Building and fitting golf clubs

[gregoire56]

I got started building golf clubs in my basement with my own clubs. First, I was a bit of a club ho and got tired of going to my local builder and having to pay every time I just wanted to install a new grip or pull a shaft, so I decided to learn how to do the more basic stuff like that on my own. I quickly learned that trying to pull a graphite shaft without a shaft puller is a very bad idea if you're not trying to ruin the shaft 😕 . Then I got very interested in some of the finer points of building.. how length and weight relate to proper balance, the correct ways to build different types of clubs, etc. etc.

I thought it would be nice to have a thread where golfers who are interested in club building and fitting can post questions and get answers, and club builders can discuss different methods and provide info to one another, things like that. So the purpose of this thread is to discuss club building and fitting, and related things.

The topic I chose for this first post is one that, in my experience, many builders and fitters do not pay much attention to, and thus neither do most golfers: grip size.

There are much more precise sizes to make grips other than just standard, midsize, oversize and junior/ladies. When we fit for grips in our shop, we use a range of 15 sizes that vary by 1/64". I was taught that a golfer's proper grip size is that which is thin enough to allow their top hand to grip the club through their fingers and not their palm, but thick enough to prevent the palm from overlapping the fingers. This is because a proper golf grip is through the fingers of the top hand where the non-muscular hand ligaments can lock around and create very stable club contact and control. This allows the golfer to achieve a good firm grip while the arm muscles remain relaxed and their upper body less rigid, so they can make a more athletic swing and freely set their wrist at the top and rotate their hands through the ball. In contrast, a grip size that's too thick forces the grip to go through the golfer's palm instead of their fingers, and this causes them to have to tense their arm and wrist to create contact and control over the club. This tensing of the muscles causes the upper body to be much more rigid, which makes it more difficult to perform an athletic swing and set their wrist at the top. Also, the tense arm muscles cause the vibrations from making contact with the ball that travel up the shaft to then travel up their arm and into the tendons of their elbow, which can cause or aggravate issues like tendonitis over time.

The three things that relate to proper grip size are finger length, palm length, and hand girth. This third factor is just as important as the first two, but I never hear it addressed outside of our shop. The girth or meatiness of the hand is very important because if a person has a beefy hand then when they close into a fist the meat of their hand fills up the space inside, and such a person would thus need a thinner grip than another person with the same sized fingers/palm but less hand girth. In contrast, a person with little hand girth needs a thicker grip because they don't have a beefy hand that fills up the space inside their fist. Proper grip size has absolutely nothing to do with strength or level of play, it is the size which is thin enough to allow a person to grip the club through their fingers with their top hand, but thick enough to prevent the palm from overlapping.

The +4 concept has been around for a long time, and that is a matter of preference which relates to a golfer's bottom hand and not the top. Some golfers dislike the taper aspect of most grips and prefer it thicker under their bottom hand instead of thinner. If the part of the grip under the bottom hand is thicker then this also facilitates a less tense grip with more freedom of movement in the wrist. Some golfers prefer this because it helps prevent tenseness and rigidity, and some prefer it because they simply think it's more comfortable. Either way, this is a perfectly fine option for those who prefer it, provided that they have the proper grip size under their top hand.

Another aspect of grips that I find interesting is inner diameter or ID. Grips have ID identifiers on the inside of the mouth of the grip, like "M58R" or "M60R". These indicate the shaft butt size for which this grip was designed. For instance, an iron shaft with a butt diameter of .600 would use an M60R to create a standard sized grip, an iron shaft with a butt diameter that's .580 would use an M58R to create a standard sized grip. However, if an M58R were to be installed on a shaft with a .600 butt diameter it would create a +1/64" over standard grip size, and if an M60R were installed on a .580 butt it would create a -1/64" under standard grip size.

All of this isn't to say that all good golfers only use their proper sized grips, on the contrary there are many golfers out there who have incorrect grip sizes but are very good players. However, these examples are golfers who are talented enough or good enough athletes to overcome the issues they may be experiencing due to incorrect grip size and are still able to make it work and perform at a high level, it is not that their incorrect grip size is actually causing them to be a better golfer. In general, it is a much better idea for golfers to use their correct grip size and then modify things based on their own preferences as they determine what those are.

[Hutch]

I think always go with the largest size grip you can comfortably get away with. My theory anyway.

After many years of tinkering with set up....builds.......If the grip is too small my hand rotation gets out of wack...Too quick/early a turnover coming in to the ball.

So many variables. This is just one of so many factors....Not sure if there is a wrong or right.

No doubt lots of sound opinions and experience.... Good topic. Keen to hear some thoughts.

 

[604_skyline]

grips are one of those things though...i do not have the biggest hands and prefer a "thinner grip" i always have the thinnest layer of grip tape possible installed, and always have it stretched when on to make it just a fraction thinner...

to me a .580 or m58 grip on a .600 shaft does not really equate to "bigger"i think it makes the grip feel thicker if that makes any sense....

[Hutch]

1 hour ago, 604_skyline said:

"thinner grip" i always have the thinnest layer of grip tape possible installed, and always have it stretched when on to make it just a fraction thinner...

Do you think this makes for more feel/feedback through the hands "not as soft" ?

[gregoire56]

3 hours ago, 604_skyline said:

grips are one of those things though...i do not have the biggest hands and prefer a "thinner grip" i always have the thinnest layer of grip tape possible installed, and always have it stretched when on to make it just a fraction thinner...

to me a .580 or m58 grip on a .600 shaft does not really equate to "bigger"i think it makes the grip feel thicker if that makes any sense....

An M58 is meant to create a standard sized grip on a .580 shaft, likewise for an M60 on a .600 shaft.. since both grips are designed to create a standard OD, but one has a thinner ID, then the one with the thinner ID needs more material to reach the same OD. It’s not really an opinion matter, that’s just how these grips were designed. 
Keep in mind these grip companies are like shaft and head companies because all standard sized grips do not actually install to a standard size. Some standard grips will actually install to -1/64” or +1/64”, and so on 

[gregoire56]

1 hour ago, hutchy said:

Do you think this makes for more feel/feedback through the hands "not as soft" ?

This definitely does create more feedback and firm up the grip because you’re spreading the same amount of material over a wider area over top of the shaft, so it actually is thinning out the walls of the grip and bringing your hands closer to the shaft underneath. With less material between your hands and the shaft there is less to disperse the vibrations so you feel it more 

[gregoire56]

Also, stretching a grip down IS an effective and practical way to create a smaller grip. By stretching a grip down 3/4” you’re making it one size smaller (or -1/64”) than that grip’s normal install size. So if you were to take a grip that normally installs at standard size, and evenly stretch it down 3/4” past where it normally installs to, then the finished installed grip size will be -1/64” under standard size. This can be very useful for anyone whose grip size is -1/64” under standard because they can then stretch down a standard grip to reach their  size instead of building up a much smaller grip 

[cuistot]

Great post I like to learn more.  Just picked up another set of irons. It costs a good deal of time travel and money for my club builder to lengthen, adjust lie, swing weight and grip size. I’d like to learn to do myself. But I’m a 🐔 

 

[D22marshall]

3 hours ago, cuistot said:

Great post I like to learn more.  Just picked up another set of irons. It costs a good deal of time travel and money for my club builder to lengthen, adjust lie, swing weight and grip size. I’d like to learn to do myself. But I’m a 🐔 

 

It’s not hard at all if you have some practical skills and take your time ask lots of questions but get the right gear. Shaft puller is essential 

[nobmontana]

Very easy once you get a hang of it.  

In addition to the shaft puller,  heat gun is probably another essential.   

 

[Hutch]

As mentioned equipment is key.

start with re grips, cutting old ones off with caution for the shaft. This is the first and easiest step In building.....Once you get comfortable slipping new grips on with a vice and vice shaft clamp you can go the next step with a compressor and blow the old grips off. Then if you want to save the grips your removing you can slip a tube over the grip so it doesn't blow out...spare grips are always handy for somethings down the track.

[+TourSpecGolfer]

Brother Warren has some key equipment that I gave him.

You guys could pool all that stuff together and open shop 😉

I love the grip and rip!

[gregoire56]

I was wondering what else might be cool to write about and having a hard time coming up with something good. I eventually thought it might be a good idea to start with some of the background info I’ve learned like club building history and concepts and how some of these ideas came about. I’ve learned a great deal apprenticing at one of the oldest custom club builders in the country, and being that this all started out as a hobby for me I’ve always been interested in learning as much as I possibly can.

Our shop’s roots go back a long way. Our founder was an apprentice in Scotland with one of the founders of golf club building, Ben Sayers. Sayers was a Scottish professional golfer who later became a distinguished teacher, instructing royalty and other professionals, and course architect. However, one of the things he is best remembered for is manufacturing golf clubs and equipment. He formed a company in 1873, which is widely acknowledged as being the oldest golf company in the world, and patented several innovative designs and created many revolutionary pieces of equipment. 
Our founder apprenticed with Sayers in Scotland before coming to the USA and becoming the head club professional at Seaview Golf Club in NJ, since he was a scratch player as well. During his time at Seaview, he was hired to also build and repair clubs by a gentleman who managed the sporting goods department for a large department store in Philadelphia. Their golf business thrived at the department store, but the overall sporting goods department was eventually eliminated. With the mass of business that they still had from the golf department, a private shop was opened up in 1923.

This private shop quickly earned a reputation for exceptional work. One skill which set them apart was the ability to make wood heads, which were all handmade at the time out of actual wood, with a top line and leading edge that had exactly matching angles in relation to the shaft. This was apparently a rare skill which set them apart that was learned during the time apprenticing in Scotland. This reputation led to them eventually working with many professionals and emerging component manufacturers, like True Temper and Royal Precision.

Around the late 70’s, club companies started wondering things like why it was that their sponsored professionals wouldn’t always put all of the new clubs they were given at the beginning of the season into play. Instead, they would test new clubs at the range, and even though they would all be built to the same specs there were clubs in the set which didn’t behave like all the rest. This led the PGA to consult with an engineer named Dr. Joseph Braley. One of Dr. Braley’s determinations was that club companies needed to account for the fact that, due to the manufacturing process of steel shafts (which is all that were being used at the time), shafts could not be all reliably produced exactly the same. So he created a method by which shafts could be objectively classified by a reliable flex measurement, instead of just R/S/X as was currently being done. He designed a device that could clamp a club at the butt-end, bend (or “load”) the club a specific amount, and then release it to oscillate in front of a laser. The number of times the club oscillated through the laser was measured as its cycles per minute, or CPM. He then created a curved chart which represented the CPM of clubs at different lengths and their relative stiffness. The chart was created based on measuring steel shafted 43” drivers, which were the current norm for the time. He would abbreviate a 260 CPM driver as a 6.0 flex designation by taking away the 2 and adding a decimal to create a shorter flex nomenclature. 255 CPM = 5.5, 247 CPM = 4.7, etc. The rest of the flex designations were based off of club length and the CPM which matched the relative stiffness of the 43” driver. So a shorter club needed a higher CPM to have the same relative stiffness at 43”, and vise versa, so thus the 4.7/5.5/6.0/etc. flex designations remained uniform across club lengths despite the difference in actual CPM.

This new way of classifying shafts by stiffness led Dr. Braley to purchase a company that manufactured steel tubes and turn it into a golf shaft company. His company used the numeric flex designation nomenclature that he’d developed to classify shaft stiffness. This new ability for pros and builders to receive extremely precise shaft flexes led to Dr. Braley becoming one of True Temper’s biggest competitors for golf shaft sales, so TT began weight sorting their shafts to more precisely identify them as such: R100, R200, S100, S500, etc. However, it seems this did not have as much of an impact as TT wanted, because they later purchased Dr. Braley’ company, then called Royal Precision.

At the time they were bought, Royal Precision were the manufacturers of several very popular shafts, including the Project X and Rifle. TT’s original intent was to do away with the Royal Precision lineup, but they received pushback and did not. However, one popular feature of the Project X shaft was lost in the process, and that was it’s very unique satin color. Royal Precision used a special German machine to create a very nice looking brushed satin chrome finish on their Project X shafts. This machine used a specific type of sandpaper to create the look, which I guess was too expensive for TT to keep buying, so they scrapped the machine and figured they’d find a way to create the brushed satin look on their own. After several attempts it was decided to keep the Project X as a bright chrome finish like the rest of their shafts. Years later, Dr. Braley’s son Kim Braley started a shaft company called KBS. I believe he wanted to create a shaft that was a twin of his father’s signature satin Project X, and so the standard weight, stable-tipped and stepless C-Taper was given a brushed satin finish. 

[neova]

Great topic! As a club ho learning how to do the basic club making allows us to spend the money on clubs and not labour. 

I started learning myself back in 2010 with a regrip, then moved on to reshafting irons/wedges with steel shafts, and avoided graphite reshafting for a couple years after ruining several $100 wood shafts.  I even bought some used crappy $10 used clubs with graphite shafts to practice on until i was comfortable!

The only things I don't do at home is adjusting lies, as I have a clubmaker that does a good job and i don't want to drop $$$ on a lie angle machine that I will only use once a year.

My golf gear and club making materials have taken up quite a bit of storage in my basement, from laundry room to under stairs storage and next to the gym. 

 

Laundry Room - Storage for grips, balls, other golf supplies. Also an inexpensive way to measure club length by using a ruler (Hireko Ruler Buddy)

 

Under Stairs Storage - Extra balls, bags, and shafts (placed in the cavity in between the backside of the dry wall)

 

Basement Gym- where I do daily swing practices in front of a mirror (with a cell phone holder in case I want to do videos). Notice I even exchanged a patch of the gym floor mat with an artificial golf hitting mat so I can do some chipping and punch shots with a foam ball indoors 😃

 

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by neova