WRX Forum Buzzz
From the forums: What’s buzzing on GolfWRX this week
The GolfWRX forums exist so golfers have access to the latest equipment releases, hottest discussions, real equipment reviews, best instruction, new technologies and everything golf you can imagine.
So if you love golf, the GolfWRX forums are your sanctuary.
In the From the Forums weekly feature, we bring you the hottest, most buzz-worthy topics from our forums for your convenience. I’ll be your trusty tour guide to navigate the latest buzz.
Here’s a peek behind the curtain into golf’s sanctuary.
Charles Howell III with new PXG “Mustang” putter at 2015 Barclays
As Andrew Tursky wrote in his “11 Revealing Photos from The Barclays:” Charles Howell III “seems to have a new gamer putter every week, and he’s usually tinkering with at least two other putters … This week he’s testing a few PXG putters, and last time he teed it up at the PGA Championship he was gaming a Scotty Cameron prototype. As gear heads we should all have sympathy for him; he’s truly one of us.”
We got some great shots of the Georgia native’s new weaponry. And like all things Parsons, this Mustang is a unique-looking putter.
Related: the 18-page Parsons Xtreme thread
Funeral arrangements for Tiger’s golf life
User shoeman started the thread with this post, motivated by Tiger Woods’ triple-bogey seven and fall from contention during the final round of the Wyndham Championship.
“It’s time to put a end to all hopes & dreams for TW! One of the weakest field ever & the results were zero wins for TW 2015! Tigers’ golf life ended on August 23, 2015, on the 11th hole! The cause of death reported by the coroner–asphyxiation!! It’s time to move on from Tigers passing! Once you accept his golf life death, the better off you will be!”
Another user offered this counter, however: “Did you stop watching after 11? Tiger had 4 birdies coming in. I think he is alive and well. He made some mistakes, but he made some progress, also.”
There have been 85 replies to the topic in just three days and the debate is…spirited. If you (like seemingly all golf fans) have strong opinions about the Big Cat, you might want to weigh in.
U.S. Amateur is painful
Bryson DeChambeu’s, shall we say, “deliberate” play en route to winning last week’s U.S. Amateur raised some eyebrows. The SMU student wasn’t exactly playing speed golf.
“I’m watching the Amateur and this guy Dechambeau could be the slowest player I’ve ever seen. Don’t get me wrong he’s a great player and I’m sure a good guy but he’s got to be miserable to play with.”
Did you watch the Amateur? Think DeChambeau should be renamed DeChamb-slow? Think the problem extends beyond Bryson to college golf or amateur golf in general?
Can somebody give me the simple or scientific reason why…
You’ll find many of the members in our “Instruction & Academy” forum know a bit more about the golf swing than the talking heads on television.
Check out this thread in which Mizunogolfer asks why a driver swing is longer than a six-iron for most golfer and iteachgolf takes on the task of replying (you may want to brush up on your principles of physics first).
Mizunogolfer: A driver swing is longer than a 6 iron swing for most people
Definitely the case for me, on a full hard drive and a full hard six iron my backswing is longer with the driver
iteachgolf: Driver creates the highest club head speed in the backswing as well as downswing. Therefore faster moving club head creates more inertia making it harder to change direction. This resistance to changing direction leads to the swing to be longer. Also factor in human reaction time staying constant while club is moving faster will also make it take longer to stop and then change direction
mizunostaffer: Why is this?
“I’m going to need a better explanation of why you think a driver has more inertia than a 6 iron. The formula for inertia is
F=mass * acceleration
For a rotating body it’s
F=mr*r (mass * R squared)”
The mass of a driver is actually LESS than the mass of a 6 iron. Yes, the driver is longer, but the head is lighter (hence the whole “swing weight” calculation).
iteachgolf: So to keep it simple the radius is squared. Therefore the significant change in radius would have a larger effect than the lesser change in weight. 6 iron weight 50-70 grams more than a driver (lots of variables). So the R^2 of a 6 iron vs driver is more than a 50% increase (1,406.25 vs 2,116). The difference in weight between a 6 iron and a driver is roughly 20-30%. So the change in radius has a much larger impact even though it has less weight.
Well that got scientific (or mathematic) real quick!
Golfer Look-a-likes
Finally, a recent post has resurrect the famous golfer look-a-like thread.
Some of the latest highlights include.
A young Miguel Angel Jimenez and Borat.
And Michael Bolton and Bernhard Langer.
Many, many more lookalikes in the thread, including the personal favorite below from 2011.
Equipment
I’m a 31 year-old male and I turned my apartment living room into a driving range stall – GolfWRXers react
In our forums, our members have been reacting to a post from ‘GolferTodd’ who has turned their apartment living room into a driving range stall. ‘GolferTodd’ produced the following photo in our forums with the caption:
“To the exclusion of furniture. Bachelor life.”
And our members have been reacting to the post in our forums.
Here are a few posts from the thread, but make sure to check out the entire discussion and have your say at the link below.
- MtlJeff: “This is amazing……When i was 28 i lived in an apartment that had my winter tires in the kitchen, i only had one plate and 1 set of knives and forks, and i cooked pasta in a witches cauldron from 1835. And i still convinced a woman to marry me. So i am all for this. In fact this is way better than what i had to offer.”
- TiScape: “Love it Todd. Go Dodgers!!”
- imkirby34: “Based on the view out the window, it looks like you’re on the first floor, which is probably a good thing because I’d hate to live below you, even if you have an extremely shallow AoA. Haha.”
In our forums, our members have been discussing classic irons. WRXer ‘DonaldDunes’ has caught the vintage club bug, and wants to know other members’ favorite iron models that “have stood the test of time or were the top performers for their day.”
Here are a few posts from the thread, but make sure to check out the entire discussion and have your say at the link below.
- Maine Golfer: “I love a lot of clubs but ’69 Wilson Staff’s are an all time favorite. Easy to hit in relative terms and they look amazing.”
- Wilsonian: “No surprise from me, but the Wilson K-28 irons, specifically blades with the glide thru sole. I grew up playing Ram clubs, but got away from them as I got older. My return to vintage was with the Wilsons, and my first set of hickories were the Wilson Plus Success irons. You’ll try a lot of sets, but I think it’s a matter of what feels best in your hands, specifically your 7 iron which is the best indicator imo.”
- Hawkeye777: “Hogan Redlines. Macgregor Nicklaus Muirfield 20th. Wilson Staff Tour Blade. Those are mine, don’t play any of them these days (no real reason to) and didn’t really “collect” them. The Wilsons I played with for years.”
In our forums, our members have been discussing how much wear is too much wear when purchasing used irons. WRXer ‘con_mon2’ is interested in a used set of iron and kicks off the thread, asking:
“Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this! How much wear are you comfortable with?
I found a set of irons on eBay that I am very interested in buying, but they have a bit more wear than I’m comfortable with. I have attached a few pictures showing especially the wear on the sweet spot on the PW and 9 iron. Maybe you can convince me that I’m being too picky and I should just buy them? Or maybe I should be concerned about the wear? I’m not really sure. They are Ping i230s which came out in 2022 so they aren’t that old. And the seller had this to say about the condition: ‘Good: Normal wear for their age. Excellent playing condition but they have cosmetic wear on faces and soles. Sweetspot wear is visible.’
Beyond the cosmetic, I’d really like to know this: At what point do you start to worry about the grooves being so worn that they have a substantial effect on the shots you’re hitting?”
And our members have been sharing their thoughts in response.
Here are a few posts from the thread, but make sure to check out the entire discussion and have your say at the link below.
- rsballer10: “The term you are looking for is “browning” and these irons have some of that going on. They are completely playable, but I’d say they’ve reached their half-life.”
- Nessism: “Those heads are stainless steel. The “browning” that some people reference, is really the yellow shade of the nickel layer under the chrome. When forged carbon steel heads wear through the chrome, the “brown” is RUST. These heads will never rust. People applaud the old Ping irons as being “indestructible”. Those heads had no chrome. These heads, even if the chrome is beginning to wear through, on one head, are miles more durable than the older unplated “indestructible” Ping’s. And even further ahead of any forged club.”
- phizzy30: “Hard pass for me. I would rather get a new set of DTC irons and would be glad to spend the extra couple to few hundred.”
Entire Thread: “When buying used irons: How much wear is too much? – GolfWRXers discuss”
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DaveT
Aug 31, 2015 at 10:51 pm
“Well that got scientific (or mathematic) real quick!” And your point is??? Hey, it’s a technical question and REQUIRES a technical answer.
I don’t agree with iteachgolf; mizunostaffer is closer, but still not spot-on. Here’s the problem. Let’s start by accepting iteachgolf’s assertion that the problem is changing the direction of the club at the top of the backswing. (I don’t think it’s correct, but let’s see where it leads.) The change of direction is of a club moving backward to moving forward, but not much rotation involved, no faster than the rotation of the arms and body. Therefore, most of the radius involved is the arm/shoulder stretch, which for the same golfer should be the same for both clubs. Relatively little radius difference is the club length at this point in the swing.
So it’s mostly a mass difference. And the mass ratio is 33%, bigger than the 20-30% that iteachgolf asserts. Here are my calculations — head plus shaft plus grip:
6-iron: 263+100+50 = 413g (shaft between 80g graphite and 120g steel)
driver: 200+60+50 = 310g (graphite driver shaft)
ratio = 413/310 = 1.33, or 33%
If we assume that we want the moment of inertia, not just the mass of the club, let’s see where that leads us. We will need a radius. Let’s assume an arm length of 24″, we compute a 6-iron balance point at 28.9″ and a driver balance point at 34.0″. Assuming a 90* wrist cock at the top of the backswing, the radius r is 37.5 for the 6-iron and 41.6 for the driver. That gives an r-squared ratio of 1.23 or 23%.
My conclusion: if the explanation were the difficulty in changing the club’s direction at the top of the swing, the 6-iron swing would be longer. But the driver swing has been observed to be longer. Conclusion: difficulty of changing the direction of the club is not a viable explanation.
Yeah, this should probably be posted in the thread, not this summary article, but I’m lazy.
Steve Thomas
Aug 29, 2015 at 7:52 pm
Many years ago, I use to attend the Danny Thomas St. Jude Classic, now the Fedex St. Jude. When Gil Morgan was a regular on the PGA tour, he would come over and play in Memphis. I probably went for 10 straight years, and every year, more than one person would always come up to me and ask me if I was Gil Morgan’s brother. It was mostly tour players who would approach me and ask me if I was Gil Morgan’s brother. I would tell them no and then ask them for their autograph!
Craig
Aug 28, 2015 at 4:35 pm
I learnt that f=m*v*v/r . Does that mean are error above?