Grooveless Drivers
Lorry
Some of the guys at the club were talking about a driver with a smooth
(no grooves) face. Has anybody heard of it?? What's the deal?? Lorry
--
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Garth Wells
I remember Zevo (Scott Simpson was the Pro they had) advertising a groovless
driver, but it has been a while since I have seen the ad so I could be
wrong. I think the selling point was, regardless of the advertiser, the
ablility not to put 'bad' spin on the ball.
I am not all that interested in the groove factor since the majority of the
pros (maybe 99.99) use grooved drivers, but I have been trying to work on
launch angle. According to a Golf Digest article, this is one of the
reasons (produces the proper spin) that the pros are able to hit the ball so
much farther than us amatuers. I understand the physics of the idea, but
have yet to master the execution. Of course, this is whats makes me an
amatuer. I do, probably, design better databases than the GolfPros :)).
Lorry wrote in message <3536C3...@spam.com>...
Mike E
Cubic Balance makes a fairly well-known grooveless driver. Perhaps that's
what they were referring to.
-Mike-
ELMORE CJ
>
>Some of the guys at the club were talking about a driver with a smooth
>(no grooves) face. Has anybody heard of it?? What's the deal?? Lorry
I was hooked up with a single at the course last week. He was a man in his late
50's or early 60's. He had one of these groovless drivers and to my supprise
was hitting it about 300 yards. I know that on my BEST drives I am at 285 yrds
and he consistantly out drove me. I see him at the course once in a while. I'll
ask him which driver he is using next time I see him.
John Baima
Lorry <nos...@spam.com> wrote:
>Some of the guys at the club were talking about a driver with a smooth
>(no grooves) face. Has anybody heard of it?? What's the deal?? Lorry
The addition of groves for drivers is more for looks than anything
else. People just expect them so most have them. The effect (or lack
thereof) of groves is discussed in _The Search for the Perfect Swing_.
Result: no significant difference between smooth and groved except
when something (e.g., grass) comes between the club face and the ball.
-John Baima
jba...@onramp.net
DFW Golf and the Java Swingweight Calculator
http://rampages.onramp.net/~jbaima/
Daniel Driscoll
The California Earthquake driver is grooveless. A friend and playing
partner of mine got one about 8 months ago and he is always right out there
with me now (approx 240yds). Before this club he was 15-25 yards behind me.
BTW, I am 36 and am (or was) an 18 index and he is 62(?) and was a 20
index. He has now dropped to a 16 because he can hit more short and mid
irons to greens intead of fairway woods.
Good Golf
Dan
Lorry wrote:
> Some of the guys at the club were talking about a driver with a smooth
> (no grooves) face. Has anybody heard of it?? What's the deal?? Lorry
Joseph N. Hall
I'm not sure what grooves are for on a driver except to make it
easier to align the clubhead. They don't serve any physical
purpose as far as I know. A lack of grooves should not affect
the spin-imparting properties of a driver in any way. My basis
for this claim is the tests referred to in Search for The Perfect
Swing, in which a grooveless 7 iron was found to produce exactly
the same spin rate as one with grooves, under dry conditions; and
also that the spin rates for balls hit by drivers vary very little
according to ball type (from Titleist and other data).
As far as launch angle goes, yes, the long ball has a soaring
or arcing trajectory. It doesn't levitate just off the ground
like a cruise missile or fly up at a 30 degree angle. It doesn't
have a flat or peaky trajectory except into a wind. On a good
driving day about half my drives fit that description (and hopefully
the rest are not so bad misses), and they can go pretty durn far
for a 105-110 mph swing, rolling out to 280-290 if I catch one
just right. I've played with guys who are much more physically
gifted and who definitely have more clubhead speed, but outdriven
them because of their equipment or swing. Like this well muscled
but lanky 6'4-ish guy the other day, pretty good looking swing
but his drives were fairly high and peaky, and although they
might have carried 25 yards more than mine every time, I was 5
yards past him when we both hit it well. I mean, he was really
squashing the ball with a Cobra Ti driver, sounded like the ball
was tearing a wormhole in space off the tee, but he was taking
his approach shot first anyway. He probably has an extra 30 yards
in him if he can just stop putting so much backspin on the ball,
and he is for sure not unique.
The key is to get some of that durn backspin off the ball. To do
that, tee the ball up, play it forward in the stance, and hit it on
the upswing. Make sure you've got a stiff enough shaft. "Bullets"
look impressive, but the arcing ball goes the farthest.
-joseph
Garth Wells wrote:
>
> I remember Zevo (Scott Simpson was the Pro they had) advertising a groovless
> driver, but it has been a while since I have seen the ad so I could be
> wrong. I think the selling point was, regardless of the advertiser, the
> ablility not to put 'bad' spin on the ball.
>
> I am not all that interested in the groove factor since the majority of the
> pros (maybe 99.99) use grooved drivers, but I have been trying to work on
> launch angle. [...]
--
Joseph N. Hall, prop., 5 Sigma Productions mailto:jos...@5sigma.com
Author, Effective Perl Programming . . . . . http://www.effectiveperl.com
Perl Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . http://www.perltraining.com
"R&B"
Lorry wrote:
>
> Some of the guys at the club were talking about a driver with a smooth
> (no grooves) face. Has anybody heard of it?? What's the deal??
I believe the grooveless driver is made by Cubic Balance. It supposedly
hits knuckleballs (less spin), the theory being that it will go farther
and straighter.
If it were true, I suspect the players who are competing for a
half-million dollars first prize each week would be gobbling them up
like Thanksgiving turkey. But alas, the Cubic Balance driver is little
more than a blip on the screen.
Personally, I've never used the grooveless driver. I have, however,
used a grooveless *swing* with disturbing regularity. ;-)
Randy
Randy&Margaret
There was an informercial on the Golf Channel not too long ago with Scott
Simpson and Calvin Peete extolling the virtues of Cubic Balance. Haven't
heard much of Peete lately, but Simpson seems to do OK with his. Or maybe
it's having Bill Murray as a caddie that has improved his game.
ClawExtrct
Cubic Balance makes a grooveless titanium driver. What good it does, I dont
know. Sure would make it hell trying to work the ball though.....
John Bennett
I bought a 9 degree loft Ti Grooveless by Cubic Balance and was able to
hit it in a 90 degree arc to the right. I now use a non Ti Big Bertha
which I seem to hit straighter!
JB
brett
In article <35395D...@mindspring.com>, Ra...@mindspring.com says...
>
>I believe the grooveless driver is made by Cubic Balance. It supposedly
>hits knuckleballs (less spin), the theory being that it will go farther
>and straighter.
>
>If it were true, I suspect the players who are competing for a
>half-million dollars first prize each week would be gobbling them up
>like Thanksgiving turkey. But alas, the Cubic Balance driver is little
>more than a blip on the screen.
>
>Personally, I've never used the grooveless driver. I have, however,
>used a grooveless *swing* with disturbing regularity. ;-)
good last comment ha ha. i've got a friend who owns a golf shop so at times i
do get to demo the supposed latest and greatest. here are my quick thouths on
the cubic balance grooveless driver.
looks good, but when i addressed a ball with it the face sat a little too
closed for my liking. the shaft was their approximation of a stiff, but it
felt a little rubbery. the ball comes nicely off the clubface, but with a low
trajectory. when i was demoing against my 9deg gbb i was consistently hitting
my gbb about 40 yards longer. however, prior to testing there had been a
couple of days of rain so most of the difference in distance came about from
not much roll with the cubic balance due to the wet ground. in dry conditions
or into a bit of wind the results might have been much different. is the low
trajectory due to the lack of grooves?? well i'd say probably more due to the
high kickpoint of the shaft. anyhow the club is average at best and for the
$$ probably not the best value out there.
--
peace
brett
________________________________
brett r fenton
school of civil engineering
university of nsw
australia