Eric cooks isovibe golf company in canada began offering single length sets of irons to the north american golf market in 1986. Each year, in order to say their clubs hit further, the club companies have been tinkering with the loft angles lowering them a bit at a time each year, says expert club maker tom wishon. Driver performance is based on three main variables. In japan its been tested scientifically and has been shown in magazines and books many times over. Hi tom ive just read your book in search of the perfect club which i found fascinating,so much so that i wet to the local range and got them to build me a driver with 12 degree loft and a softer lighter shaft for me to try against my ping 10 12 regular shafted driver. And lower loft doesnt add distance because with the driver, loft has to be matched to the golfers clubhead speed to maximize distance for each golfer. The wristtofloor measurement is a good way to start the length fitting process for the irons or hybrids, but not for the driver or woods.
Distance shows that i ended up a little off base, but i am certainly glad i stopped by. While he has been offered the chance to head up golf club design for some of the largest golf club companies in the world, he has chosen to remain within the lesserknown segment of the golf equipment industry that focuses on fitting golfers one at a time and building their golf clubs from highquality clubhead, shaft and grip. What is the correct driver loft for the average senior golfer. If youve got a slow swing speed and are really struggling for distance the high loft drivers can really help you set some carry distance back. He also was a technical advisory panel member for more than a dozen years with. The most important fitting elements for distance golfwrx. Tom wishon is a 40year veteran of the golf equipment industry specializing in club head design, shaft performance analysis and club fitting research and development. We will let you know when it becomes available again.
Wishon golf your fit matters premium designs for golf. In general, this will be a spot that is slightly towards the toe and just above the center of the clubface. Find out if you could be losing distance on the golf course from using the wrong loft in your driver. As far as i know none of the oems use this in their wood head designs. Loft and face angle are important but for majority of us that post on gb over 60 crowd distance is not an important factor. Tom wishon is credited with more than 50 design firsts including the first titanium driver introduced in the united states, and has designed clubs for many of the games greatest names including harvey penick, payne stewart, ben crenshaw and scott verplank. Three things primarily determine the distance you hit a golf ball. If your swing speed is 90100mph and your driver loft angle is lower than 11. While the majority of golfers dont have enough loft on their driver and would benefit from more, for the others and those using differently designed. For the past few months, ive knowingly been flouting the 14club rule by carrying two drivers. Dustin johnsons driver is a reminder that optimal launch. Here is a chart from tom wishons research that suggests you are pretty much in the ballpark already for a 105mph swing speed, assuming a.
So if you build a driver as short as a 5 wood, for many golfers that will result in a drop in clubhead speed and distance that cannot be made up in any other way other than to go back to a. In the march hotlinks, club expert tom wishon wrote that one key to real improvement with the driver comes from a shorter length. Tom currently heads his own company, tom wishon golf technology. Seniors unsure of whether they need more loft should experiment on the course or driving range comparing driver and 3 wood distance off the tee. Grt allows you to hit it high or low on the face and still get exceptional distance. However, according to tom wishons booklet 12 myths that could wreck your game, the average length of a driver on tour for each of the last 5 years has only been 4412 long. In the march hotlinks, club expert tom wishon wrote that one key. I have a 2006 ti460 cleveland launcher, with the standard cleveland sliver aflex shaft, and the clubs length is 45. This is how we determined the effectiveness of the two different length drivers. The goal of a driver is to consistently hit the ball as far as possible and at the intended target. Ifwhen your fairways are mowed very short, or are hard, firm and more conducive to roll, the driver loft which will result in the most total distance will be between 1 to 1.
Sure, for golf pros like tiger woods or tom purtzer who have much higher swing speeds than most of us, the loft requirements on their drivers might require singledigit loft angle to achieve their longest driving distance. If you compare the 919 to other drivers of the same loft, the 919 is designed as traditional to slightly lower than traditional for spin per loft and per clubhead speed. Maximum cor face design for no distance loss compared to any large titanium driver head. Hi tom, i know you have answered this before but cant find or. I am thinking of reshafting this driver with a ust low carb aflex shaft which i was very pleased with in my previous driver a. A shorter driver, he said, encourages center contact on the clubface, which leads to longer, straighter drives. The next time you play with a golfer whose driver clubhead speed is 10 mph faster. Answers to frequently asked questions about golf clubs. How to hit the ball then the turf with your irons duration. Adjustable driver hosel explained by tom wishon youtube. This fact led noted golf club designer tom wishon to ask.
The main reason for this is what i feel to be one of the very best features of the head it is designed with 20 of vertical roll radius and not the usual 10 you see on just. Some golfers will benefit but its a club played off a tee not a tight lie. Many seniors are amazed that their 3 wood often achieves a similar distance to the driver. I will bookmark your site for a future visit, and should you ever need it, there is plenty of information on this site about discount golf. Although many amateurs remain reluctant to loft up, tom wishon, owner of tom wishon golf, produced data a few years ago that revealed a golfer with.
How does different driver lofts change ball flight 7. If i buy a new driver should i get it cut down by an inch or two. Having an alternative control driver of shorter length and higher loft. Golf monthly looks at the different elements of a golf swing that affect the amount of loft you should play on your driver. Some of you may recall i mentioned several months ago that i was going to build a high lofted driver with a 44 shaft. Distance seems to be a goal for all golfers, from the novice to the professional. As a result, every club in the set has moved up at least one, if not two numbers. Optimize driver loft for more distance true fit clubs. Less can contribute to compressing the distance gap between woods. If the clubhead is traveling on a downward angle coming to the ball, more loft is needed on the driver to maximize distance, while if the clubhead is coming into impact on a slightly upward angle, less loft results in the most possible distance. Then what does it do to the swing wt, shaft flex, club wt.
With more than 50 clubhead engineering firsts, over 350 different clubhead designs, ten books, numerous videos and hundreds of articles to his name, its safe to say that no other person in the game of golf knows more about the design, production and fitting of golf clubs than tom wishon. If your swing speed is 90100mph and your driver loft angle is lower than 11 degrees, 90% of you are losing distance by playing the wrong loft. We welcome your comments after you read dans article, whether directly to dan, twgt or on our. Its become a well known fact on the tour that when it comes to loft, less is not more. He has been responsible for more than 50 different club head design firsts in his design career, including the first adjustable hosel device, as well as the first 0. Long irons have longer shafts and less loft than short irons. The slower the swing speed and the more downward the angle of attack, the higher the loft of the driver has to be for maximum distance and vice versa. This is because the added loft helps send the ball skyward and doesnt give a flat ball flight. If youve ever read anything tom wishon has written about driver length, or spoken to your local fitter about the topic, theres a curious statistic that youve probably encountered. Tom wishon on single length irons association of golf. On many web sites i have seen they are all recommending 43 44 driver length yet all the driver companies sell 45,46 and some approaching 47 drivers. Tom it was a no brainer my swing speed is around 80 these days at age.
A lower loft on the driver head most definitely is the number one place to look to reduce spin, flatten out the trajectory and lower the angle of descent of your drives. For maximizing your driver distance is the loft angle on the face of your driver. This was in response to an article from tom wishon golf suggesting that players with swingspeeds under 110 mph would actually get more carry distance and potentially. Intended to be custom fit with any wishon golf s2s iron shaft model and flex to meet the swing speed, transitiontempo and release point of the golfer. Since loft is the main factor of shot distance, trajectory and backspin for each club in the bag, the clubfitter has to consider several factors for each golfer when making the recommendation for the best lofts for each club. The idea behind the longer driver shafts is that the longer the shaft will equate to more clubhead speed which will allow the golfer to hit it longer. Other single length sets may lose distance with the low loft clubs. Proper loft fitting involves more than just the loft of the driver. The spin about backspin with the driver wtom wishon. Tom currently heads his own company, tom wishon golf. Im a very consistent and straight hitter but can use all the help i can get on distance since my typical drive is about 210 yards.
In the previous segment of this blog, we discussed hitting the ball on the sweet spot in order to optimize your smash factor or efficiency. Wishon golfs 2nd generation 560 series forged iron adds a more solid oncenter feel to the best offcenter forgiveness in a forged carbon steel iron. I feel that the wishon grt 20 of vertical roll radius that tom spoke of is one reasons that his clubs excel. When talking about distance, the driver is the most important club. Uniquely the wishons also feature a softer titanium bendable hosel. Tour experience golf custom golf fitting studio toronto, canada. If youve heard that many of the tour pros have credited their increases in distance off the tee in the past three years to a new driver with more loft, youre not crazy. Driver loft must be matched in combination to the golfers swing speed and their angle of attack into the ball. Interesting blog by tom wishon on wrx japanese golf. I wonder what the influence of driver loft is to the carry distance, if there is actually a difference. Distance if youve heard that many of the tour pros have credited their increases in distance off the tee in the past three years to a new driver with more loft, youre not crazy.
The only thing that separates wishon from others is bending and hand picking head which does come at a slight cost. This driver can be adjusted four degrees either way. Although the highest loft showed a 20yard benefit in carry distance, the difference in total distance was only a yard because the 9degree driver shots rolled an. Alternatively, the average amateur golfer will have a swing speed somewhere between 60 and 100 mph depending on.
If your swing speed is 8085 mph, the average driver swing speed of a male golfer today, youre giving up real. Use hybrids or fairway woods up to that loft, and then irons from that point down. However, for most of us, in order to achieve greater distance on our swing we need a higher loft, likely in the doubledigits. The longer the length and the lower the loft, the harder the club will be to hit for any golfer. According to tom wishon, the three most important elements of driver fitting for distance and control 1 length, 2 loft, 3 face angle. Fact is you get more distance from a longer driver even if you dont have much lag. Tom wishon has been called the most prolific golf club designer in the 500 year history of the game. That could wreck your golf game tom wishon ricks custom fit. Taken directly from tom wishons web site for your convenience the concept of making each iron in a set the same length is not new.
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