Desert Permit

A mate found out I'm wintering in Phoenix and turns me onto sweet desert flyfishing. In the land of no natural rivers (washes don't count), meter long carp roam the miles of concrete waterways that bring water from the Colorado River to swimming pools, the suburban american dream of metropolis. The carp are sight fished, big, strong and finicky. Perfect.

I'm in an idle loop, so went searching for them. On the first try, no go. Too cold. No bugs or popcorn on the surface. But now know they're there. Found the local good fly shop in the process. Note to self: need proper shades for peeking into the water once eyes stabilize. Will be back.

More info on the fetish from Jeff Currier here.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Back to the Grind

No shit. Back at Building 105 and find smashed pengie in the parking lot. The Callaway guys must have been here (posted this in secretinthedirt.com thinking funny and folks thumbed me down, like folks that don't grok Elk slag him on twitter).

Club mods are done, the shafts now the right length, and the swing weights back to normal. Well, almost. They couldn't find sand and lob wedge heads light enough to bring their swing weight into the range requested. Kudos to the crew for trying. Yet, still got a problem.

The person helping me in Building 105 is so awesome. Unlike folks that are customer facing in most companies, she 1) listens, 2) engages to understand and 3) offers options and solutions. While thumbs down to Mr. Ping on obfuscating the swing weight issue in the fittings, double thumbs up and a bonus to her for being awesome.

We can go shorter on the shafts, but that renders the club fitting process useless, so that's a no. Then it turns out Ping does custom grinds on irons. So that detour a while back into the world of bounce now has meaning to enable the design of my own grinds to reduce weight, while at same time providing an interesting oppy to design my own grinds for specific situations. Back to the Tube for insights.

So decided to grind a lot off the lob (bounce, back and heel for tight lies and opening the face) and some off the sand (back and heel), and a bit off the other two wedges to balance the feel. Was fun shaping where to grind the soles with a marker. Fortunately, the set of wedges the Doc prescribed have big fat soles and plenty of bounce to start with. And if this doesn't work, still got the coordinates for Planet Wedge (and I have my own grinder). There's still maybe some gapping issues with the wedges due to the mods, but futzing with loft tweaks now is way premature. One step at a time...

Another work order, and more Dalai Lama time til done.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

More Stuff

Golf instructors lecture in videos shot from either a face-on view, or what they call down the line (DTL) view. After countless hours of watching one or the other, started to crave some eye candy. So, decided to make some.

Brick and mortar still serves up instant gratification. At Best Buy, snagged a 3DR Solo drone and mount for the GoPro (they call it a gimbal). It's awesome bit of kit. Easy to put together, charge up, and fly. Kind of.

First try, the drone launched, flew up to 10m and hovered. Standard take off. Then, when first instructed to move a bit, it tilted sideways then did an Icarus back to earth. No idea why. Props flew off to god knows where. OK. Razor blades (in more ways than one). Order more. Repeat.

Once past the nubie mistakes, things got a bit easier. And more fun. Here's the first bit of footage made looking just at the iPhone live feed and being a bird. 400 feet up, about half mile away, High winds, so a bit wobbly but still, it was neat-o.

Free bird, baby.

Ordered more interesting add-on kit. Pretty sure it'll get difficult again. Stay tuned.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Ka-Shhh-uuu...

Nothing quite like taking the new car back to get fixed before you've had a chance to take it out for the first fun ride in the sun. Still doing the Dalai Lama. Been chipping every day. Grip getting comfortable. Starting to sneak swiping a few out over the range. Getting itchy to start hitting balls. Patience grasshopper. Luckily cold and rainy so kill time prepping for the day hitting them is permitted. Back to the Tube

There I found Martin Chuck, who invented this cool training club. In my youth, had an opportunity to watch one pro tournament, and at the range marveled how the professionals got that "Ka-Shh-Uuu" strike sound and ball flight that kinda zinged out and up and floated. I remember Gary McCord (now technically a neighbor, though he has no clue who I am) entertaining folks with his trick shots. Thanks to Martin, finally understood the proper impact condition for that pro strike. Aha.

Watched all of Martin's videos and loved his simple, practical way of explaining and teaching the strike. No jargon. No voodoo. Easy Canuk demeanor. His students must love him. Now to go find my own version of that strike by doing. After the initial grip and chip phase is done, gonna work on groking the aspects of that strike, then work backwards the steps to deliver it.

When I first arrived in Phoenix late at night, found temporary quarters in south Phoenix. In the morning, found the Raven Golf Club next door with a nice range. A month later, I find out he's the pro there. Another omen.

(via Jiro on iPhone)

Building 105

The net sends me to Building 105 at Ping HQ where they run their repair and mod center. Pitch the story of the submitting to the (free) fitting process across the street, explain my journey, show the graphs and propose the mods needed for the clubs. Expecting the "product wasn't intended to do that so we can't help you or give you any advice" response, which is what the SquareSpace support people tell me.

Cut the shaft lengths back to normal: no problem. Great. Make pitching, gap, sand and lob wedge all same length as 9 iron: no problem. Great!

I raise the whole swing weight issue with the shorter irons and ask why the fitting Doc (whom I implicitly trusted) kinda side stepped my question. As expected, turns out that the club heads are mass produced, so inevitably the clubs just feel heavier as the shaft length increases. This message is obfuscated in the fitting process and the tall customer with fitted clubs now feels something is wrong with him (or her) as in I'm weak and I suck, which is also kinda true. Ping is a business, so they can't fix the mass production process, but at least tell customers that trust you during the fitting process with the Doc. That's a gap, and Mr. Ping needs force innovation to solve the problem by calling it out.

The surprise, however, is that without the Japanese obsession with 0.001%, there's significant variance in the weight of club heads that come out of the casting process. So it's possible to cherry pick club heads that are six sigma light, and use those to bring the swing weights down on the loftier but longer shafted short irons. Sometimes imperfection begets happier customers.

Work order entered. Time to go practice some patience while waiting for the rebuild.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Vario-Fit

The method used to fit clubs for taller folk is to make every club a bit longer (as shown by the various dotted lines on the graphic above). Not knowing any better, common sense says to just vary the lengths of short irons as needed to accommodate any extra height in the player. Coined it Vario-Fit (ting). The longer clubs stay standard length to keep them easier to hit and the whole recipe simpler to implement.

So, decided to Vario-Fit myself (how I'm gonna cut them is another matter). Picked the shortest club I felt comfortable with and not scrunched (9 iron, or the hinge club), and made all the clubs shorter than that the same length as the hinge club. Kinda semi-DeChambeau. Plotted out, the new specifications look like this compared to the Eye-2s and the properly fitted G30s:

Given how the clubs are mass produced, there's still gonna be an issue with the pitching wedge down to lob wedge as those heads are manufactured too heavy for a longer than "standard" shaft length, so they'll still have the lumberjack heavy swing weight problem.

One step at a time...

(via Jiro on iPhone)

Seeking Truth

Having at least understood the excessive swing weight issue, looked at the lengths of my new clubs. The new G30 4 iron looks and feels scary long (in addition to heavy). Compared them to my Eye-2s and they aren't even close. So I made some measurements and plotted out the length of each iron (on the vertical axis) versus the loft angle of each club. Did it for both the old Eye-2s and the newly fitted G30s. It looks like this:

The first shocker is that my new 4 iron is almost like a Ping Eye2 2 iron! Even I know long irons are hard to hit. My newly fitted 4 iron is just a 2.5 iron (and a heavier one at that) in disguise. No wonder you can put a G30 4 iron onto a mechanical golf swing robot and it flies farther (for the marketing folks sake). Except the machine is infinitely strong, which is the flaw in that.

So pondered this for a bit. Why need longer irons in the first place (forget for a moment the Doc said so)? If you think about it, for the people, shaft length only matters for the shorter irons so a tall person doesn't have to scrunch down so much. That's about it.

At the Doc, the G30 7 iron flew 15 yards further than my old 7 iron because it was, in fact, like my old 6 iron. It makes sense now.

Getting closer, but problem still not solved.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Bit of Geek

Ask google about golf club heft, and eventually you're lead to the concept of swing weight (and in the other corner, MOI). Read a bit, basically grok'd the concept, crossed paths with guru Tom Wishon and ended up buying a swing weight machine to put numbers to it.

Turns out my G30s are really head-heavy. Way more than the D0 swing weight of my Eye 2's and the advertised D0 swing weight of the G30s. Turns out that the longer you extend the shaft, swing weight increases and so does the feeling of heft. My wedges were really heavy, in the E range (D's goes fro0 up to 9, then to E zero and continues). So, by going through club fitting and getting longer than "standard" clubs, ended up with really heavy feeling clubs. Taller doesn't mean stronger.

It gets weirder. The Doc that fitted me said to not worry about swing weight. So assumed that meant I'd be getting standard D0 swing weight clubs. Turns out the steel heads of the irons are the same regardless of the fitting you get, so there's no way to avoid getting heavier clubs if you get fitted and are taller than "standard". Of course, if they're really custom made, then it's not an issue, but clubs for the people are mass produced.

So followed Crossfield's advice, got fitted, and ended up with leaden clubs. At least now I understand the cause of the excessive heft. Read on the net that Popeye-armed pros play about D3 swing weight irons. Sigh.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Arrival

Next clutch of penguin eggs have hatched. Hurried to Ping HQ corporate lobby to pick up the new clubs. How fun!

The look is kinda emo Klingon. I liked the industrial minimal look of the Eye 2s. G30s are not very Bauhaus and will take some getting used to. Still, it's the blue pill the Doc prescribed so if they play as promised, who cares? Brain runs ahead chasing fantasies like a dog on a bird hunt.

Dashed to the range to try them out. Got a bag of balls, undid the rubber bands holding them together, and picked up the lob wedge to try a few. Felt heavy as a lead hammer. My old Eye2 irons are D0 (I think) and I like how they feel. Tried another club. Heavy. Heavy. Tried the longest iron. Heavy and super long. Not exactly the easy to hit feeling I was expecting.

A bit baffled. This is the result of getting properly fitted for clubs? Or, maybe this is how clubs should be, and the Eye2's are defectively light and short. Shit. Back to the present.

Easy to react and complain. Or, dash to Dr. Trackman for answers. Better to do some research. Off to the net.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Da Bounce

Poking your head into the world of chipping and pitching leads to the topic of wedges, which is the man hole to the Cambrian explosion on Planet Wedge. What's all this talk about bounce? More numbers.

I know just a wee bit about bounce. It's that angle on the bottom of the sand wedge that deflects the club up in bunker shots so it doesn't bury itself.

Reading up on bounce, and it's sidekick the grind, learned a lot about how to use bounce. The coolest is to bounce the club up into the ball, basically a fat shot on purpose to pop the ball up out of crud. Or, when bounce will thin the strike on tight firm lies, hence you want no bounce.

So it seems you want three kinds of bounce: none, some and a lot. That covers the various situations and how bounce can be a tool, if creatively applied.

Got it. Yet, not smart enough to grok the concave grinds.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Drone Digression

Been surfing the golf courses across the planet. There, encountered Mr. Drone and the free-as-bird footage flowing down the fairways and hovering the greens. Seems made for golf courses.

Watched Bubba knock them out of the air with a golf shot. Like killing birds for kicks. He must be so good.

Have to get one (rather, replace, but this blog is an escape from that other reality). Making drone-enabled content looks way fun.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Begin (RE)PROGRAMMING

Shoes on. Check. Carefully apply new grip. Feels totally awkward.

While waiting for the G30's to be made, decided to just chip til the grip feels normal. As a youth, chipping and pitching was just slower, smaller versions of hitting the ball. YouTube and Phil Mickelson (and his short game guru Dave Pelz) taught me how to chip (at least in one school) properly - hinge and hold.

Wow. What a difference.

Then poked around for insight on the short shot stance. I've always heard to play it off the back foot. Elk gave me the insight that it's still off the inside of the left foot if you just imagine the right leg not being there, since the right foot is positioned wherever for feel. Another aha.

Chip til my back hurts. Stop. Repeat. Til grip feels normal. Days go by...
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Get a Grip

Watched a lot of the videos on what the proper grip should be. In the end, followed Elk and Burke's recipe for the grip because they uniquely showed me how to construct the grip and why. Feels a bit weird compared to holding a baseball bat.

The net also taught me that not all grips (on the club) are the same size. Makes so much sense yet never knew that. Found some midsize grips that fit my hands (at least by various YouTube recipes). Chose Winn wraps to start.  Hands not calloused enough for the all season, all wheel drive man grips used on the tour. These felt comfy yet secure when holding it the new way - lightly. Another first for me.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Fit Shack

Crossfield says get properly fitted. Fine.

Lug my Eye-2s to their home, the fitting center at Ping HQ in Phoenix. Where else? Free fittings for residents, they say.

Explain my golf journey, and the swing doctor walks me into the exam room and asks for a few with my current 7 iron. Whack a handful from a cushy green mat. I'm shown on a computer how far (and all of those Trackman-ish details) and how they're grouped. I'm surprised they're all on the green. 152 yard average.

Doc measures me and says I need longer clubs than standard. Turns out "standard black dot" for a Ping Eye 2+ is for someone about 5 foot 6. Next, I've a white dot, half inch longer club in my hand and hit a few as he requests. 167 yards. Shots show up grouped tighter on the green. All my shots ended up on the green again. Nicely weird. Doc reminds me of the value of fitting and how the new clubs are clearly better, hands me a prescription and sends me to a dealer to buy them. G30s. White Dot. Plus 1/2 inch. Stiff shaft.

I ask about which swing weight. He says don't worry, just stick to the standard. Sometimes just going with the flow takes you to some interesting spaces. OK.

Longer time to drive to the golf shop than doing the whole fitting. From a customer point of view, seem easier to just buy them there and Ping can send a bonus check to the dealer. Time to buy the shit at Vans Golf Shop after handing them the script took longer than the doc visit. So, throw a dart, pick a dealer and throw him a bone, for the customer's sake. Everyone still makes their buck and the customer wins.

Despite the weird process, still so far so good.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

What's In The Shoes

Time to get golf spikes. Then found out they don't make them anymore.

Most of the time I'm barefoot, so time to get comfortable with shoes. Get reconnected to earth, and from there to the legs, torso and beyond.

Found these odd hybrid-looking shoes that felt super comfy to be in, and can walk around in them apres-golf to boot. Need to train the feet to see so, while not exactly Yohji, being comfy helps.

Waste of metal putting spikes on a chicken's feet, for now at least.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Grip and Ground

I've played baseball and always thought golf was hitting a stationary ball with a stick and the ground is what you didn't want to hit fat into.

Jackie Burke served up the whoa that swinging a club is like throwing an underhandy sidearm baseball pitch, where it's about the fingers and not the hand. And the ground is key as it is when pitching, where it's the platform to launch you, and then brace to stop and drive that energy up the body through the arms and fingers to the ball. It's in the fingers. It's surprisingly similar to flycasting as well. I never thought of these aspects of the golf swing. Love that neurochemical gush from a new flush of awesomeness. Better than RedBull.

I've had this whole shift weight right (for me) then left thing backwards. It's not about moving weight. It's about what you do that drives weight right and then left. And why.

Note to self: get re-acquainted with the ground, and get the grip right. Everything else will happen later in between.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Prospecting for Nuggets

In the Sonoran Desert I found my first pile of gold. It's a collection of straight up, behind the scenes video log of stuff most normal humans (the people) wouldn't have access to. Anyone who wants to discover and understand golf should check out this collection on YouTube. Kinda delivered in straight up outback with dalai lama sauce.

Kudos to Maves, Elk and the rest for turning idea into matter. TO is one loyal monk.

Can only imagine if as a kid had access to all these insights... Jackie Burke footage is priceless, and these rare insights can only come from those who've been there and done it. Elk has the access, and captured it all for the rest of us. Thank you.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

The First Move

Head out from the rugged mountains to find the land of smooth contours, mostly man-made, mostly golf courses. Destination Phoenix. Just roll downhill south. Perfect.

The goats came down to bid me farewell on the way out. Good omen.
(via Jiro on iPhone)

Forgetting

Like many, I swat a golf ball around for emotional reward (or punishment) coupled to achieving the idealized fantasy of the shot, or not. Time for a reset.

It's difficult to undo the past, whether known (or thought I did) or embedded as moves in body as the golf swing. So, best to go the other direction, to overdose on every bit of instructional do this, fix that until my brain and body achieves total confusion, characterized by the chronic mother of all yips.

Trying to suck, it turns out, is great fun. The more random YouTube junk that goes into my head, the worse the score, peaking at about 121 for a round. Full on chicken dance (what scientists call operant conditioning).

The psychotherapeutic bonus: Process of getting worse gave rise to the joy of sucking - liberation from attachment to outcomes. Won't go back to what I could have been in my 20's. Just have to work with creating something new out of now. That's the rabbit hole of opportunity. Coin it solving the Tiger Paradox. So, this will come in handy :-)

Fact is, there's a thing called par. Above it, you suck. Below it, you have some secret or skill. That's all there is, and trying to be master of the brownian motion between the two states, in the here and now,  perpetuates the chicken dance.

Gravitational Aha

Found some videos by David Lee. He gave me the realization that the golf swing is the net of vertical motion and separate rotation. It's not a swing, but has two components. And it centered around the body and radiates outward. It's not about hitting the ball with stick. Aha!

Now a lot of stuff suddenly makes sense. And new questions fuel my quest. And Mr. Lee provoked me to dig deeper into the legend of Moe Norman.

First time through golf as a youth, I was utterly unconscious of how the swing worked. This time, it's become a journey of discovery. This is really good fun.