Archived Column: The G-Files
THE TRUTH IS NOT OUT THERE
by Joshua Fischer (July 2002)
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.
Golf, ultimately and universally, is not that important: as allegory, yes — as truth, no. This is merely pragmatic, not cynical.
No matter the love we all feel for golf, in the end it is just a game. For all its inequalities and snobbery, the dark side of golf shows more about the people who play it, than the game itself. And like all things, this frustrating and contemplative pastime indeed has a dark side, and it rears its ugly head in the golf equipment industry.
Golf’s dark wood of error begins in the boardroom, where pressure to turn a profit and the protocol of business generates an interesting and highly human motivation. The large golf companies sell mostly hope, not equipment. And when they market an intangible such as hope, the truth and inherent beauty of the source are lost.
Case in point: Nike Golf is promoting a forged titanium driver that is marketed to outperform a cast titanium model. The Nike titanium driver campaign is a manipulation of the truth, an amplified version of the basic. The company’s point isn’t valid because most every driver today is now being forged; it is a simple fact of manufacturing that companies do it this way. A lot of titanium, a relatively expensive resource, is wasted during the casting process. Manufacturers turned to forging titanium drivers because this process wasted less titanium, and thus, in the long run, was more efficient economically. The marketers at Nike are smart, but also expanding on the obvious.
With the possible exception of Ruger (which was already set up to precision-cast titanium frames for its handguns) it is very difficult for companies to source or manufacture a cast titanium driver. But, in theory, a cast titanium driver should be more consistent because there are fewer pieces to be welded together. The truth is, forging a titanium driver is cheaper than casting one. Nike is winking at the truth as it sneaks by the consumer in order to increase its margin. No one seems to notice because the Tiger plays the club, and Nike is a giant.
Turning a profit with a healthy margin isn’t necessarily bad — it is merely capitalism. But filtered through a game steeped in honor and promoted over time to possess integrity and authenticity, the squirrelly marketing feels dirty. (There are many examples.) These large companies are slowly chipping away at the soul of the game…and they are about to break through, changing it forever. I fear it might be too late. Golf has been overtaken by pigs, and it appears nothing will abate their appetite.
Ping Golf is a good company, but it might have unwittingly started this trend when it released its irons with stronger lofts (Ping Eye II). In 1980 the standard loft for a 5-iron was 32 degrees. A Ping ISI 5-iron has 27 degrees of loft. When golfers hit a 5-iron ten yards further with a Ping, they attributed it to the iron design and not the muscled-up loft. The perimeter-weighted design of the first Ping irons did provide more forgiving mishits, but neither a well struck blade nor a well struck perimeter-weighted casting vary in distance if all specifications are equal.
Equality of specifications is a large reason why the use of Persimmon woods has stagnated, and a large reason why the golfing public has been fooled into false positives. When metals first were used and being compared to Persimmon, you were hard-pressed to find a player who would make the switch to a metal “wood.” With the invention of the graphite shaft, which was longer and lighter, Persimmon was compared to a metal “wood” shafted in graphite while still being fitted with a shorter and heavier steel shaft. It’s like comparing two Ferraris, but one has a Ford F150 truck engine.
Simple physics dictates that the longer and lighter your shaft, the more clubhead speed you can produce. Therefore, the longer drives had nothing to do with clubhead material, but more to do with how the club was being built. And it is no coincidence that it is easier to cast a metal head than it is to craft a Persimmon head. Again, profits, not love, change the game forever.
Quality control of OEM clubs is troubling as well, and is another symptom of the larger problem. We have come a long way since Ben Hogan scrapped his entire first run of forgings because he wasn’t satisfied with them. Callaway Golf is the main offender here. A set of off-the-rack X-14 irons recently tested to have as many as 6 different flexes in its shafts ranging from senior to extra stiff. Professional private clubmakers can attest to this. Callaway clubs are probably what they see most of in their shop for one reason or another, many times due to shaft problems. The quality of Callaway shafts has improved, but buyer beware on shaft flex. There is a good chance that the S on the shaft stands for Something, and not Stiff.
The tactics that most golf companies use to grab your attention and dollar lacks authenticity and inspiration. Every new club has some sort of “Technology” in it. This is becoming painfully repetitive and lacks real imagination. Golf clubs aren’t “Technology” — they’re tinkerings. Technology is computers you can talk to or TVs on your wrist watch, not neon bells and glitter whistles that are all variations on a theme.
The game is evolving, and the equipment is too…sort of. Page through The Clubmaker’s Art by Jeffery B. Ellis and you will see that many “Technologies” have been tried before. You’ll see equipment that looks surprisingly like modern clubs as well as a suspicious looking driver with a spring attached to its metal face insert (Spring Face Technology, of course).
Spring Face Technology is a misnomer, an apparition from the twisted mind of a hungry marketer with stock options. Also known as the Trampoline Effect, the physics of the ball at impact with the clubface has nothing to do with the action that the name implies. A “Spring Face” allows the golf ball to compress less, thus losing less energy and penetrating farther into the air. What the name implies, a trampolining of the ball to spit it greater distances, is basically a manipulation of the truth and bent semantics.
Companies are moving away from referring to Spring Faces and Trampolines and starting to use the acronym, C.O.R. (Coefficient of Restitution - a measure of the clubface’s give at impact.) Instead of a Spring Face, a titanium driver now has a “High C.O.R.” No one is the wiser as the initial bogus descriptions “boing” and “tink” away into oblivion.
By exploiting capitalism, coupled with the affluent and impressionable golfers desperate to play this glorious and beautifully difficult game well, these mammoth marketing companies have become like those golfers who roll their ball in the rough when no one is looking — no one really notices that they have improved their lie.
I wrote this column for the newspaper I worked for before my Louisville Golf career and decided to post it now as I think it still applies. Be aware that it was written in 2002, but no less applicable in 2009. The names may have changed, but the problem remains the same.Joshua Fischer
Marketing Director