RE: ShopTalk: swingweight

[timhewitt]

Title: Message

It's not the weight of the shaft you removed that makes the difference in swingweight, it's the fact that you have pulled the head back closer to the 14 inch fulcrum that lowers the "weight" in the shaft.

Remember that swingweight is not weight - it's the relationship between the butt end of the club and the head end of the club over a 14 inch fulcrum.

 

I can swingweight a sledgehammer to D0, and the weight will be significantly higher than your driver :).

 

As for the position of the weight on the head, you cannot really add enough weight to a head with lead tape to affect the ball flight. The reason is 4-6g of lead tape will not change the physics involved, however you have seen that this amount of additional swingweight can certainly effect how you swing the club and consequently how you contact the ball. You did not change the way the club played - you changed the way you swung the club.

 

You can certainly try moving the weight down and back to try to lower the CG, but you will have to add much more than 6g of tape to change the CG significantly enough to make a difference. Club designers push 20-30g of tungsten around in sole plates to have this type of effect on a clubhead.

 

Remove the extra weight you added. More is not necessarily better as you have seen.

 

-t

--
myOstrich Golf
http://www.myostrichgolf.com

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom and Donna Mason
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 6:41 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: ShopTalk: swingweight

 

About 0.5 gr's per inch.
David

Thanks David, that confirms a suggestion that was made that it would take 24 inches of lead tape to equal the two inches of shaft that I removed.  I don't question the amount but 24 inches of lead tape sure seems to be a lot heavier than two inches of shaft.  I have to assume its effect is more related to the location of that weight rather than the amount.

I added four 3" strips of tape to the sole of the club head and it did improve the feel and there was improved distance.  These four strips should have added 6 gr's to the swing weight if I am understanding the process correctly.  Well I found out yesterday that more is not necessarily better when I added another 6 gr's.  Although I only hit balls into a net, I have no way of knowing the distance they may have traveled, most of them had very little rise as if the loft of the club had been decreased by the weight.  I did notice Sunday afternoon while playing (before the second 6 gr's was added) that although I had good distance on my drives, there was not the usual loft that I had seen before.

I guess my next question is obvious, should I move the weight to the top of the club or the back and would either one return the loft to the club head?  This is a T-360 head with a 10.5° loft.  I am playing this afternoon so it will give me an opportunity to play with ball placement in my stance and tee height so I may be able to restore some of the loft in my swing.

Have a great day and thanks for you response.
Tom M.