Hunka Turf
Assistant Pro
Sounds like a great day. These are fantastic opportunities organised by GM and the brands.
TaylorMade driver fitting opportunity
- Thread starter PaulOHagan
- Start date
mab
Challenge Tour Pro
Apologies for the delayed write-up chaps. I didn’t arrive home until late last night and my wife had two full days’ worth of information to update me with!
This is a relatively long post. If you decide not to read it, the two main points are:
1. Yes, I wore a white belt.
2. Dan is a beast.
I arrived around 8.10am, having been told to get there for 8.30am. I sat in the car for a few minutes while the rain died down, removed bag from boot and popped the golf shoes on at a very leisurely pace and meandered over to the TM Performance Lab… to find everyone was waiting for me. Ooops.
After some brief intros, Dan was advised he would be going first as he was the first to arrive. Scott and I then made our way next door to warm up while Dan made a start. TM had left a ginormous bag of balls for us to hit down the range at our leisure. Excellent.
Taking a break from practice, Scott and I went next door to see how Dan was getting on. At this point, the quality of the setup hit me; Trackman switched on AND watching the actual ballflight down the range was excellent. I have done a couple of Flightscope sessions before, but only into a net; this was much better. The second thing to hit me was that Dan had a clubhead speed of 109mph! When he controlled that power, the results really were impressive and distances shown on the Trackman were very real, albeit set up to allow for summer roll as opposed to winter plugging (the former being very sensible imo). When Dan didn’t control that power, look out if you own a house anywhere in or around Wentworth!
Back in our bay, Scott and I continued to practice. Mike came in having realised he had forgotten his driver, so asked to borrow my similar Cleveland. He was incredibly close to doubling / halving the value of my driver depending on your view of whether or not a Golf Monthly Editor induced sky mark would be considered ‘provenance’. Unfortunately / fortunately, whilst the ballflight was ugly, there was no mark left making me richer / poorer. To manage the risk, we then agreed a ‘you mark it, you buy it’ for the remainder of the day.
Birchy was up next and I see he’s already written about his experience. #loftisalreadysufficient gives you an idea of his conclusion.
I was third up. I took a few swings with my own driver and was slightly disappointed with the results, but just one of those things. I’d been on Flightscope a week and a half before and was getting 102mph swing speed, 13* launch and 2600rpm spin (240 carry); the best single shot I managed yesterday was 100mph swing speed, 11* launch and 2700rpm spin (232 carry). Still, it was a decent enough baseline. I then tried a number of different combinations.
The Jetspeed was all wrong for me; I don’t recall which shaft I was using, but it spun like a top. Next I went to the SLDR 10.5, which I tried with a number of options including Kai’li 60s x5ct, RIP Beta 60s and Matrix RUL 60s. My launch was still lower than desirable, so Luke began cranking up the loft. At that stage, however, I starting pulling more shots as increasing the loft effectively means closing the face. So, Luke then grabbed the 12* and reduced the loft by 0.5* to 11.5* (which means opening the face 0.5*), set the weight bar to full fade and installed a Matrix RUL 60s. This straightened me out quite a bit and the numbers were significantly improved over my existing driver, with the best drive being 99mph swing speed, 13* launch and 2000rpm spin (239 carry) which also gave an improved angle of descent for increased roll (total distance 271 yards). Luke was happy at that point and we were done.
I gave the fitting quite a bit of thought on the drive home as it was a long drive. My honest appraisal was that it was a great experience, really useful, but I wish I’d influenced the fitting more than I did. I know a reasonable amount about shaft profiles and Trackman / Flightscope numbers but thought a little knowledge could be a dangerous thing; accordingly, I decided in advance to let the trained PGA Pro do his thing and not to go into the fitting with any preconceptions. I genuinely thought, before the fitting, that I would come out with a 12* SLDR, set at 12* loft, the weight bar set towards ‘fade’ and shafted with a Matrix White Tie 6X3 s flex / Tour AD Di-6 s flex / Oban Kiyoshi Purple 65 04 flex but didn’t want to influence the fitting in any way. When Luke was happy with my results with the Matrix RUL 60s, and I can see exactly why he was happy, we finished the session… but I wish I’d asked to try a couple of additional shafts in an attempt to increase launch further whilst maintaining existing spin rates. The aforementioned shafts I thought I’d end up with are advertised as high launch / low spin and, regardless of whether or not you agree the laws of physics allow for that, trying a couple of examples would have left me more certain of the results of my fitting. At this point, I know I am ‘significantly improved’, but am I ‘optimised’? I‘m not sure we tried enough shafts in the new head configuration to know that.
I don’t want this to sound like a negative by any means. The fitting really was excellent and I'm sure any additional potential gains would have been minimal (if any gains were even possible, that is), but I wanted to provide some balance on what is otherwise a perfectly glowing thread.
Mike went last. Can you say SPIN!? It was really interesting to see what Mike’s optimal launch conditions were… for him. It’s all well and good knowing that 17* launch and 1700 spin is optimal for everyone but for many, and Mike is a prime example (imo, heavily influenced by his significant downward angle of attack), this is not achievable with currently available technology. I believe Mike ended up with 3500+ spin as being the best for his existing swing.
After a series of interviews and photographs, Scott, Dan and and I were pleasantly surprised and rather excited by the news we could play the East course. What a great day! The course was fairly wet, but that didn’t detract from a very enjoyable round.
I didn’t ask Scott the results at the end of the game, but (and not just because he was keeping score!) I’m sure Scott took the match. Dan won longest drive by some margin on the custom fitting session. I didn’t win anything but had a fabulous day with great people. Oh, hang on a minute, I’ve won a custom fitted Taylormade SLDR driver!
As the other boys have already mentioned in this thread, a big thanks to Mike, Paul, Jess and Luke for the opportunity and for a great day.
This is a relatively long post. If you decide not to read it, the two main points are:
1. Yes, I wore a white belt.
2. Dan is a beast.
I arrived around 8.10am, having been told to get there for 8.30am. I sat in the car for a few minutes while the rain died down, removed bag from boot and popped the golf shoes on at a very leisurely pace and meandered over to the TM Performance Lab… to find everyone was waiting for me. Ooops.
After some brief intros, Dan was advised he would be going first as he was the first to arrive. Scott and I then made our way next door to warm up while Dan made a start. TM had left a ginormous bag of balls for us to hit down the range at our leisure. Excellent.
Taking a break from practice, Scott and I went next door to see how Dan was getting on. At this point, the quality of the setup hit me; Trackman switched on AND watching the actual ballflight down the range was excellent. I have done a couple of Flightscope sessions before, but only into a net; this was much better. The second thing to hit me was that Dan had a clubhead speed of 109mph! When he controlled that power, the results really were impressive and distances shown on the Trackman were very real, albeit set up to allow for summer roll as opposed to winter plugging (the former being very sensible imo). When Dan didn’t control that power, look out if you own a house anywhere in or around Wentworth!
Back in our bay, Scott and I continued to practice. Mike came in having realised he had forgotten his driver, so asked to borrow my similar Cleveland. He was incredibly close to doubling / halving the value of my driver depending on your view of whether or not a Golf Monthly Editor induced sky mark would be considered ‘provenance’. Unfortunately / fortunately, whilst the ballflight was ugly, there was no mark left making me richer / poorer. To manage the risk, we then agreed a ‘you mark it, you buy it’ for the remainder of the day.
Birchy was up next and I see he’s already written about his experience. #loftisalreadysufficient gives you an idea of his conclusion.
I was third up. I took a few swings with my own driver and was slightly disappointed with the results, but just one of those things. I’d been on Flightscope a week and a half before and was getting 102mph swing speed, 13* launch and 2600rpm spin (240 carry); the best single shot I managed yesterday was 100mph swing speed, 11* launch and 2700rpm spin (232 carry). Still, it was a decent enough baseline. I then tried a number of different combinations.
The Jetspeed was all wrong for me; I don’t recall which shaft I was using, but it spun like a top. Next I went to the SLDR 10.5, which I tried with a number of options including Kai’li 60s x5ct, RIP Beta 60s and Matrix RUL 60s. My launch was still lower than desirable, so Luke began cranking up the loft. At that stage, however, I starting pulling more shots as increasing the loft effectively means closing the face. So, Luke then grabbed the 12* and reduced the loft by 0.5* to 11.5* (which means opening the face 0.5*), set the weight bar to full fade and installed a Matrix RUL 60s. This straightened me out quite a bit and the numbers were significantly improved over my existing driver, with the best drive being 99mph swing speed, 13* launch and 2000rpm spin (239 carry) which also gave an improved angle of descent for increased roll (total distance 271 yards). Luke was happy at that point and we were done.
I gave the fitting quite a bit of thought on the drive home as it was a long drive. My honest appraisal was that it was a great experience, really useful, but I wish I’d influenced the fitting more than I did. I know a reasonable amount about shaft profiles and Trackman / Flightscope numbers but thought a little knowledge could be a dangerous thing; accordingly, I decided in advance to let the trained PGA Pro do his thing and not to go into the fitting with any preconceptions. I genuinely thought, before the fitting, that I would come out with a 12* SLDR, set at 12* loft, the weight bar set towards ‘fade’ and shafted with a Matrix White Tie 6X3 s flex / Tour AD Di-6 s flex / Oban Kiyoshi Purple 65 04 flex but didn’t want to influence the fitting in any way. When Luke was happy with my results with the Matrix RUL 60s, and I can see exactly why he was happy, we finished the session… but I wish I’d asked to try a couple of additional shafts in an attempt to increase launch further whilst maintaining existing spin rates. The aforementioned shafts I thought I’d end up with are advertised as high launch / low spin and, regardless of whether or not you agree the laws of physics allow for that, trying a couple of examples would have left me more certain of the results of my fitting. At this point, I know I am ‘significantly improved’, but am I ‘optimised’? I‘m not sure we tried enough shafts in the new head configuration to know that.
I don’t want this to sound like a negative by any means. The fitting really was excellent and I'm sure any additional potential gains would have been minimal (if any gains were even possible, that is), but I wanted to provide some balance on what is otherwise a perfectly glowing thread.
Mike went last. Can you say SPIN!? It was really interesting to see what Mike’s optimal launch conditions were… for him. It’s all well and good knowing that 17* launch and 1700 spin is optimal for everyone but for many, and Mike is a prime example (imo, heavily influenced by his significant downward angle of attack), this is not achievable with currently available technology. I believe Mike ended up with 3500+ spin as being the best for his existing swing.
After a series of interviews and photographs, Scott, Dan and and I were pleasantly surprised and rather excited by the news we could play the East course. What a great day! The course was fairly wet, but that didn’t detract from a very enjoyable round.
I didn’t ask Scott the results at the end of the game, but (and not just because he was keeping score!) I’m sure Scott took the match. Dan won longest drive by some margin on the custom fitting session. I didn’t win anything but had a fabulous day with great people. Oh, hang on a minute, I’ve won a custom fitted Taylormade SLDR driver!
As the other boys have already mentioned in this thread, a big thanks to Mike, Paul, Jess and Luke for the opportunity and for a great day.
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Interesting media just put out, how much did they explain this concept to you guys?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZaUebwnOZg&list=PL4BB093A22661E8DC&feature=share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZaUebwnOZg&list=PL4BB093A22661E8DC&feature=share
Birchy
Money List Winner
Yeah the guy doing the fitting Luke explained the technology and how it worked etc. The thing is the loft and launch was already there for me its just the spin was astronomical
With this fixed I had slight improvements but no massive difference.For guys playing lower lofts I would definitely give it a try though as this could make a much bigger difference for them imo.
Yeah the guy doing the fitting Luke explained the technology and how it worked etc. The thing is the loft and launch was already there for me its just the spin was astronomical
For guys playing lower lofts I would definitely give it a try though as this could make a much bigger difference for them imo.
I'm reading about the difference between the 430 & 460 now as the amount of 460's that are available cheap is growing, am I right in thinking you can change the loft on both these, so, if you buy a 10.5* how many degrees can it be adjusted each way?
mab
Challenge Tour Pro
I've read quite a bit about 17* / 1700 over the past few months. Those numbers were not volunteered yesterday (other than by me to Luke, advising that I was expecting him to help me get there
), but lofting up to increase launch whilst maintaining low spin due to centre of gravity location was discussed numerous times. As I mentioned above, whilst 17* / 1700 is optimal, not many people will be able to achieve it with today's equipment and with their existing swings.All the SLDR heads have the ability to increase or decrease loft by 1.5*, in 0.5* increments, from the number stamped on the clubhead (9.5*, 10.5*, 12*... and soon to be 14*, though not sure whether the 430 model will be available in 14*). Note that changing the loft in that way also changes the face angle... going up in loft closes the face, going down in loft opens the face.
The 14* heads were not available yesterday for testing.
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Birchy
Money List Winner
I've read quite a bit about 17* / 1700 over the past few months. Those those numbers were not volunteered yesterday (other than by me to Luke, advising that I was expecting him to help me get there
All the SLDR heads have the ability to increase or decrease loft by 1.5*, in 0.5* increments, from the number stamped on the clubhead (9.5*, 10.5*, 12*... and soon to be 14*, though not sure whether the 430 model will be available in 14*). Note that changing the loft in that way also change the face angle... going up in loft closes the face, going down in loft opens the face.
The 14* heads were not available for testing yesterday.
As you can see somebody does know what they are talking about :rofl:
Nice work Mark :thup:
I've read quite a bit about 17* / 1700 over the past few months. Those numbers were not volunteered yesterday (other than by me to Luke, advising that I was expecting him to help me get there
All the SLDR heads have the ability to increase or decrease loft by 1.5*, in 0.5* increments, from the number stamped on the clubhead (9.5*, 10.5*, 12*... and soon to be 14*, though not sure whether the 430 model will be available in 14*). Note that changing the loft in that way also changes the face angle... going up in loft closes the face, going down in loft opens the face.
The 14* heads were not available yesterday for testing.
So by that analogy, if I bought a 10.5* 430 and lofted it up to 12*, it becomes draw biased?
Birchy
Money List Winner
Yeah I believe that would be correct mate :thup:
D
Deleted member 15717
Guest
Sounds that way...but if you bought a 14* and lowered it to 12*, you would open the face!
mab
Challenge Tour Pro
Yep - that's right. Only correction is that the most you could deloft the 14* model is to 12.5*. Also, you can further influence with the moveable weight on the sole of the club, with 21 positions available between full draw weighting and full fade weighting.
However, if you think about available loft configurations (9.5*, 10.5*, 12*, 14*), you can get to any desired loft between 9* and 14.5* (except 13*) by adjusting only 0.5*, which has only a small corresponding effect on face angle. Personally, I would prefer a head loft closest to my desired loft and adjust a small amount, rather than select a head loft 1.5* out and adjust the full amount. However, others may disagree with this.
However, if you think about available loft configurations (9.5*, 10.5*, 12*, 14*), you can get to any desired loft between 9* and 14.5* (except 13*) by adjusting only 0.5*, which has only a small corresponding effect on face angle. Personally, I would prefer a head loft closest to my desired loft and adjust a small amount, rather than select a head loft 1.5* out and adjust the full amount. However, others may disagree with this.
I can understand that, my reasoning was, as I currently have a 9.5* driver and if I went for a 10.5* 430, I could try the loft up marketing at that 10.5* degrees or greater all the way up to to 12* but if it didn't work for me, I could drop down to my current 9.5*
mab
Challenge Tour Pro
Ah, gotcha.
Based on yesterday's results and depending on your current driver model, I'd be surprised if you didn't benefit from going up in loft on the SLDR. I seem to recall you using an AMP driver (not sure if you still do). Using that as a comparison and from my experience, the AMP is a MUCH higher spin head than the SLDR; a higher lofted SLDR would very likely, and certainly in my hands, still produce a spin reduction over a lower lofted AMP.
Cleveland Launcher
G1BB0
Money List Winner
great write ups chaps, sounds like wentwroth is cursed for weather when GM goes as we had it a bit damp aswell 
same shaft as me in the R1 mab, mine is at 12deg, really did make a difference.
I had the same issue as birchy, crap signal and barely took any pics lol, its all etched in the memory though as no doubt it will be for all 3 of you. :thup: to GM as always and of course TM :thup:
same shaft as me in the R1 mab, mine is at 12deg, really did make a difference.
I had the same issue as birchy, crap signal and barely took any pics lol, its all etched in the memory though as no doubt it will be for all 3 of you. :thup: to GM as always and of course TM :thup:
Karl102
Journeyman Pro
Great write up guys. Topped up by a round at Wentworth as well! Like i said before Coolio, well deserved after all the hard work you have put in arranging all the meets…. If you half as straight with this new bat then i know who to bet for for this years OOM !
mab
Challenge Tour Pro
I wonder if the driver will arrive tomorrow in time for the weekend round?
Really excited to put it into play properly...
Really excited to put it into play properly...
Great write ups. I've said it before and unashamedly repeat it. GM really know how to treat forum members and these days are not to be missed if you are lucky enough to get picked. Might be worth remembering when things get tough on here, GM only put these on if there is something for them. Keep it the best forum on the web and the good times will keep on rolling. Here's to a Ping prize soon. I have a few words I'd like to have with them about shafts 
Siren
Tour Rookie
Here's to a Ping prize soon. I have a few words I'd like to have with them about shafts
:clap::clap::clap:
Birchy
Money List Winner
I thought this too mate. I cant wait to try and hit it properly :rofl:
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