January/February 2006 TWGT eTECHreport- Welcome!

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515GRT Fairway woods Triumph in Golf Digest Hot List 2006!

The results of the 2006 Golf Digest Hot List are in and TWGT has become the first custom clubmaking company to ever break through the OEM dominance and the Hot List judging criteria to achieve the highest distinction of a Hot List Top Ranking award for the 515GRT.

Last year TWGT was honored that Golf Digest created a special category in the 2005 Hot List competition which recognized the 770CFE irons as the “Best Iron from a New Company.” But breaking through with the 515GRT fairway woods to make the Top Ranking award in the 2006 Hot List fairway wood category is a remarkable achievement and a real testament to the excellence of the 515 fairway wood design. Hot List judging criteria from Golf Digest typically requires a model to have strong marketing and retail sales presence in the golf industry. However, because the 515 fairways are designed with a true 0.830 COR face, their performance stood out so much with the performance judging panelists that the model was able to leap frog the typical OEM retail and marketing requirements to land a spot on the coveted Top Ranking list for fairway woods.

We at TWGT are truly thrilled that we have been able to achieve this distinction which has been exclusively the domain of the OEM companies. We urge all clubmakers to pick up a copy of the February issue of Golf Digest and use it to show your prospective customers that TWGT does have the design ability to stand toe to toe with the heavily marketed brand name companies that make standard golf clubs.

And by the way, for those of you who suffered through much of 2005 waiting for TWGT to overcome a supply problem with the high strength steel alloy used to manufacture the 0.830 COR face of the 515 fairways, we are pleased to inform you that we are in stock in all of the 515 fairway head models and plan to do our best to keep it that way through 2006!

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New designs for 2006!

It’s almost inconceivable to me to think that this signals the beginning of our fourth year in business. Sometimes I think it feels like we’ve been in business for a decade while other times it just feels like yesterday that we started the company to promote and elevate the image of custom clubmaking by offering nothing but the best original designs with the best technical information to expand your clubmaking and clubfitting knowledge.

We’re anxious to hear your comments about our new designs; remember – TWGT is not like other clubmaking companies. We do not make it a practice to fill the new catalog with a huge number of new models just to offer a different this or that. We carefully plan the development of our totally original designs to offer something new when we feel that we have a new design technology that can increase performance for a certain segment of golfers, or, when we have developed a technology which may take design into a little different direction. In other words, we’re not a company that is simply trying to sell products – we’re a company that develops technology to truly improve performance for golfers and offer clubmakers the chance to elevate your image to your market of golfers.

Thanks for your support and we look forward to a great year in custom clubmaking.

• 0.9OL Drivers - FYI to all of the USA clubmakers – TWGT does a very significant amount of its business with international clubmakers. Over the past year we received numerous requests from our international clubmakers to put our face design capability to work to create the highest possible COR in a new driver design. Why? Because in all countries under the rulemaking control of the R&A of St. Andrews, the COR limit of 0.830 or the 460cc size limit for drivers do not go into effect until 2008. So that’s precisely what we did with the new 0.9OL drivers in 10 and 12.5 lofts. Featuring a COR of 0.900 and a 480cc size, the new 0.9OL drivers are designed to offer maximum performance for any golfer who is either not under the current COR and size rules of the USGA, or who simply wishes to play for fun with a super-high performance driver design. This takes hot to a whole different level.
  


• 949MC Drivers - Why use graphite composite in a driver to help customize the Center of Gravity and the Moment of Inertia when you can come up with a way to do it better which does not require the use of any graphite? Graphite simply adds to the cost of the head. So that’s what we did last year in our development of the new 949MC drivers. Designed in a 400cc-10.5*, 460cc-10.5* and 460cc-9*, the 949MCs utilize a very precise CNC machining of specific non-stress areas of the underside of the crown and sidewalls to offer the same rear CG position as the 949G/Ti along with a higher MOI. And son of a gun, the MOI of the 460cc versions is 4680 g-cm2, which sneaks the MOI in just 20 g-cm2 below the USGA’s proposed limit of 4700 g-cm2 for driver heads! Also featured in the new 949MC drivers is the same hot-feeling very forgiving face design that we created on the original 949G/Ti to amaze golfers with the off-center hit performance for ball speed and distance. And all for a lower price than the 949G/Ti. Now THAT’s a better mousetrap in clubhead design for sure. (And by the way, we lowered the price on the remaining inventory of the 949G/Ti as a way to say good bye to composite on the crown, so if you liked the 949G/Ti, by acting soon you can still have one before they’re gone!)



• 730CL Driver, Fairways, Hybrid Irons and Wedges with Matching Combo-Flex Shafts - Designed expressly for men or women with an 80mph or lower swing speed, the all new “intelligent set” of 730CL clubheads and shafts will help any player with a slower than average swing speed gain new life on the golf course starting this year. The 400cc High Launch titanium driver is truly designed to cave in at a swing speed of 90mph or higher. . . yes, that’s true because when it is used by any golfer with an 80mph or lower swing speed, its face will deflect more for those slower swing speeds to deliver higher ball speed than any other driver this type of player has ever used before. The matching LONG and HIGH Fairway woods are designed with 20 and 26 degrees of loft because 80mph golfers just cannot get the ball airborne enough with typical 3 and 5-woods to achieve the distance they need with fairway woods. Then the #5, #6/7 and #8/9 hybrid body irons are designed to accept the matching 0.335” small tip 730CL iron shaft to offer a high flying, easy-to-hit iron design that will deliver more distance than conventional irons of the same loft with normal 0.370” large tip iron shafts. Completing the 730CL set are a semi-conventional PW and DW (dual wedge designed for sand play) for an 8-club set. Why only 8 clubs? No player with a swing speed of 80mph or slower needs a typical set with normal 4 degree loft spacing – such a 4 degree loft separation only affords a 5-6 yard distance difference between clubs anyway for these swing speeds. The 730CL intelligent set, with its 6 degree loft spacing and supreme game improvement design features will change the game for 80mph golfers and bring a lot more enjoyment for these players in the process.



• 785HF irons - Due for availability in March, the 785HF irons represent two different significant achievements. First, they are a full set of ALL hybrid body irons in the #2-PW with the same incredibly thin high strength steel face material used in the 515GRT fairway woods to offer a super game improvement set of irons for any golfer who wishes to hit the ball farther and higher with the irons. Because of the success of the 321’s and the addition of the #5 and #6 shortly after their introduction, I became very interested in seeing what hybrid short irons could do so I went to work on a thin face, full set of hybrid irons which any golfer could use to hit the ball farther and with a high, soft landing trajectory. Designed and heat treated to be bendable for custom lie fitting, the 785HF irons are truly a unique, high performance and very fun set of irons to play.



• 560MC Forged Carbon Steel Irons - TWGT is proud to offer clubmakers its third and distinctly different set of true carbon steel forged irons in the all new 560MC design. Taking its place along side the muscleback 550M and the medium deep cavity back 550C, the 560MC represents a very deep cavity back, game improvement forged iron for golfers who like the feel of a true carbon steel forging, but with greater perimeter weighting for more off-center hit forgiveness. What’s truly special about the 560MC’s is that to create the cavity depth and higher MOI that I wanted to achieve, the entire back cavity on all of the 560’s is 100% CNC machined. It simply is not possible to create this type of deep, straight wall cavity back design by forging the cavity at the same time the head shape is forged. You can’t “push that much steel out of the way” so I decided to start with a solid forging (using a larger forging press to tighten the carbon steel grain structure) and machine out the entire back cavity to achieve the level of game improvement he desired. The result is a truly distinctive look and even better forgiveness for golfers who desire the feel of a true forged iron with the highest level of 1-piece game improvement iron performance.



• Shaft Bend Profile System Software - Drawing upon the programming and data base management skills of clubmakers Ted Strickland and Jerry Hoefling, TWGT is extremely pleased to be able to offer clubmakers the first system for comparing the full bend profile of hundreds of current model shafts from a broad range of shaft companies. Buffaloed by too many projects to devote the time to completing the shaft bend profile comparison work that was started years ago in my shaft research, I was pleased when Strickland and Hoefling took over the project to allow our vision for shaft comparison to become a reality. Strickland, a senior systems developer in his “other” job, and Hoefling, the PCS 2004 Clubmaker of the Year, have created an incredibly powerful tool, which clubmakers can use to finally know how any shaft compares in stiffness and bend profile to any other shaft. This will remove a lot of the guesswork out of shaft fitting. And what’s even better is that the new shaft profiling software is set up to allow any shafts to be added as they are introduced using the shaft profiling measurement methodology. This truly is an incredibly helpful achievement for clubmakers to be able to narrow the choices for golfers and link their swing motion to specific shaft profiles.




• Common Sense Clubfitting Book It really is almost done and ready for clubmakers to become as up to date as possible in all of the information and techniques of modern clubfitting. Initially I intended to finish the new fitting book last year, but it didn’t get done because of too many reasons to list! I finally got back to work on the book last fall and as of right now, it looks like the book is actually going to be finished and available in early March.



• New Tour Weight GI-335 and Series 5-SL Tour Weight Graphite Shafts In response to numerous requests from clubmakers who wanted heavier weight options and our desire to continue to expand our unique shaft offerings, both the popular GI-335 iron and Series 5-SL wood shafts, will be available in heavier graphite shaft options. For clubmakers whose customers prefer and perform better with a little heavier total weight feel in their 321Li and 785HF hybrid iron clubs and woods, this will fit the bill.




• Series 9-RT Rapid Taper Graphite Wood ShaftsThis is an all new radical graphite wood shaft you simply won’t believe until you or your golfers try it! Visually when you see the “ 9-RT “, you’re going to shake you head in disbelief. How could a shaft which tapers rapidly just 14” below the end of the grip play and feel like it does? With virtually a 26” long parallel tip section, clubmakers are going to be amazed at the feel and performance of the 9-RT. We sure were. And thanks to the “thinking outside the box” design ability of graphite shaft design guru Robin Arthur- (designer of every Grafalloy shaft from 1992-2001 and every Royal Precision graphite shaft since then)- the 9-RT shows how innovative thinking in shaft design can result in a very unique design. This simply is a shaft you have to see and try before you can believe what it can do.



• Expanded 915CFE Driver DesignsNew this year to TWGT’s most popular line of high performance drivers are more size and loft options to fit your golfers – a 460cc LEFT HAND (yes, LH’ers, we do not ignore your needs!!) in 11° and 14° high launch lofts, a new 460cc RH high launch in 13°, and a new 420cc high launch with 15° loft.

One more thing – we’re well underway on some really interesting developments for 2007 but thanks to the “loose lips, sink ships” philosophy of TWGT National Accounts Manager Matt Mohi, you won’t get anything out of us about what’s already underway for the future even with a crow bar!! Besides, with all of the new designs and products for 2006 combined with the current superb performing models which make up the whole TWGT custom clubmaking line, we think that you have plenty to sink your teeth into with which you can bring big smiles to all your golfers!

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A Look at the TWGT Forum

It’s been utterly fascinating for me to watch the “birth” and the resulting evolution of TWGT’s Clubmaker Forum on our web site. And now 3,000 posts later for me and 2,000 posts later for Matt Mohi, Mike Duggan and David March from TWGT, if you have not paid a visit to our Clubmaker Forum, you are missing an incredible amount of absolutely free information on just about every conceivable subject related to clubfitting and clubmaking.

For those of you not familiar with the world of Forums, they happen to be one of the really good offshoots of the internet; a cyber-location where any number of people can come to ask questions, exchange advice and experience, and have fun learning more about whatever interest the Forum perpetuates. In TWGT’s case, it’s a fun place to “hang out” but more than that, I am blown away by the depth, diversity and the quality of the clubmaking information passed around and offered.

I think the reason this finally hit me and prompted my desire to tell all the clubmakers who receive our TWGT E-TECHreport is because of a recent “thread” on the Forum. In the midst of all the technical information about fitting, design, shafts and everything else, several clubmakers offered tips on “little extras” to do in the clubmaking process to impress golfers which really drove home the realization that “TWGT’s Forum is a really cool resource.”

At present, there are more than 1,400 registered users of the TWGT Forum who collectively have sent over 19,000 posts on hundreds of clubmaking subjects within the eight topical areas of the Forum. “Membership” is easy and completely “non-invasive”. A simple click on the link at the top of the TWGT Forum home page where you input your email address and set up a password for yourself is all it takes. TWGT does not sell, rent or in anyway allow your email address outside our well protected data base. So it’s completely safe, and an incredible way for you to pick up all sorts of valuable clubmaking information to improve your skills and boost your interest in the craft. Seriously, there are thousands of you who are interested enough in clubmaking to request and receive our E-TECHreport by email but who have not yet paid a visit to the TWGT Forum. It’s free, you don’t have to post if you don’t want to, you can click on hundreds of valuable topics of clubmaking information, and read and learn a ton more about clubmaking.

No one flames anyone on our Forum, no one responds to any post in any form of arrogance or condescending attitude. It really is a fraternity of many different people, all with the common bond of interest in golf clubs, clubfitting and clubmaking. So if you haven’t taken a look, I urge you to take 20 minutes sometime and check out the TWGT Forum.

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Little by little, TWGT is cracking the nut on reaching more and more consumer golfers with the message that custom clubfitting is far superior to buying standard made golf clubs off the rack. I’ve just been signed by two more consumer golf publications to write a regular monthly column on custom fitting to educate their readers with the truths about golf clubs, what works, what doesn’t and why.

Golf Illustrated magazine, a consumer golf publication with a present circulation of 250,000 and newsstand distribution, has asked me to write a monthly equipment and fitting column for their web site, www.golfillustrated.com. The publication is under new management and ownership and is in the process of completely re-designing their publication and web site as they make a renewed effort to increase their exposure and circulation. The new January 2006 issue of GI is now out and in it, TWGT has a full page ad promoting the book that is teaching consumers the benefits of custom fitting, The Search for the Perfect Golf Club.

Starting early in 2006, I will also be contributing a monthly column specifically on custom fitting for PGA Tour Partners magazine. PGA Tour Partners is a membership program launched years ago by the PGA Tour to develop a community of regular golfers with closer contact and support for the PGA Tour. With a circulation of just under 600,000 regular consumer golfers, truthful talk about custom fitting will be seen every month by a significant number of golfers who all represent potential customers for custom clubmakers.

TWGT is excited about the possibilities that this additional exposure will bring for serious clubmakers who wish to increase the number of golfers who call or walk into their shops asking to be custom fit. For 2006, will also continue his column and position as technical advisor for pga.com, the official web site of the PGA of America and will continue to be sought out for advice and quotes in many of the major golf publications.

TWGT is committed to the promotion of REAL custom fitting by serious custom clubmakers to consumers. We are fortunate that we’ve been able to spread the benefits of custom fitting to the greater golfing population. To those of you who have begun to see the benefits of our work in this area and to the clubmakers who currently support us with your business, we sincerely thank you for your commitment to quality and the advancement of custom fitting in the golf market. To those of you who have not worked with TWGT in your clubmaking, we really do ask you to stop and think about how you will benefit from doing business with us through our innovative design work, our second to none technical information and now through our ongoing consumer marketing to promote what YOU do.

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A few months ago, TWGT sent a press release to all of the golf media which we copied to all E-TECHreport readers in the last issue of our email newsletter sent early last month. The press release, which was titled, “Durango, Colorado Displaces Carlsbad, California and Japan as the Center of Golf Club Innovation, was felt by some to be a bit over the top, but seen by a majority as a fascinating chronicle of proof that TWGT is the most innovative company in the golf club business. We definitely titled it that way to shock some people into reality.

Briefly, the press release stated that in our short 3-year history, TWGT has conceived, developed and released more significant new golf club design technologies in its product line than all of the OEMs headquartered in Carlsbad, CA and Japan combined together over the same three year period. In short, MOI Matching, GRT wood face design, 0.335” hybrid iron shafts, variable thin-face high COR irons, the first fairway woods to reach a 0.830 COR, interchangeable loft faces on putters, deeper CG positioned woodheads, and driver with rotating internal weight arm outnumber the OEMs release of drivers with external weight screws, deep body high MOI putter heads, and woodheads with a graphite + titanium body.

TWGT takes a huge amount of pride in striving to lead the golf industry in new clubhead, shaft and clubfitting technology research. We have a true passion to learn all we can about the performance of golf clubs for golfers. We believe that we do know more about the performance of a golf club for golfers than any other company. And we will continue to place the highest emphasis on pushing the envelope of research and development of new fitting and club design technology for the benefit of custom clubmakers.

To help us continue with that goal, we are continuing to add to our technical capability with more engineering aids to be able to more accurately create and offer high performance products. Recently we have added brand new equipment to be able to electronically measure the CG and MOI of any clubhead, a new machine to electronically measure the MOI of any assembled golf club in one step as easy as measuring swingweight, which join the metal hardness and ultrasonic wall/face thickness testing machines that we acquired last spring. In addition, we continue development on several computer modeling projects to further understand not just the performance of golf clubs but to better understand the relationship of the golf swing to golf clubs so we can offer the best clubfitting advice possible.

We’re proud to be the only company in the custom clubmaking side of the golf industry to employ such technical capability to educate clubmakers and golfers better and to offer truly the best performing clubmaking designs and products anywhere. We desire to be the best at what we do because we believe there is no other reason to be in this business. If you really are interested in learning all you can about golf clubs and fitting and if you truly wish to offer your golfers the very best in custom clubmaking services and designs, TWGT is the only company that can meet those needs.

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A couple of years ago I realized we needed to understand more about the physics of the golf swing to be able to offer more accurate fitting data. As a result, we began an in-depth study of golf swing mechanics to be able to really understand how the swing interacts with the golf club to produce different performance results. While the study is still on-going, to date we really have been able to learn a tremendous amount about what some of the various golf swing mechanics do to golf clubs of different fitting specifications to result in different launch parameters.

Much of this research deals with what moves in the golf swing affect clubhead speed and from that, distance. After all, who doesn’t want to be able to hit the ball farther. Prior to this work, like most golfers I had always been under the impression that the only way to increase swing speed was to embark on a physical training program to increase strength and improve body flexibility. While such a program certainly will produce the desired result of a higher swing speed, we were fascinated to discover two changes in the golf swing which do not require a long commitment to working out, but which if mastered, can make a huge difference in being able to increase the swing speed of ANY golfer.

First of all, we need to offer a little explanation for what moves in the swing we’re talking about. Take a look at the graphic depiction of a golfer seen below.

• The Backswing Angle is basically how far you can rotate the shoulders from the takeaway to the end of the backswing. For most golfers, increasing the backswing angle is a matter of body flexibility. However, there are a lot of golfers who could rotate the shoulders a little farther on the backswing but simply do not make the effort to do so.
• The Wrist-Cock Angle is for all intents and purposes how much you hinge the wrists at the end of the backswing. While this can also be a matter of flexibility, for many golfers it would not be that difficult to allow the wrists to hinge at a greater angle than present. Later on, we’ll show you just how important this can be in the development of greater swing speed.
• The Release Angle is primarily a matter of how long the golfer can retain their wrist-cock on the downswing before unhinging it to hit the ball. This swing move is unfortunately one that requires a higher than average level of swing athletic ability and is difficult to change in a golfer. Hence we won’t dive into this swing move as much as we will the other two.

Backswing Angle - Take a look at the following chart which compares the actual measured backswing angle in the swing to the resulting clubhead velocity. Quite simply, the more the golfer can rotate their shoulders on the backswing, the higher the swing speed will be. The reason for this is because the greater the backswing angle, the greater the amount of force (torque to be precise) the golfer can apply on the downswing over the longer swing arc which is automatically created by the greater backswing angle. For purposes of explanation, a backswing angle of 180 degrees is achieved when the golfer can rotate their shoulders so the left shoulder (left shoulder for a RH golfer, right shoulder for a LH golfer) is directly under the chin. Many adult golfers stop their backswing angle well short of this, typically in the area of 140 degrees. As you can see from the research data, an increase in the backswing angle from 140 to 170 degrees can increase swing speed by 10mph. When you think that 1mph of swing speed increase = an increase of 2.8 yards in carry distance, you can see how significant it can be to work to increase the backswing angle, even by only 10 more degrees of rotation!

Wrist-Cock Angle - As we said, the wrist-cock angle is determined by how much the golfer can hinge their wrists at the end of the backswing. Like many golfers, I recall being told that the “perfect position” at the end of the backswing is to be able to create a 90 degree angle between the arms and the club’s shaft. That isn’t the way to go for golfers who desire more distance! In truth, John Daly has it right when it comes to utilizing a maximum wrist-cock angle for generating a super high swing speed and from it, amazing distance off the tee. Take a look at the following information below which illustrates the difference in swing speed from various wrist-cock angles.

An increase in the wrist-cock angle from 90 degrees to only 120 degrees, an increase which should be possible for most golfers, will result in an increase in the swing speed of 8mph. Again, at 2.8 yards more distance per 1mph of swing speed increase, you can see that this is another significant source of more distance for all golfers. A greater wrist-cock angle can increase swing speed because the greater the angle, the lower the load placed on the arms and body by the golf club. In turn, that leads to being able to move the arms and body faster, which is an increase in the energy the golfer can exert on the golf club.

If you don’t have a video camera to film your swing and check out your present backswing and wrist-cock angles, an easy and fast way to check this is to swing in front of a large window and note these positions in the reflection. While swing training is not the domain of most clubmakers, these simple and easy to understand swing points can be of some value in your overall fitting business as you offer tips to the golfers you see.

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