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This is from an e-mail I received today from Frank Thomas, formerly of the USGA and an authority on golf equipment. He sends out Questions and Answers that you can go to his website and see archived. This one relates to Persimmon. Mr. Thomas, who we deeply respect and was a friend of Louisville Golf founder Elmore Just, has also, in the past, participated in some of the marketing hype that has golf under its spell currently (as you can reference on the Persimmon bLog here). In this exchange he seems to give Persimmon fairer treatment, and for that we are grateful.

Persimmon Back In the Bag!

Frank,

I went to the range today for lunch and put an old Powerbilt Citation 5-wood in my bag that I found in my garage to take to the range for fun. I haven’t hit a persimmon wood for at least 15 years and was AMAZED at how high and soft it landed on the green 220 yards away. I then took out my Callaway hybrid and hit it just as far and pretty straight but nowhere near as high. Also, I noticed when I hit the persimmon closer to the toe it would draw in and hit a couple on the heel and faded. I felt like I couldn’t miss the target! It landed so softly I was stunned. Am I the only one who is now thinking I should put my persimmon 5-wood in my bag as opposed to these high tech hybrids?

Best regards,

Michael

FROM FRANK THOMAS

Michael,

It should not be surprising that your wooden 5-wood will perform very well and certainly after such a period of purgatory in the closet. It has now learned its lesson and obviously doesn’t like a dark place away from the course. There are other reasons for good performance and this has something to do with your fresh swing and obvious affection for this well-crafted old friend and warm instrument.

Let’s examine the wooden 5-wood from a technical point of view - which may not be half as important as your attitude and good swing motion. The COR (Coefficient of Restitution) is probably very close to that of your hybrid so the ball will come off the club at about the same speed. Because the c.g. (center of gravity) of your 5-wood is most likely farther back from the face than the hybrid the face will present more dynamic loft to the ball at impact. This will send the ball on a higher trajectory, assuming a similar shaft flex. A more flexible, longer shaft will further increase this dynamic loft. The longer shaft - which I suspect is the case but you need to check this out - will allow you to generate a little more head velocity giving you increased ball speed even though the COR is the same.

The down side - for the 5- wood  - is that the Hybrid, which probably has a higher MOI (Moment of Inertia) about its vertical axis and thus will be more forgiving i.e. not twist as much on off centered impacts. It is for this reason that the “Gear Effect” using your wooden 5-wood, is more pronounced when the impact point is on the toe or heel as you describe.

Have fun with your old friend and don’t let it or any other good friend spend long periods of time in a place it doesn’t enjoy. Some will sulk and never perform properly again. I hope this has helped give you a better insight into the social and technical behavior of your old friend.

Frank

I have a few points for pondering. Mr. Thomas alludes to the social behavior of the experience Michael had with his 5-wood, something we recognize as the spirit of the game which we promote. Michael exemplifies thousands of golfers who recharge their love of the game with this type of experiment, either by purchasing a club from us or resurrecting old glory from their closet. “The truth is what works,” whether arrived at socially or technically. What is interesting about Persimmon fairway woods is that they have NEVER been tested against fairway metals or metal hybrids. Mr. Thomas says a metal hybrid “probably” has more MOI than a Persimmon fairway wood, but one has never been tested for this or distance. I am willing to bet the stake of our company on the fact that a Persimmon fairway wood will perform overall just as well as a metal, and the experience Michael had testifies to that end.

Josh Fischer
Marketing Director
Louisville Golf
The Spirit of the Game

I have just finished reading a book of essays by Wendell Berry titled “Life is a Miracle.” It derives its name from Shakespeare’s King Lear; Edgar, the good son, in disguise, says this to his father, the Earl of Gloucester: “Thy life’s a miracle, speak yet again.” (IV, vi, 55)

In the coming weeks I intend to “speak yet again,” and again, and again, as I organize my thoughts for a book that I am beginning to write. On this bLog I will be loosely utilizing a technique Berry, a Kentucky thinker, employs in his work. His book largely is a response to a book by Edward O. Wilson titled Consilience. I, in turn, will be responding to Berry, or at least using his book as a filter, and organizing my notes made in the margin of his book. I intend to use his ideas as a jumping-off point in discussing the game of golf and the golf industry.

There will be a need to make a clear distinction between the game of golf and the business of golf, and I will strive to do that as I walk through the thought process of my book. If I were to propose a thesis for the book it would be this: Golf is not in crisis, the game of golf is like Plato’s Forms, it exists pure and ideal on a plane we as humans are limited to describe, but can certainly feel and experience. But golf’s fundamental spirit has diminished in the past 20 years, mainly due to the golf industry, and at the dawn of the 21st century this new work will attempt to write the modern definition of the game while addressing some concerns that threaten to disinherit future generations of the game’s seemingly timeless lessons and beauty.

Golf is not in crisis. I do not want to create a false crisis in order to save it in an equally hollow way. Golf is a sport, so one must have propriety of scale in considering such things. Naturally the business of golf ebbs and flows with the state of the market. That this happens should come as no surprise, it’s a business in the context of capitalism, that’s the setup. But again, the business of golf should be distinct from the game, and I feel we have lost something collectively at the heart of golf that could speak to some larger issues. I hope so. Really if it didn’t there wouldn’t be much use in this exercise, the microcosm of golf in the scope of life is engaging, but not as nutritious as some of the larger themes. I just have to believe that this is the thread to follow. I want to believe that Golf, like life, is a miracle and wonder, and we should make an attempt to protect it from influences that make it less than that.

So let’s jump in. Here’s a sample:

Wendell Berry writes: “For quite a while it has been possible for a free and thoughtful person to see that life is mechanical or predictable or understandable is to reduce it” (p. 7). Life and golf are interchangeable here. The game of golf, like life, is currently under the influence of reductionist thought. The swing can be broken down to mechanics, ball flight can be predicted with spin rate and moveable weights, and we all understand why we slice. These things are mostly true, and they are all a reduction in the larger experience of playing golf. So we buy videos that teach us proper swing dynamics, we spend hundreds of dollars trying to predict ball flight and we slice the ball with complete recognition. In all this, are we then free to enjoy the game? Or have we abdicated something in pursuit of some abstract goal? Or is the goal simply misplaced, adhering to some new materialism?

So that’s the initial trajectory, and some of the questions I will attempt to answer in the work. I will be exploring many modern concepts of the game, testing them for their worth, excavating the past for precedent and inspiration, and generally trying to arrive at a yet-to-be determined point. We’ll see where this goes.

Josh Fischer
Marketing Director
josh@louisvillegolf.com

The Louisville Golf Club Company
The Spirit of the Game

Below is an e-mail I received from Craig Braddick recently. He is a Louisville Golf customer, so he is a fan, and we appreciate that. But he is also another thinker, and another golfer, and someone other than me, so I have chosen, with his permission, to post his thoughts. My reason = we are not alone.

Thanks Craig.

Hi Josh:

I read with interest your recent correspondence with Frank Thomas and would like to add my 2 cents. In my opinion, there are no fair tests between persimmon and metal (of any kind) be it a test in a controlled laboratory or a weekend warrior hitting red lined Top Flites on the range, or even Jack Nicklaus with his ball of choice and every modern piece of equipment available.

You may recall in the early 1990’s Petersens Golfing Magazine tried to publish reviews of equipment (far superior to the laughable reviews in today’s press) but when manufacturers were less than impressed with a rating their club got, they pulled the advertising revenue and the whole thing collapsed. Plus, tests done by places such as Golf Labs are inherently flawed as the facilities are rented by companies with an interest to show how their product is superior. Even if one could perform a scientific double blind test, and I am not sure you could get a consensus from the club companies of how to set one up impartially, it would still not provide the answer.

What Frank Thomas and many others in the golf media and the golfing public need to know is there is an alternative to metal woods and the chances are, your game may benefit from it. I carry a Louisville Golf Driver, 4,7,11 and 15 Woods. For me, the clubs are easier to hit than metal woods. They make long par 4’s reachable and give me more birdie chances on par 5 holes, because their design suits my game. This is never taken into account whatsoever by major manufacturers who either follow others trends or create marketing gimmicks to differentiate themselves.

If Frank Thomas would look around he will see virtually every OEM going to clubs with weights that can be moved or added too. Mostly, they are gimmicks, the woods where that weight manipulation can work (along with other factors) can only be found in a well made wooden clubhead.

It is time those in the golf industry took a long hard look at persimmon and realize it still has a role to play in the future of the game. The facts Frank Thomas and many golf club equipment reviewers cannot get over are: 1. Persimmon Golf requires slightly different tactics to make the most of it which cannot often be measured scientifically, unless one compares results and 2. No one will dare do anything to jeopardize advertising revenue.

Craig Braddick