I am pleased to say that in the next several weeks, we will be revamping our website to make it easier for you to find all the information that you’re looking for. Keep an eye out for this new, fresh look.
In this letter: • We ask you to participate in another survey, to determine what is “Frankly The Best” Ball. • We have the results of your vote regarding a possible reduction in how far the ball goes. • A simple explanation of MOI (Moment of Inertia) and how the USGA continues to introduce and propose equipment regulations with only the elite golfer in mind, ignoring 95% of the golfing population. We also ask for your opinion (Vote) about whether you think these regulations are in the best interests of the game and if the USGA is properly representing us. • Growing the Game Report: Phase I. This summarizes the results of 14,400 U.S. responses from concerned golfers, telling us why they play, why they think golf is not growing, and what type and length courses they prefer to play. It also include comments and suggestions on how to proceed from here. (Future reports will include results from the 4000 additional responses from around the world.) • We also have some Frankly Frog News, introducing our Pink and Black Frankly Frog putters -- as well as the inside scoop on why the Frankly Frog wasn’t on Golf Digest’s “Hot List” I hope you will enjoy this newsletter and spend as long as you
need to frankly become better informed. |
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IN THIS JANUARY 2006 ISSUE:
RESULTS OF "Frankly The Best"--What is the best driver?
"Frankly The Best"-- What is the best golf ball?
RESULTS OF "A Shorter Ball: What do you think?"
Growing the Game Report: Phase I RESULTS
Frankly Frog News: Pink and Black Frogs available!
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Frankly Friends Newsletter Archive
2005 |May|
2004 Archive |January| February| March/April|July |September/October|December |
2003 |December|November| September|
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Driver
In our last Newsletter we asked our Frankly Friends to help us identify the best driver by answering a few questions about what they use and how they rated it. We then asked Mark Broadie, a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, and Bob Christina, Dean Emeritus School of Health and Human Performance University of North Carolina, to help us review the responses. The List of how our Frankly Friends rated the drivers is below: we suggest that you review the details at the link provided for some interesting related information. Those who helped us by responding to the survey got an advance copy of these results. In this letter, we are asking our Frankly Friends to rate the balls they play, and we’ll provide to those who respond an advance copy of the results before we publish them in the next newsletter. What is the best driver? The Brands listed below had the highest level of satisfied customers. We have separated the replies into handicap ranges. Handicap range 0 to 10 Handicap range 11 to 20 Handicap range 21+
Scratch to 10 handicap golfers 11 to 20 Handicap range 21+ Handicap range Women of all Handicaps We will do this survey again toward the end of the season to update
the ratings and include any new drivers. ______________________________ |
Our next assignment: ANALYSIS IN PROGRESS, PLEASE CHECK NEXT NEWSLETTER FOR RESULTS ! We have a short questionnaire for you, our Frankly Friends to complete. As a thank you for taking part, we will give you FREE access to our Golf Ball Equipment Essential Report. If you want to receive an advance copy of the results when they
become available, please indicate this at the end of the survey.
The results will be published in the next Newsletter. ______________________________
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| Results
of Your Vote: regarding the USGA’s proposal to reduce
the distance the ball goes. (See last newsletter for the background..click
here)
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What
is MOI?
In golf, MOI comes most into play on imperfect contact, when the ball and the clubface meet someplace other than the sweet spot. But the simplest way to illustrate the concept is to put golf aside for a moment, and consider a weightlifter like Stick Man, below. In the sketch on the left below, Stick Man has the weights on the bar close to his body. He will find it relatively easy to twist the bar on his shoulders, because the MOI of the bar is relatively low. The Stick Man on the right will find it more difficult to twist the bar back and forth. The bar weighs the same, but because the weights are spread apart to the end of the bar, the bar has a high MOI – in other words, it resists twisting. That’s all we mean by MOI.
Similarly, in designing a driver, if we move weight
from the center of the club head to the toe and heel it will increase
the MOI and resist twisting at impact. Mishits will fly straighter,
and the club will be more forgiving when ball contact is made away
from the center toward the toe or heel. It will feel like it has
a BIGGER SWEET SPOT. In hollow metal woods, the weight is all in the
shell and as far away from the center of gravity of the head as
possible. This gives it a high MOI and makes it very forgiving of
mishits, something most of us can relate to. The forgiveness in
these big heads enlarges the effective sweet spot in all directions
on the face – up and down as well as side to side. This is
why manufacturers have been making driver heads obscenely big and
as forgiving as possible. Because it is so light, titanium has allowed the
club head to grow without adding so much weight that it becomes
uncontrollable. As an added benefit, its strength allows the face
to be made thin enough that it actually deforms and springs back
during impact, acting like a spring or trampoline. The USGA, because of its concern about how far elite
golfers -- the best male amateurs and tour professionals -- are
hitting the ball, set a limit of 470 cc on the size of a driver’s
head. It had no real evidence to support its concern, only anecdotal
evidence. (While I was Technical Director, I often had to respond
to anecdotal claims of a magic club or ball that added 20 yards
to a golfer’s game. These claims – almost always “20
yards” – never held up to scientific scrutiny.) To avoid
criticism, the USGA hid behind the “traditional and customary”
clause: ‘It was just not traditional to have heads any bigger.’
(I sometimes think the real reason was that the USGA didn’t
want to offend or get sued by the manufacturers who couldn’t
make head covers any bigger than that size.) When William Tell took aim at the apple on his son’s
head, he was preparing to fire a bow and arrow. Today, the vast
majority of golfers stand in the place of Tell’s son, and
the elite minority are the apple sitting atop our head. The USGA
is aiming at the apple, but unfortunately for us it has a double-barreled
shotgun in its hands. I don’t have to tell you what the results
are going to look like. Ninety-nine percent of the golfing population doesn’t
hit the ball far enough. Research shows that the average male golfer
(a 90-to-95 shooter) drives the ball 192 yards, though we think
we hit our average drive 30 to 40 yards farther than that. A rule
that is trying to reduce distance will hurt the vast majority of
golfers more than it does the elite. But even more than distance, we need all the forgiveness we can get because, unlike the elite 0.001%, we don’t always or usually hit the sweet spot. Bigger does not mean longer, though it generally means more forgiving. Distance is not size dependent, or dependent on MOI. COR (Coefficient of Restitution), or spring like effect, is to some degree, but most clubs are already at the COR limit, and this is most effective when impact occurs exactly on the sweet spot.
In explaining the reasoning for this proposal,
the USGA has admitted the truth about its head size limitation:
The distance that elite golfers are hitting the ball must be harnessed.
‘A high MOI will encourage the superstar to swing harder without
concern’. So the rest of us are being penalized for what the
pros may be tempted to do. We, who don’t often hit the center
of the face and thus need maximum forgiveness, must accept restrictions
on the amount of help our club designers will be able to provide.
Make no mistake – this is what restricting
MOI means. The forgiveness built into a club means much less to
the pros than it does to us; if this were not true, pros would use
perimeter-weighted irons instead of blades. They don’t need
the measure of forgiveness the way we do. Yet this is what the MOI
issue is really about, or should be. Does it make much sense for
the USGA to limit this forgiveness property? It seems reasonable to conclude from these recently adopted rules and proposals (including consideration of a ball which goes 25 yards shorter) that the USGA has lost touch with the majority of the golfers who play the game. In regulating equipment whose primary effect is to help the average golfer, the USGA is endangering the future health of the game, which has been declining for the past decade. (Click here to see www.GrowingTheGame.org for my report of the analysis of our survey, to which 18,400 concerned golfers responded.)
"Courses are too long so what
have I done to deserve this?" What seems to be happening is that the USGA is adopting a form of damage control to reassert its relevance in the equipment arena. It is playing catch-up after the bad, litigation-inspired decision in 1998 to permit the spring-like effect -- which the rules explicitly prohibit -- that has allowed tour professionals to make extraordinary gains in distance (over 25 yards) in the last 10 years. Examples of this alarming behavior are the following proposals and/or decisions to limit: The length of a tee.The size of the head. The maximum dimensions of certain club heads. The length of a club (except for a putter.) A reduction in distance of the ball and NOW This is not good for the game of golf or for the USGA. A governing body needs the support of its constituents if it is going to lend order, stability, and sound leadership to the game. It maintains its leadership only though our following of its dictates and from the respect of the governed – that is, you and me. We are not being properly represented and we should let them know. I’m not saying we should violate the rules, even when we think they’re silly, but let’s persuade the USGA to stop making these shortsighted rules to rein in the very elite who can as easily be controlled by alternative course design and setup rather than restrictive equipment regulation that has its greatest affect on the rest of us. ______________________________
Frankly, What Do You Think? Time to have your say. Click below to complete our survey re. the above article. We will report the results in the next newsletter. Click here to tell us what you think! Thank you for your input it will be helpful in changing direction of our guardian’s thinking if necessary and thus build more confidence and respect for this essential body, the USGA. ______________________________
Growing the Game Thank you for your support. We will initiate Phase II within the next month, and at its conclusion ask for your support to help implement the recommendations. Click here for the report “Growing the Game” Phase I ______________________________
The latest “Hot List” published in the most recent edition of Golf Digest is a good read and informative, but don’t look for the Frankly Frog there. The Frog was disqualified from consideration by the editorial staff because the designer is the Chief Technical Advisor to Golf Digest, and the magazine wanted to make sure that there was not even a hint of a conflict of interest. We suspect the real hidden reason is that the Frankly Frog is “Too Hot” for the Hot List -- especially now that it is offered in Pink and Black. The basic design is of course unchanged; the designer, who has seen and passed judgments on more putters than any golf club designer in the world, believes it is the best and most effective putter anyone can create. Please check it out and see what others are finding out about building confidence on the greens. Click here to find out how to “Grip It And Ribbit” ______________________________
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