TRANSCRIPT:

Brad:

Hi, Maya, how are you?

Maya:

Lovely to meet you, Brad. Good to be here.

Brad:

Nice to meet you. Yeah, you excited?

Maya:

Absolutely.

Brad:

Awesome. So we're going to start today, we're already warmed up here, so we want to make sure we get some great data from your current iron. We see what's happening with it. I know we talked already, understand what we're looking for and some of your goals here today, but want to gather the data first. We use the best in the business, the gold bar industry standard of TrackMan. So he's my partner in crime today. We'll let him help me out here. He doesn't talk a lot. He's shy. But we want to make sure we gather some good data, good understanding of what you're doing. So, along the way, any feedback you can provide is great. Sound good?

Maya:

Thank you for the opportunity. Let's do this.

Brad:

Looking forward to it. Let's do it. Great golf swing there.

Maya:

Yeah, that one felt good. Even a little better.

Brad:

Typically, I mean, you see that little bit of a draw. That's what your eye, that's what my eye likes to see.

Maya:

Yes, that is pretty.

Brad:

Awesome.

Maya:

Oops. Bad swing.

Brad:

Is that the disaster miss it seems like?

Maya:

Yeah. That is. Get a little excited and jump on it and come over the top.

Brad:

Now, Maya, would you say it's easier to, if on command, I tell you hit a shot right now in the middle of your back swing, I say hit a draw, hit a fade. Draw's the easier one. Right?

Maya:

Definitely. Yeah.

Brad:

Okay. Do you ever try to hit a fade on command or if the shot maybe needs it or do you stick to your guns and...

Maya:

Yeah, I mean, I'll mess around with my feet and guess when I need to, but it's definitely not my natural swing plane. But can do it if called upon.

Brad:

Okay. And you can hear that a little bit. That was just a little bit of turf first, right?

Maya:

Yes. A little heavy.

Brad:

Give me one more then we'll take a look at these. Great swing. So let's take a look at the screen here. So what we have up on the screen here are several shots from you and you bought one mulligan. So you donated to charity here today. But if you look at the screen there, you'll see our shot tracer on the left and our grouping up there on the right. That's pretty impressive. There's not a lot of discrepancy or Delta between your long and short, and that's what we see from good ball strikers. But in the end, we all can have things a little bit tighter. And in this case, I would say that when it comes to long and short, that's a little bit of that ball striking and most amateurs would say consistency, how you hit it on the face. And then the left and right is definitely avoid a two-way miss. Sounds like you want to see the ball work one way.

Maya:

Absolutely. That's the goal.

Brad:

That's the goal to see it work the one way. So, I think this is pretty darn impressive here. I'd almost like to see that oval, if anything, more a little bit horizontal and then, left and right's going to happen, of course. We just need to know where the ball's going. The long and short thing is that contact we talked about. So just making sure we, you're a great ball striker as it is, but we all can be a little bit better. And so that's something we want to look at. Now when I put the numbers up on the screen here, and this is just an average of what you do. This first column here is club [inaudible 00:03:36] speed. That's how fast you're swinging. And that's not good, bad, or ugly. That's who you are.

            You're not going to see that go up or down too much. You might see it go up a little bit, but we're not going to see it go from 67 to 77 here today. And the reason why I look at that number, it's just a good starting point for shaft flex. And we took a measurement of your golf clubs and what you're playing, but I look at your golf swing and you're very rhythmic.

Maya:

I'm a big feel player. So being up in the screen and seeing data, not natural for me. Really cool experience and something that everybody should do, because you can learn a lot when the numbers start to tell the story.

Brad:

That speed tells us one thing, and there's no industry standard for a shaft flex, really. So it might say S on it, but plays like an X, or it might say S on it, but plays like an R. So, when I look at that and I also look at your tempo, your tempo is that beautiful Freddie Couples, you can watch it all day. You aren't Jon Rahm, blink and it's over. And you get it all the way to the top. And so when we look at that from player to player, that helps us understand how they're going to load that golf shaft. Now the column next to it is ball speed. And that's how fast it comes off the club face. When we look at a six iron, it really doesn't matter who you are, but that cool term called smash factor. Most people know for a driver, it should be 1.5.

            For a six iron, we're looking in that 1.35 to 1.38 range. And you're doing great. I mean, 1.39, that ball's coming off great. Now when I look at that, there can be a bad of that. There can be something telling a story that if it is too high, maybe that six iron's not behaving like a six iron. Maybe it's five and a half.

Maya:

That's interesting. Yeah.

Brad:

So we want to make sure that your contact's good, the ball's coming off what it should. And those three right there, we're really going to focus on shaft today. We're going to focus on way to shaft and profile the golf shaft. So the first part of this experiment is we're going to use a baseline head and we're going to test several shafts, play with weight and profile, and find out what really gives you the best consistency of strike and the best ball speed for us. How does that sound?

Maya:

Absolutely. Ready to learn more.

Brad:

All right, Maya, so we've got the p790 from TaylorMade there, and we're going to cycle through a couple different shafts here. We're going to play with weights and profiles and just see how you react to them. So anything you want to tell me, if it feels heavy, light, stiff, feels great. You hate the way it feels, it's okay. You're not going to hurt my feelings. Just don't throw it at me. Okay.

Maya:

Understood.

Brad:

So let's see what you think. That sounded great.

Maya:

That one, yeah, was quite solid.

Brad:

There we go.

Maya:

Huh? Intriguing.

Brad:

Yeah. There's I mean, there's a lot of ways to get distance. We can find it through speed of the golf ball and center is the contact and we can find it through trajectory and height and we know that's in importance today. Couple more.

            What are your thoughts on that? Any feel difference to what you have? Is it hard to describe or what do you think?

Maya:

Yeah, I mean, it feels a little heavier.

Brad:

A little heavier. Okay. Well, let's do one more. Get a good vibe of that.

Maya:

Yeah. It feels heavy right in here.

Brad:

It feels heavy there. Okay. Let me take a look at that. Let's try something else here. All right, Maya, try another shaft there. That's from KBS, the TGI 70. So let's see how that performs compared to the first shaft we tested, okay?

Maya:

Okay. Is length of shaft okay? Or should I grip down?

Brad:

Yeah, it's a great question. So that's the exact same length that you have right now. I don't want to really change too much here. We're going to limit all the variables here. I think, quite honestly, women are the most under fit golfer in the world. And just because you're short, you don't need short golf clubs and our bodies are very different. My dad's got a big belly, so our bodies are all different. And we need to make sure that just because you're short doesn't necessarily mean you need short golf clubs. We get your arms in front of yourself and your setup and posture is excellent. There's not too much we're going to change there. I'd have a, it'd be something that if we were to change the length, they wouldn't be much, much plus or minus a quarter tops, at that. But that's the same length that you're playing.

Maya:

Ooh. That got through nicely, really cool feel.

Brad:

Yeah. Beautiful.

Maya:

That just really swung through pretty easily.

Brad:

Yeah. Let's see if we can do it again. That almost checked every box we have there. Those hits sound pretty good. Is it, I mean, how would you describe that feel of shaft? Is it maybe more effortless?

Maya:

Effortless is the word right there. My buddy knew the word on the tip of my tongue here. Effortless. Absolutely.

Brad:

I mean, instead of TGI, I might say your first name on it. M-Y-A. That's fantastic. You got a good vibe of that shaft?

Maya:

Very.

Brad:

You're getting along with it well, yeah. That's a little different feel compared to that first shaft we tested. I'd say the first shaft probably felt a little bit more harsh compared to that.

Maya:

Yeah. It felt like it was just stiff. It wasn't responding. it had a kick point.

Brad:

Yeah. That's a good way to describe it. All right, Maya, so our third shaft there has a really neat look to it, updated graphics for this season. Again, it's a unique shaft because it's not just a graphite shaft of what you're used to. It has more of a composite core and wrapped around it is almost this steel fiber. So super cool technology. I think you are going to like the feel of this. Let's see what it does.

Maya:

Hmm. I did like that feel.

Brad:

All these shafts are going to have a little different weight, little different feel to you. And that's what we're trying to test out here. We're trying to see how you react to weight. Yeah. A little ground first there, right?

Maya:

Yes, I did. March swings in Illinois.

Brad:

Something about the contact there. I mean, contact's definitely suffering a little bit on this one.

Maya:

Yeah. Big time.

Brad:

Anything unusual feel wise?

Maya:

Not really. Yeah. It really is kicking right behind.

Brad:

Well, Maya, I'll tell you this right now. That is the heaviest shaft we've tested so far.

Maya:

Ah, interesting.

Brad:

Might feel a little bit more work. And not to say people react to weight the same way, but there are times where if I gave you something, maybe that was a little heavy, there's some people that want to pull this way. There's some people that just let it drop and we all react a little differently. And I wouldn't assume anything with the player. I want to see how they react to weight, because that's much heavier than what you have. And it's much heavier than the first two shafts we tested. So I think we may have gone a little bit overboard there, but I'm happy to see... We've got our weight figured out. And players can feel 10 grams.

Maya:

Yeah. I can feel a difference. Now that you look at that, I see 80 on there.

Brad:

Yeah. It's pretty heavy.

Maya:

The weight. Yeah.

Brad:

All right, Maya, I know you're looking at me funny right there. Steel shaft, yes. That's just not any ordinary steel shaft. That's one of the lightest steel shafts on the market. And I want to try this with you. I mean, you're a great ball striker. We're looking for consistency and height here today. Let's see what it does.

Maya:

It is light. I've always held a bias to steel shafts and thought I never play those. I'm intrigued.

Brad:

Well, 20 years ago, graphite was the only option if we went light. There was one shaft in golf. It was Dynamic Gold pretty much. And now there's steel shafts that can be made just as light as graphite and graphite made as heavy as steel.

Maya:

That is light. My goodness. That's incredible. Yeah. I've always held a bias to steel shafts thinking they weren't for me. That's amazing.

Brad:

Maya, what if I told you that was the highest golf ball you've hit today?

Maya:

No way.

Brad:

Yeah, way. You need one more to get a good sense of feel on that one?

Maya:

Yeah. One more.

Brad:

Okay. Contact on that little bunch there was pretty good. Pretty good. Let's take a look at the screen here. So what we want to do is understand which one gave us the best ball speed, the best smash factor and the best contact. So if we had to rank these from the fastest ball speed and smash, the second shaft was that aha moment we had today. And a lot of times in fittings, I mean, we are very data driven. It's not, I think it's better. I know it's better. But I think your jaw hit the ground when you hit that one. There was something there.

Maya:

I was speechless. I had that effortless sitting there, but couldn't even get it out. Yeah.

Brad:

Yeah. And when you hit just a handful of shots, you know right away. I don't, because you're such a great player and you've got a great golf swing and you know how to contact the ball, I think you could figure out any shaft there is there. The reality is, the shaft, it's you the person swinging it. And I want it to fit you like a glove. And if you gave me a ladies shaft, sure, I could figure it out, give me a few swings. But that's not what we want to do naturally. So there was that aha moment when you hit that KBS TGI 70 where bam, bam, bam, bam ball was coming off great. You knew, it just felt perfect. And the numbers show that.

            It also was the highest peak height that we had today. That's bonus coverage. Yes, it went the farthest carry. So that's another thing we're going to look at. But we're testing with one head. We're not testing one shaft and one head and one shaft. We're testing all in that 790 head. And we found a great setup right there. But I think you want to try some other brands today?

Maya:

Yeah, that sounds good. Let's isolate the variables. Test out now some heads.

Brad:

You got it.

Maya:

Professor.