|
Home  Club Fitting
All players should have accurately tailored irons and no company is better equipped to manufacture precisely-fitted custom-made irons than Craftsman Golf, Australia’s specialist club fitters.
Craftsman has some very special advantages over all other manufacturers.
To make the perfect set of irons for any player we need to be able to match a suitable style of head to the ideal shaft type and flex.
Then we aim to make the clubs at the ideal length for the player, fit the selected grip type and make it up to the right hand size. Let’s stop there for the moment.
That all sounds simple enough and most manufacturers are pleased if they achieve that much but here’s the thing: How heavy that finished club feels to swing is called the swingweight and that is directly affected by the length of the shaft, the weight of the clubhead and even the weight of the grip.
The truth about club head weights:
To keep the finished club very close to the optimal swingweight for any player the weight of the clubhead is crucial. At Craftsman Golf we have developed stocks of our clubheads covering a range of weights for each clubhead so that we can select the ideal club head weight to achieve a perfect result. Without that capacity we would suffer the same limitations as the other manufacturers who have only one head weight in their stock intending that their clubs be correctly weighted when made to “standard” length. Clubs made longer become unsatisfactorily heavy and clubs made shorter would be correspondingly too light.
Craftsman is the only manufacturer who carries stocks of each iron model in a wide weight range to cover variations in shaft weight and length so that optimal swingweight can be achieved in the finished club.
For example, the modern “standard” 5-iron length for men is 38 inches and for ladies 37”.
A very tall man may need a 5-iron length of 39.5” and a short lady may want her 5-iron to be 36”.
When making clubs for the very tall man we may use a steel shaft and the 5-iron head may need to weigh as little as 242 grams to achieve a satisfactory swingweight of D3.
The head needed to make the short 5-iron for the lady and to achieve a swingweight of a normal C6 on a graphite shaft would be around 266 grams.
That is why we have our heads made to cover a 25 gram weight spread on all our 999 and 000 model irons.
It is immediately obvious that the high profile companies who offer “custom fitting” options on their clubs when they really mean they will make them longer or shorter as you want are unable to control the swingweight of their custom clubs. Using the normal “standard” club head the player who wants a 39.5” 5-iron will probably find the swingweight has risen to an impossible-to-swing E1 and the little lady with her shortened club may find that the C0 swingweight of the finished product has the same effect as beating the ball with an ostrich feather.
Anyway, back to the clubmaking process.
Having selected the correct head weight, fitted the ideal shaft and trimmed to the exact required length as well as made the grip up to the correct thickness we have two more things to consider and adjust.
The lofts and lie angles
Strong young players with high clubhead speed and good techniques can be expected to hit the ball high in the air. Often too high. Some of that can be controlled by the choice of shaft but in the end it is often necessary to modify the loft of the heads. It is not uncommon to turn the clubheads up three degrees stronger for good players. That means that the 5-iron loft on many strong players clubs has been altered from the normal 29 degrees to 26 degrees effectively giving it the traditional loft of a 4-iron. No wonder they go so far. At the other extreme that little old lady who doesn’t hit the ball very hard at all will have great difficulty gaining any serious carry with her 5-iron so she could do to have it weakened a couple of degrees to say 31 degrees.
The lie angle is the angle between the sole of the clubhead at the centre of the clubface and the shaft. We would like that angle to be set so that on a level surface the player will be able to hit the ball in the centre of the clubface with the sole of the club parallel to the ground. Obviously the sole of the club is usually slightly curved and the ground is rarely perfectly level but you get the idea. The point is that standing at address in front of a mirror to see if the club sits correctly does not tell the true story. At the point of impact, the player is often stretched upward and a club which appears to sit well at address is often decidedly toe-down at the strike. This is particularly true for tall players for whom a lie angle correction 4 degrees up would not be uncommon. Our little old lady on the other hand may need her irons adjusted 2 degrees flat.
So once again here is the thing:
Most club heads, even those from high profile manufacturers who boast that they can set lofts and lies are incapable of being altered to the required positions. Our 999, 000 and Mo series iron heads are made from 316 stainless steel and can be easily adjusted up to 5 degrees in either direction. Don’t let anyone tell you that if they can be so easily altered to the correct angles then they will easily move during use. That is simply not true. Tournament players practice a lot and have their lofts and lies checked regularly but in normal use we have not found a single instance of these angles moving. In any case it is a simple operation to re-set them.
We have a lot of choices and measurements to make to set the specifications for the new clubs.
Iron heads
Craftsman have iron designs with further specific features that assist perfect fitting.
In right hand we have the 999 model with a progressive offset (the offset becomes greater in the longer clubs) and the zero-offset 000 model. In left hand the Mo model has a small offset throughout.
What’s the difference?
As a rule the average player benefits from the offset clubs usually achieving more good clean strikes and often minimizing fade or slice. All clubheads in the 999 and Mo series are cavity back.
Stronger players and particularly those who draw the ball will usually prefer the blade-like apprearance of the 000 model with no offset. The wedges in the 000 model are blades.
 The face of the 999 and 000 irons  The player's view. The offset 000 5-iron is on the left and the 999 model is on the right  The worm's eye view shows the offset of the 999 clubhead on the left and the 000 model on the right.
Shafts
Getting the right shaft is one of the most important aspects of club-fitting. There are literally hundreds of shafts that could be used in our clubheads.
All our irons are drilled parallel to receive shafts with 0.370 tips.
We first have to select an appropriate shaft type. Some of the choices will be purely made on the basis of suitability and others will be on price or aesthetics. For the purposes of this discussion we can just consider the playing merits of each choice.
Important shaft details and choices
Shaft material: Most shafts are either steel or graphite but even so the range within each type is enormous. For the most part steel shafts are significantly cheaper than graphite and significantly heavier. They usually last longer being a little less brittle and although inclined to rust if not well cared for they do not suffer from the cosmetic deterioration that comes with graphite shafts rubbing in the bag or against other objects.
In performance the lighter graphite shafts can usually hit the ball a little further than the equivalent steel shaft and produce less vibration.
There are no differences in flex as all flexes are available in both steel and graphite but there is a slight difference in torque. The graphite shaft will be capable of twisting a little more than steel.
Having said all that, there are now much lighter steel shafts available to reduce the gap in weight. The modern Dynamic Gold SL for instance weighs around 100 grams compared to the old Dynamic Gold at 130 grams so the distance advantage that graphite enjoyed by having a better weight distribution in the club has been reduced.
The vibration in steel shafts can bother some players with joint damage or arthritis so they would normally select graphite shafts to halve the vibration. Some steel shafts are now available fitted with shock damping within the shaft by patent systems like “sensicore” which again narrow the difference between steel and graphite to nearly nil.
The torque that was a problem in early graphite shafts at 7 degrees or more has been dramatically reduced to less than half that figure so that high quality graphite shafts now have torque within a degree or so of steel so that there is no significance to the difference for most players.
It is possible to name a long list of top tournament professionals who have played on graphite shafts for a period, often after joint reconstruction. Almost all fairway woods and drivers for even the finest and strongest players are now graphite shafted.
So there is no clear cut division of player types for each shaft material.
However it is clear that almost all ladies and older men get real benefits from graphite and that strong young men will probably always lean toward steel shafts for the extra sense of precision and feed-back they believe they get. In the middle, the vast majority of golfers could go either way without affecting their scoring significantly.
Kick point: Shafts do not flex evenly along their length. Some have stiffened tips which help strong players to control the ball flight and stop it “ballooning”. These “stiff tipped” or “high kick point” shafts would normally be associated with the very powerful players. At the other extreme “soft tipped” or “low kick point” shafts suit the less powerful and those who do not naturally hit the ball high enough.
The fact is that almost all ladies, most older men and a fair proportion of “average” players would do best with soft tipped shafts. The extra flight and the softened, sweeter strike provide a good feel and better results for many.
In between the extremes the great bulk of shafts sold in off-the-shelf” sets are “mid kick point” with no significant softening or stiffening of the tip.
Flex: To some extent flex is related to club-head speed and more particularly to swing tempo. Fast swinging powerful strikers have no option but to use stiffer shafts to help with timing and to avoid the dramatic effects of a whippy shaft in an uncoordinated swipe. On the other hand again the older players and most ladies can benefit greatly from taking more flex and letting the club do a lot of the work.
Many an old golfer who has destroyed his once-elegant swing by trying to make up the distance lost to the weathering of time could have done much better had he changed to more flexible low kick-point shafts and concentrated on making good smooth swings. A move to a “seniors” or “A” flex shaft would help most male players as they approach retirement age.
In the middle the mens regular flex and the normal ladies flex shafts are appropriate to most of the “average” players.
Weight: It is almost universally true that there is no advantage to having shafts any heavier than necessary. The lighter the shaft the more weight we can have at the head for the same swingweight and the better the club is to swing. Hence the push to reduce weight in both graphite and steel. The lighter the shaft the more expensive as the manufacturers have to maintain strength by clever technology.
If there is an exception then the heavily built man who has a bad swing and a bludgeoning action may actually benefit from heavier shafts and higher than normal swingweights.
Torque: As with weight the less torque the better but the little that now exists in quality steel or graphite shafts is of little or no consequence. Again you pay for improvements. Shafts with less torque than normal cost more as they involve more complex technology.
Graphite shafts with 3 degrees or less of torque are ideal.
Steel shafts rarely have more than 1.5 degrees of torque and so are effectively free of twisting. If it ever becomes possible to make a torque-free shaft we may not want it anyway as there may be some small benefit in the shock absorbing effect of a little torque.
Shaft length: At Craftsman we begin consideration of shaft length by measuring the player. Height and fingertip–to-floor measurements are not perfect guides on their own but together give a very good indication of length requirements.
We then like to see the player hit some shots to determine ball striking quality. Poor strikers can be further disadvantaged by long shafts so a player’s ability will influence the shaft length issue.
Next we look at posture and measure the distance of the ball from the line across the toes. If the player stands too upright the ball will be closer to his toe line. If he stoops then he will reach further away to the ball. Once any corrections that can be made to posture are effected the length of the shafts will be guided by the distance from the ball.
This decision is largely up to the club-fitter and at Craftsman the experience gained from over 10,000 fittings is your best assurance of sound advice.
Grip Type and size: The type of grip is largely a matter of personal choice. Some like the secure feeling of cord grips others want soft rubber. Some like a thumb guide on the grip and others like a plain pattern. That is not the most important issue.
Size is important. There are cases of arthritic hands or other grip problems that force us to choose oversize grips but unless there is a specific reason to fit large grips we normally recommend a grip size that accurately fits the hand when a good orthodox grip is taken. Many slicers fit jumbo grips in the hope that they will help to overcome the affliction. It works the other way. The hand release, so important in squaring the clubface up to the ball in the strike, is slowed down by fat grips.
To check your grip first make sure your hands are in the orthodox position on the club. You normally need help and guidance with even that. Then check that the fingers on the upper hand are closing around the grip comfortably with the fingertips just reaching round to the butt of your hand. Again an experienced fitter will see at a glance if either your hands or the grip are incorrect.
Craftsman Fitting: There is no substitute for experience in club-fitting. Wherever possible we like to do the fitting ourselves either at our fitting clinics or at our base but we also achieve good results by a combination of our on-line fitting form and telephone conversations. On occasions we then make up just the 5-iron and send it to the customer for further checks and approval before completing the rest of the set.
Please check out our pricelist of commonly used shafts which provides some further details on shaft weights, kick points and flexes.
For free advice complete the fitting form and email it to us.
You are on the way to having the best set of irons you will ever use made specially to suit you.
|
|
Who's Online
We have 8 guests online
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2005 - Craftsman Golf Pty Ltd - a redzweb project |
|