June 3, 2019 • 19 mins
We're talking to the man from Golf Channel's "The Tiger Project" ! The show about Tiger and how his new clubs came to be. Paul was the lead product designer for TaylorMade Golf and Tiger's iron. He worked on the whole project from start to finish and tells some pretty awesome stores. We get confirmation on many things we've "heard"...but he's seen them first hand!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Don't mind us Where Playing Through Air's Froggy and Whacker
and welcome to another edition to be Playing Through podcast.
That's Froggy from Helps to Rand in the morning show
with Brian Whacker from Golf Digest at Brian Whacker one.
How you can reach the podcast anytime on Instagram at
Playing Through Podcasts sell Big TV show on tonight. Golf
(00:24):
Channel has been talking about it. You've seen all kinds
of teasers for it on social media. It is about
how Tiger Woods left Nike because they were no longer
making golf clubs and moved over to Taylor Made. But
when he made the move, I mean, Whacker, you had
to believe every single golf company in America wanted Tiger
Woods to try out their stuff. Correct. Oh absolutely. I
(00:48):
mean you can look at Rory McElroy, for example, and
another Tailor Made Player when he joined the staff and
and sort of was in that same position the teograph
found himself in moving from one club company to another.
He says, you know, literally had stuff being sent to
uh from every company. Uh. You'd imagine being sent to
(01:10):
his house in Florida. I think even his parents getting
stuff that in my beginning, stuff I mean, of course,
Tiger Woods, you know, the greatest player of all time.
When he becomes a quote unquote free agent in that arena,
I would suspect that everybody would make their pitch, and
of course Taylor Made UH is the one who landed him.
(01:31):
And we've got a special guest with us today to
kind of take us inside, not just that show of
course that you mentioned that will be on Golf Channel tonight,
but the process of Tiger and uh, how he came
to be uh came to join Taylor Made, and as
well as some of the specifics of the club buildings,
(01:52):
specifically his irons. Yes, we've got Paul Benkowski. Paul, Now
you were there from go in building the irons with
Tiger Wood. So what's that like from the day he
becomes a free agent back in April to he signs
with Taylor Made, what's that process like? Well, first of all,
(02:12):
and we never thought that Tiger would be available to
play any product but Nike, so um when that opportunity arose,
and we were so excited to just you know, put
her hat in the ring there and hopefully have an opportunity. Um.
So as the process went, we were sending the equipment
and getting feedback. Keiths of Barbaro, r VP of co Operations,
was you know, instrument in that, um getting all the
(02:34):
product too and getting the feedback. And then as Tiger
game more confidence and to what Tiger made, what Taylor
may can provide uh, and as he got more comfortable
with the people at Taylor Made, like Keith and myself
and Brian bass On the people that work with him,
that's when we started to kind of, um say, okay, well,
what do we need to get a set of irons
(02:56):
and play here? Because he's obviously very specific for all
of his needs and specifications. So that was kind of
the background of how it began. And then from there,
um we were cast with how to make these irons
um and we work closely with Mike Taylor, who has
been making Tiger's equipment for the past fifteen plus years,
(03:19):
so he was a big consultant on the whole project.
And it started off with myself, Brian Bows and Ultimobile
step I believe it could have had in the show
before flying down to Fort Worth to visit Mike Taylor,
and it was basically just information gathering. Mike has just
binders and binders three four inches thick of specifications on
(03:42):
irons and wedges that he's done for Tiger over the
past fifteen years down to this incredible and credible detail.
So that was the kind of early stages and first
steps of developing the irons and wedges for Tiger. You know,
Tiger and two the album A team changed nearly all
of his equipment, but yet the rons are fairly they're
almost identical to the muscle back ones that he's used
(04:05):
his entire career. You mentioned Mike's involvement, Mike Taylor and
of course Keith Farva and in a host of others.
I guess I'm curious as to why the irons would
be you know there there wouldn't be such significant changes there.
We've seen changes with the driver, both in terms of
him going to an adjustable UH clubhead, two different shafts
(04:28):
and so forth. But but why would the irons UH
be nearly identical and what are the differences in those
irons compared to some of the early ones that he
played in his career. So with the irons, Tiger wants
in let's go a very specific distance, and he has
a very specific launch window that he wants to see
(04:49):
visually when he looks up, so as launch angles, pea kaite,
his spin and his Carrie distance, all those things pretty
much set in stone for every iron. He doesn't want
to see anything different. So when we were developing initial prototypes,
uh ours were actually going further. They were launching a
little bit higher and spinning a little bit less, so
(05:11):
he was gaining about five yards of carry on each iron.
But that's not what he wanted. He wanted basically to
have the same exact level performance that he's had historically.
So it's really hard to make an iron that performs
better when that's exactly what he's looking for. We can
make an iron more forgiving, but when you have an
iron that's more forgiving, it means m I is higher,
(05:32):
which makes it harder for workability. So that's not what
he was looking for either. So essentially he wanted an
iron that was going to have the same launch at
Saint peakaya thaing carry this and same level of forgiveness UM,
so that he could have confidence that he could execute
every shot that he has over the past twenty you know,
plus twenty five years here um without having any unexpected
(05:54):
UH flyers or shots that didn't have enough spin or
that went too far. I remember of the first test
sessions that I took part with that um the Kingdom
with Tiger, but I had several prototypes, and there are
six irons were the first ones we started with. And
his six iron loft is about thirty two and a
half degrees and which is pretty weak. He plays very
(06:16):
weak lost. He loves spin and his gamers he was
launching at about twelve and a half degrees with what
I remember, I remember about six d RPMs a spin
and were carrying hi one eighties in yardage and ours
he was launching two degrees higher and spinning three RPMs
(06:40):
less uh and they were carrying five yards further and
the peak hike was just noticeably higher, like just visually
when you're watching these balls. So we knew that, you know,
we weren't quite there. We were a long ways off. Now,
when you talk about a simple blade like Tiger plays,
there's not many variables to play with, like you have
another turns with face thickness and c R and you
(07:03):
know things that nature. It's primarily center gravity, location, soul geometry,
and score lions. So those are really the only three
things that you can manipulate to affect his launch, his spin,
and his carry distance. So at least from that context,
we were pretty honed in on what we had to
(07:25):
work on to yield what he wanted. And one of
the biggest eye opening things was the actual material of
the irons were used. We historically for our core players,
we've give machine, you know, numerous tour steps over the
years have used three or three stainless steel, and that's
primarily because it's a slightly harder metal, so the groove
(07:49):
geometry lasts longer over time. It's a little bit more
durable material, but in the sense of feel, it's usually
pretty comparable to us the carbon steel. You can't really
feel much difference than actually the sense of fitting a
golf ball. So that's where we started with Tiger, was
the stainless steel. And I remember that first test session
after he had hit for a while, we were all
(08:10):
kind of sitting down and relaxing. When he asked me,
he said, do you think it could be the metal?
In My initial response was I don't think so, because
it's it's a very thick, rigid structure, not like a
thin faced high q R iron. We have flexibility and
things of that nature where the metal would make a
difference in that respect, UM said. And I said, I
(08:30):
don't think it could be. But I said, you know,
well certainly, you know machine some prototypes in that material
and see and sure enough, you know, I did. I
did one and that and and the launch came down
a little bit, the spin went up a little bit.
He had a slightly better sense of feel. We knew
that that was one of the variables that we weren't
initially anticipating. UM. So that was kind of the initial
(08:53):
stage of the purer typing with him. We probably did gosh,
I want to say, six to seven different prototypes over
the first several months, UM, all with real subtle tweaks
to the center jobby location, UM to the overall kind
of back geometry UM and uh, you know, subtle subtle
tweaks to assault. It's a lot of the initial stages there.
(09:17):
And then once we got past that, we discovered with
Mike Taylor that Tiger has been using constant in his irons,
just a little eight nine Graham slug that's buried kind
of low and maybe slightly toward in the back of
the muscle area. And that just kind of allows you
(09:38):
to really just fine tune that CG position. And once
we implemented that in the Iron, we were basically basically
they're satisfying all the needs that he wanted in the Irons. Now,
through this process, you guys are obviously you bring a
wealth of experience. You've done this, you know, thousands of
times at this point. But we're still talking about Tiger
(10:01):
Woods here, So how much nervousness is there and what
you're doing and trying to get this exactly right for
effectively the greatest player to ever play the game. Yeah,
there was definitely a point, you know. I mean it
took it took, you know, over a year to really
completely dial everything in. And I'd say probably after our
(10:22):
first several test sessions when we just weren't getting the
performance that he wanted. You know, I by myself was
getting pretty nervous, say and tees like, you know, we're
we're we feel like we're there. The geometry is so
close to his previous irons, the cgs are so close,
so on and so forth. But you know, if there
was any intangibles in the mix there that we couldn't
(10:42):
really put our finger on and it was definitely a
little nerve wracking at that point, because you know, you've
got a big spotlight on you working with somebody like
Tiger Woods, and you know he's really excited to get
the irons and play, and you don't want to keep on,
you know, sending him product that isn't performing the way
he wants. So there was a affluently, definitely a level
of nervousness in that regard there. So when you so,
(11:04):
when you fit Tiger, and I'm sure you've been around
the fittings with whether it's Dustin or Rory or Jason
Day or rum or any of the many very talented
other players in the stable. There, Taylor made what is
the difference in fitting say Tiger versus fitting the other guys?
Is it is it more difficult and not maybe not
just difficult, but do you learn more when you when
(11:26):
you fit Tiger or is he more technical than some
of the other guys. He's the most technical that I've
ever worked with. His golf que is just through the roofs,
and it's it's kind of it's interesting. He's definitely the
pop is to fit, but it's also you know what,
you you know what you have to do to get
him fit. He's very clear in what he wants and
(11:47):
it's just up to us too to satisfy that need
and give the equipment needed to satisfy what he wants. Um,
the other guys are, you know, slightly different. I've I've
worked on irons for DJ, for Rose, for Ror for
a day, and those were walk in the park compared
to the ironswer Tiger. Um. Those guys, you know, if
(12:09):
it's off by a little bit and launch or spend,
they'll just let's change a couple little things to make
it work. Where Tiger, he's not going to compromise at all.
You know, he's just good. He wants exactly what he
what he wants, like I said, and and then we
have to give it to him. So it's definitely elevated
our game and it made us have to be better
to be able satisfied that need. So there's no swing change.
Tiger won't change a swing he makes or do something different.
(12:32):
He wants the club to fit what he does exactly exactly. Well,
that's amazing. So what's something that that tonight on the
show that as a fan, like I'm a huge Tiger
Woods fan, Um, what's something tonight on the show that
we'll learn that we probably didn't know before tonight show
about Tiger's good question. Um, I mean, I'm sure a
(12:54):
lot of people have heard that, you know, anecdotal stories
about you know, how he could tell the difference of
you know, half a degree of lie or loft or
thousands faces thickness. True, absolutely true. And that's the biggest
eye opening thing that I think, you know, we experienced
on myself experience. And there was a couple of times
that you know, I'm doing prototypes and you know, I
(13:17):
needed to get the CG a little higher on the
head of the club, and I'm like, you know what,
it's gonna be a lot easier if I just add
a couple of thousands to the top lines pickments here
to get that, even though I know his spec is
something slightly different. And uh, I guess I'll see if
you notice it sure enough. Yeah, you know this this
top line, this looks a little thicker, you know, he
just this this amazing. The sensitivity to every little detail.
(13:41):
I've never seen anything like it. Um, not only to
the geometry but just you know, visually the geometry, but
also the feel of the golf club, not only the
feel of the ball in the face, but the feel
of the club entering and exiting the turf. Um there's
this kind of cool thing it's really fun to watch
is when he's putting a club through you know, the
(14:02):
tests on arranges. He kind of has like these nine
windows that he hits it through where he'll hit his
you know stock one, you know, right through the middle,
then who you know, high ones through the top middle,
they'll hit high cuts, high draws, you know, kind of
medium cuts, medium draws, the loose stingers that are straight,
those stingers are you know, draws and the cuts. And
(14:23):
to watch him kind of just do all that is
this is absolutely impressive and it just really makes you appreciate,
you know, his skill and understanding how acute he is
with all those senses. But yeah, that's that's one of
the biggest things that was I open to ask, was
this his level of detail all those things, And I
think that's the whole that's the value that that's the
value that I think we bring as tailor made and
(14:45):
and these new irons compare the past was um before.
You know, they're kind of handcrafted. One of the pine irons. Um.
You know, they would start with forging blanks and have
to weld a lot of material on and grind and
just do so much work to get it right. Um
where now with us in our our process and our
machine process and our mills grind souls, now that we
(15:07):
have it right, we're able to duplicate that every single
time without any concern of it being different. And I
think that's the biggest value that Taylor may brings. And
that's the value that Tig you're seeing in these irons,
and also in the wedges. He's you know, switches wedges
almost every other event. And when you get soul geometry
that's so curvacious and organic, it's just it's just very
(15:28):
difficult to reproduce, you know, with a hand grinding process.
Mike Taylor's in the best in the world, um, you know,
and Tiger hands probably once that Mike would send him
ten wedges at a time, but only three or four
might be right. Um. It's just that mill grind process
allows this capital really you know, unique jumpat every time
dislically do on the iron. So I think that's the
(15:50):
value we bring so that Tiger doesn't have to relearn
a new set when he gets it. Because when he
would get a new backup set, he changed the sets
twice a year. You kind of have to relearn the
nuances a tiny bit, believe it or not, just because
of those subtleties and those differences in the soul geometry. Uh.
And if there's any subtle changes in the CG. But
now with our process, um, it's gonna play just like
(16:13):
the last that he wore out. Oh, you've said something
before about feel that that kind of intrigues me from
the standpoint of Tiger is the guy who's been out
here over twenty years now, and along that time there's
been certainly a lot of changes technologically and a lot
of data as well as come along with that. And
you all, we've all often heard Tigers say, you know,
(16:36):
he still trusts his hands. Uh, he's a field player,
you know, that's where he sort of lives in that
space when it comes to clubs and and whether they
work or not. But there is all this immense amount
of data available now, So I'm curious how that relationship
works with Taylor made uh and the data set that
(16:56):
you guys put together with Tiger and who you know again,
who's often considered himself like a field player. Uh. You know, certainly,
as you mentioned, one of the smarter guys UM, and
more knowledgeable guys when it comes to information on his
clubs and so forth. But there, but he's not a
guy that typically gets bogged down in all the data.
(17:19):
So how does the balance sort of work for Tiger Uh,
with the balance of the data and of course the
balance of what he feels in his hand exactly. So
it's when we were developing the irons and testing prototypes
with them, we would if we weren't there with him personally,
if if Keith wasn't there, or if I wasn't at
a tour event, or if he was in the Kingdom, UM,
(17:41):
we would send the clubs to his house and he
would test him on his own, and he wouldn't really
use a track man. He would have hit it and
just visually, no, just through that launch window, UM kind
of through the distance, which you know we we trust
and obviously his feedback and what he sees. But you know,
me being an engineer and developing an irons, I need
(18:03):
that data to really be able to fine tune those
subtleties of UM, the things that we're looking at in
the design of the iron to yield exactly what he wants.
So there's a lot of times we kind of had
to push him to say, hey, this this gets some
get some numbers for us so we can kind of
see where we are compared to what your gamers are UM.
(18:24):
So that was always kind of a little bit of
a back and forth, and I think that was its
initial gate he would pass with testing was no track man,
no numbers, just hit it and he could trust what
he sees, what he feels um in the past. That
gate then it wou say okay, now let's get some
numbers on it. So that's kind of the process that
that that that that took place. Wow tonight nine o'clock
(18:49):
on Golf Channel, it's called the Tiger Woods Project. You
can learn everything you've ever you know. It's funny after
he won the Masters, we've got we're getting so much
more information now and you seems to be much more
forthcoming with information than previously we had seen you before.
We didn't really get a lot out of Tiger back
(19:09):
in the day, and now we're getting so much more
learning how he gets his clubs fit and how he
wants to do things and how how he is on
the golf course, and we really have seen a completely
different side, kind of a behind the scenes look we've
never gotten a chance to see before. Paul, appreciate your time.
This is really fascinating. It really is fascinating. Tonight, nine
o'clock the Tiger Woods Project. Paul, We're going to see
(19:31):
you on the show as well, right, yeah, be good,
looking forward to it. Good deal. Thank you so much
for your time. We appreciate him. We'll talk to you soon.
Thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks, I appreciate it.
I think you've had enough. Now, you've had enough, bitch.
Don't mind us Where Playing Through Air's Froggy and Whacker
and welcome to another edition to be Playing Through podcast.
That's Froggy from Helps to Rand in the morning show
with Brian Whacker from Golf Digest at Brian Whacker one.
How you can reach the podcast anytime on Instagram at
Playing Through Podcasts sell Big TV show on tonight. Golf
(00:24):
Channel has been talking about it. You've seen all kinds
of teasers for it on social media. It is about
how Tiger Woods left Nike because they were no longer
making golf clubs and moved over to Taylor Made. But
when he made the move, I mean, Whacker, you had
to believe every single golf company in America wanted Tiger
Woods to try out their stuff. Correct. Oh absolutely. I
(00:48):
mean you can look at Rory McElroy, for example, and
another Tailor Made Player when he joined the staff and
and sort of was in that same position the teograph
found himself in moving from one club company to another.
He says, you know, literally had stuff being sent to
uh from every company. Uh. You'd imagine being sent to
(01:10):
his house in Florida. I think even his parents getting
stuff that in my beginning, stuff I mean, of course,
Tiger Woods, you know, the greatest player of all time.
When he becomes a quote unquote free agent in that arena,
I would suspect that everybody would make their pitch, and
of course Taylor Made UH is the one who landed him.
(01:31):
And we've got a special guest with us today to
kind of take us inside, not just that show of
course that you mentioned that will be on Golf Channel tonight,
but the process of Tiger and uh, how he came
to be uh came to join Taylor Made, and as
well as some of the specifics of the club buildings,
(01:52):
specifically his irons. Yes, we've got Paul Benkowski. Paul, Now
you were there from go in building the irons with
Tiger Wood. So what's that like from the day he
becomes a free agent back in April to he signs
with Taylor Made, what's that process like? Well, first of all,
(02:12):
and we never thought that Tiger would be available to
play any product but Nike, so um when that opportunity arose,
and we were so excited to just you know, put
her hat in the ring there and hopefully have an opportunity. Um.
So as the process went, we were sending the equipment
and getting feedback. Keiths of Barbaro, r VP of co Operations,
was you know, instrument in that, um getting all the
(02:34):
product too and getting the feedback. And then as Tiger
game more confidence and to what Tiger made, what Taylor
may can provide uh, and as he got more comfortable
with the people at Taylor Made, like Keith and myself
and Brian bass On the people that work with him,
that's when we started to kind of, um say, okay, well,
what do we need to get a set of irons
(02:56):
and play here? Because he's obviously very specific for all
of his needs and specifications. So that was kind of
the background of how it began. And then from there,
um we were cast with how to make these irons
um and we work closely with Mike Taylor, who has
been making Tiger's equipment for the past fifteen plus years,
(03:19):
so he was a big consultant on the whole project.
And it started off with myself, Brian Bows and Ultimobile
step I believe it could have had in the show
before flying down to Fort Worth to visit Mike Taylor,
and it was basically just information gathering. Mike has just
binders and binders three four inches thick of specifications on
(03:42):
irons and wedges that he's done for Tiger over the
past fifteen years down to this incredible and credible detail.
So that was the kind of early stages and first
steps of developing the irons and wedges for Tiger. You know,
Tiger and two the album A team changed nearly all
of his equipment, but yet the rons are fairly they're
almost identical to the muscle back ones that he's used
(04:05):
his entire career. You mentioned Mike's involvement, Mike Taylor and
of course Keith Farva and in a host of others.
I guess I'm curious as to why the irons would
be you know there there wouldn't be such significant changes there.
We've seen changes with the driver, both in terms of
him going to an adjustable UH clubhead, two different shafts
(04:28):
and so forth. But but why would the irons UH
be nearly identical and what are the differences in those
irons compared to some of the early ones that he
played in his career. So with the irons, Tiger wants
in let's go a very specific distance, and he has
a very specific launch window that he wants to see
(04:49):
visually when he looks up, so as launch angles, pea kaite,
his spin and his Carrie distance, all those things pretty
much set in stone for every iron. He doesn't want
to see anything different. So when we were developing initial prototypes,
uh ours were actually going further. They were launching a
little bit higher and spinning a little bit less, so
(05:11):
he was gaining about five yards of carry on each iron.
But that's not what he wanted. He wanted basically to
have the same exact level performance that he's had historically.
So it's really hard to make an iron that performs
better when that's exactly what he's looking for. We can
make an iron more forgiving, but when you have an
iron that's more forgiving, it means m I is higher,
(05:32):
which makes it harder for workability. So that's not what
he was looking for either. So essentially he wanted an
iron that was going to have the same launch at
Saint peakaya thaing carry this and same level of forgiveness UM,
so that he could have confidence that he could execute
every shot that he has over the past twenty you know,
plus twenty five years here um without having any unexpected
(05:54):
UH flyers or shots that didn't have enough spin or
that went too far. I remember of the first test
sessions that I took part with that um the Kingdom
with Tiger, but I had several prototypes, and there are
six irons were the first ones we started with. And
his six iron loft is about thirty two and a
half degrees and which is pretty weak. He plays very
(06:16):
weak lost. He loves spin and his gamers he was
launching at about twelve and a half degrees with what
I remember, I remember about six d RPMs a spin
and were carrying hi one eighties in yardage and ours
he was launching two degrees higher and spinning three RPMs
(06:40):
less uh and they were carrying five yards further and
the peak hike was just noticeably higher, like just visually
when you're watching these balls. So we knew that, you know,
we weren't quite there. We were a long ways off. Now,
when you talk about a simple blade like Tiger plays,
there's not many variables to play with, like you have
another turns with face thickness and c R and you
(07:03):
know things that nature. It's primarily center gravity, location, soul geometry,
and score lions. So those are really the only three
things that you can manipulate to affect his launch, his spin,
and his carry distance. So at least from that context,
we were pretty honed in on what we had to
(07:25):
work on to yield what he wanted. And one of
the biggest eye opening things was the actual material of
the irons were used. We historically for our core players,
we've give machine, you know, numerous tour steps over the
years have used three or three stainless steel, and that's
primarily because it's a slightly harder metal, so the groove
(07:49):
geometry lasts longer over time. It's a little bit more
durable material, but in the sense of feel, it's usually
pretty comparable to us the carbon steel. You can't really
feel much difference than actually the sense of fitting a
golf ball. So that's where we started with Tiger, was
the stainless steel. And I remember that first test session
after he had hit for a while, we were all
(08:10):
kind of sitting down and relaxing. When he asked me,
he said, do you think it could be the metal?
In My initial response was I don't think so, because
it's it's a very thick, rigid structure, not like a
thin faced high q R iron. We have flexibility and
things of that nature where the metal would make a
difference in that respect, UM said. And I said, I
(08:30):
don't think it could be. But I said, you know,
well certainly, you know machine some prototypes in that material
and see and sure enough, you know, I did. I
did one and that and and the launch came down
a little bit, the spin went up a little bit.
He had a slightly better sense of feel. We knew
that that was one of the variables that we weren't
initially anticipating. UM. So that was kind of the initial
(08:53):
stage of the purer typing with him. We probably did gosh,
I want to say, six to seven different prototypes over
the first several months, UM, all with real subtle tweaks
to the center jobby location, UM to the overall kind
of back geometry UM and uh, you know, subtle subtle
tweaks to assault. It's a lot of the initial stages there.
(09:17):
And then once we got past that, we discovered with
Mike Taylor that Tiger has been using constant in his irons,
just a little eight nine Graham slug that's buried kind
of low and maybe slightly toward in the back of
the muscle area. And that just kind of allows you
(09:38):
to really just fine tune that CG position. And once
we implemented that in the Iron, we were basically basically
they're satisfying all the needs that he wanted in the Irons. Now,
through this process, you guys are obviously you bring a
wealth of experience. You've done this, you know, thousands of
times at this point. But we're still talking about Tiger
(10:01):
Woods here, So how much nervousness is there and what
you're doing and trying to get this exactly right for
effectively the greatest player to ever play the game. Yeah,
there was definitely a point, you know. I mean it
took it took, you know, over a year to really
completely dial everything in. And I'd say probably after our
(10:22):
first several test sessions when we just weren't getting the
performance that he wanted. You know, I by myself was
getting pretty nervous, say and tees like, you know, we're
we're we feel like we're there. The geometry is so
close to his previous irons, the cgs are so close,
so on and so forth. But you know, if there
was any intangibles in the mix there that we couldn't
(10:42):
really put our finger on and it was definitely a
little nerve wracking at that point, because you know, you've
got a big spotlight on you working with somebody like
Tiger Woods, and you know he's really excited to get
the irons and play, and you don't want to keep on,
you know, sending him product that isn't performing the way
he wants. So there was a affluently, definitely a level
of nervousness in that regard there. So when you so,
(11:04):
when you fit Tiger, and I'm sure you've been around
the fittings with whether it's Dustin or Rory or Jason
Day or rum or any of the many very talented
other players in the stable. There, Taylor made what is
the difference in fitting say Tiger versus fitting the other guys?
Is it is it more difficult and not maybe not
just difficult, but do you learn more when you when
(11:26):
you fit Tiger or is he more technical than some
of the other guys. He's the most technical that I've
ever worked with. His golf que is just through the roofs,
and it's it's kind of it's interesting. He's definitely the
pop is to fit, but it's also you know what,
you you know what you have to do to get
him fit. He's very clear in what he wants and
(11:47):
it's just up to us too to satisfy that need
and give the equipment needed to satisfy what he wants. Um,
the other guys are, you know, slightly different. I've I've
worked on irons for DJ, for Rose, for Ror for
a day, and those were walk in the park compared
to the ironswer Tiger. Um. Those guys, you know, if
(12:09):
it's off by a little bit and launch or spend,
they'll just let's change a couple little things to make
it work. Where Tiger, he's not going to compromise at all.
You know, he's just good. He wants exactly what he
what he wants, like I said, and and then we
have to give it to him. So it's definitely elevated
our game and it made us have to be better
to be able satisfied that need. So there's no swing change.
Tiger won't change a swing he makes or do something different.
(12:32):
He wants the club to fit what he does exactly exactly. Well,
that's amazing. So what's something that that tonight on the
show that as a fan, like I'm a huge Tiger
Woods fan, Um, what's something tonight on the show that
we'll learn that we probably didn't know before tonight show
about Tiger's good question. Um, I mean, I'm sure a
(12:54):
lot of people have heard that, you know, anecdotal stories
about you know, how he could tell the difference of
you know, half a degree of lie or loft or
thousands faces thickness. True, absolutely true. And that's the biggest
eye opening thing that I think, you know, we experienced
on myself experience. And there was a couple of times
that you know, I'm doing prototypes and you know, I
(13:17):
needed to get the CG a little higher on the
head of the club, and I'm like, you know what,
it's gonna be a lot easier if I just add
a couple of thousands to the top lines pickments here
to get that, even though I know his spec is
something slightly different. And uh, I guess I'll see if
you notice it sure enough. Yeah, you know this this
top line, this looks a little thicker, you know, he
just this this amazing. The sensitivity to every little detail.
(13:41):
I've never seen anything like it. Um, not only to
the geometry but just you know, visually the geometry, but
also the feel of the golf club, not only the
feel of the ball in the face, but the feel
of the club entering and exiting the turf. Um there's
this kind of cool thing it's really fun to watch
is when he's putting a club through you know, the
(14:02):
tests on arranges. He kind of has like these nine
windows that he hits it through where he'll hit his
you know stock one, you know, right through the middle,
then who you know, high ones through the top middle,
they'll hit high cuts, high draws, you know, kind of
medium cuts, medium draws, the loose stingers that are straight,
those stingers are you know, draws and the cuts. And
(14:23):
to watch him kind of just do all that is
this is absolutely impressive and it just really makes you appreciate,
you know, his skill and understanding how acute he is
with all those senses. But yeah, that's that's one of
the biggest things that was I open to ask, was
this his level of detail all those things, And I
think that's the whole that's the value that that's the
value that I think we bring as tailor made and
(14:45):
and these new irons compare the past was um before.
You know, they're kind of handcrafted. One of the pine irons. Um.
You know, they would start with forging blanks and have
to weld a lot of material on and grind and
just do so much work to get it right. Um
where now with us in our our process and our
machine process and our mills grind souls, now that we
(15:07):
have it right, we're able to duplicate that every single
time without any concern of it being different. And I
think that's the biggest value that Taylor may brings. And
that's the value that Tig you're seeing in these irons,
and also in the wedges. He's you know, switches wedges
almost every other event. And when you get soul geometry
that's so curvacious and organic, it's just it's just very
(15:28):
difficult to reproduce, you know, with a hand grinding process.
Mike Taylor's in the best in the world, um, you know,
and Tiger hands probably once that Mike would send him
ten wedges at a time, but only three or four
might be right. Um. It's just that mill grind process
allows this capital really you know, unique jumpat every time
dislically do on the iron. So I think that's the
(15:50):
value we bring so that Tiger doesn't have to relearn
a new set when he gets it. Because when he
would get a new backup set, he changed the sets
twice a year. You kind of have to relearn the
nuances a tiny bit, believe it or not, just because
of those subtleties and those differences in the soul geometry. Uh.
And if there's any subtle changes in the CG. But
now with our process, um, it's gonna play just like
(16:13):
the last that he wore out. Oh, you've said something
before about feel that that kind of intrigues me from
the standpoint of Tiger is the guy who's been out
here over twenty years now, and along that time there's
been certainly a lot of changes technologically and a lot
of data as well as come along with that. And
you all, we've all often heard Tigers say, you know,
(16:36):
he still trusts his hands. Uh, he's a field player,
you know, that's where he sort of lives in that
space when it comes to clubs and and whether they
work or not. But there is all this immense amount
of data available now, So I'm curious how that relationship
works with Taylor made uh and the data set that
(16:56):
you guys put together with Tiger and who you know again,
who's often considered himself like a field player. Uh. You know, certainly,
as you mentioned, one of the smarter guys UM, and
more knowledgeable guys when it comes to information on his
clubs and so forth. But there, but he's not a
guy that typically gets bogged down in all the data.
(17:19):
So how does the balance sort of work for Tiger Uh,
with the balance of the data and of course the
balance of what he feels in his hand exactly. So
it's when we were developing the irons and testing prototypes
with them, we would if we weren't there with him personally,
if if Keith wasn't there, or if I wasn't at
a tour event, or if he was in the Kingdom, UM,
(17:41):
we would send the clubs to his house and he
would test him on his own, and he wouldn't really
use a track man. He would have hit it and
just visually, no, just through that launch window, UM kind
of through the distance, which you know we we trust
and obviously his feedback and what he sees. But you know,
me being an engineer and developing an irons, I need
(18:03):
that data to really be able to fine tune those
subtleties of UM, the things that we're looking at in
the design of the iron to yield exactly what he wants.
So there's a lot of times we kind of had
to push him to say, hey, this this gets some
get some numbers for us so we can kind of
see where we are compared to what your gamers are UM.
(18:24):
So that was always kind of a little bit of
a back and forth, and I think that was its
initial gate he would pass with testing was no track man,
no numbers, just hit it and he could trust what
he sees, what he feels um in the past. That
gate then it wou say okay, now let's get some
numbers on it. So that's kind of the process that
that that that that took place. Wow tonight nine o'clock
(18:49):
on Golf Channel, it's called the Tiger Woods Project. You
can learn everything you've ever you know. It's funny after
he won the Masters, we've got we're getting so much
more information now and you seems to be much more
forthcoming with information than previously we had seen you before.
We didn't really get a lot out of Tiger back
(19:09):
in the day, and now we're getting so much more
learning how he gets his clubs fit and how he
wants to do things and how how he is on
the golf course, and we really have seen a completely
different side, kind of a behind the scenes look we've
never gotten a chance to see before. Paul, appreciate your time.
This is really fascinating. It really is fascinating. Tonight, nine
o'clock the Tiger Woods Project. Paul, We're going to see
(19:31):
you on the show as well, right, yeah, be good,
looking forward to it. Good deal. Thank you so much
for your time. We appreciate him. We'll talk to you soon.
Thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks, I appreciate it.
I think you've had enough. Now, you've had enough, bitch.
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