ShopTalk: Ping BeCu

[tflan]

Hi;   I got a set of BeCu's in a couple of days ago. The owner was convinced that the shafts, microtapers, were stiffer than the ZZ Lites he was used to. I freq'd them and found that in fact they were about 10 - 15 cpm softer than the ZZ's. The guy couldn't believe it. "They play stiff as a board," he said. So I weighed them. They were about 20 grams lighter than the ZZ shafted set he had. Lengths and grips were all the same on both sets. So, I checked swing weights. The ZZ's were C-9 to D-O. Relatively standard for Eye 2's.   Swing weights of the BeCu's were C-5! That surprised me. It's been a while since I looked at SW's on BeCu's. So I told the guy that the reason the clubs "played stiffer" wasn't that they were stiffer, as indicated by the freqs. Rather it was because they were so light and had such a low SW. The guy didn't want to add lead tape or pour lead down the shaft so I added 1/2" extensions and lighter grips (Winns) to get the SW up to nearly D-0.   Also, when checking loft and lie angles I found the sand wedge to be 60° rather than the expected 55°. I told the guy I'd try to bend it to 55° but I couldn't guarantee it wouldn't break. It was the first time I uttered a verbal prayer while tugging on that bending bar. I got it to 55° eventually. Then, the guy wanted me to bend all of the clubs to "standard" (27°) 5 iron, and then bend them up 2°. Either I got real lucky or this set of BeCu's are the softest metals ever offered by Ping.   I usually charge $3.00 per club for L&L adjusts. I charged this guy $60.00 for 11 clubs and told him to bring them elsewhere if he wanted them bent again.   TFlan