Have you tried your BOLD Wedge?

[chiromikey]

I went ok with the bold but if indeed a learning curve is needed, that seems to be becoming a trait of S-yard. Not sure that is good if true.

never thought about that...but you're right. good or bad, i do like the bolds...

[+TourSpecGolfer]

couple of mm would do absolutely nothing, no measurable or practical effect that is. has to be at least quarter inch to make a difference. looking at the bold shape there quite a bit more meat moved to the top and on top of that (no pun) they drilled at the bottom to remove weight and put additional 25g at the top. that would be way more than than couple of mm, especially if you compare to placement in classic sole heavy wedges. whether or not different folks can feel that difference is another matter.

21.5 is the CG location on the Bold, Half Inch = 12mm. Other companies keep CG location confidential but we know the range =o) and It isn't as much as your thinking although I agree that 25g seems like a TON on a wedge you would be very surprised how short a distance it moves the CG on this particular wedge.

I think the vast majority of golfers can't feel a half inch CG in the "balance" of a club. Maybe notice a difference in the trajectory or performance but noticing a shift in "balance" is hard for me to believe. Not saying duffer is wrong just saying I would love to experience what he is. I do get the sense in stock form it feels a bit unbalanced.

I went ok with the bold but if indeed a learning curve is needed, that seems to be becoming a trait of S-yard. Not sure that is good if true.

Let's not give anyone the false impression that S-Yard clubs as a brand require a learning curve. You gave a stock 388 9 holes and observed results of poor feel & 15+ meters short in distance. I'm not aware of anyone experiencing the same with this club, it's quite the opposite based on what I'm reading in the forum. I'm interested in what you would say about the XV but I'm also interesting in finding out the reason the 388 reacted that way for you. I'd understand not forgiving enough or too little spin but poor face feel to me means that you were far from center. very short distance to me means the setup/specs were wrong for your swing.

Now the bold, it's finicky at times. my first round was spectacular, second not well and thats just the way things go. It does things that I haven't seen other wedges do but it also isn't as user friendly as others imo. It's give and take, I like it for chips, pitch, flops but don't like my 60* in the bunker. I hit killer 56 & 52 approach shots but pull my 60* left. I know the problem is me, It's just about finding specs that reduce the problem. I'm coming from Toyoshimas which were just easy breezy japaneezy. I even put both wedges on the LM. I can hit the Toyo's more consistently and higher while the bolds with more spin, lower trajectory and more accurate. Sometimes too much spin.

[ant]

its not "couple of mm" shift but alot more thats all i'm saying. if its "couple of mm" the whole thing would be just a gimmick as it would do exactly nada as far as hitting golf ball goes. dunno how much exactly because that would also require another wedge for exact comparison. and cg location on other wedges can be measured relatively easily with right setup and a bit of patience so it would be silly to make it confidential per se, its just nobody publishes that kinda data openly because its usually means nothing to people who buy the product and generally useless for marketing material bs.

21.5 is the CG location on the Bold, Half Inch = 12mm. Other companies keep CG location confidential but we know the range =o) and It isn't as much as your thinking although I agree that 25g seems like a TON on a wedge you would be very surprised how short a distance it moves the CG on this particular wedge.

I think the vast majority of golfers can't feel a half inch CG in the "balance" of a club. Maybe notice a difference in the trajectory or performance but noticing a shift in "balance" is hard for me to believe. Not saying duffer is wrong just saying I would love to experience what he is. I do get the sense in stock form it feels a bit unbalanced.

[RIduffer]

When 95% of what you've played for years has a fairly consistent CG, then you play something different it will feel odd. That is the nature of the human body. It gets used to certain kinds of feedback then begins to ignore it. Change the feedback and the body will adjust and during that adjustment period things can be awkward. The term learning curve is appropriate here.

If you look at the amount of mass compared to traditional wedges that has been shifted from low to high, while the CG of the head itself might have moved MM when you put it on a 35+" shaft and swing it at 80MPH that shift is amplified. Admittedly it is my layman's explanation of it, but it is the only variable during the swing, that can account for the feeling change.

[ant]

thinking about getting one just for kicks, see what its like. is there any offset on 60 ? seen the pictures but wanna check with people here who have it what do you think ? i dont mind some offset in low lofted wedges but 60 to me should either have straight no offset or maybe even a bit of onset to it. also if anybody here got one built with x100 whats the swing weight you got ?

[chiromikey]

i don't really notice any offset in my 60...

[wmclarenf1]

thinking about getting one just for kicks, see what its like. is there any offset on 60 ? seen the pictures but wanna check with people here who have it what do you think ? i dont mind some offset in low lofted wedges but 60 to me should either have straight no offset or maybe even a bit of onset to it. also if anybody here got one built with x100 whats the swing weight you got ?

If there is any, its really very very negligible and my eye is very sensitive to offset.

[+TourSpecGolfer]

its not "couple of mm" shift but alot more thats all i'm saying. if its "couple of mm" the whole thing would be just a gimmick as it would do exactly nada as far as hitting golf ball goes. dunno how much exactly because that would also require another wedge for exact comparison. and cg location on other wedges can be measured relatively easily with right setup and a bit of patience so it would be silly to make it confidential per se, its just nobody publishes that kinda data openly because its usually means nothing to people who buy the product and generally useless for marketing material bs.

Yes I'm telling you it's "a couple of mm". In some cases less. Duffer already plays wedges with a 19-21mm location so a .5 - 1.5mm higher CG shouldn't affect balance.

There is no need for speculation, we know the numbers, Mr. Kobayashi himself In front of a board explained it along with a CAD diagram that showed it. That's the same day he explained the driver lie angles which Tario explained to you as well.

On a side note Mr.K could be the greatest golf club designer ever. Here's a mind blowing fact, Mr. Kobayashi has been directly involved with producing the equipment for the elite (top 10 ranked) professionals of each time period over the last several decades! He is one of only 3 men that I've heard of who can create a mold by hand see below.

He also said Vokey & Cleveland and most OEMs request that Endo keeps CG locations confidential.

CG placement will never be a gimmick, Its too important even when moving only a half of a mm. I know what your saying that removing weight from the sole and placing 25g up top would do a lot more than 2mm. That's incorrect, A good example would be the ONOFF Forged iron. Tungsten weighting of 75g in the head would mean a super low CG but it's not that low. This isn't like adding 25g to a driver, Irons & Wedges are different.

In the states rarely a mention of a numerical CG location in any marketing. In Japan it's actually a good selling point and thats why some OEMs include the CG location numbers in their adverts and sometimes draw diagram comparisons to where it was located in their last model. They do this often with drivers and fairway woods.

[ant]

sorry Chris but you can tell me that all you want and we can go in circles but it makes no sense to me for the reasons i have explained to you already. neither did Tario explanation on "optimal" lie angle for a driver btw. Tom Wishon (another industry veteran designer who is well respected and has some unique outstanding designs under his belt) done alot of research and experimenting in that area as well and if you are interested to understand it properly you can look into it, he quotes specific numbers and based on his figures "couple of mm" would do nothing to ball flight. so again, sorry to be a pain but i rather take it from a horse mouth directly so to speak than from someone who attended a meeting but no expert on the subject in question. just being honest with you man.

Yes I'm telling you it's "a couple of mm". In some cases less. Duffer already plays wedges with a 19-21mm location so a .5 - 1.5mm higher CG shouldn't affect balance.

There is no need for speculation, we know the numbers, Mr. Kobayashi himself In front of a board explained it along with a CAD diagram that showed it. That's the same day he explained the driver lie angles which Tario explained to you as well.

[+TourSpecGolfer]

You sound like your talking about what I think a move in CG does to performance. That's not what I'm talking about...

its not "couple of mm" shift but alot more thats all i'm saying.

I'm telling you that it hasn't moved more than a couple of mm.

To make myself totally clear: The bolds CG location isn't more than a couple of mm higher than many of the wedges you have been playing recently. That said 21.5 is a big deal in wedge design, just look what it took to get there and I think you can agree.

Those 4 holes and all that weight up top didn't move it as much as you think.

looking at the bold shape there quite a bit more meat moved to the top and on top of that (no pun) they drilled at the bottom to remove weight and put additional 25g at the top. that would be way more than than couple of mm, especially if you compare to placement in classic sole heavy wedges.

The above is what I'm telling you your incorrect about but I do think we both agree that moving the CG a couple of mm does little to nothing in a wedge although it does a lot in a driver.

My example of the ONOFF Forged iron having 75g weight in the sole of an iron head thats lighter than a wedge head should make sense to you. In that case a lot more weight was added yet the CG isn't as low as one would think . That is in line with 4 holes + 25G on the toe of the bold only moving the CG it a "couple of mm".

Not sure why you would cite Wishon. I believe and like his teachings but were not talking about what a CG move does to performance and he didn't design the bold nor would I compare him to Mr.K

Does the Bold have a lower trajectory than other wedges? Yes imo in stock form it does, that doesn't mean it comes from the CG alone although one could figure it would. It can also come from the shaft or other design aspects combined.

FYI: 19mm is considered a very low CG on a wedge while 21.5 is the highest we know of to date. Thats only 2.5mm difference in the entire range. Thats why I disagree with your statements.

[ant]

Chris, the reason i brought Tom Wishon into this is because he is the only expert guy who talks in gory details directly to the general public and this issue of how moving weight affects cg has been addressed by him multiple times on his own forum and elsewhere. i know this because i add alot and i mean alot of weight to my clubs and i researched this specifically to figure out what effects adding that much weight to different parts of the clubhead would have on cg position and subsequently to tangible ball flight changes if any. yes, it would depend on weight of the club itself to weight being added but Wishon specifically talked about irons and stated specific numbers for example that adding 12g weight to the hosel would move cg about 3mm towards the heel. he also stated that adding less than that has no affect to ball flight characteristics based on his experience in both robot and human testing.

now if you look at the bold you are not seeing the whole picture because you only see 25g weight drilled at the bottom then added to the top. there are other methods available to raise cg higher before you start doing that. increasing the face height is one (which would obviously increase head size) and making a sole more narrow is another. to me it looks like bold has these characteristics and it also has a thicker top portion in addition to that. maybe thats comparable to most wedges on the market today in terms of cg placement within "couple of mm", maybe you are right, i dont have the data.

from the figures i have seen it can be as low as 16mm and as high as 24mm. in fact if your check your own product pages for honma wedges on this site honma states 23-24mm "height to center of gravity" on their wedge models. so certainly not the highest on bold but from what i understand he didnt try to make it as high as possible with this design he just wanted it in very specific place that he believes is optimal. regardless i think if people say that the balance feels different compared to what they used to even at comparable swing and dead weight it means it shifted enough for them to notice and i believe that. in any case i wanna order one for myself now just for kicks and give it a try, see what its like.

[+TourSpecGolfer]

TPC is great isn't it?

I think we are changing subjects here. My only gripe is the two comments you made about CG moving a lot more than a couple of mm ( because we know thats not the case) and that the OEMs dont publish data because it usually means nothing to people. (they dont publish their #'s because it's the recipe) All the rest I dont mind, We are on the same page with everything else. Of course it takes a ton of variables to move CG etc.. etc..

If im coming across argumentative I'm sorry. In my shoes I sat there with the TSG team and we went over all your exact same questions including the flatter lie for woods question which Mr.K Explained easily and all making sense. Tario was there as well, it went deep and especially in those two areas. There is no man I would trust more than the man who moved the CG himself and knows other brands recipes. 19 - 21.5mm is where it's at. I don't think Endo has ever produced higher. 16-24mm is getting a bit funky imo. Any more examples of wedges in that range?

[ant]

lets just leave it at that. i cant give you more examples because i'm not gonna spend time rigging a setup for balancing heads just to prove a point and most manufacturers dont publish that kinda data but it can be easily determined on their existing product and a low tech rig so why would they want to keep vertical cg measurements confidential once the product is released is beyond me. they patent their designs anyway and i think thats what s-yard did for bold as well so that kinda data (and alot of other interesting club design related data for that matter) can sometimes be gleaned by looking at patent applications.

[+TourSpecGolfer]

lets just leave it at that. i cant give you more examples because i'm not gonna spend time rigging a setup for balancing heads just to prove a point and most manufacturers dont publish that kinda data but it can be easily determined on their existing product and a low tech rig so why would they want to keep vertical cg measurements confidential once the product is released is beyond me. they patent their designs anyway and i think thats what s-yard did for bold as well so that kinda data (and alot of other interesting club design related data for that matter) can sometimes be gleaned by looking at patent applications.

Great, totally fine you think that. I just want you to understand your still speculating while I'm telling you what the former president of Endo has said. OEM's request their numbers are kept private. That makes sense to me but If you want to speculate another reason like patents etc.. that's fine although it's not what we were told.

No need for example wedges, the type of wedges most of us play range from 19-21mm CG locations. Bold is 21.5. The 4 holes and 25g only moved the CG a couple of mm.

None of this is my opinion.

[RIduffer]

My point was not explicitly about the 4 holes. In reality, if you look at the depth of the holes on the sole, they are different based on the loft of the club. My comment was that overall the weight distribution is different and it has an impact on "getting to know" the club.

Moving from the Vokey to the Yam is fairly easy, I'm told. Design, size, weight distribution is similar. The Bold is materially different. That is what I though contributed the most to the awkward balance of the head. The more I play it, the more I am getting accustomed to it, another point I made in my earlier post...

[ant]

Chris, i'm speculating simply because there is something going balance wise and there is no reasonable explanation for it so far. "couple of mm" shift is not it and i believe you would agree on that. so going from that point now i'm wrong you right and its just "couple of mm" compared to everything else on average and i'm not being sarcastic or anything here. does that mean other wedges on the market all have the same vertical cg locations or they differ slightly model to model manufacturer to manufacturer, maybe on order of "couple of mm" as well ? oh wait, thats confidential and i believe you when you say they make that data confidential its just that vertical cg location on a wedge can be easily measured by anyone, its just a balancing point for f sake so i believe you that they do i just dont understand why coz its stupid thing to do. now if they differ slightly on all other wedges in "couple of mm" or so range (again, speculating here) why nobody seems to notice balance wise ?

Edited May 13, 2013 by ant

[ant]

here is another speculation for you wrt what else can be possibly affecting balance. what about cg depth on bold compared to other wedges ?

[+TourSpecGolfer]

here is another speculation for you wrt what else can be possibly affecting balance. what about cg depth on bold compared to other wedges ?

You haven't hit a Bold yet your telling us how it is... What if you love the balance?

With a different shaft and grip its balance is like any other wedge.

Many players like the balance, a few don't and that could be the design, It could be the CG, it could be one of the many things that effect balance in wedges or that the setup doesn't fit the players swing. Too many variables including sense of feel.

I'm just telling you what the man told us. If those answers aren't good enough I'm sorry.

Back to duffer, I think it's cool you can feel the different balance . I guess it's a possibility it's CG, I don't know. It's only 1-2mm higher than your other wedges most likely, You think it's just the overall weight distribution of the design?

[RIduffer]

I don't know what it is, but I have several wedges, each with a similar weight shaft and build spec. These are oddly balanced to what I am used to. Getting used to them though. Just a learning curve. Weight distribution is the only thing really different during the swing.

The balance is definitely more noticeable past 9 o'clock on the back swing.

[akapur]

I don't know what it is, but I have several wedges, each with a similar weight shaft and build spec. These are oddly balanced to what I am used to. Getting used to them though. Just a learning curve. Weight distribution is the only thing really different during the swing.

The balance is definitely more noticeable past 9 o'clock on the back swing.

I agree about the weight distribution and how it feels, I notice the weight more on the downswing especially just before contact, feels as if the club head drops into the proper spot on contact. I cant comment on wether there is an imbalance to the weight distribution, but i am sure that I like how the club feels and am getting used to the weight.

[RIduffer]

I shouldn't say unbalanced. It is awkward compared to what I am used to, but once you acclimate they are quite good. Full shots, especially trying to get a little extra yardage, is not their strong suit. Overall very good wedges, though. I think the Toyoshima's might be a bit better....

[wmclarenf1]

I shouldn't say unbalanced. It is awkward compared to what I am used to, but once you acclimate they are quite good. Full shots, especially trying to get a little extra yardage, is not their strong suit. Overall very good wedges, though. I think the Toyoshima's might be a bit better....

I think that best sums it. Its something that one could get used to quite easily as well I think. I decided to stay with my DWDs.

[+TourSpecGolfer]

I agree about the weight distribution and how it feels, I notice the weight more on the downswing especially just before contact, feels as if the club head drops into the proper spot on contact. I cant comment on wether there is an imbalance to the weight distribution, but i am sure that I like how the club feels and am getting used to the weight.

This is what I noticed as well. Even my wife noticed the same thing. It feels heavy on the down. I re shafted / spec'd it and I don't feel that anymore. That said I'm playing my Toyoshima's again for the last couple of rounds. It doesn't spin as much or cut through the rough as well but bad shot go longer than it does with the Bold and I'm full of bad shots now days :)

[akapur]

I have also noticed that to get the same distance as my other wedges I have to swing harder. That being said usually swinging harder leads to a boat load of bad shots, I have not noticed this with the Bold's. If anything I feel as if I can swing as hard as I like and the ball will jump into the air and land with a great amount of spin. I am still very happy with these wedges, just taking longer to get used to.

[RIduffer]

So I am convinced something about the Bolds requires an adjustment to your swing. Been switching between a few sets of wedges for a while now and every time the Bolds come up in rotation it takes at least one round to acclimate. Played a mixed set of Yamahas, then switched to the Toyos and a Geotech, right off the bat no issues. Went to the Bolds, and the first round with them was a hack job then when switching back again the first round is a horrible wedge day. Once you make the adjustment it is fine but something about the Bolds makes you change.