i need for the yoro 611, ha.

Incidentally, wishon's site explains he uses 58 as his standard lie because he expects the heads to be made up to 45" or Less, and probably less, which thus needs somewhat less upright lie than a 46" driver.

Oh, and a smaller head with the COG closer to the shaft plane as in the T388 or a Miz 611 should, to my Engneer's mind anyway, cause LESS shaft droop than say a Ping G25 with a much longer heel to toe and so COG much further away from the shaft plane. Leverage - the swing forces at the head COG will have more leverage further away from the shaft ... causing more shaft droop with heads having a COG further from the shaft. Maybe Miura was right when he said that 390cc was 'easier'...

Edited May 7, 2013 by coops1967

[ant]

@coops the one i have tried no idea how long it was exactly. the guy had it with some old tm head like the one that looks like it has space ship engine nozzles on the sole. didnt feel longer than my ~44,5 (i think) but i cant be sure since it was awhile back.

@vegaman here is Jamie Sadlowski on a decent camera just pre impact. if someone can cause a massive shaft droop that would be him. plays his at ~48 and even tho its marked filthy xxx that house of forged shaft is not a telegraph pole believe it or not. this is all very approximate but where is the massive shaft droop at longer length ?! cut it to 44-45 range and it would be even less.

[coops1967]

Tried out the impact tape and a sharpie line on the ball... with a driver it doesn't give a very clear line at all. I tried with my 8 iron after, and you can get very nice clear line on the impact tape - even if you swing again without re- marking the line on the ball.

Perhaps the much lower spin rate with a driver doesn't allow the ink to transfer so well - maybe a whiteboard ink marker would work better.

The only slight mark i got with the driver looked not too bad ie about right, not too upright or flat with 56.5 deg lie driver and Nunchuk shaft at 44" long. Seems to confirm results on the course - curvature of my drives on best swings is as straight as it's ever been, and no issues with a big push from an excessive flat lie/ open face.

Bear in mind, i'm still reducing my goat humping issues (!) - so as i hope to improve my swing thru impact, my lie angles at impact should if anything get a touch flatter. Oh, and i'm a recovering hooker, so flatter lie suits me for that reason too.

I did hear one guy who fit people indoors with a ball he'd ground or hacksawed a channel/ groove in to the ball so that would show up on impact tape.

[ant]

yeah i think with a driver it just wont stay on the face long enough and the ball doesnt get compressed as hard (less deformation for ball more deformation for face/head compared to an iron). maybe a cluster of dots in some tight pattern instead of a line would work better for this dunno. i'm gonna get an older long hosel tour head, bend it real flat taking my 3w lie angle as point of reference because it just happens to work perfect for me and experiment with this as well and see if maybe i can make some sense of it then, at least for myself.

[maslie]

IMO, years ago they build flatter lie as standard and how it's "should be" since they still have rooms for improvement, with all limitations now a day they have and need to keep market in "Grey area" and better to stay thirsty. Just blame....the "Capitalism"