ICG Upper Mid-West Regional Symposium
On Sunday, May 16, we held an ICG Upper Mid-West Regional Symposium at Persimmon Ridge Golf Course in Louisville, KY. We had thirteen clubmakers attend who had the opportunity to hear three guest speakers and in addition, we conducted a fitting on the top assistant at Persimmon Ridge golf course. The following is the story of the events that happened.
This meeting actually started on Saturday. That afternoon some of the clubmakers came in early to help me get set up for the meeting, which took place at the old PCS HQ building. The person who bought that building, Dennis Sherrod, has allowed Ron Snider, the head professional at Persimmon Ridge and myself to set up a fitting studio down on level one again and it is really nice. Clubmakers Ryan Blevins, Larry Hinckley, Bill Schaulin and guest speakers Robin Arthur and Joe Hrubos were all on hand to help me that afternoon and after getting set up, we ended up doing an informal fitting on Blevins. Ryan was a former winner of the Elmore Just award with the PCS because he was always willing to drive down from Seymour, IN and help me with anything that needed to be done and nothing ever changes; he is still doing the same thing with the Guild.
After that informal fitting session, we went back up to our house and had hors d'oeuvres before we went out for dinner. At the restaurant we were met by Bob Rees, Ray Tomaszewski, Don Johnson and his wife, Jim McCleery and his wife, and my wife Melinda also joined us. I think the dinner sessions the day before the meetings are just a great way to sit around and chew the fat on clubmaking and life in general. Everyone had a good time.
The next morning at the meeting, we had clubmakers Jerry Edwards, Dave Devore, and Doug Quadrano and his friend join us but we had last minute calls from four other clubmakers who were going to attend but couldn't; two of them, Bob Hartman and Baron Horne, were sidelined with serious medical problems and they both ended up in the hospital. Two others, Dave Hohnke and Clint Barnes had work issues. We also got calls from three other clubmakers, Gary Dean, Dave Wilson and Tony Kovaleski who also wanted to attend but have been diagnosed with cancer and are going through their various treatments. We asked the clubmakers in attendance to hold all these men in their prayers.
After some other housecleaning details had been taken care of, we got started with our first guest speakers of the day, Josh Fisher and Mike Just of Louisville Golf. Josh took the attendees through their 2K10 catalog, which is probably one of their best ever. He brought the clubmakers up-to-speed on their logo wood putter program, which gives the clubmakers a great opportunity to work with businesses in their neck of the woods on corporate outings, recognition dinners, Christmas, etc. It would give the clubmakers an additional revenue stream for their shops.
Mike then spent the rest of their session talking about the hickory club business, which has grown so fast in the last few years that it has now become 25% of their business. In 2009 they assembled over 1000 hickory shafted clubs! When asked who these customers are and why would they try to play with hickory, Mike said, "the players are coming from everywhere and many of them are looking for a change after playing so many years with the 'latest and greatest.' After trying the hickory shaft clubs, many are finding out they are really enjoying them. Their expectations are lower; they are not hung up on distance so they are fun.' He and Josh said they are getting almost one order per/day for either a short set of hickory clubs (1 wood & 4 irons) or a long set (3 woods & 6 irons). Just said that as you could expect, with the new demand for hickory shaft clubs, the source is drying up. Therefore, he is now offering new retro irons and putters, which are copies of the 'best of the best' hickory shafted clubs that he has seen in the past and he also has the ability to turn his own hickory shafts. When one of the clubmakers jokingly asked about the frequency of his new hickory shafts, Mike said he actually checks them on a frequency meter and tries to keep a set within 10 cpm. There is no telling what Bobby Jones could have done with a set like that!
Mike Just presents the 'new' hickory shaft clubs to the members
Our next guest speaker was Robin Arthur who has a great reputation for designing graphite shafts and currently owns his own company Arthur Xtreme Engineering which sells the fast growing X-Caliber shafts. With his vast experience in designing composite shafts, his presentation was very informative. After the clubmakers viewed the DVD he brought in, the obvious question was, "how much of the manufacturing of composite shafts is now done in China?" and Arthur said, "we all know that at least 95% of the heads are now done in China and now almost 99% of composite shafts are done in the Asian rim, meaning either China, Korea, and now in Vietnam and Malaysia as the companies start to chase the lowest labor rate." He discussed the various methods of manufacturing composite shafts and said the preferred method is still table wrap. He said that in his experience, "he could never get a filament wound shaft to perform as well as a wrapped shaft in a driver and with the latest manufacturing techniques used today, the tolerances of the table wrapped shafts are very good."
Robin said that with the table wrap shafts he can easily change the shaft profile such as taking an existing shaft design with a butt R, mid R, and tip R, to a mid S, tip S or just the opposite. Arthur said you can't do that with filament wound shafts and he said that is one more reason that probably 90% of the shafts made today are table wrapped. He said that most shaft designers are now thinking butt, middle and tip sections with their designs, which falls right into the shaft profiling that we do as clubmakers. Robin's final word to the clubmakers, especially someone relatively new to the business was that there are a lot of great shafts out there but don't try to learn every spec about every company's shafts. Instead, you will be a better clubfitter if you just learn two of three shafts companies lines instead.
Robin Arthur, using a DVD video, is explaining the modern method of building composite shafts
Our final speaker of the day is Joe Hrubos who sells the 'Markit' face impact spray. His presentation was really a two part presentation; part one to explain the product and in part two he actually got into a live demonstration when we did a fitting on the first assistant at Persimmon Ridge, Brain Rosenberg. Hrubos started out by telling the clubmakers that we have all used impact labels but he explained that using those stick on labels will definitely affect the ball spin where the Markit will not. In addition, the Markit spray will allow the ball to leave a better impact, which can give the clubmakers some valuable information. A glancing blow with an outside-in swing and the clubface not square, became easy to see with his product. It also can be a valuable tool for ball fitting as it will show low compression, full compression or good impression to help the clubmakers identify the correct ball for a customer. The Markit contains an FDA approved magnesium zinc oxide, which is commonly used as the whitener in toothpaste. Joe finished up by saying that, "the Markit will capture what the launch monitor will not, which is the instant the head contacts the ball at impact." He had a great opportunity to show off his product in the follow-up fitting on Rosenberg.
We then took a break for lunch when Melinda brought in a meat platter with cold cuts for sandwiches, salads and homemade cookies, which disappeared before I could even get my hands on one.
When the lunch bell rings you don't want to be standing in front of Jim McCleery, Ryan Blevins, and Dave DeVore.
For the fitting session we used a new 'Driver Shaft Performance Fitting' program that I put together for my business. Basically it is a system with exchangeable shafts and three right hand heads, 9.5*, 10.5* and 12* and one left hand head at 10.5*. I am using the new Hireko ICT Prophet heads. I also use a driver with Club-Conex connectors and eight shafts that I use exclusively to determine the correct length for a driver.
About a year ago I had gone through a fitting on Rosenberg or "Rosie," which he is known here at Persimmon Ridge. Back then I fit him with an Aldila Proto By You 70 S and installed it in his Adams driver. It was a good fit and he hit that club very good. This year he is on the Callaway staff and they sent him a new driver with the same Proto 'By You' shaft in it (a real By You, not a fake). He is not hitting it nearly as good as the old one so I felt that a fitting at the Symposium would be a good opportunity for all the clubmakers to get involved to see if we could figure out what the problem was. I told him that it might be a little bit of a zoo with a lot of clubmakers involved but he is a good sport and said sure.
One of the first things I do when going through a fitting is to measure the current driver specifications and it turned out his new driver had an actual 11* of loft vs. the stamped on 9.5. It quickly became evident that the loft was the main culprit. After he hit that club and gave us some base data (Jim McCleery was on the controls of the new Zelocity Pure Launch wireless unit because he was involved in beta testing the latest software for them) we quickly got him into a 9.5* fitting club. For shafts we used various UST, Aldila, SK Fiber, and X-Caliber models. The side story is that I didn't have any of Robin’s X-Caliber shafts set up in my program yet because I was out of the adaptors (they are on back order). Robin and Ryan were both staying at our house and over dinner Saturday night when Robin found out that I didn't plan on using any of his shafts in the fitting session the next day, he was rightfully crying. What the heck, the guy was one of the guest speakers and I wasn’t going to use any of his shafts in the fitting? So Ryan and I were down in my shop at 11:00 PM that night pulling a couple of shafts that I knew wouldn't be appropriate for this fitting and installed a couple of Robin's X-Calipers. He was happy but he was even happier the next day. It turns out that one of his new shafts, a follow-up to last year’s X-Caliper 7 (S flex, 72 grams, 2.7* torque), was the winner. This new shaft has a beautiful gloss black with chrome panel paint job and maybe it was the look of the shaft that got Rosie going, but he started smoking it. We also determined that 44.5" club was better suited for him vs. the 45+" Callaway. Throughout the session, Hrubos was reading the impacts and showing the clubmakers what the various patterns meant. When Rosie started to nut it, it was easy to see the 'story' on the impacts that Joe had been telling us. It was great session that we all enjoyed including Brian.
Now I need to thank the many vendors who sent heads, shafts and grips in for our Symposium, which added so much to the meeting. Bill Schaulin, from North Richmond Hills, TX won the long distance award. Bill flew in for the meeting!
The clubmakers are always grateful to get some great product and the following is the list of vendors who helped us out:
- Mike Just & Josh Fisher, Louisville Golf
- Charlie Blume, SK Fiber Golf Shafts
- Jeff Summitt Hireko
- Britt Lindsay, GolfWorks
- Robin Arthur, Arthur Xtreme Engineering Golf Shafts
- John Wesztergom, Weszty Golf Components
- Joe Hrubos, Markit Impact Spray
- Jeff Moreno, Fierce Golf Shafts
- Jeff Lucas, Aldila Golf Shafts
- Jamie Pipes, UST/Mamiya Golf Shafts
- Terry Koehler, Eidolon Wedges
- Steve Almo, Geek Golf
- Dale Rehus, JumboMax Grips
- Mike Smith, Pure Golf
As a final note, Dave Hohnke has agreed to host the September fall meeting for the ICG Upper Mid-West Region in Bloomington, IN. Dave is now the assistant coach of the Indiana University golf team and would love to show the clubmakers the facilities there which he said are a nice as anything he has seen in the Big Ten. See ya there!
From left to right: Bob Dodds, Don Johnson, Dave DeVore, Ray Tomaszewski, Jim McCleery, Larry Hinckley, Bill Schaulin, Ryan Blevins, Joe Hrubos, Robin Arthur, Brian Rosenberg, Bob Rees
