Mitchell - Club Repair News

April/May 2007

Volume 2, No. 3

Home

Advertising

Archives

Links

Editor's Blog
Will The USGA And Major Club Manufacturers Eliminate Aftermarket Club Fitting And Repair?
The future of aftermarket club fitting and repair are under attack by the USGA and they are playing into the hands of big club manufacturers. How many times have we heard the OEM club makers tell the golfing public that they have proprietary ways of making their clubs fit and play better? How many times have we heard them tell golfers that only they can bend their clubs? How many times have they told retailers that any alterations done to their clubs must be sent back to them?

Now the USGA is giving them the ammo to fortify those policies. If left up to the USGA and the OEM club makers, they will eliminate the aftermarket fitting and repair professionals in the golf industry.

Be forewarned. If they can do it, they will. They don't want anyone else tinkering with their clubs. Now they are considering taking club adjustments out of the hands of trained professionals and putting it into the hands of untrained amateur golfers. Does the golf industry need more do it yourselfers? What does your future hold if this becomes a new USGA Rule?

Featured Repair Shop
Edwin Watts Golf Shop At Turkey Lake - Orlando, FL
Edwin Watts Golf Shop at Turkey Lake in Orlando, Florida is this months featured "Recognized" Mitchell® Club Repair Shop.

Edwin Watts Golf Shops have long been recognized for their complete offering of equipment, apparel and accessories including historical golf photos. With the increase in the importance of club performance upgrades, they have also become recognized for the tour quality club performance upgrades performed in all of their locations.

The repair shop in the Turkey Lake store, headed up by Eddy Castleman has been one of Edwin Watts' leaders in club performance upgrades.

Club Repair Workbench
Proper Trimming & Tip Preparation For The New EPIC Nanofuse Shaft From Grafalloy
Even though the nickel alloy that is fused to the high-modulus composite polymer substrate of the new EPIC shaft has great strength against crushing, care must be taken when abrading the tip. This nanocrystalline material has stronger properties than Titanium and steel but the tip can be easily damaged if the recommended tip abrading procedures are not followed.

Nanotechnology is working with matter on a scale of one-billionth of a meter (1 nanometer), or 1/75,000 the size of a human hair. This produces strength-to-weight properties greater than any other shaft material previously used. But don't misinterpret this strength as stiffness. The Epic shaft requires trimming just like most other shafts.

Playing By The Rules
USGA And R&A Rules Dictate Club Performance
The Rules of Golf, Appendix ll, 4, C defines Impact Area Markings on the face of clubs, or more specifically grooves. Score lines, as they are also referred to, have not been in the news since Solheim introduced square grooves in1990, which were immediately declared illegal by both the USGA and PGA Tour.

However, at that time the USGA's position was that any difference between U- and V-shaped grooves was "inconsequential". The USGA now claims that after two years of research, U-shaped grooves produce a significant spin benefit over V-shaped grooves. So what has changed their minds?

TechReport Library
Golf Science
Swing weight is under attack!! This industry standard for determining the feel of a golf club is again under attack. There are renewed efforts by some club fitters to replace the old method of balancing golf clubs by feel with MOI (moment of inertia) values. This is nothing new. It has been attempted many times before. Both swing weight and MOI values do the same thing. They measure how a golf club feels while it is being swung.

Actually, swing weight is a form of MOI, but is measured statically. Measuring a club's swing weight has been a method that started over 80 years ago. It serves only one purpose. Golf clubs can be matched for feel by measuring the distribution of the weight from the head to the grip at a 14-inch fulcrum point.

But the real value of both methods is determining what feels good to a given golfer. That is achieved by balancing the components of a golf club's total weight to produce the right feel. Featherlite golf clubs proved that you have to have a certain amount of mass in the club head and total weight to make a club feel good when swung.

This month we have added an article written by Jeff Jackson that is posted on Equip2golf.com website entitled Swingweight: What It Is; Why It Is; and How To Use It. It explains swing weight and provides a sample chart based on the weight of the club head, shaft & grip and reference to a club length.

Teaching & Fitting Studio
Temporary Studio At The Masters Tournament
The Teaching & Fitting Studio this month highlights Augusta National Golf Club and its annual event known as the Masters Tournament. Their Studio is unique in that it only operates one week of the year. Actually it is a temporary structure set up to assist the world's greatest players should they have any club performance upgrade and repair needs.

Mitchell® Golf again invited to the Masters Tournament, but no one took their golf clubs.

Tour Workshop
Augusta National Golf Club Tour Workshop
Mitchell® Golf was invited by Augusta National Golf Club to set-up a temporary Tour Workshop for the 2007 Masters Tournament. They are invited each year by the club to be on the grounds to service any club repair needs the tournament invitees may have. Golf grips are provided by Golf Pride® and shafts are provided by True Temper®, Grafalloy®, Aldila®, and UST®. Mitchell® Golf provided its professional grade performance repair equipment.

Read about some of the repair work performed by Ed Mitchell and Paul Bessler for world-renowned players at this years’ Masters Tournament.

Bridgestone J33 Driver has big debut at the Masters Tournament
Bridgestone Golf’s new 460cc J33R driver was in the bag of Stuart Appleby at the 2007 Masters Tournament. He was the 54-hole leader at 2 over par. His closing round of 75 gave him a finish of 5 over for the tournament, which was 4 shots off the winning score and was good for a 7th place tie.

Bridgestone’s new driver continues to gain wide acceptance among consumers and tour staff players. It is similar to its 420cc predecessor, but boasts an oversized head that launches the ball higher with less spin. It is crafted from 6-4 Titanium and features an elastomer compound insert within the club head to reduce vibration for a more efficient energy transfer.

Test Performance
Equip2Golf
Equip2Golf has reviewed the Tocare Golf Grip that was introduced in January at the PGA Merchandise Show by Excel Golf Products of Itasca, IL. Tocare is pronounced TOE-CARR-EH and is inspired by the Italian word for touch. These new grips feature a patent-pending internal pattern called VDP Technology.

This new technology is designed to diffuse vibration and generate a crisper feel. It has a Multi-Durometer Construction featuring a higher Durometer in the top of the grip and a lower Durometer in the bottom of the grip to regulate grip pressure. The multi-compound materials used in the grip provides for maximum tackiness for better performance in all weather conditions.

Read Gary Mays’ review of this new grip company.

New Upgrades
Shafts
Aldila is having great success on tour with its VS Proto and NV lines of shafts. The VS Proto was the winner of the Shell Houston Open and that was followed up with the NV shaft winning the Masters Tournament. The winner of this year's first major used Aldila shafts in all of his woods. Aldila shafts also won the count for the most wood and hybrid shafts in play at the Masters Tournament.

Grips
Golf Pride introduces a new radical concept in putter grip design technology. The new V-RADT family of putter grips is slated to make a global debut this month. It promises to be the most exciting putter grip on the market featuring intricate detail and cutting-edge cosmetic innovation.

The new V-RAD putter grips are crafted with a proprietary advanced composite rubber (ACR) material engineered to combine a smooth, subtle surface texture with the optimal amount of tackiness to encourage a light controlled grip on the putter.

Classroom
Learn How Better Club Performance Can Lower Your Scores?
Do you have specific questions about how improved club performance can help your game? We welcome your questions. Email them to us and we will respond with the answer. Selected questions and answers are posted here for our readers to view.

Greg Miller, PGA Professional at Pomperaug Golf Club in Southbury, CT asks about swing weight changes to a golf club when a heavier grip is installed and what is the best way to get the club back to its original measurement.