Picking The Best Driver For Your Game - with Club Fitter Nick Manzano - golf SMARTER

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Golf Smarter number three hundred and ninety five, published on
July thirty, twenty thirteen.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Most people's bags are all screwed up. Shafts don't match up.
Most wedges have very stiff shafts. The average golfer in
here plays a regular flex, lightweight steel shaft or graphi.
Even if you're twenty index of thirty index. You can
pick up an eight iron or a wedge. Not every shot,
but you can stick it in the grate. And when
you make that shot, you'd like to see the same
results you see on TV when it looks pretty and
everything works right. But if a shaft's two stiffs on

(00:50):
the wedge or some spec the loft, a lie is
off and it doesn't seem to match your irons, it's
going to be harder to make that shot in first place,
and then you're not at the desired results. So wedge
fitting is probably more important than the iron fitting because
at the end of the day, that's how you're going
to score, that's how you're going to save your par
That's how you're going to stick that club and give

(01:11):
yourself that birdie putt.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Picking the best driver for your game with club fitter
Nick Manzano, this is Golf Smarter. Welcome back to Golf
Smarter for members only. Nick. Thank you, good to have
you here. We're in your offices at the Golf Mart
here in Sandrafel, California. If you want to know more
about where you can go to one of the Sisters stores,
go to Worldwide Golf Shops. Google that and you'll find

(01:41):
something near you somewhere in the United States. It seems
like they are growing and it's a quality organization. I've
been dealing with them for a long time and I'm
really glad to spend some time with you talking about
custom club fitting and why there's advantages for the average
for all golfers to be fitted from a local retailer

(02:06):
or as you called a pro shop on steroids, versus
big box pro shop, a big box pro shop. Thank
you to do that versus going to an individual who
has limited resources.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Well, there you had a couple of different choices. And
for me, you know, I think the the golf Mart
Roger Dones, what we have is the best of all worlds.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Sometimes it's a bit crazy and we've got too much
to do at one time. But you know, as long
as somebody has a little bit of patience or is
lucky enough to show up at a quieter time, everything
works really good. And the resources available are probably second
to none. When dealing with custom club builders, as I

(02:54):
mentioned in the earlier broadcast, they're very limited usually in
the clubheads they have, and some are very talented, but
like myself, perhaps when I had my custom club business,
you know, not the greatest business manager, And so how
do you manage the inventory and all those products and
samples and fitting carts and then make it all pay

(03:14):
and work? You know, here, I just get to do
nice fittings and that's taken care of by a very
well proven, you know, corporate business plan that's worked over
the years, and I just plug myself in and do fittings.
The other coin is, you know, pro shops and club
professionals and golf club professionals, and just like a great

(03:35):
club fitter, most of those guys and gals do great
jobs too. But again, most pro shops are usually limited
and they don't have all the brands they have, you know,
the brand the pro represents and is on staff with
and they have.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
How does that work in pro shops? I mean you'll
go in and you'll say, wait a minute, don't you
have the new Nike here? You know?

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Well, most pro shops over the last I watched this
with my club repair business is most pro shops really
have made a choice. They've either gone really big, like
say hagen Oaks up in Sacramento.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Right, which we recently visited there.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
Yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
They're they're demo day and it's huge.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
And and then most pro shops have downsized. And and
there's lots of reasons. A lot of break ins because
it's hard to secure. And the other reason is, you know,
managing the inventory. It's a it's an industry that cycles
every six months to a year with product.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
And so that's your advantage here at the golf Mart.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
That's our advantage because of the volume we do things cycle,
we we get rid of the product faster than most
because the volume we have so and because of the
clout and our buying power, we can ship stuff back
to the manufacturers and get credit if it's not selling.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
We're a small shops don't have that kind of Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
They don't have that.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Well, they probably do have that advantage, But does that
golf professional have experience in retail merchandising and to what
degree does he have that experience? And the best recent
example here was right after the G twenty fives came
out from Ping. They were selling great because I think

(05:23):
it at least half, if not more than half of
the tour players switched to the G twenty five when
it came out, so it had great credibility and presence
on tour and being a high MOI moment of in
Nursia clubhead, it was very appropriate for a lot of
recreational golfers as well, and it started selling great. And

(05:45):
because it had the same basic adjuster sleeve as the answer,
which was not not as forgiving a clubhead, they stopped
selling almost instantly, So we sent the answers back to
Ping and got G twenty five.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
Things like that, your your.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Smaller pro shop is a little more challenge to manage
that stuff and especially understanding the golf professionals and assistants.
There are also you know, mixing up fitting and selling clubs.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
Uh, it's probably.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
A second teaching and managing the game and managing the
course and promoting the game and putting on clinics and
you know, so they have they have a mixed duty
kind of like we have a mixed duty here. We
have to price things and break down boxes and packages
and put them up on the shelf and put up
up and display and and we do fittings so.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
That cycling that you referred to. The manufacturers, you know,
they're very very limited. There are very strict rules on
what they can do to their golf clubs, to the
golf heads, the chafts, you know, the USGA rules. And
it seems like they're always pushing the limit as far

(07:01):
as they can go on what they're able to do.
And yet they continue to come out with new product
every six months, the big boys, right, And this is
I hope I'm not putting you in an uncomfortable position
by asking you this, because nobody's listening. It's just the
two of us.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
What I'm uncomfortable anyway, So what does it matter.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
I'm not a ray personnel.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Are they? Are they really coming up with different things?
Are they just as I like to jokingly say, are
they just painting the head white and saying this is
a completely different golf club?

Speaker 3 (07:34):
No, there's You know, I was talking about the engineering
departments earlier, but then you can talk about the marketing departments.
And yeah, we've laughed about the the the advertising budgets
probably dwarf there R and D, although they spend a
lot of money in R and D. But I didn't realize,
and you brought it up. The legal department probably has
huge budgets too. Well, yeah, they the legal departments necessary

(07:59):
because the clone's knocked off exactly. And just as they
mentioned the intellectual property, you know, there's certain things that
companies can't copy because Callaway has a patent, or Titleist
has the patent, Ping has the patent, and and so
they have to protect the assets that they have intellectual

(08:20):
property wise, as well as promote the new stuff they've
either licensed or they've figured out in their own or
what have you not.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
But going back to.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
You know, the pro line major manufacturers and why somebody
should consider buying that compared to custom club stuff from
some of the better custom club suppliers or even some
of the better knockoffs that are legal that you know
you can find out there too. The the difference today

(08:54):
and the biggest difference in the club heads is going
to be twofold, in my opinion.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
One is the degree of adjustable drivers.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
The uh the amount of adjustment you have in a
driver head today over the last couple of years, it's
like a renaissance. You can adjust left, right, up, down
one degree, half a degree, two degrees.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
And uh, well it's it's just tuning. So I know,
it's like you know that you're not supposed to make
adjustments on your swing during around. Now you're adjusting your
clubs and your your swing and you're you know, it's like.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Well, I'm talking about the ability to fit somebody on
a tour level, which you couldn't do before in the
tour departments of.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Should the average ball for have an adjustable driver and
be messing with it because you know, like the fifteen handicap,
the midhand, even even a you know, a tan handicap.
You know they're not in the single digits realm yet,
but should they be messing with once they get fitted
and get the right club. Should they be tweaking.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
This thing depends on the individ Some some do all right. Most,
I would have to admit, usually adjust it wrong.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
And and they don't have access to a launch monitor,
so and they don't know what numbers, what numbers are
good or bad. So you know if they have their
own in house simulator in their man cave at home,
and uh, they have a smartphone or on the smartphone
and they've and they've done their research properly that they
can they can do it themselves.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
But you know, that's that's a lot of resource to have.
And so when people come in and ask you, so,
how often should I adjust this? What do you tell them?
When someone says, you know, now that you've set this
for me, when when should I make these adjustments?

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Most people say quite the contrary. They they usually walk
out with its standard or after being fit.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
They just they're going to leave it that way.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
And some of them don't even bother to ask for
the wrenches wrenches when they leave a store.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Customer heads. Are these customizable heads more for the golfer?
Are they for you the fitter?

Speaker 4 (11:03):
Both?

Speaker 3 (11:04):
They make my job as a fitter incredibly easy, I bet,
because I can pull out one club hub, one clubhead
and just sit there and play with it and get
the numbers right.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
And that sounds like you got a call coming in?

Speaker 4 (11:18):
I do.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Do you wanna? Do you want to tell them to
bug off and continue this conversation? Or do you want
me to put that on pause?

Speaker 4 (11:24):
Yeah? I better take the call, and can we.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Put this on pause?

Speaker 4 (11:27):
We can?

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Okay, I'll meet you out on the show floor and
we'll start talking about a gear. Okay, we are now
out on the show floor here at the golf martin
San Rafel. And obviously the doors are open. They're customers
that are here. They're guys over in the practice putting greens.
There's hundreds of putters out here and club head covers.

(11:52):
But what I wanted to do is Rocky the Flying
squirrel just flew right by me. So the first place
that I come up to our sets and here I
see Nike callaway, more callaway? What am I looking at? Here?
Adams Adams Golf? We did he mention them before? More

(12:12):
of that and Tailor made ping right.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
This is the graphite iron section.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Okay, so those are all the graphite, not all of them,
but most of the graphite irons currently.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
And do I notice that most of the graphite chafts
also come with cavity back on the irons. You're not
going to find a lot of blades.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
With generally not Usually the assumption is somebody going to
graphite is a softer swing, and it's going to benefit
from a cavity back design with a lower center gravity,
a little bit more health getting in the air, just
like the graphite shaft is a softer tip and launches
higher and lighter, and you know, swings with more ease

(12:54):
as well.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
And then over here I see more cavity back clubs,
but these look like steel chafts.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Now, well, here we have two rows here now, so
this is the men's steel shafted iron sections.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
We have everything here.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
So every manufacturer has an arsenal of clubheads.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
So Callaway's right here in front of us.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
You've got the Exot the Exot Pro, and then you
have the forgings, the Razor x's, and then you have
last year's Razor X and a combo set. So you
have a whole array of products that you can package
as a set of seven or eight irons, or you

(13:34):
can order ala carte. If, for instance, somebody isn't comfortable
hitting a five iron, you can get just six to
pitching wedge and a sand wedge.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
So here I see that you have these Calaway clubs
that are reduced price almost half the price. Are the
ones right next to it because they're last year's model? Yeah?
But how significantly different are these two sets of clubs?
And is this a bad buy at half the price?

Speaker 3 (14:03):
It all depends on the fit and the year over year.
Sometimes they make really small, subtle improvements and sometimes they
make huge leaps and bounds, And it just depends on
the club and the product, and you know which year
what they stumble across, you know, in the R and

(14:26):
D department or.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
You just it's all individual.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
When do you remember a huge leaps and bounds by
which manufacturer? When was it that you saw one set
of irons to the next was huge leaps and bounds
of improvement?

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Specific Well, I've only been in this side of the
industry for a year and a half, okay, so you
know it were in custom club fitting. I was a
custom club builder for years, so I'm not really qualified
to answer that. But generally, what I know about the history,
you know, the big leaps and bounds were are more
probably a little bit back in the past when Ellie

(15:04):
Callaway and Carson Solheim started pioneering cavity back irons and
the investment casting. The biggest leaping bald is probably investment
casting over forging, because investment casting allowed manufacturers with the
molten steels, the four thirty one steals, the seventeen four steals,
you can form a cavity back iron and you can

(15:26):
distribute the metal around in a more precise way. Forging
is your stamping ability to steal in a big press
and then shaping in hand finishing it. So the time
it takes to do that and the limitations of what
you can stamp in a forging process is is you know.

(15:46):
That's that was a huge difference, and that's what brought
golf to everybody and made it easier for people to play,
and recreational golfers everywhere benefited from that.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
All right, Now, let's let's take a walk over here
to a wall of drivers, and I see signs that
say Callaway Tailor, Made Titleist, Ping Adams, Nike Ladies. So
let's talk about what's hot these days, what you like
and why and then conversely, what's selling really well and

(16:22):
why because of last You know, we just finished the
Open Championship and filled it incredibly well and nobody could
put The greens were driving everyone crazy except Phil and Sold.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
We can segue right there and Sunday, right after the Open,
sold two of the three deep three woods. Not the
same ones Phil was hitting, but you know, very similar.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Really the clubs that they're hitting. How close are these
to that.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
They can be the same club.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Oftentimes a pro will be handed a club by the
manufacturer's rep and the I'll hit it, and their swings
are so good and so precise, they hit it well,
and it just happens to be a perfect fit.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
Visually, it sets up for them the way they want
it to.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
And granted, the manufacturer's reps have already had an idea
of what they like, so they go ahead and hand
them something that's pretty darn close to what's going to
work for him, and it has the shafting that they
want it that they're used to. They pick it up,
they look at it, it looks great, They give it
a practice swing. It feels good. They go out and
hit the ball. It goes right down the middle. They

(17:32):
hit it a couple more times, it seems to be
doing just what they want. There's nothing horribly custom about
it that could go right into their bag. Now there
are times when, for instance, I'm guessing Macilroy's going through
this right now, is they're tweaking things and he's tweaking
things in his swing and trying to figure out what's
going on with a switch from titleist to Nike. And

(17:56):
on another level and Plane, some of those guys, you know,
they spend hundreds of thousand dollars on golf clubs for
them just to get it right. But that's you know,
paid for by you know, a huge marketing commitment by
some of those players. But it fit properly. And the

(18:16):
other thing too, I guess the most important thing is
you were talking about is this club the same club?
And in most cases it's not, and your right in
which you're leading to it could be, but it usually
is not.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
But it's not appropriate.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
The biggest I think mistake most people make coming in
too buy golf clubs is they go by the tour
head or the TP head or the pro head. The
assumption is that's better, and the fact of the matter
is it's not for most golfers.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
It's worse.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
Why tour heads tend to have a higher center gravity,
a smaller head, so they can shape shots and work
the ball left or right. They're not going to default
straight as easily in a gravity's going to launch lower
with less spin because a tour strong, stronger player, tour
player generates enough spin. The recreational heads have a lower

(19:09):
center gravity, a bigger head, they're going to default straight.
They're going to be easier for most people to head.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
This is such important information you just say I can't believe.
And that's really valuable.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
And this is where Tom with Sean goes nuts with
the with our side of the industry. If you read
his books, uh you know, the Twelve Myths and the
Perfect Driver. He gets some digs in in the conventional
golf industry and they're fair. He works both sides of
the fence. He consults with PGA guys and Golf Digest
and does seminars on that side and is well respected

(19:41):
by by PGA pros across the country. And then he
does what he does on the custom club side, and
he's probably has more respect there even but it's the
marketing sometimes or people both on a pro shop level
and in a store like ours that lets somebody just

(20:05):
walk out the door with that better head. And you know,
if somebody wants to buy it and try it, as
I said earlier, is yeah, that's fine. They can go
try it, and we've got our ninety day warranty. They
can bring it back, give it a whirl. If it
doesn't work, though, that's when the custom club fitting comes in.
And that's when they come back into the store and

(20:25):
they're returning something. It's a very important question to ask, Okay,
why didn't it work?

Speaker 4 (20:30):
What was going on?

Speaker 3 (20:31):
And you start the fitting interview process right then and there,
and hopefully when they walk out the second time, they've
got a more appropriate head. And that's where this arsenal.
You see how many different heads we have here. You
can't walk into you know, most custom club builders and
see as many choices against the.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Wall this long, this is this is a probably a
thirty five to forty foot wall of just clubs.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
And each one of these clubheads are backed up by
you know, a huge engineering in R and D department
and just as importantly, because people have to want to
buy it, you know, marketing department to take those engineering feats,
whether they be a small one as we mentioned earlier,
or a big leap inbound like some of the new
adjustable drivers.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
We were talking about irons earlier.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
But the biggest leap inbound in technology is the fully
adjustable drivers, and that combined with the launch monitor and
a little bit of fitting expertise, doesn't take a ton.
You know, somebody can have the equivalent of a tour
level fitting today that only tour players could get, you know,

(21:34):
on a full Doppler Rader track man with a couple
of technicians standing by ten to fifteen years ago.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
So it really is a renaissance.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
As I'm looking at these Calloway drivers, you know, visually
from where I'm you know, I'm just looking at the
base of the bottom the foot of each of these clubs.
But visually I can immediately tell a difference. I see,
you know, not just in a red or a green
or white with some red stripes, but even the paint design.

(22:12):
I can gravitate too, and I see some are adjustable
where some are not. Are there big differences in these
in these three different Callaway clubs, you know, big differences, no,
But there's lots of little differences.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
People don't understand that they're tuned for different swing speeds
and different ability levels and and different price points as well.
And so that's why there's that many different drivers.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
And then we come over to the next rack here,
the next row, and probably it seems to be the
more newer drivers that I'm seeing when I'm playing with
friends or just out I'm playing with strangers, whatnot, the
these tailor made whitehead drivers.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
We actually have two racks of Taylor. They're the number one,
number one driver in golf.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Why and uh? Well, and where did they come from?
I mean like they came out of nowhere. It seems
like once they.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Were they've been number one for years and drivers both
on tour and recreationally, and uh, they're not. They're not
willing to give up that spot. So they keep innovating.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
And are they that I keep coming back? Are they?
Is there room for innovation? What are they doing that
is so unique?

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Well, what what they did last year, which was really
really smart and brilliant, is with the acquisition of Adam's
Golf and being able to use their speed slot technology,
and they came out with the rocket balls, the original one.
And this year we have the Stage two, which refined
a few things that weren't so weren't so easy for

(23:53):
a lot of people to hat. But what was brilliant
is they took that great fairwaywood innovation and they use
that to market their drivers as well. You know, the
drivers didn't have a leap and bound breakthrough the fairwaywoods did.
But you know, with the association, they sold a lot
of drivers the speed slot.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
So it's kind of like a cavity back would huh.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Well, the whole bottom half of the face springs on
a normal fairway wood, you have the frame is at
the bottom of the head, so when you miss it low,
the face stops rebounding. Most fairway woods today have a
high cor trampoline face, just like the drivers do. But
when you get down to the bottom of the clubhead,
where the soul is and where most of the weight is,

(24:38):
that's the frame of the that's the frame that supports
the face, so you don't get that bounce on the
rocket ball as you do. So with the whole bottom
half of the face being able to move, they took
and refine that atoms technology, and then with their marketing department,
they went out there and promoted it, and last year

(24:58):
they cleaned everybody's clock really and they sold a lot
of drivers on the coattails of the Fairway Woods.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
And what does that offer me? As a you know,
fourteen fifteen handicap? What am I going to notice right
off the bat with that?

Speaker 3 (25:13):
The what you'll get from that? The benefit will vary
depending upon your swing speeds. At higher swing speeds, you'll
be able to notice on your mishits down low that
you're going to get off you know, a lot more
distance and dead center, dead center if you strike any
of these, arguably they're going to be very similar, okay,
And that's why we have all all different different brands,

(25:35):
and we sold lots of Callaway and Titleist and Nike
last year too. So it's going to get down to
where your mishits are a lot of times, and which
club ed is going to have the center gravity and
forgiveness where you need it. And that's where a fitting
and a launch monitor can help.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
And here are these ten and how we're moving to
the next ale of tailor maids. And these drivers have
compasses at the bottom.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Okay, Going going back to Tom and the drivers, you
take the R one for instance, and the R one
and the titleist drivers and the ping drivers are a
couple of my personal favorites. And the reason why I
like them is because they all have weights in them.
So here you have the you can adjust the loft

(26:18):
up and down. You can go ahead and adjust the
face angle by dialing in the dial at the bottom
of the club, and so you can go up and
down with the loft or youset the face angle for
the preferred.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
Look and bias you want.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
And then what you have, And this is one of
Tom Mashan's things is everybody plays a too long of
a driver, and a lot of these drivers are forty
five and a half forty five and three quarters. And
Tomashean and Ralph Maltby at Malty Golferks, they both say
the same thing that drivers most peoples replaying a forty
four forty four and a half inch driver, they're going

(26:54):
to go straighter and longer, more usable distance, more fairways hit.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
And so why don't the manufacturers hear.

Speaker 4 (26:59):
That and sell drivers?

Speaker 3 (27:01):
And all some guys want to do is blast it
past their buddies a couple times and around of golf,
and they're happy to do that.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
And they think they can do that just because they
have another inch and a half on their shaft.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
If they hit it dead perfect once around, they go
ahead and get it. So that's part of an interview.
And when I fit somebody, I ask them, you know,
how do you approach the game. Are you just out
there and having fun you want to blast a couple
drives past somebody, or are you seriously working on your
score and you want to get your games down and
hit more fairways. And that determines, you know, what I

(27:32):
might suggest for somebody's shaft length. But going back to
the drivers and fitting a driver, because these also have
weights in them, there's leeway. The heads are made lighter
than average and the weights are put in there to
bring it up to weight. So I can go ahead
and put lighter weights in this, make this over length,
and I can go ahead. I can make a forty

(27:53):
seven inch like a long drive competition driver out of
these clubs. I can also put in heavier weights and
chop it down and fit somebody to a forty four
inch driver. And on the launch monitors, you look at
the numbers, they bear fruit. When I get a smart,
thoughtful customer who wants to just hit more fairways. Oftentimes

(28:14):
will go a little bit shorter on the driver. Yeah,
and you hit ten twenty shots with a longer driver,
hit ten twenty shots for a shorter one. You look
at the average, you delete the worst hiccup shots, and
then look at the average usable yardage. That shorter driver
is usually going to be longer. Tom's right, Ralph Maltby's right,
But that with the not sexy with no, it's not

(28:37):
as much fun either.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
But you know it's why you're out there on the
golf course.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
You out there to blast drives and have fun, or
you out there to get your score down, or you know,
I think a lot of people should have two drivers. Really,
Nicholson had two drivers for quite some time.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
Most of the time you to carry one who's.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
The other guy is?

Speaker 3 (28:54):
At Cooney one of the bigger hitters a few years back,
he had two drivers.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
But you know, really they don't pay for their drivers.
Drivers are expensive.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
What that's our use sections right over there.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
So we've gotten used, and we've gotten new and and
and uh everything. But today having two drivers make sense.
You can have a short, conservative driver with a higher loft,
and uh it may not go quite as far in
your best shot, but you can hit out on tight
hole short fair ways you're not playing good. You can
have a long driver in a wide open hole if

(29:28):
you want to go for that par five, or you're
just ticked off because your buddy's been driving to pass
you all day, you can take it out and whale
on it.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah. Well, you know we say a lot of times
on the show. It's it's I'd give me ten feet
closer than ten yards further any day of the week.

Speaker 4 (29:42):
Yeah, but it's it's really all about putting and wedges.
You know. All this other talk is silly.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
It's like standing, we don't know, we haven't even talked
about because we've been here on the because drivers, it's
it's it's what sells, what what brings people into the
into the store. And and we're not we're not blowing
by titleist in Cobra here to get to ping in Cleveland.
But let's just go ahead. Well, no, we started with
your one.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
So the title is nine thirteen again, the same thing
you've got with the waitport in the back of it
and the adjustable grid they have, and you know that's
one of the one of the neat things you can do.
You can go up, down, left, right and fine tune
a driver before or after the sale, and you can

(30:27):
adjust the link with the waitport welcome and on the
ping drivers, same thing to a customer. You have the
waitport in the back and you can adjust fine tune
the directional and loft parameters too.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
And the Nike driver as well.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
So those are like my four favorite drivers and partially
because selfishly speaking, they're easier to feed people into because
you can get really good results.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
Okay, so we talk about innovation, unique design things like that.
This to me, this Nike driver with his huge cavity back,
this huge hole in the back, explain this, tell me,
you know, because you miss one. For a friend of mine,
I hit took one swing, it was blown away.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
But it's it's all about the candy apple red hot
rod finish, really.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah, right, versus the white white finish. But does that
have any significant impact on results?

Speaker 3 (31:36):
The aero dynamics of this paint job actually gives you
about three miles an hour a club at speed.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
You're yanking my chain. Just no, but I'm I'm not.
I'm asking about these convert.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
Drivers that well, Nike, the Nike had some we were
talking about again leaps and bounds and advances and drivers
and or irons earlier, and you know, the irons I
had went back into history, and then with the drivers,
I kind of brought us current with the adjustable drivers.
But with this one, Nike actually kept it very The

(32:09):
whole point of the name covert was because the whole
process of designing it, making sure they had the patent
styled in legal department, confirmed it, then they launched it,
and that's why it was covert. The whole process of
designing that driver was like a covert operation, so industrial espionage.
They didn't want somebody to beat them to the punch,
and they were very cautious about it, and thus the

(32:30):
name covert. Great, there's actually a story behind it. But
the neat thing about the cavity back is if you
put the weight forward, you're going to go ahead and
help lower spin among other things. With a cavity dugout
more heel and toil waiting, you're going to have a
high moment of a Nursia driver. So you end up
getting both. And the beauty of the Nike over the

(32:52):
tailormade and the titleist in the pings is a level
adjustability and the simplicity of the adjustability. It only comes
in candy Apple red. You'd better be willing to swing
a hot rod and not have any problems with it.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
But the numbers are right there. Anybody can adjust that.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
You know, if you think you're hitting it too low,
dialed up one degree, you're hitting it to the left,
dial it to the right.

Speaker 4 (33:16):
And it's just so simple all in one, and it works.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
It does.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
All the adjustments work. Some are more complicated than others.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
I see.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
So it's going to get down to it. You're saying
this Nike is the simplest. It is the simplest. And
you have again the tour head. And and the other
reason why this is a neat club head is you
have the tour head and you have the recreational head.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Exception is and people should really pay attention and ask
questions about is the tour head work? For me?

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Is that that's the perception. The tour head's better, but
the tour heads smaller. It's going to have less spin,
it's going to work the ball left and right more easily,
and it's going to come up a little bit.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Do that exactly.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
You've got to be able to want to do that,
First work it onto the fairway and then decide where
you're working it from there. Phil Mickelson with his deep
deep callaway three deep woods deep three woods at the Open,
you know, he's playing like a forty three forty three

(34:14):
inch driver like we grew up playing. It's basically the
equivalent of that. He's a tall guy well, and what
he managed to do at Merefield is he could work
the ball because he had more control over the smaller
club head and the shorter shaft. We were talking about
long and short drivers. Basically what he was swinging was
the equivalent of Ralph Maltby's hero driver he promoted in
his golf books high lofted, shorter length and for a

(34:39):
lot of people going to a callaway three deeper the
titleist fd in going to that kind of a three
wood's going to be longer. But on the Nikes, what's
really neat is you can get the tour shaft in
the recreational covert head. So the neat thing about the
Nikes too, I can put in the lighter weight, low

(35:03):
moment of inertia, faster swinging recreational shafts for somebody with
a lighter swing speed and less golf athleticism. I can
take the tour shaft out of the tour head and
I can put it in the covert, no up charge. Nice,
So again just a it's a special order. We don't
have them on the shelf and most golf shops don't,

(35:24):
but we can do that.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
You can get it. So we in above Nike. Here
you have Adams Golf, which is not one of the
big players, but come have well they'd product.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
They are arguably the biggest in hybrids of recent history
and really pioneered hybrids on tour. But they in regards
to drivers, you know, would be behind some of the
other names we've mentioned. But when you go to Adams,
then you have some other things. So it's all marketing

(35:55):
and perception. So it's a four to sixty head, it's
got a point eight three to zero c R to
the so it's going to have roughly the same moment
of inertia, it's going to have roughly the same spring
off the face. One of the things that Adams has
done marketing wise that they put in top dollar shafts,
and so here you have the matrix hd raddis last

(36:17):
year in the LS you had the Fubuki by Mitzi
Bichira on the number one shaft on tour and the
Fabuki is a little bit softer tip at a very
low spin tour grade shaft that a lot of top
amateurs club pros I know, and there are tour players
that play it on tour two.

Speaker 4 (36:36):
It comes standard in the club.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
So rather than spending big bucks in marketing, they put
it back into the shaft of the club.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
And it's kind of a sleeper.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
And that's a neat thing about working here is it
took me a couple months to figure out that was
in there. Somebody came in asking about it because they'd
heard about the shaft, and I pulled one out fit
them and it was some of the best numbers I
ever had in the computer.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Really well, so that's really interesting. So now here we're
looking at the bottom of all these clubs and we
see big names in the bottoms. But how important and
how much does the average consumer not pay attention to
the shaft And how important is the shaft?

Speaker 3 (37:12):
The shaft is just as important as every other part
of it. Yeah, it's got to be the right weight,
it's got to be the right flex point. You got
to have the spin rate from the shaft match the
loft of the head, and you got to have at
the right length. As we talked about, you know, it's
these clubs are fit. The off the shelf clubs as

(37:33):
they sit, are fit, like Tom W. Shawan says, for
a quote standard average golfer. They're not fit for anybody specifically,
they're fit for different standards. The tour clubs are set
for faster, stronger swinging players with lower indexes. Generally, the
recreational clubs are fit for somebody with an average swing

(37:55):
tempo somewhere between a senior golfer and an average forty
year old guy. And you know where you run into
problems is you know, tall guys, short guys, maybe the
uh the contractor guy you know who's built like a tank.
And we used to play baseball. MAT's number four in

(38:16):
his softball team, and he can hit the sneezes out
of the ball, but he doesn't have the athleticism or ability.
Does he go with a tour head or does he
go with a regular.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Head and he just wants to hit as far as
he can every single shot.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, it all depends if he's a finished carpenter. He
may want to hit a few more fairways. You know,
if he's a framer, he probably wants to beat it
out there.

Speaker 4 (38:38):
But I guess I was talking about a framer.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Okay, I don't know. All right, So now we have
we've not even gone into the fairy woods and the hybrids.
We've really been talking about drog.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
We touched on the fareawee.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, and then and then of course we have the wedge,
the wedges, which are a whole different category of what's
going on. And is that a different fitting?

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Well, the wedges would follow the irons, So in a
whole whole set fitting, you would usually start with the irons.
Then you would figure out the lowest iron you have
a playable trajectory with and that and consistency with.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
Hi ray No, we are.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
On the show floor, and so these interruptions we're going
to be expected. So really.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
You mean fred here?

Speaker 1 (39:22):
No? No, no, no, So why is Nick the best at
what he does? He explains things and doesn't talk down
to you.

Speaker 4 (39:27):
He spent time research.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
He's a player.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
Can you ask me if you can't do it? He
does it?

Speaker 1 (39:33):
And did he fit you?

Speaker 4 (39:34):
He fit me both irons and.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
And how are your results pretty dog on good? Like?
What consistent in? What movement really for? There's a testimony
right there, Nick, put the twenty back. That's important. Thank you? Yeah, sure,

(39:56):
go go go hit the chorus. But remember you can't
wear a denim on the cour the same question.

Speaker 4 (40:03):
Thank you?

Speaker 3 (40:05):
Okay, Nick, So more than I deserve on the wedges.
So you would start a complete club fitting. Usually you
would go with I would go with the irons. First,
you figure out what iron they struggle with, and you
cut it off on the bottom at the top end,
you decide, uh, the you decide roughly what your set

(40:28):
makeup is. You how many clubs you have to play with.
Then you go to how many wedges they want? Then
you get the spacing in the wedges, the transition from
the irons to the wedges. Most people's bags are all
screwed up, and uh, you know, the gaps and spacing.
People struggle with it and they hit knock down shots
and and shafts don't match up.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
Most wedges have very stiff shafts.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
The average golfer in here plays a regular flex lightweight
steel shaft or graphite. We can special order wedge to
match the set so tuning the wedges into the set
that transition and when you're even if you're twenty index
of thirty index, you can pick up an eight iron
or a wedge and not every shot, but you can
stick it in the grain, and when you make that shot,

(41:10):
you'd like to see the same results you see on
TV when it looks pretty and everything works right. But
if the shaft is too stiff in the wedge or
some speck the loft, the lie is off and it
doesn't seem to match your irons, it's gonna be harder
to make that shot in the first place, and then
you're not gonna get the desired results. So wedges wedge fitting,

(41:31):
I think is probably more important than the iron fitting
really because that's at the end of the day, that's
how you're gonna score, that's how you're going to save
your par that's how you're going to stick that stick
that club and give yourself that birdie putt. So the
wedges and putters really is where if you and I
were really in comish on and everybody, we would all

(41:53):
start off our conversations and books about wedges and putters
really instead of about drivers and irons.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
And so when you're doing a fitting and someone's coming
in for the entire set, are you gonna advocate to
have more wedges in their bag? Then hybrids and fairway
woods and you know, the big boy clubs or absolutely yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
I go with Dave Pel's on that maybe not maybe
not a super lob wedge, but having his books and
read some of his stuff too, And then with my
own bag, you know, having four wedges like a forty five,
a fifty, fifty five and a sixty. It's just a
lot more intuitive, a lot simpler. The average golfer doesn't

(42:37):
have to make the half three quarter swings and they
can hit a few more greens and again set themselves
up for that birdie putt.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
There's a lot of conversation that's been on this show
about the design of wedges versus irons, and the folks
over at score Golf talk about how the the the
nine irons should be designed more like a wedge than

(43:05):
a six iron.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
Terry Kohler, Terry Kayler, Yeah, Taylor Okay Kaylor at score Golf,
Yeah yeah, I'd an account with Idelon. I didn't mention
him earlier, but he was one of the better component
suppliers to buy wedgeheads from with his Idolon and Scare wedges.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah, and uh, you know he's he's trying to sell
more wedges. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
And he makes a great product, he does. And I
tend to have a slightly different opinion. I think more
of the clubs should be designed more like the irons,
and I like to fit people in the gap wedge.
I'd rather fit somebody with a gap wedge or approach wedge,
universal wedge, whatever the company might call it, in the
iron set. And the reason why I like that is

(43:47):
the leading edges on those irons tend have straighter edges.
I think they set up and target better for the
average golfer doesn't have the fine eye of a tour
professional or PGA professional that that straight or leading edge
targets better. And then segueing into your more sophisticated wedges
like idol on scores or all of ours, the Vokys

(44:11):
and the Cleveland's and the Mizunos, and a new callaway
wedge which is really neat too. Your sand, your lob,
your super lob. Those are all very specific to the
turf you're playing, whether you're a sweeper, a digger, and
the courses you play on. You know, do you want

(44:32):
to pick it off a hard pan and flop it
over a sand trap? Is that a shot you're going
to encounter most of the time in your unicorse or
do you have to plunk it out of the rough
and get it to stop in the green And then
you get into bounce and lofts and but I kind
of like the gap weadge as part of an iron set.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Awesome. Awesome. Let's talk about repair and and how people
should sometimes maybe get repairs done instead of changing.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Yeah, it happens. And that's one of the neatest things
about working here and helping to kind of run and
organize the repair department is a lot of times people
coming with the reshaft or they want something cut down
and just understanding the custom club side of things and

(45:22):
being able to, well, when I chop it down while
we re swing wait it. So it costs five bucks
more for some lead tape or some tongues and powder.
But now they walk out of here with a better driver.
And if they're in a budget and or they got
the club for free, there's a for personal reasons. They
it was there, you know, their grandfather's club that taught
them how to play golf when they are kids, you know,

(45:43):
making that more enjoyable and putting that club in their
bag right by putting the right shaft in it, shortening it,
lengthening it, rebalancing it properly, just like we are talking
about in the driver department, and making sure grips are
put on straight and the right size. Most people play

(46:03):
with standard sized grips. In my opinion, most the average
guy should play with a one thirty second over size grip.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
And can you figure that out in a fitting.

Speaker 4 (46:14):
It's usually a really good fitting.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
That's where you would finish up, usually with selecting the grip,
the texture of the feel, and going back to what
you're talking about the wedges is making sure if they're
keeping their wedges, you're fitting for irons. You know, have
them bring the wedges in, putting new grips in the
wedges at the same time, make sure the diameters are
the same. You know, you do a really nice fitting
in a set of irons and they walk out the

(46:36):
door and they have their three standard wedges in their
car with smaller grips on it, so they have more
grip tension, and so they may strike their irons better,
but now you just messed up the wedges in their
bag because the grip size is different. So the little
things matter, the big things matter. The average golfer needs
custom fitting more than the tour player. Tour player can

(47:01):
take one robotic swing. They know if it fits or
doesn't fit. They have enough confidence that they want two swings.
They know the club's right or wrong, and they have
a good idea of what needs to be done to
make it right. The average recreational golfer doesn't have a clue,
and they assume it's them. And it's too bad because

(47:21):
you know, we want to grow the industry, We want
to grow the game. We want people to play faster.
You know, USGA, if they, if they, you know, really
wanted people to play faster, they would spend a lot
more time emphasizing and promoting really good fitting and getting
people to play better. And you know, then sometimes putting

(47:42):
pins and nasty places on Fridays and Saturdays and having
the rough grown and some courses that doesn't.

Speaker 4 (47:50):
Help with the play either.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
But and Marshall's not helping you look for balls. Okay,
so another topic, Well, this has been unbelievably educational. I
really appreciate you spending so much time explaining these things.
I learned so much, I can't believe it.

Speaker 4 (48:06):
Well, I hope I didn't put my foot in my
mouth too often.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Well you'll have to be You'll have to decide that
yourself when you listen. But what I would like to
do at some point soon is I want to come
in here and have you fit me for clubs and
let's go through a fitting process, and I'm going to
videotape this so that we can go ahead and take
that and put it up on golf Smarter TV and

(48:30):
go through a process and what I learn about being
fitted and then realize am I playing playing with the
right clubs? Hybrids? You know? Would driver wedges? Are these
the right clubs for me? Are the changes that I've
made in my swing over the years since I've gotten
these clubs? Are they still correct or not? Because I

(48:51):
was fitted for these? So I would I would love
to get your feedback and love to come and do
that videotape video with you.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
We can do that would be my pleasure, And you know,
might have to do it in a couple of sessions.
That's okay, you know, I'd probably start with the irons,
go to the wedges. Then I would fit you of
the fairway wood, and then we'd fill the gaps with hybrids.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Yeah, okay, driver would be the icing on the cake. Yeah. Well,
it's interesting because I'm getting ready to make some moves
on you know. Right now. What I'm doing is I'm
carrying the hybrids for a three and four iron, but
I'm carrying a three wood. But it's actually a forwood
and a driver that I'm carrying. I'm carrying five wedges.

(49:34):
Everybody should take note that you're playing a forwood. What's
your index these days? It's gone up to fourteen five,
fourteen five. I've been down as low as eleven nine.
But I'm in that, you know, like a regular flex
stiff flex yeah, regular metal flex.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
Okay, okay, but yeah, everybody should take note that you're
playing a four wood.

Speaker 4 (49:55):
I play a forwood.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
Well forwoods are actually magical fairway woods from And I'll
tell you because three High Launches and Tailor made the
marketing gurus of the wood business.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
And we talked about Jesse Ortiz made my club for me,
and he said, look, I'm going to give you this
is you don't have to tell anyone's a fourwood. It's
really You could say it's a three wood if you want,
but it's really a forwood.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Yeah, but Jesse Ortezes fourwood actually is almost like a
five wood. Oh, now I'm really confused because it's loft
in center gravity. Jesse or tees going back to the
olo our days, he has one of the shallowest face heights.
And I've done this in the past here with used
ones and our bins that we had sitting around, and

(50:37):
I can take one of his fifteen degree three woods
and put in the hands of a slow swinging woman
and because of the center gravity being solow, it launches
and he gets up in the air.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
Really nice.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
I like the club. It treats me well, so it
treats me very forgiving. Yeah, well that's a whole different
that's a whole different show and other topic. But thank
you again for letting me take you away from the
floor here and interrupting your workday. But it's really been awesome.
Thank you again. Hello Michael, Hello Michael, thanks for being

(51:08):
on the show. So Nick Manzano is the club custom
club fitter here at the Golf Martin one of many
custom club fitters here and again if you'd like to
get If you have any specific questions that you want
Nick to answer, I'm sure he'd be happy. If you
want to, just go ahead and click on the Heyfred
button at golfsmarter dot com. Send me the email. I

(51:30):
will go ahead and forward it to Nick and you
can start your own conversation with him. Are you okay
with that? Ah?

Speaker 4 (51:35):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (51:37):
May? That was that was a That was definite, definitive
answer there. All right, Nick, thanks so much. I really
appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
Oh, thank you. I hope I help

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Picking The Best Driver For Your Game - with Club Fitter Nick Manzano

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Picking The Best Driver For Your Game - with Club Fitter Nick Manzano