sev112
Tour Winner
So, at long last, after all the initial hype, excitement, and the media blackout, we finally get to spill the beans.
I'm sure after such a gap since the initial "East Midlands Opportunity Competition" you'll have all lost interest.
The initial good news was the email from neill Tappin (Deputy Ed) saying that Moonpig and I were going to be given the chance to be the first people to be fitted for the full PING G20 range of irons, wedge, hybrids, fairways and driver.
Now THAT is some deal.
So after a v early start and a convoluted journey through the countryside of england, courtesy of network rail, i arrived at Gainsborough station (apparently about 7 trains stopped there in 2009 !?) and was kindly picked up by Jez; arrived at Gainsbouough GC and the PING Fitting Centre and met Neil Tappin (dep Ed), and Mike H (Ed). Also met met Dave (Ping European sales) and Ben (European fitting manager), and Darren (moonpig), and Tom (photos) and Jose (video)
Dave took us through the background and tech devp of the G20 range of woods, irons and utilities. Ping's raison d'etre is definitely product improvement line on line, so even though the G15s are still very successful, Ping expect these to be better clubs.
The G20s are obviously game improvement, but they are targetted at a very wide range of handicaps.
The line of clubs and woods look very good, even from a traditioanlist like me who has historically played blades and musclebacks. The colours are not dissimilar to the G15s. If anyone has seen the photos of teh counterfeit clubs that are on the interweb, i can tell you that the real things were an absolute class apart and darren and i both said the same thing.
Then Introduced to Steve for my fitting. Short interview about my game, my clubs and shafts, strengths and weaknesses etc. typical shots, trajectory etc
Carried out static body measurements and suggested that I was a "Red" dot (I.e. A little bit flatter than normal lie) - i'm about 5'7" in golf shoes.
Started off by hitting G15 7 iron regular shaft with red dot lie (that was because we had all of the whole of the PIng range of shafts lies lofts etc,
Shanked the first ! Luckily I then started flushing them. Balls were Srixon AD 333s so similar to what I normally use, so that's good.
Put the tape on the base and 3 shots in a row flush in the middle of the base confirmed the red dot lie angle was good.
Carried on hitting balls. All shots were being recorded on Trackman. I was noticeably hitting a much higher than normal trajectory for me, and a good 5 to 10 yards (plus on some shots) longer than normal. But my trajectory was still right at the bottom of the optimum trajecory range. God knows what trajecory i woudl have got with my normal irons ! !! All of this initially with Regular shafts, cos that's what i currently play. Was hitting with a good tight dispersion. Very pleasing flights. None of my typical low draws were in evidence. It's quite nice having some good golfers behind you saying "good shot" every swing
Was glad that i had brough a reasonable swing with me for the day.
The we played with a variety of shafts - tried a softer shaft and a stiffer shaft. The more flexible seemed to be broadly the same on average, but dispersion went much wider. One or two shots with the more flexible shaft went miles long ! So increased dispersion and occasional fliers not good.
Tried a stiffer shaft - started fading at that point. Also tried a regular graphite (lighter) shaft but if I remember that also increased my dispersion (might be wrong there but it was clear from all the Trackman output that regular steel suited my swing.
Then started hitting the G20s. Very very nice. They do not feel cast at all - they have some elastomeric dampers which seem to do a great job. Very solid hits, and longer than normal for me - and my Hogans are delofted anyway so it's not that old excuse. As a comparison I had hit some TM Burner 2s the previous weekend that felt like concrete by comparison.
Also hit an I15 iron as that's a bit closer to my normal Hogans. Most shots I hit flush and they were similar to the G20s; the weak shots had much more dispersion however. So for the sake of consitency and ageing bones, I can see a real potential benefit to me in the G20s.
Then hit 2 Utilities/hybrids - 20 and 23 deg I think (3i and 4i equivalents). Hit the 23 very well. Was a bit tired (they make you hit soooooooo many balls!) so managed a couple of flaffs with the 20, but also a couple flushed and straight. These are nice shape - to my eye they have a bit more of an iron shape than many utilities, which suits me I think. I told Steve that my 2 Mizono Zoid HiFlis I get on well with, but I have a steel shafted mizuno CLK utility that I have never got on with. He then descibed my (rotten) shot with it - high flying slice - perfectly, suggesting that steel shafts in hybrids often cause this.
Then onto the G20 Driver. Obviously much bigger than my Big Bertha (which I normally hit well but not supersonic at 8 degs). The G20 has a load of weight moved about so loft can be reduced than previous drivers. We started with 8.5 which I hit ok, but not brilliantly. Even so, hang time and elevation much more than my BB but still on the low side of average on Trackman. Tried a 10.5 which gave a higher trajectory (even ballooning) but difficult to get dispersion down.
Tried different shafts, and then Steve suggested (under Dave's advice as well) we try the current K15 even though it would better suit the promotional story if we could say "the G20 is perfect for everyone... " But Dave/Steve/Ping's views were all :"well you are here for a fitting, you should have the club that fits you" - a great attitude and much appreciated. K15 clearly had a good strong flight and dispersion - mostly straight. Played around with shafts and lofts and settled on Reg and 9.5. G20 Fairways (3 and 5) were fantastic clubs. They sit beatifully and after one flaff I hit them off the deck wonderfully/happily. Quite shallow faced. I never normally hit off the deck with a fairway wood so these were great. Can't wait for them to arrive.
Played with the g20 wedge and SW, and as a blade wedge player I have to say these were lovely. Well weighted and lovely soft feel. Went for 4 wedges. - I think the PW is something like 45 degs . Then had a hit with the 4 iron G20 as we were working on gaps. Decided to put the 4i in the set as I tend to use this club on a lot of Par 3s, and go for one hybrid only (20deg).
So all well and good, and Ping were still really happy for me to have the K15 driver rather than foist the G20 driver on me - good for them. Great attitude.
Then after some lunch, Ben demonstrated the new iPhone and iTouch "iPING" putting app - this will be free but you need the adaptor to stick to your putter. This is brilliant and I will be nicking my missus' IPhone when this is out. You strap your iPhone to the shaft of your putter, press some buttons then do the same putt 5 times. It reads swing path (ie if you are staright back and through, slightly barn door, or strongly barn door) your face angle at impact, and your swing tempo (back swing distance/speed to forward distance/speed). Now I've got a heel weighted putter and have a barn door swing so I was interested to see what they came up with. Using the new Ping ANSER milled putters (VERY VERY NICE by the way) I was first handed the face balanced Anser 5. 5 putts later and they recorded that I had a barn door swing, a highly variable face angle at impact and a tempo of 1.5 which they thought was a bit below the norm of 2. All equivalent to a putting handicap of 11 (which is coincidentally my handicap). So then they gave me a strong heel/toe weighted Anser 4. And lo and behold after 5 putts, my swing shape was again barn door, my tempo was still 1.5, but my face angle was almost spot on at impact. Leading to a putting handicap of 1.3 !!!
Then a short drive across Gainsborough to the Ping factory. This was great, not least bacause of the number of local employees here hand assembling the clubs - this is a great local employer and it was really good to see that Ping are not offshoring this. Basically from a fitting, Ping aim to ship within 48 hours, although apparently after a loss of a set in transit they made up a Tour Spec set in 45 minutes recently. Really interesting and good to see the quality control going into the making up of the clubs to the spec. Unfortunately we couldn't see our own clubs put together because they were only testing the line for the G20s while we were there. We watched one poor chap who was checking loft and lie angles all camera measured. We saw him finish off a normal cast set with absolute ease. Then he picked up a forged set and the computer had the poor bu**er tweaking and hammering time after time while 6 of us were watching, poor sod. The nemerous bits of kit all the assemblers are using are ones that Karsten Solheim and his engineering team have specifically developed to do specific tasks - simple thing slike getting precisely the right thickness of tape on grips, and the exact weight of glue in the head of a wood without affecting swingweight, using lasers to make sure grips go on exactly straight.
What can one say ? As an Engineer by profession, it was great to hear and see top quality designed golf clubs conceptualised, designed, measured and put together. And the iPING app that really can make a difference to your putting. Really good to meet the team at GM - what very nice people, all of whom have wonderful jobs that we all wished we did. Fitting exercise was great - absolutely no doubts; even if I did end up with regular shafts that are a bit flat, as expected, at least I know they are right for me. And extremely happy to meet everyone at Ping, including for example the receptionists, line supervisors and workers who were happy to smile and chat to us as they were doing their job. But certainly to the marketing and fitting teams who made our day a once in a lifetime experience.
To everyone that I have had to keep this a secret from, e.g. everyone on the dinner table at Blackmoor, I'm sorry - I've been gagging to tell people !
I'm sure after such a gap since the initial "East Midlands Opportunity Competition" you'll have all lost interest.
The initial good news was the email from neill Tappin (Deputy Ed) saying that Moonpig and I were going to be given the chance to be the first people to be fitted for the full PING G20 range of irons, wedge, hybrids, fairways and driver.
Now THAT is some deal.
So after a v early start and a convoluted journey through the countryside of england, courtesy of network rail, i arrived at Gainsborough station (apparently about 7 trains stopped there in 2009 !?) and was kindly picked up by Jez; arrived at Gainsbouough GC and the PING Fitting Centre and met Neil Tappin (dep Ed), and Mike H (Ed). Also met met Dave (Ping European sales) and Ben (European fitting manager), and Darren (moonpig), and Tom (photos) and Jose (video)
Dave took us through the background and tech devp of the G20 range of woods, irons and utilities. Ping's raison d'etre is definitely product improvement line on line, so even though the G15s are still very successful, Ping expect these to be better clubs.
The G20s are obviously game improvement, but they are targetted at a very wide range of handicaps.
The line of clubs and woods look very good, even from a traditioanlist like me who has historically played blades and musclebacks. The colours are not dissimilar to the G15s. If anyone has seen the photos of teh counterfeit clubs that are on the interweb, i can tell you that the real things were an absolute class apart and darren and i both said the same thing.
Then Introduced to Steve for my fitting. Short interview about my game, my clubs and shafts, strengths and weaknesses etc. typical shots, trajectory etc
Carried out static body measurements and suggested that I was a "Red" dot (I.e. A little bit flatter than normal lie) - i'm about 5'7" in golf shoes.
Started off by hitting G15 7 iron regular shaft with red dot lie (that was because we had all of the whole of the PIng range of shafts lies lofts etc,
Shanked the first ! Luckily I then started flushing them. Balls were Srixon AD 333s so similar to what I normally use, so that's good.
Put the tape on the base and 3 shots in a row flush in the middle of the base confirmed the red dot lie angle was good.
Carried on hitting balls. All shots were being recorded on Trackman. I was noticeably hitting a much higher than normal trajectory for me, and a good 5 to 10 yards (plus on some shots) longer than normal. But my trajectory was still right at the bottom of the optimum trajecory range. God knows what trajecory i woudl have got with my normal irons ! !! All of this initially with Regular shafts, cos that's what i currently play. Was hitting with a good tight dispersion. Very pleasing flights. None of my typical low draws were in evidence. It's quite nice having some good golfers behind you saying "good shot" every swing
Was glad that i had brough a reasonable swing with me for the day. The we played with a variety of shafts - tried a softer shaft and a stiffer shaft. The more flexible seemed to be broadly the same on average, but dispersion went much wider. One or two shots with the more flexible shaft went miles long ! So increased dispersion and occasional fliers not good.
Tried a stiffer shaft - started fading at that point. Also tried a regular graphite (lighter) shaft but if I remember that also increased my dispersion (might be wrong there but it was clear from all the Trackman output that regular steel suited my swing.
Then started hitting the G20s. Very very nice. They do not feel cast at all - they have some elastomeric dampers which seem to do a great job. Very solid hits, and longer than normal for me - and my Hogans are delofted anyway so it's not that old excuse. As a comparison I had hit some TM Burner 2s the previous weekend that felt like concrete by comparison.
Also hit an I15 iron as that's a bit closer to my normal Hogans. Most shots I hit flush and they were similar to the G20s; the weak shots had much more dispersion however. So for the sake of consitency and ageing bones, I can see a real potential benefit to me in the G20s.
Then hit 2 Utilities/hybrids - 20 and 23 deg I think (3i and 4i equivalents). Hit the 23 very well. Was a bit tired (they make you hit soooooooo many balls!) so managed a couple of flaffs with the 20, but also a couple flushed and straight. These are nice shape - to my eye they have a bit more of an iron shape than many utilities, which suits me I think. I told Steve that my 2 Mizono Zoid HiFlis I get on well with, but I have a steel shafted mizuno CLK utility that I have never got on with. He then descibed my (rotten) shot with it - high flying slice - perfectly, suggesting that steel shafts in hybrids often cause this.
Then onto the G20 Driver. Obviously much bigger than my Big Bertha (which I normally hit well but not supersonic at 8 degs). The G20 has a load of weight moved about so loft can be reduced than previous drivers. We started with 8.5 which I hit ok, but not brilliantly. Even so, hang time and elevation much more than my BB but still on the low side of average on Trackman. Tried a 10.5 which gave a higher trajectory (even ballooning) but difficult to get dispersion down.
Tried different shafts, and then Steve suggested (under Dave's advice as well) we try the current K15 even though it would better suit the promotional story if we could say "the G20 is perfect for everyone... " But Dave/Steve/Ping's views were all :"well you are here for a fitting, you should have the club that fits you" - a great attitude and much appreciated. K15 clearly had a good strong flight and dispersion - mostly straight. Played around with shafts and lofts and settled on Reg and 9.5. G20 Fairways (3 and 5) were fantastic clubs. They sit beatifully and after one flaff I hit them off the deck wonderfully/happily. Quite shallow faced. I never normally hit off the deck with a fairway wood so these were great. Can't wait for them to arrive.
Played with the g20 wedge and SW, and as a blade wedge player I have to say these were lovely. Well weighted and lovely soft feel. Went for 4 wedges. - I think the PW is something like 45 degs . Then had a hit with the 4 iron G20 as we were working on gaps. Decided to put the 4i in the set as I tend to use this club on a lot of Par 3s, and go for one hybrid only (20deg).
So all well and good, and Ping were still really happy for me to have the K15 driver rather than foist the G20 driver on me - good for them. Great attitude.
Then after some lunch, Ben demonstrated the new iPhone and iTouch "iPING" putting app - this will be free but you need the adaptor to stick to your putter. This is brilliant and I will be nicking my missus' IPhone when this is out. You strap your iPhone to the shaft of your putter, press some buttons then do the same putt 5 times. It reads swing path (ie if you are staright back and through, slightly barn door, or strongly barn door) your face angle at impact, and your swing tempo (back swing distance/speed to forward distance/speed). Now I've got a heel weighted putter and have a barn door swing so I was interested to see what they came up with. Using the new Ping ANSER milled putters (VERY VERY NICE by the way) I was first handed the face balanced Anser 5. 5 putts later and they recorded that I had a barn door swing, a highly variable face angle at impact and a tempo of 1.5 which they thought was a bit below the norm of 2. All equivalent to a putting handicap of 11 (which is coincidentally my handicap). So then they gave me a strong heel/toe weighted Anser 4. And lo and behold after 5 putts, my swing shape was again barn door, my tempo was still 1.5, but my face angle was almost spot on at impact. Leading to a putting handicap of 1.3 !!!
Then a short drive across Gainsborough to the Ping factory. This was great, not least bacause of the number of local employees here hand assembling the clubs - this is a great local employer and it was really good to see that Ping are not offshoring this. Basically from a fitting, Ping aim to ship within 48 hours, although apparently after a loss of a set in transit they made up a Tour Spec set in 45 minutes recently. Really interesting and good to see the quality control going into the making up of the clubs to the spec. Unfortunately we couldn't see our own clubs put together because they were only testing the line for the G20s while we were there. We watched one poor chap who was checking loft and lie angles all camera measured. We saw him finish off a normal cast set with absolute ease. Then he picked up a forged set and the computer had the poor bu**er tweaking and hammering time after time while 6 of us were watching, poor sod. The nemerous bits of kit all the assemblers are using are ones that Karsten Solheim and his engineering team have specifically developed to do specific tasks - simple thing slike getting precisely the right thickness of tape on grips, and the exact weight of glue in the head of a wood without affecting swingweight, using lasers to make sure grips go on exactly straight.
What can one say ? As an Engineer by profession, it was great to hear and see top quality designed golf clubs conceptualised, designed, measured and put together. And the iPING app that really can make a difference to your putting. Really good to meet the team at GM - what very nice people, all of whom have wonderful jobs that we all wished we did. Fitting exercise was great - absolutely no doubts; even if I did end up with regular shafts that are a bit flat, as expected, at least I know they are right for me. And extremely happy to meet everyone at Ping, including for example the receptionists, line supervisors and workers who were happy to smile and chat to us as they were doing their job. But certainly to the marketing and fitting teams who made our day a once in a lifetime experience.
To everyone that I have had to keep this a secret from, e.g. everyone on the dinner table at Blackmoor, I'm sorry - I've been gagging to tell people !
