The breath and width of the knowledge Tom Wishon possesses in the golf equipment category has no peer.
Finding truth can be a hard task in today’s constant bombardment of claims stating results that simply do not add up.
Tom Wishon follows a simple reality – let the science and numbers do the talking.
Those seeking to purchase equipment should follow his sage advice before spending unnecessarily and thereby adding even more to one’s frustration level because the desired results are not happening.
Background
While now semi-retired, Tom Wishon began working with golf clubs in 1972 and became a clubhead designer in 1986. During his career, he has designed over 400 different clubhead models which include over 50 different design firsts, including the first high coefficient of restitution (COR) irons, hybrids, fairway woods in the early 2000s and the first adjustable hosel sleeve for changing woodhead specs in 1995.
Wishon has written 11 books and over 200 articles on the technical performance of golf clubs and club fitting technology for most of the trade and consumer golf publications in the US and internationally.
Two of his books won Golf Book of the Year awards and a number of Wishon’s books are still used as part of the required curriculum for membership in the PGAs of Great Britain, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands.
My Story
Several people played major roles in my career and personal development.
• Dick Billehus
Head pro at Greeley CC (located halfway between Denver and Fort Collins, CO) in the city where I grew up and learned to play golf. Billehus was the first to introduce me to working on golf clubs in high school which commenced my interest.
• Chinneng Lin
Owner and founder of Dynamic Precision Casting Corporation, today the third largest manufacturer of investment cast clubheads in the golf industry.
Chinn owned half of Dynacraft Golf Company when I was the company president from 1986 to 1993. Over the course of those years Chinn allowed me to spend a total of nearly 7 months in his factory learning every single aspect of clubhead engineering and production technology.
• Art Mittendorf
Former Air Force Top Gun instructor with two engineering degrees, Art was my engineering mentor from 1993 to 2006.
During that time Mittendorf helped teach me the applicable science and engineering facts and principles that he used to guide his clubhead design work and research into the performance of golf clubs as well as into club fitting technology.
• Charles Su
Owner and founder of Virage Tech Industrial, today the largest manufacturer of forged iron heads in the golf industry.
Charles was the only foundry owner who shared my passion for experimenting with different materials and methods of customizing manufacturing procedures for clubheads.
Virtually every clubhead factory owner simply wants to produce millions of easy to make clubheads. Had I not met and worked with Charles, most of his original clubhead technology firsts would not have been made.
***
On a scale from 1-10, what is the knowledge of golfers regarding pertinent information on equipment?
At the risk of offending a fair number of golfers and being honest from over 50 years of researching and practicing a high level of club design and clubfitting technology, I am compelled to rate golfers’ equipment knowledge at a 2 or 3.
And a level 1 means you know only which end of the club to hold and which clubs are supposed to hit the ball farther than others.
The reason is because the vast majority of golfers get their equipment information from the big companies’ equipment marketing propaganda.
So there is plenty of information — but you believe there’s more disinformation present — correct?
I will agree that there are a lot of You Tube influencers trying to make their million clicks and remote fortune from talking about golf clubs. I confess to not spending much time perusing any of them because the few I have taken the plunge to check out did not really offer truthful information to educate and guide golfers.
It also seems the more followers a golf club influencer has, the more they talk about big company golf club models instead of things like loft and lie and length and shaft bend profile and so forth.
I do think there are a few You Tubers who know enough to help golfers, mainly the ones that are clubmakers or club repairmen. But ultimately and hands down, the best source of golf club information will come from an experienced custom clubmaker who is a member of the Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals (AGCP – www.agcpgolf.com)
On the same scale – how pertinent and reliable is the information on equipment golfers receive in most retail situations?
Very few golfers will hear what I classify as pertinent information about golf clubs when buying clubs from a golf retail store, whether that be big box, strip mall or golf course pro shop.
The main thing I think they hear is distance – or rather which club the sales person thinks will enable the golfer to hit the ball longer than with his current clubs because without question, distance or the lure of it has always sold more golf clubs than any other thing.
Many of the stores have launch monitors or golf simulator units that will display a lot of pertinent information. But often the information most discussed is distance and ball speed, which of course is the key to distance.
So what’s missing?
Have you ever heard of a golf retail store using its equipment to track iron distance gaps between clubs or shot distance / trajectory to determine what number iron should be your lowest loft iron before you move to hybrids – your set makeup?
Or your correct lie angle? Or what swingweight would be best for your strength and tempo?
Golf retail stores average making 25% profit on the big company golf clubs they sell. That’s not a lot when you have a lot of overhead. So that means golf retail stores have to sell a volume of clubs and that means they cannot spend the time to determine all the proper fitting specs for the clubs they sell, much less ever have the clubs altered to meet all the pertinent fitting specifications for a golfer from a proper fitting.
Once again, the best source of golf club information will come from an experienced custom clubmaker who is a member of the Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals (AGCP – www.agcpgolf.com)
The PGA of America has nearly 30,000 people connected to the association. How well versed are those members on the subject of equipment and what can the association do to better their expertise?
I apologize in advance because this answer might possibly make you think I am an arrogant and condescending person with an axe to grind. I have spent time studying the history of golf equipment.
From that, combined with the fact I spent the first 5 years of my career as a member of the PGA of America working at golf courses, I am convinced that the pros of the latter 19th century knew more about how to match their golfers with the best clubs for their game than the pros of today. Period.
How is that so?
Most of the latter half of the 19th century there were virtually no golf club companies from which the pros could order clubs to stock and sell in their shops. Most of the pros had to make the clubs for their golfers, or, they sent their golfers to the local clubmaker to have the clubs made to measure.
Having been in the PGA and having taught several PGA seminars on equipment, and having been turned down by the PGA when I volunteered to write the curriculum for equipment training, I am aware the PGA does not teach members what they really need to know to guide their golfers to make the very best buying decisions for their golf clubs.
So given what you said – what direction should golfers begin the search process?
The vast majority of clubs are now bought online or at off course golf retail stores; club pros sell very few clubs. Their pro shops and demo days on the driving range exist primarily as showrooms for the golfers to see, try, feel and touch before they go home to buy online or head to the big box store to purchase what marketing has told them to buy.
Pros are not taught how to properly fit all the elements of a golf club – loft, lie, length, driver/wood face angle, shaft weight, shaft flex, shaft bend profile, swingweight, set makeup, clubhead design, grip type and size. They usually know how to install grips, but fall short of everything else.
And once again, the best source of golf club information will come from an experienced custom clubmaker who is a member of the Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals (AGCP – www.agcpgolf.com).
Wedges have become an interesting story line over the last quarter of a century. Recreational players have even opted to include a 60-degree wedge – some even using more loft. Is there a value for those type of players in having such a club(s) in the bag?
In a word — no.
The higher the loft of a wedge in your bag, the more skill you better have to control your wedge tempo, hands and swing through the ball. Golfers with the proper swing techniques for chipping and pitching can learn to get all the shot height and spin they need from a 56° sand wedge for 98% of the shots they may face.
The kiss of death for a 60° or worse yet, higher loft wedge, is poor wedge swing technique that sees you decelerate the clubhead through the ball or to simply not swing hard or full enough.
More times than not, the less skilled player ends up putting the ball into the very hazard over which they were trying to gently loft the ball with the 60* wedge. 99% of the time you are better off missing long than short with a wedge and a 60°+ wedge breeds the error of leaving the ball short.
Periodically, usually in a two-year cycle, the OEMs bring “new equipment” to consumers. Given the detailed rules on what’s permissible on equipment offerings, how much is really “new” from OEMs or is it just ploy to hype newness when little is frankly meaningful on that front.
Every single company is in business for one main reason — to make a profit.
New club models make up an average of 40% of each golf company’s annual revenue. Companies also begin to see saturation of their new models, on average, after two years. That tells you the importance of the big golf club companies frequently introducing new club models.
So is anything really “new” or is much of the new simply repackaged as “new?”
With the strict controls of the rules of golf over club performance, and the frequency of new model introduction over the past many years, quite frankly new golf club technology has begun to hit the proverbial brick wall.
Drivers cannot exceed a ball speed that is more than 1.5 times the golfer’s clubhead speed because of the USGA limit for spring face performance. And drivers, which are still much too long in length for golfers, have been achieving that for the past 15+ years.
Irons saw a slight advance in forgiveness when hollow iron construction became common 3 years ago, but that has reached its apex too. Iron lofts are about as low as dare be, unless the companies want golfers to skip buying the #3, 4, 5 and 6 irons because their lofts make it impossible for anyone with a 75mph 5-iron swing speed or less to hit them well enough to put in the bag.
Has the putter side changed ?
Occasional slight breakthroughs in putter design such as the current zero torque models will show up every so often, but in the end most avid golfers never stay with the same putter for more than a couple of years, or until the next big model hits the golf media.
In the end, it is just like I have been sounding like a broken record saying – the best source of golf club information will come from an experienced custom clubmaker who is a member of the Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals (AGCP –www.agcpgolf.com).
The USGA and R&A plan to implement a rolled back golf ball in 2028 for elite players and in 2030 for all players. How do you see such a transformative action working operationally?
I have been critical of many of the USGA’s rule changes over the past 20-30 years pertaining to golf clubs and now balls because none of them, none, have done what the USGA wanted when they enacted the rule change.
I think the USGA has become OCD obsessed with shot distance to the point that they are legislating rule changes that will never do what they desire and which quite possibly has the chance to do real harm to the future the game.
The 2028 ball change is said to reduce distance for elite level players by 10-12 yards and in 2030 to reduce distance for everyone else by some 5 yards. Really?
What do you see as the ramifications when implemented?
I don’t know what the USGA is smoking but if they think that a 10–12-yard reduction in elite level player distance is going to have a marked effect on preserving the classic golf courses and reduce the importance of distance in the game, they are sadly misinformed.
And any reduction in distance for regular players who are already very distance challenged poses the real chance of causing players to quit the game.
The USGA seems to want to go back to the days when a tour pros had to hit driver/2 iron into a 475 yd par-4 and could not reach any par-5 in two that was over 550 yds, like their obsession to make even par the perennial winning score in the US Open.
They completely forget that what makes the game great is competition among players who are all trying to post the lowest score, whether that be even par or 20-under for 72 holes. A 10-12 yd drop in distance is only going to make a 475 yd par-5 a driver/firm 7 iron instead of a driver/smooth 7 iron.
How’s that going to preserve the classic courses?
Curious to know your thoughts – what happens if recreational players balk at playing a rolled back golf ball. Does that mean that golf becomes a de facto bifurcated game?
I’ve always felt one of the things that made golf so special is that on any given day or round, any golfer can hit as good of or better shot as the game’s most elite players.
Every golfer could make a hole-in-one, hole a 60’ putt or chip or any number of shots on the same holes that the pros may play. While we may not use the same club or swing as well, and while the pros may execute the shots more often, we still can execute shots in any round we play that many pros don’t.
No other game or sport can duplicate that. Ever.
So it seems the impact will be more on the recreational player than those playing in elite professional events.
While baseball’s split between wood bats in the MLB vs metal bats in little league, high school and college was enacted chiefly for safety reasons, that form of bifurcation is not the same nor as potentially damaging to the game as a potential bifurcation in golf, for the reason I stated in the previous paragraph.
Less than 1/100 of 1% of recreational baseball players will be able to get a hit, much less a home run, off an MLB pitcher. But as I said, we regular golfers can hole a long putt or chip or pitch, or hit a 150-yard shot within 3’ of the hole, randomly any time we play. If we are doing that with a different ball it sort of takes something away from the game that was present without bifurcation.
And especially when you consider that the ball change in ’28 and ’30 will be insignificant to elite players, but could be to some regular golfers.
You’ve been a longtime proponent in advocating most recreational players are playing drivers with shafts too long to consistently hit and lofts too insufficient for optimum carry distances. Why have big companies balked at adjusting their product offerings to reflect this clear reality?
In a word — money.
Money that is triggered by the golfers’ obsession with pursuing anything that holds the potential, whether made-up or real, for achieving more distance. When custom clubmakers begin their training in professional club fitting, one of the first things they learn is this credo of club fitting – “The longer the length, the lower the loft, the stiffer the shaft, and the heavier the club, the harder the club will be to hit.”
It’s clear 46” driver lengths and sets of irons based on a 21-22° 5-iron loft violate two of those four primary principles of basic club fitting.
But the reason companies all do this is because, if the golfer luckily happens to make one good swing and achieves more distance with the new driver or new iron over his current clubs, the chances are very good that he will fork over his plastic to buy the new clubs.
And when he finds that success with the too long/too little loft clubs runs about a 5-10% success rate, he usually ends up blaming himself and not the clubs!
So why won’t companies change?
Fear.
Fear that if they do, other companies that retain the challenging specifications will rake in the golfers’ credit cards who make that “one out of ten swing” and experience more distance for that one shot.
And the companies’ answer? “Aww just take some lessons and you’ll get better.” Umm, do you think these companies are aware that for the past 20-30 years the average driver length on the PGA Tour has been 44.5” and not the 45 to 46” they make their drivers for regular players?
For some reason, the specifications for finding an optimum putter often get less attention than drivers and wedges and full sets of irons and hybrids. What counsel would you provide those in the market place for a putter and what would be the clear do’s and don’ts when doing so?
Without question the putter is the least fit club in the bag. That’s because for one, the companies offer zero options for putter fitting, save a miniscule weight change through a screw in the putter head.
To do so would swell their inventory units to the point of giving their accounting staff a migraine. And for their retailers, who also live and die with trying to carry a minimum of inventory units.
So here, try this and if you make some putts, buy it. Until you don’t and you go shopping for the next putter that you make several putts in the trial phase. Rinse, and repeat. Putter length, lie angle (just try to change the lie on one of the zero torque putters!!), weighting and grip type/shape/size are the key critical fitting elements for a putter. Get this right for you and your stroke and sense of feel and you can bet you will make more putts. Ignore them and you’ll keep searching.
And yet one more time, the best source of golf club information including putter fitting will come from an experienced custom clubmaker who is a member of the Association of Golf Clubfitting Professionals (AGCP – www.agcpgolf.com)
Best advice you have ever received – what was it and who was it from?
From my father, the wisest person I have ever met in my 75 years – don’t waste your time pursuing anything, whether a career, hobby or partner, for which you do not have a genuine interest and passion.
And if you think you do but in time, find you don’t, go back and start again until you do find that interest and passion. How do you know? When you can’t possibly give something up no matter what, that is a passion.
Golf is still that for me after 63 years, golf clubs are still that for me after 53 years, and my wife Mary Ellen is still that for me after 45 years.
