How often have you bought golf clubs used or advertised by famous tour pros? It is what the golf industry has done for decades in marketing its products. We as consumers came to believe that if the pros must be using it, then it must be good.

I hope you know by now that this isn’t necessarily true. Major brands design golf clubs to optimize the performance of Tour players who have swing speeds and performance needs that are much higher and different than amateur golfers. The tour pros who make a living from playing golf can play well with practically any brand of golf clubs, while sadly, no magic golf club will turn us into Tiger Woods overnight.

Thankfully, however, there are some club makers who design golf clubs exclusively to help us amateurs improve our golf game.

Meet Dean Knuth and Steve Trattner, co-founders of Knuth Golf and living legends of the USGA.

(Dean Knuth (left) and Stephen Trattner accepting one of several awards from International Network of Golf for “Best” driver and metal woods.)

What differentiates Dean and Steve from traditional club makers are their unique and rich golf backgrounds, not as professional players, but as amateur golfers who have helped to shape the modern game of golf.

“I created the USGA Course Rating System in 1976 and later the Slope Rating System to make handicaps more reliable and portable. I gave up a great career in the Navy to join the USGA staff in 1981 as its first Director of Handicapping. Over the next 16 years, I helped establish the use of Slope Rating throughout the United States and many other countries. My nickname even became “The Pope of Slope.” – Dean L. Knuth, Founder of KNUTH GOLF

As you can see, Dean knows that the struggle for everyday golfers is real. After all, he gave us amateurs the slope rating and the handicap system so that we can feel better about competing with better-skilled golfers.

With nearly 70 years of love and commitment to amateur golf between them, Dean and Steve co-founded Knuth Golf and went on to invent the revolutionary “Optimal CG Game Changer” club technology in 2015.

Since then, Knuth Golf has won numerous awards and recognition from prestigious golf magazines and organizations, including the “Best New Technology for distance for amateurs in almost 25 years since the introduction of Titanium clubface” at the 2018 PGA Show.

Tech Talk

According to Dean, High Heat woods are specifically designed to optimize the performance of amateur golfers for longer, straighter and more forgiving shots.

Like most amateur golfers, I have difficulty with my long game and dream of reaching every par 5 in two. But in reality, I have trouble getting the ball high into the air, and usually end up hitting a low thin shot that peters off towards the right rough. And God forbid if the ball goes out of bounds.

As a long time reader of Gary Van Sickle’s work, I have always believed him to be a straight shooter when it comes to his opinion on golf equipment. So when I read about his take on HH’s unique features, I was more than intrigued.

“My biggest discovery at the PGA Show was High Heat 257+ with its dazzling novel 3 Trampoline Technology that has more ball speed in the toe and heel areas than the sweet spot in the center of the face as permitted by the USGA 2016 Rule. High Heat’s technology turns major brands’ mishits into sweet spot drives. The ball comes off so hot no matter where you hit it with approximately the same distance across the face.” – Gary Van Sickle, President of Golf Writers Association of America, featured writer for Golf.com, Sports Illustrated, Morning Road

3-Trampoline Face Technology

Under the USGA Equipment Rule of 2016, for a metal wood to be legal for play, the clubface must not surpass a Characteristic Time, or CT of 257 µs (actual limit is 239 µs, plus 18 µs for measurement tolerance). CT is a measure of how long the golf ball remains in contact with the clubface at impact. The longer the characteristic time, the more trampoline effect the face has for increased distance.

But according to Dean, this particular USGA Rule only applies to the center of the clubface. In short, he had found a loophole that permits a CT higher than 257 µs on the heel and toe area. The same area where we amateurs hit approximately 50% of the time.

“Our company has always designed our clubs to optimize amateur golfers’ performance needs for more distance, forgiveness and increased accuracy for greens. That is why after we read the new USGA’s Rule that permitted higher trampoline values outside the center of the face, we did not stop until we invented our novel 3-Trampoline Face Technology. We knew that it was the greatest opportunity to help amateurs add the distance they need for more greens and lower scores.”  – Dean L. Knuth, Founder of KNUTH GOLF

So far, Knuth Golf’s High Heat metalwoods are the only golf clubs to take advantage of the USGA’s rule on 257-plus CT on heel and toe area of the clubface. And if the site’s glowing testimonials from teaching pros and amateurs are to be believed, the additional distance they have gained from this technology seems legit.

Optimum Center of Gravity (“CG”) Technology

High Heat woods and hybrids claim to have a much deeper and lower CG than most major brands. This makes it easier for amateurs to get the ball up high in the air consistently, and to be straighter with more distance for better scoring.

Even with my limited understanding of physics, I have come to realize that statements such as, “we have placed the CG deeper, and further back than any of our previous models” just means that the CG has moved at most a millimeter or two. And granted, in the world of CG, even that can be quite significant.

To be frank, I haven’t cut open any driver heads of late to check anyone’s claim on their CG positions. In the picture above, HH driver CG claims to be on average 25 percent deeper and 18 percent lower than major OEMs. If that is true, we are talking about a ton of forgiveness, not to mention the ease with which to get the ball quickly up in the air.

Turf Glider Sole (“TGS”) Technology

The third technology, called the Turf Glider Sole is new to the High Heat woods for 2020. Combined with the previous two tech features, HH woods aim to take the fear out of hitting metalwoods for amateur golfers.

According to co-founder Steve Trattner, the new, more rounded TGS sole is designed to easily cut through grass and turf, delivering the clubhead to the ball without significant speed loss. As a result, the loss of distance from fat shots is also significantly reduced.

High Heat 257+ TGS sole and Cobra Hybrid’s T-Rail. From the picture, TGS doesn’t look particularly impressive despite being dubbed as the best “magical” club for amateurs by Golf Tips magazine.

I gathered TGS to be similar in function to Cobra’s Baffler T-Rail technology, which is also designed to help turf interaction. It’s nothing new, as many OEMs also claim to have unique sole designs to make it easier to hit from fairways, rough, and even bad lies without losing much distance.

But I would be remiss not mention that HH hybrids also claim to hit cleanly even out of divots and fairway bunkers, virtually making fat shots near impossible.

So, not only is the Pope of Slope claiming to be able to cure my low ball flight and loss of distance, but his 257+ technology also allows me to miss the sweet spot altogether with no penalty in length?

C’mon, guys. I wasn’t born yesterday.

But what made the High Heat woods all the more irresistible was the fact that this seemingly scandalous technology is permitted under USGA and R&A rules. And with the “30-day full refund guarantee” in big, bold letters on the website, the only question I had left was “do you deliver to South Korea?”

And so my dear fellow amateurs, there you have it.

I hereby pledge to check these outrageous claims for myself and report back to you on whether any part of these claims are true.

Are we simply being duped once more into naively believing that golf can be so easy? Or maybe—just maybe—can it be that Dean is really onto something with his High Heat woods? As a humble golfer wishing the best for amateurs everywhere, I can only hope it is the latter.

Stay tuned.

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