Nick Arther, Callaway Golf — Club Performance Specialist

I had the rare privilege of going through Callaway Golf’s club fitting process at their headquarters in Carlsbad, CA.  Specifically, I was granted access to the Ely Callaway Performance Center, an ultra-exclusive facility that’s used only for tour pros, testing new prototype clubs, and VIPs.  Why they let ME in, I have no idea.

But fear not, fitting friends.  You, too, can attend a Callaway Golf Performance Center.  There are 14 retail locations in the U.S.  And for you moguls and tycoons — regular readers here at GolfConversations.com — there are 7 corporate locations: one in Carlsbad, the others are in Seoul, London, Tokyo, Melbourne, Toronto, and Sydney.

Click here to find the Callaway Golf Performance Center of your choice. And while you’re at that web page, look at the video in the top right-hand corner. You’ll see and hear the subject of the interview below, Nick Arther.  Nick was kind enough to spend a good deal of time with me on the lush driving range nestled in the hills of Carlsbad. And then it was inside to the “laboratory” where my swing was recorded and analyzed by a battery of computers.

The fitting process was fun, educational, enlightening and I recommend it highly!

Nick Arther: Go ahead and hit a few; I’ll watch you swing a couple and I’ll talk you through the process I go through.

GolfConversations: Where’s Butch when you need him?

(laughter)

NA: Now to your individual golf swing, what do you think your strengths and weaknesses are? What clubs do you feel most confident with?

GC: Once I get up to my 5 iron, I start feeling like, “I can’t hit this.”

NA: As in “5, 4, 3, 2”?  The longer clubs?

GC: Yes. The 5 is the longest iron I have.  I have my fairway woods.  I can’t hit a hybrid to save my life.

NA: You’ve tried them?

GC: I’ve tried them.

NA: Do you have any theory about why that is?

GC: I don’t like the way they look.  A fairway wood looks better to me than a hybrid.

NA: Valid. You’re not alone. Short irons pretty good?

GC: They’re ok. I had the original Big Bertha driver in ’91, the first set of Big Bertha irons…

NA: So you were a Callaway guy early.

GC: Yeah, I’ve gone through about five sets of Callaway irons.  I’ve always liked them; I’ve tried the other manufacturers but I could never hit them as well as the Callaways.

(I hit an iron shot)

That’s my British Open-keep-it-under-the-wind shot.  Also known as: hitting it thin.

(I hit another iron shot)

NA: When you’re playing golf and the ball goes off line, is it more often to the right or more to the left … or is it a little bit of both?

GC: You know, there is no pattern.  I’ll either pull it … or I’ll jump out of my stance and push it right.

(I hit another shot)

NA: Nice little draw there.  Do you sweep the ball, not take much of a divot?

GC: Yes, and that goes back to my practicing days in my apartment in NY.  I didn’t want to disturb my neighbors by hitting down on the ball.  So I would sweep the plastic ball off the artificial turf mat and the ball would bounce off the ceiling and floor a few times.  One time, my downstairs neighbor pounded on my door and threatened to kill me. So I guess I got inhibited to hit down on the ball – I never became much of a divot taker.

(I hit an iron shot)

NA: I like that flight though.  Good trajectory, nice little draw.  It looks better than a 15 handicap.

GC: My short game stinks. I spent too many years messing around with drivers and fairway woods instead of practicing my short game.  The old sad story.

(I hit another shot)

NA: I just kind of pulled this set arbitrarily.  It’s probably our most forgiving iron in terms of Moment of Inertia.  What we mean by that is maintaining the ball speed and the directional control on a mis-hit.  If you hit the ball solidly, and you come in with the face 5 or 6 degrees open, the ball is going to the right.  There’s nothing you can do with technology to stop that.

What the technology does, when you strike the ball well, it feels better, it’s hitting right across from the center of gravity of the club, so it’s very solid and stable, it transfers the most energy to the ball.  By taking the weight and distributing it to the corners of the club, we can increase the MOI.

But you still have to deliver the club at a good angle, you have to hit it reasonably solid.

GC: Of course, they’ve been talking about perimeter weighting for…

NA: … a long time.

GC: Mr. Solheim invented it a long time ago.  How much more weight can you distribute?

NA: Yes, it becomes increasingly difficult.  It was easier with the driver until we got to the size limit.  It was pretty easy to keep inflating the size and that was an easy way to make the inertia bigger. When they got to 460cc, they said that was it.

Of course, with a driver, you essentially have a good lie every time. With an iron, you’re asking it to do a number of different things: to be good off a tight lie, to hit it out of the rough, you want to work it, you’re asking for feedback, etc.  So no matter what you do with an iron design, you’re going to make some kind of trade off.

With this iron, you’re not making a tradeoff of forgiveness because it’s a very forgiving golf club; you can hit it all over the face and get pretty good results with it. But it’s not going to be necessarily real good out of the rough because it’s a bigger iron and has more drag going through the grass; you may lose more speed on your way to the ball as you cut through the rough.  But if you take a small, forged, muscle back, then it’s going to cut through the rough pretty good and you’re not going to lose as much speed.

Forged blades give you better feedback, which is a pretty way of saying they hurt more when you miss hit them, they vibrate more.  This club is easier to get up in the air…

GC: I notice you have graphite shafts on some of these irons.  I’ve been playing with steel shafts.  A few years ago, everyone was doing graphite shafts in irons and then they stopped doing them…

NA: Yeah, it comes and goes in phases.  I would say, technologically, graphite is still the most advanced.  It’s the easiest to swing, it dampens vibrations a lot better than steel.  But for a while, there were two very distinct choices: you had a graphite shaft which was 70-80 grams, which was super lightweight, more flexible at the tip compared to standard steel shafts.  The standard steel shaft was an S-300, and it was 120 grams.  So you had this huge jump in weight from the one to the next.  There was no in-between there.

Now there are quite a few options in terms of lightweight steel.  So if you like the feel of steel and some weight in your hands, then you can get a steel shaft that’s 100-110 grams and that’s a recent development in the last few years.

GC: I remember when I first got fitted for irons in 1993. They had you hit balls off a plexiglass board with the impact tape on the club face and that was it.  And I was proclaimed to be a Gold Dot for Ping irons.  How has the fitting process changed since then?

NA: The first thing I go through – and it’s not a very technical part of the process but it’s by far the most important part of the process – is the interview.  What is someone out to achieve?

What do they think they’re going to do with their golf game, what are their plans for their golf game?  If a guy comes in and says, “I want to play golf every month or two with my buddies; I’m never going to practice; the way I play today is probably the way I’ll always play.” And if he slices it way to the right, then I’m going to give him a driver with a closed clubface; I’m going to give him a driver with a center of gravity that’s placed towards the heel – which is a way of saying draw bias.  If he hits down on it, I’m going to give him some loft so he can launch the ball in the air a little bit.

GC: Ok.

NA: I’m going to give him an iron that’s super forgiving. I’m more concerned about him hitting it off the toe and what’s going to happen as a result of that than I am about him being able to control the shot out of the rough … or getting good feedback… or being versatile in terms of playability.

Maybe another guy with more time to practice who is more serious about the game might say, “I’m swinging a certain way now and I see my swing changing pretty dramatically in the next year or two.  And this is what I’m working on with my instructor and I think I’m going to make some pretty good strides…”

So then you put him in a golf club that’s going to work in conjunction with the type of shot pattern he’s trying to achieve.  Maybe he is hitting a little bit of a push-fade.  But I’m not going to try to Band-Aid it with a closed club face on the driver.  I’m going to give him one with a square face and say, “Ok, if you make the proper golf swing, your ball is going to go straight in the fairway and if the face comes in open, you’re going to hit to the right, and that’s the feedback you want as a tool in developing your golf swing.”

GC: When you ask the person what his handicap is, is that a jumping off point for you?  Like what we just did?  You know I’m a 15 so you’re not going to hand me muscle back blades?

NA: Yes.  That’s a “yes” 99% of the time.  When I hear your handicap, how often you play, what do you plan to do with your golf game – I use that to set a profile for the golfer.  What can they realistically achieve and how can I best give them the results they’re looking for.

It’s interesting that you bring up “I’m a 15 handicap, you’re not going to put me in blades.”  All the time, I’ll get a 10 or 12 handicapper than I might put into a muscle back iron.

GC: Really?

NA: Let’s say you get a guy who’s a traditionalist, a purist; he’s going to hit it solid two out of ten times, but he gets such joy when he does it, it’s worth it to him to mis-hit it.  Now take another guy: he’s hitting everything right off the heel; he’s millimeters from a shank …

GC: Don’t say that word!

NA: Sorry. So he hits it right in toward the heel and that golfer – even at a high handicap level – if he’s got a reasonably tight shot pattern and some high handicappers do into the neck – the forged blade or the X-forged works pretty good.  They get good ball speed off it.

But I may get another guy who’s a 3 handicap and I’ll say, “Let’s take a look at one that’s more of a cavity back like our X-22 Tour.”  If he’s a guy who hits it out on the toe, he’s going to hate a forged, muscle back iron.  He’s going to lose so much distance.  But an iron like this, one with a CG further towards the toe, they’re going to get much better ball speed out of it.

So I’ll show him the results:  “Here are your options.  Here are the tradeoffs you make with each option.”  Then I give him the recommendation that allows him to make the best decision.  It harkens back to what we said before: to allow them to understand things before they step into something; I want to prepare them.  “You know what, you liked the blade but you didn’t think you were good enough to play that blade. You might be a good candidate for it. You tend to hit it pretty close to the heel; the blades don’t really mind that. You don’t lose much ball speed on a heel hit with a blade.  Let’s go on the machine and find out what kind of ball speed you’re getting.”  And a lot of times they may be getting higher ball speed with that than with a more game-improvement iron.

GC: Have you ever had a situation where a low-handicapper comes in, he wants a set of blades and you show him the game-improvement irons …

NA: I give him the option: “What do you think about the X-22 Tour?”  And he goes, “Nah, I need to play forged irons.”  And I’ll say, “Let’s just hit them for fun.”  And he hits it.  And usually if he gets more ball speed, it means it’s feeling more solid to him.  And I just plant that seed.

In the end, if he says, “I’m going to buy those blades” I’m not going to try talk him out of it.  It’s his choice.  My job is to show people what their options are and maybe show them an option they wouldn’t have considered before.

GC: It’s interesting to me that you start the fitting process by interviewing, by asking questions.  Now when Callaway opened this Center, did you all say, “This is how we’re going to start the fitting process, by asking questions”?

NA: When we first opened this center – the Ely Callaway Performance Center in 1994 – we used this center for testing prototype golf clubs.  That’s the main purpose.  We also found out, after we started developing equipment that could measure ball flight, this would be pretty good to fit our staff tour professionals with clubs. So there was a progression – all of our fitters were ex-golf instructors.  So you take that teaching experience and combine it with the technology.

The process of interviewing someone is something that all of us that are fitters learned while teaching people to play golf.  When I train someone here to fit golf clubs, we spend a lot of time on the interview process.

You’re here to satisfy people’s goals.  Some people come in and they want a little bit of a cheerleading session; they want some positive feedback, they want the information about the golf clubs, obviously.  But what they’re expecting from it might be very different from the next person that walks in.

The next person might be a business client of Callaway. They don’t play much golf, they’re beginners, and then it becomes more of a golf lesson than a club fitting.  So I’m teaching them things about how to make contact with the golf ball.

GC: Well, I’m expecting a little positive feedback!  I hit a couple of good shots and you guys just sat there like an oil painting! No “you da mans” or “get in the holes.”  Nothing.

NA: (to the two Callaway public relations gentlemen standing behind us) He hit a bunch of nice high draws.

GC: You can’t please these two.

NA: We have super-high standards.

GC: Because they see the Tour guys come in here…

NA: We’re a little bit spoiled watching Mickelson out here every other day.

GC: Does he come here every other day?

NA: He comes here a lot because he lives two minutes away.

GC: That’s a short helicopter trip!

(laughter)

NA: He’ll come in all the time.  It’s a nice place for him to practice because he’s always got the balls he plays just laying around the range.  He likes working on his own clubs. He likes to experiment with stuff; he’s always trying to optimize his performance in terms of technology.

GC: What’s he doing?  Bending lie angles?

NA: He doesn’t do real advanced stuff on the clubs.  He likes tinkering around on the grinding machine.

GC: Really?

NA: Yeah, sure.

GC: Now tell me the truth: does he come here for that or for the free tees?

NA: Probably both. (laughter)

GC: Look at all those tees.  Don’t turn your back on me, fellas.

(laughter)

Ok, you gave me an interview.  You saw me hit a couple of shots.  I think you were favorably impressed.  You very perceptively noticed that I don’t take much of a divot.

NA: The reason I asked that, it tells me a couple of things … it gets me headed in a certain direction.  So you talk to someone, you watch them hit balls, you start to put together a composite of the golfer.

When I see you sweep the ball, one thing it tells me, you’re probably going to like a golf club with a fairly low center of gravity.  If someone comes in steep and takes a big divot, they tend to make impact up higher on the head.  And so they’ll usually hit more solid shots when the center of gravity is higher on the head, too, because you’re trying to get the CG of the club and the ball to line up. So if you’re someone who sweeps it, you’re going to like a lower CG.

It’s not surprising when I see you take a shallow impact like that that you don’t like hybrids because hybrids like to be hit down with a pretty steep angle of attack.

GC: Ah-ha!!!! That clears up a little of that mystery.

NA: Some guys out here won’t take any divots and they’ll go, “No, no.  I always take a big divot.”  So that requires further investigation – maybe they’re swinging differently today … they’re really nervous.

GC: Ok, take me through the next step of the fitting process. You’ve interviewed me, you’ve seen me hit shots, what’s next?

NA: I like to stay in the range of what I think what would be a good idea for you but maybe try another model or two.  I’d like to watch you hit light weight steel a couple of times, too.  Just to get an idea of comparison and also get your feedback.  And I want you to hit a couple with you hooked up to the computer.

Here’s another iron I’d like you to try; graphite is not a bad choice for you, especially as consistent as it is now.  This would be a nice set for you, based on your angle of attack.  I don’t think you need this much offset because it looks like you play a nice little draw and if anything, like you said, your miss is a little bit of a pull.

So I’m going to try a couple of different irons and get your feedback.  I’ll be right back.

(Nick goes into the building to get some irons.  I talk to Scott who’s been watching us all along)

GC: Ok, if I hit a good shot, do something!

Scott: Alright, you made your point, I’m feeling guilty!

(laughter)

(Nick returns with several irons; I hit one of them)

GC: Hey, where did that come from??

(applause)

Thank you, quiet please.

NA: Pretty sweet.  You took a little turf.

I’m not going to tell you about that golf club yet, Robert.  Here’s another one: Swing it a couple of times and if something occurs to you: better, worse, same – shout it out.

(I hit an iron)

NA: That was pretty good; good trajectory, good contact.  Let’s hit one more.

GC: Must be the ball.

(I hit an iron)

NA: You’ll probably take more of a divot with this club but that’s not going to have a dramatic effect on your performance because the ball has already left the face by then.

GC: Dammit!

(laughter)

NA: Yeah, I know, it would be nice if it could make the flight better. Your tendency – because your path is a little across it – your tendency is to hit it almost heelward.  Again, this club, it’s a shorter blade, so that’ll help you.  I thought you did pretty well with this.

The only reason I’d go to a real forgiving club or the most forgiving option, is if I see the performance dramatically improve: it’s longer, it’s straighter, it’s easier to get up in the air.

But when I see essentially the same flight, if anything more consistency with this one, then I’d rather give you a golf club that also comes with some versatility, some playability, and some feel.  This is a Diablo forged.  That’s the Edge, which is the big, cast, game-improvement iron, big cavity back, big Moment of Inertia.

The Diablo is also a cavity back, but it’s a forged golf club, a little bit smaller, more compact, a little better out of the rough, a little easier to work, softer feel because of the material’s forged steel instead of cast steel.  So you can pick up some playability characteristics with this club that you would lose with the Edge and you’ll still get the same flight.  That’s why I like this one better.

GC: Playability?  Working the ball?

NA: It’s easier to draw or fade, easier to hit from under trees, easier to vary the trajectory, better out of the rough, it’s better at digging out of a hole.  So that’s where the bounce may come into play a little bit – if the ball is sitting down in a little bit of a hole and you’re trying to dig it out, this is going to get down underneath the ball a little bit better than that one.

GC: I see.  And the graphite versus…

NA: I haven’t figured that out yet.  That’s my next step.

GC: See?  I’m asking the right questions!

(laughter)

NA: You are. You’re right in line with the process.  I brought this out in case you liked this club head and it turns out, in my opinion, it’s an all-around better club for you.  That’s about an 80 gram shaft; this one’s about 110.  Flex-wise, you could call it a stiff regular or a soft stiff.  We call it uni-flex because that shaft works pretty well across a wide range of speeds.  It’s right on the threshold between regular and stiff.

(I hit an iron shot)

GC: That was my pull but it felt kind of interesting.

NA: Yeah, because you hit it real solid.

(I hit an iron shot straight right)

GC: That’s what we call “from the sublime to the ridiculous.”

NA: When I train other fitters, I say, “You’re going to watch everyone go through a series of shots.  What inevitably happens is they’re going to have a pattern.”  Like you: it’s either straight or a little bit of a pull.  It’s not uncommon after a pull, especially if it’s a pretty big pull, to see a compensating swing come after that.

We see that a lot.  I always tell my guys: “Don’t fit the compensation, fit the natural tendency to the best of your ability.”

GC: It’s like the judging in gymnastics: they throw out the high marks and low marks and go with the average.

NA: Yes. Essentially, everyone’s going to regress to the mean: you want to look at the average.

GC: Ok, so we’re all agreed that we’re tossing out that last swing.

(laughter)

NA: We are unanimous on that.

(laughter)

(I hit an iron shot)

GC: He’s got to like that one, Rossi!

NA: Yeah, that’s in play. It took Rossi, what, six or seven years before he quit telling people on the telecast that the guy wouldn’t get it on the green?

(laughter)

“I don’t see a way he can get this on the green.”  He knocks it to five feet.  That happened to Rosburg so many times.

GC: His famous line was, “He’s dead.”

NA: Yeah. “He’s got no chance.”

GC: But I love it when Roger Maltbie says, “It’s a great line, if it’s the right stick.”  And the guy is 20 yards short.  These guys just can’t keep quiet.  Just let us watch.

NA: What’s your initial impression of that steel shaft, Robert?  Is it really good or really bad?

GC: It doesn’t feel really bad.  There has been no really bad since I’ve been here.  The bottled water you gave me was a little warm, but other than that…

(laughter)

(I hit an iron shot)

(applause)

I like it!

NA: I do too.

GC: When I’m done, I’ll sign autographs, but not now.

NA: Ok.

GC: It feels, how can I describe this?  Compared to the most game-improving iron, I can feel it more.  The other one, it feels like I’m hitting it with a hunk of metal.

NA: Muffled almost?

GC: Yeah, “muffled” is a good way to describe it.  It’s funny, because for all these years I’ve been reading books and magazines and hearing interviews about  “feel” and “I’m a feel player” … it’s just over my head – I don’t know what the hell these guys are talking about.  I don’t know if that’s what I’m feeling now … but it does feel softer…

NA: I totally empathize with the vocabulary, the golf jargon …

GC: It’s hard to put this stuff into words.

NA: You get two guys that say they’re feel players.  One guy is a feel player in the sense that when he mis-hits it, he wants it to hurt, he wants it to vibrate.  He likes to understand exactly what’s happening with the golf club, where he’s impacting it on the face.  He wants that feel to be not disrupted  from the club head to his brain.

You get another guy that says he’s a feel player.  He just likes it to feel good all the time.  That’s a totally different type of feel.  As in, “when I mis-hit it, I don’t want it to vibrate, I want it to feel better, so give me a golf club that feels better than the one I’ve got now.”

They’re both saying the same thing, they’re using the same type of terminology but they’re on opposite sides of the spectrum as to what they were looking for.

So the second feel guy really wants a graphite shaft, a built-up grip, he wants a game-improvement iron that’s easy to hit.  He wants a tennis racket down there.  The first guy wants more of a forged blade: steel shaft, a thinner, harder grip.

With you, in terms of what happens with a steel shaft … is you’re hitting that club well, you’re making good contact with it.  What steel does, when you hit it solid, it feels really good, because it transmits that real solid feel up in your hands and arms – it’s very satisfying.  When you miss it, you’re going to feel more vibration.

With the graphite, it’s kind of all muffled.  The bad ones don’t feel horrible, but the good ones don’t feel awesome.

GC: That’s an excellent way of putting it.

NA: I think that’s what you probably feel about the steel shaft.  That’s because you’ve hit it well.  If you weren’t hitting it well, you might have said that it was real jarring.

You’re coming from steel, so you’re familiar with steel – that one may be a little lighter than what you’re used to.  I’m leaning towards steel for you because of a technical reason: forgetting everything you’ve told me, the reason I like it for you is because with steel, you tend to route the club more consistently.  You tend to have a better tempo; it appears you start your club down on plane more consistently.  It appears.  With graphite, with a lighter club, you probably don’t feel where it is in your swing as much and that’s – it’s very common for a guy that has that move you have, which is to rotate your shoulders before the club starts down and get it outside you and pull – it’s easier to do that when you have a lighter weight shaft.

GC: How do you take that line of thinking into the driver, when these days, you hardly ever see anyone use a steel shaft in a driver.

NA: One thing that’s taken care of with a longer club like a driver, is a lot of times, if you give a guy a graphite shaft in irons – especially when they’re coming from steel shafts like you are – it feels like a feather.  Then when we go into the longer clubs, there’s so much leverage when you swing them, there’s that natural swinging weight there, so it’s not like they think their driver feels too light with graphite.

The other thing is, people know you’re going for speed with a driver.  It’s more of a quantity distance you’re trying to get; whereas with an iron, it’s a quality distance – you’re trying to get the same distance all the time.

For most people, that first instinct to create great speed is not there with the irons.  With a driver, it’s “How far did it go?”

So they’re not going to think, “Oh, if I like a heavy iron shaft, I want a heavy driver shaft.”  There used to be a few pros who would hang in there with steel shafts with a shorter length, like 43 ½ inches.

But that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t give you a heavier graphite shaft in the driver.  Like instead of a 55 gram shaft, we might give you a 75 gram shaft.

GC: Getting back to the irons for a second.  That test they used to do, hitting off the plastic board, is that something you still do?

NA: Yeah, we look at that, too.  I get an initial idea on two things: ball flight and when you do take a divot, how does the club come through the grass?  But my computer in there tells me exactly what’s happening at impact to the n^th degree when you deliver the club to the ball.

It’ll be interesting for you to see, because it tells me a lot about your pure raw technique and what is the ball doing when it leaves the face: launch angle spin, which is really important for fitting your driver. But the computer will tell me the lie angle without you having to hit off a board.

The thing I don’t like about a board, is that it’s hard to get amateurs to hit down on a board in the same way they’d hit off the grass.

GC: Yes, it feels very weird hitting into plastic.

NA: Yeah, they don’t drive down through the shot like they’d do normally.  So it’s not the best representation.  At least inside off that mat in there, it’s a little more representative.  Not to mention, on the board, you get the measurement after the ball’s gone.  We get it right when you hit the ball.

GC: So is that the next step?  We go inside ?

NA: I want you to hit two more clubs: I want you to hit a hybrid because you said you don’t like them and I want to watch you hit a couple, just for fun.  And then I want you to hit a driver to see your initial trajectory.  Then we’ll go inside and get you on the computer.

(Nick goes inside to get some hybrids and drivers)

GC: (to Scott): So he wants me to hit the hybrid for fun.  Whose fun, I don’t know.

(laughter)

I hope you’re having some fun.

Scott: I am.  I’ve gone through the fitting process just recently.  And it’s always interesting to hear the feedback that someone else has because everyone swings differently.  Yeah, it’s interesting.

(Nick returns with the clubs)

NA: Ok, here’s a 4-hybrid.  You’ll probably hit it great, just based on the fact that you said you normally don’t hit them well.

GC: Psychology, Nick.

NA: Yep, you go to the doctor, and nothing hurts anymore.

(laughter)

(I hit the 4-hybrid)

(Nick whistles)

GC: Ok, wrap it up!

(laughter)

NA: How many do you want?

(laughter)

Yeah, if you take that club and you hit it with that kind of angle of attack, you’ll hit it great.  They don’t like the sweeping motion very much.

GC: No, they don’t.

NA: That iron sets up and plays more like a wood than probably the hybrids you’ve tried before.  The hybrids you’ve tried before – most hybrids out there – are pure iron replacements.  CG is up in the head, it’s fatter than an iron, obviously, but it looks like a little foot.

GC: Yeah.

NA: Whereas the one you hit is designed with the CG further off the face, it’s deeper from front to back. The CG is lower, so that’s going to play more like a wood.  So if you like woods, you’re more likely to like that hybrid than the other hybrids.  But you still need to come into that one steeper than you would with a wood.

(I hit the 4-hybrid)

GC: I pulled it.

NA: Yeah, that’s your patented shoulders-go-left-before-your-club-comes-down.  But good trajectory, good strike on the ball.

GC: Yes, I hit that solidly.

(I hit the 4-hybrid)

NA: Beautiful.

(applause from Scott)

NA: Ok, so let’s try to hit a 4-iron, just for comparison purposes.

GC: I can’t remember the last time I hit a 4-iron.

NA: Yeah, they’re almost dinosaurs now.  When I see someone with a 3 or 4-iron in a bag, it’s usually for when they’re chipping out from under a tree club.

(I hit the 4-iron)

(laughter)

GC: Mulligan!

(I hit the 4-iron)

NA: That was better.

(I hit the 4-iron)

GC: That was awful.

NA: Try it again.

(I hit the 4-iron)

GC: I want my Mommy!

(laughter)

NA: Alright, let me watch you hit a few drivers.  That’s just a 10-degree regular flex.  I want to see what kind of trajectory you get with it.

(I hit the driver)

GC: That’s my tendency with the driver – when I try to hit it too hard I’ll come out of my stance and block it.  But I don’t think it’s from coming over the top.

NA: What kind of driver do you have right now in your bag?

GC: Right now, I’ve got some sort of TaylorMade.

NA: What loft is it?  Is it 9 degrees?

GC: No! It might be 11 or 12.

NA: Really?

GC: Yeah.

NA: Ok.  That one there looks like it has too much loft on it, too.  Hit one more.

(I hit the driver)

NA: Good flight.  Just too high with the launch angle.  The spin’s not bad.  Hit one more out here and then we’ll go inside.

(Nick goes inside to get a new driver)

GC: (to Scott):  I thought my launch angle was just fine.

(laughter)

(Nick returns with a different driver)

NA: This is down to a 9.

GC: Don’t tell me!  Don’t tell me!  You’ll skew the results!

NA: I will skew the data.

(I hit the driver)

That’s more of the trajectory I want.  A little pull-draw, but that’s a nice penetrating flight, good spin rate, going forward, not straight up in the air.  I like that.

GC: Yeah, that felt good.  A little more boring.

(I hit the driver)

NA: That’s kind of more of what we want.  It launches up in the air ok, but then it kinds of flattens out at the apex, goes forward, doesn’t keep rising at the end, doesn’t have too much lift at the end, hits down and rolls a little bit.  I think that’s a good loft for you.  We’ll look at the launch and spin inside just to confirm that but I think that’s a good setup.  Hit one more.

GC: How far did I hit that? 300?

NA: 300 feet?

GC: Everyone’s a comedian.

(I hit the driver)

NA: A little heel-y with the open face but not a bad miss.

GC: Not a bad miss.  Let me give it one more pop.

(I hit the driver)

That felt more penetrating.  I liked that.

NA: Yeah, that was a good launch.  Grab your stuff and we’ll go into the torture chamber.

GC: (to Scott): How can I turn down an offer like that?

(laughter)

(We enter the Callaway Performance Testing Center)

Wow, look at this place!  Dr. Frankenstein, I presume?

(laughter)

NA: Ok, what’s happening technically in here – our stuff is pretty much all our proprietary stuff.  As long as you have consistent lighting conditions, then high-speed cameras are still probably the best at capturing spin.  Spin’s the most critical factor on the flight of the ball and so these cameras we use – you can see them on the ceiling above your head – those two cameras are focused on the ball as it leaves the tee.  That’s how it captures the event in 3D.  Two more cameras up there, looking right at that spot: as your club passes over, you’ll see the strobe go off.

Right here, it will take all the angles of the club: head speed, attack angle, loft, face angle, lie angle in degrees, more than you ever want to know about your club head delivery.

What separates an amateur from a pro is basically that right there: whether it’s Furyk’s backswing or Tiger’s backswing or Mickelson’s backswing, they all look different until they get to the ball … and then they all look the same.  All those numbers are the exact same.

The only difference is if a guy is trying to hit a high shot or a low shot … or if one guy plays a fade and another guy hits more of a draw, you’ll see those angles change ever so slightly.  But for the most part, that is the separating factor between an amateur and a professional.

That is something I can’t do much about.  If someone’s not in the middle of a lesson series with their pro, and I’m fitting them for clubs, and they ask me, “Ok, you’re fitting me for clubs, how can I swing better?”  I’ll mention how they deviate from the optimum.  And I’ll refer them back to their pro.

But that’s something we can’t do.  What we try to do is to give you a golf club, based on your delivery, that can help you get the best possible performance out of it.

GC: I’ve gone through about eight different swings in the last 12 years.  It seems I always try and start a new one a week before I get fitted for golf clubs.

(laughter)

But now I’ve reached calmness in my golfing life.  I have one thought in my head that I’m sticking to.  And it’s to take up bowling.

(laughter)

But the data we’ll see today; if I came back in two months, it would be the same data.

NA: Ok, give her a rip – right at the pink doorway on the screen in front of you.

GC: Oh, the pink doorway in one of the rooms facing the 18^th fairway at Pebble Beach.  You know, I think I might have actually hit that door once with my third shot.

(laughter)

(I hit the driver into “Pebble Beach”)

NA: That sounded like pretty good contact.  Wow!  Right off the bat!  Oh, but he left the face open.

GC: Dammit!

NA: I got excited about that one.

(laughter)

You see the upper right hand corner of the computer screen?  See where the ball is centered right on the face?  That’s where you made contact.  The red circles are where the pros make contact.  You’re 4 millimeters off – that is awesome.  Believe me, that is a good strike on it.

GC: If only Mr. Callaway were here to see this.

NA: Yeah, he’d be very proud of you.

GC: Actually, I think Mr. Callaway would have me thrown out of here.

(laughter)

NA: So of all those numbers – what do you think caused that ball to go to the right?  Because everything’s pretty good up there except for one tiny thing that stands out. It’s a different color, I’ll say that, too.

GC: Don’t give me hints!

(laughter)

But I was going to say the face angle.

NA: You got it.

GC: The face looks a little open.

NA: You got it.  Everything is pretty much right out of the manual.

GC: I’m not looking to make excuses, but I think at impact, I felt these strobe lights going off and at the very last nanosecond…

NA: You just flinched the face open?

GC: I might have.

NA: It’s kind of like a camera going off in Tiger’s backswing.

GC: Exactly.  Or someone in LaJolla texting in my backswing.  But that’s fabulous technology you’ve got here.

NA: It’s really cool because it gives you good feedback as to what’s going on.  It’s not only in terms of fitting the club; we’re looking at your technique and your signature as to how you apply the club to the ball, physics wise.

When you look at the flight outside, it’s the net result of a number of things that come into play.  It is all those angles of attack: the path angle, the loft, the hit location on the face, it’s all that stuff.  And it’s hard to diagnose that – if there’s nine things happening that cause that one ball flight, which of the nine things were good and which were bad?  Maybe they were all good; maybe one thing was bad but it wasn’t important enough to make the whole shot bad.

So when you can break up the variables like this … when I get a pro in here, he’ll say, “Man, I was hitting it great last month and I’m not hitting it good now.”  Well, we can look at his data from the past and help get him back on track.

GC: So in my case, where the face angle is 9 degrees open, you’re looking for 0 degrees, completely square?

NA: Well, fairly close.  You want those numbers to be small. Let’s say you came 3 degrees from the inside with your path and you got your face to zero; it would be 3 degrees closed compared to the path and you’ll hit a pretty big hook.

What you want is the path to be fairly neutral – 1 or 2 degrees.  And you want the face angle to be pretty close to what your path was.

Looking at your data: you didn’t cut across it, your path is good – 2 degrees from the inside, a positive number.  If you were cutting across it, it would be negative. Closure rate is good.  Face angle is a little open, impact was awesome.  You put plenty of loft on the club, that’s why I’m surprised you have an 11 or 12 degree driver.  You really don’t need that much loft on your driver because you come in pretty shallow.  Outside, we saw that your trajectory was very nice with a 9 degree driver.

GC: I’ve always been known for being shallow.

(laughter)

NA: And superficial.

(laughter)

GC: And superficial.  If my grandmother were alive to hear about my impact number, she would have been so proud.

NA: Yes, you finally made something of yourself.

(laughter)

GC: So my club head speed was 88.  What do tour players swing at? 120?

NA: No, on this type of machine, the PGA Tour average is going to be about 111.  But you did well, you were only off on face angle.  I would give you a pretty standard set up.  This face is reasonably square with a fairly neutral CG, just a standard 9 degree.  Then, probably, I’d go with a regular flex.

GC: The last set of Callaway irons I bought – some X-20s – I got them at Golf Galaxy.  I was hitting them into their screen with their launch monitor.  At the time, I had a very upright swing.

NA: Do you mean lie angle?

GC: I think so; I think he bent the clubs for me.

NA: You probably have an upright lie.  We’ll check it; we’ll hit an iron here in a minute. That’s when that lie angle becomes super important; we look at that number.  Lie’s not important with woods because they don’t have enough loft to have lie affect them.

Alright, give it a rip.  The first one was pretty good.

GC: I can’t get better than the first swing.  This pressure is killing me!

(laughter)

(I hit a driver)

NA: You could get the face angle a little more square.  Everything else was perfect.  I will say this: we do rank these categories in order of importance.  And the most important category up there is face angle.  Directionally, it’s about 85% of the equation.  So if you’re going to miss anything up there, face angle is one you least want to miss.

GC: Hey, what was the name of the guy that won the Masters this year?

NA: Yeah, tall left-handed guy?

GC: Yeah, that’s him.  How’s his face angle when he comes in here?

NA: Within 1 degree.  But here’s the deal with a great player like Mickelson: on this machine, he’s in the 119-120 range. One degree off at his speed is much worse than one degree off at yours and my speed.

(I hit the driver)

Sounded nice and solid.  Let’s see what the face angle did here.  Oooh, he’s shaving it down!  Pretty good contact, bumped the speed up 2 mph, attack angle was perfect, the path angle was perfect, shaved that face angle down from 9 to 6 degrees.

(applause)

GC: School’s over. Class dismissed.  I’m off to the Champions Tour Q School.

(laughter)

NA: I want you to give me one more swing.

GC: I just can’t satisfy you guys!

(I hit the driver)

NA: Not bad.  Face is still hanging a little bit open.  I believe you can easily go to a 9 degree driver.  Ok, let’s hit a couple of iron shots.

(I hit an iron)

GC: That felt …

NA: … a little chunky?

GC: Chunky.

NA: Yeah, your attack angle is 10 degrees positive. That means it struck the mat before it struck the ball.

GC: Oh, I thought you wanted me to drop kick it.

(laughter)

(I hit an iron)

NA: That sounded cleaner, but still toe-y.  Let’s see.  No, that wasn’t bad.  Attack angle was better – negative.  Yeah, a little bit upright on the lie angle.   But you want to be careful about that; here’s where lie becomes kind of tricky: the computer is saying at impact, your toe is a little bit down. So in theory, to have it perfectly level we should bring that toe up 3 degrees, and I think we should bring it up some for sure.

But I want to be careful that I don’t take the golf club and make it more of a club that tends to exacerbate your standard miss.  But I would go at least 2 degrees upright just so the club is coming through the ball relatively level.

GC: So what that guy saw at Golf Galaxy was …

NA: …Correct.  And if you do an antiquated method where you just hit a board with some impact tape on the club, you’re getting a reading.  Not to the degree that the computer is showing you.  But it will show you trends.  But here, it’s a bit tighter with our recommendation.  But a Mickeleson or a pro wants to be absolutely spot on so this is a good way to do that.

Your path angle is good though: 5 degrees from the inside; that went down 2 degrees.  Club head speed is 77, well within the speed range for that steel shaft, so I’m comfortable with that.  That shaft works well from the low 70s to the upper 80s. Closure rate is good, face angle is about the same as path, so that’s fine

Ok, one more swing, please and then I’ll be done torturing you.

GC: This is not torture.  This is great fun.  Playing golf … that’s torture!

(I hit the iron)

NA: Excellent!  That was a nice little draw, good trajectory, attack angle: negative 3.  Like we said outside, you’re a little shallow, but not bad.  The pros are negative 5, you’re negative 3 so you’re doing pretty good.  You’re just slightly shallower than them, that’s why you started taking a little bit of a divot outside when you had a narrower sole golf club.

GC: So if I could get a little more negative?

NA: You’d be a pro!

(laughter)

GC: Now explain to me how these guys swing so fast and yet it looks like they’re hardly doing anything.

NA: It’s because they hold the angle between their arm and the club, they hold that a lot longer than amateurs do.  They get really deep into the downswing with that angle held and then at last minute they release it.  They wait longer to “crack the whip.”

GC: So how does one learn how to do that?

NA: It’s not a positional thing as much as a timing thing.  You can sit there and look in the mirror and say, “I can do that.”

GC: But as soon as there’s a ball in front of you…

NA: Yeah, you go, “wam!”  The reason that happens is because your brain has a certain timing built in of when you need to sequence everything to get the club on the ball.  It’s almost a Zen thing , a Yoda thing.  You have to say to yourself: “I don’t care where the ball goes, I’m gonna pretend not to care about the ball.”  It’s a delayed hit or a lag.  It will feel like you never released it when you first do it properly.

It will feel really powerful.  The ball will take off, you’ll generate another … just holding the angle on the downswing 12 more inches, you can generate 5 more mph club head speed, which is 8 mph ball speed, which is 15 yards … just like that!

It’s a cool feeling when you first do it; the ball just explodes off the face.  But you have to trick your brain to do it right the first time.  You have to pretend there’s no ball there.  And that’s a Zen thing.  You can’t just say, “I’m gonna hold the angle.”  That doesn’t work.

GC: Ok, back to the fitting process.  We hit driver, we hit irons, you looked at my numbers, now what?

NA: Based on what I’ve seen today, I think you’re a good guy to stay in steel shafts, but not a real heavy steel shaft.  Kind of at the upper end of regular flex.  I like the forged head for you; it gives you the best of all worlds.  I thought you hit it real solid outside; trajectory was good, nice divot pattern, good angle of attack for that club.  Good forgiveness, forged has a nice, soft feel, and very workable.  It looked like our hybrid you’ve hit better than the other hybrids you’ve tried.

GC: Yes.

NA: I’d probably go down to the 5-iron, then 4 hybrid, and then you can go into the woods from there.  And then I would match up the woods to the driver in terms of the model.  I’d go 3,5,7 wood.  Driver?  9 degree, no problem.

GC: We didn’t talk about wedges.

NA: It’s a personal preference…

GC: Let me ask about wedges and the new conforming grooves thing.

NA: I would go ahead and put you in the conforming grooves.  You’re inevitably going to get into some sort of controversy at the local club level with someone who’s going to accuse you of using clubs that are legal but somehow not legal.

(laughter)

GC: You’re absolutely right. Now what about bending the irons 2 or 3 degrees?

NA: I’d go a couple with you.

GC: Would you do the same thing with the wedges?

NA: Oh, yeah.  I’d match the wedges up for sure.  Standard length throughout the set would work fine for you.  A little upright on the irons through the wedges.  And whatever lofts you’d want for the wedges.

GC: So would this have been a pretty typical fitting session that we’ve just gone through?

NA: Pretty standard.  Yes.

GC: What would be the next step when the guy says, “Ok, I love these clubs, make me a set.”

NA: It would go through a retail outlet.  We’re almost like a car manufacturer in that we make the product but don’t sell it directly to the public.  So you’d go through your local golf pro, your pro shop, wherever your local retail store is that you like to work with.

GC: So you just give them specs and they’d order it?

NA: Yes.  What we’ve done here is a little less official because we don’t do a lot of fittings here.  We mostly fit tour pros and do testing at this facility.  But anyone can go up to headquarters here in Carlsbad and get fit.  It’s inside a room, same kind of equipment as we have here.  It’s a 45-minute process.

Scott: There are 14 retail locations across the U.S. as well as the fitting location here at headquarters.

GC: So Phil can drop by almost anytime.  Does he have a key to the place?

NA: It’s funny, I don’t know if he does or not.  I think he has to call and someone has to be here to let him in.  I’ll tell you what’s cool about Phil coming by — aside from the fact that he’s a nice guy and really fun to work with.  If I’m working with someone like yourself and they don’t expect it, and they turn around, they might be hitting balls next to Mickelson.

GC: That would be something.  But I wouldn’t want Phil to see me swing – it might mess him up. But he is a class guy; ya gotta love him. How often do pros come through here?

NA: It depends on where the tours are playing.  If they’re in California playing in a tournament, we see them a lot.  In the off season, they’re getting ready for the next year; ideally, we’d like them to play the most current stuff we have.  We know what their specs are so we’ll build them new products.  They’ll fly in and spend two or three days here.

GC: This was a lot of fun and quite educational.  You are very good at what you do, Nick.  Very articulate and well spoken.  Thank you for spending this time with  me.  And thanks to all the great folks at Callaway.