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Golf Clubs and Golf TechnologyEarly Experience with MOI MatchingIn the first half of 1995, I was experimenting with MOI matched clubs. This was based on math and physics I did in 1994 suggesting this would be a better way to match clubs than swingweight. I posted my experiences to rec.sport.golf, the golfing interest newsgroup on the Internet. Here is an anthology of those postings. More Recent MOI-Matching Experience It took thirteen years and several tries, but I think I now know what sort of MOI-matched clubs I need. Here is the what and why of a set that fits me better than my earlier attempts at playing MOI-matched irons. Golf Technology Forecast - 2008 In 2008, motivated by a forecast made by Tom Wishon at the fifth World Scientific Congress of Golf, I prepared a five-year technology forecast. I decided to use as a ground rule Tom's conclusion that much of the progress would be in the area of custom club fitting. Here is my cut at it. Technology Forecasting This article is a companion to a technology forecast I made in 2008. Technology forecasting itself is a "vocational skill", which involves being able to apply some well-understood principles. Here are some of the ways a professional forecaster looks at things. Flex-face Irons Can Be More Forgiving than Rigid-face Irons Unlike drivers, irons are not about maximum distance, but rather reliable, predictable distance. I felt that high-COR irons worked against this principle because the COR falls off away from the center, adding to the losses from an off-center impact. Tom Wishon proved me wrong. Here's the real story. Constant-Length Irons Bill Wade asked my opinion of constant-length iron sets. I realized my study on this is more than ten years old now, and needs to be revisited. Here's my new take on the issue. The Great Square Groove Controversy In the late 1980s and early '90s, it was widely -- and incorrectly -- believed that square grooves were illegal. Here's how that rumor came about, and what really happened. Hardness and Distance, or A Myth is Not As Good As A Mile This was inspired by a debate about whether a super-hard clubface material will give more distance. It was first written before spring-face drivers and coefficient of restitution was an issue, but it gives some hints that a hard face is not the way to get more distance; a face that flexes is. Centripetal Matching In July of 2005, a discussion started on the FGI forum about matching sets of golf clubs based on the centripetal force trying to pull the clubs out of the golfers' hands. They had the analysis and measurement all wrong, so I wrote this article on how it really works -- and found out that it really doesn't. I don't think this article will ever be a classic, but it's a good study in how to see whether a proposal for improving golf club design has any merit. |
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