Cleveland Golf Blog

Last month, on a chilly Thursday morning, we followed the Cleveland Golf Research and Development team to the range at Strawberry Farms Golf Club. That morning, they were in the process of testing the full line of 2013 clubs in preparation of the release date. After years of development, the team was excited about the 2013 line. They knew that they had engineered some of the best clubs that Cleveland Golf has ever produced.

With these videos, we wanted to give you, the reader, exclusive insight and information about the new products, directly from the people who designed them.

Alex Timmons on the Classic XL Driver

Jeff Brunski on the Classic Fairway Wood and Classic Hybrid

Matt Daraskavich on the 588 Altitude, MT, and TT Irons

Patrick Ripp on the 588 RTX Wedges with Rotex technology

Hey everyone!

Lets continue the process of how we build golf clubs on the Tech Van. If you can remember our last post we just finished swing weighting the set of irons to their correct swing weight. Now we can go ahead and assemble the clubhead to the shaft.

We start off by squeezing some of our epoxy. We attach a nozzle to the gun so that we know the epoxy is properly mixed as it comes out. Once we squeeze out the epoxy, we then sprinkle some shafting grit. The grit is used to properly center the shaft in the hosel.

Once it has been mixed, we can then grab the correct ferrule. We coat the tip of the shaft with epoxy and then place the ferrule on the end. We then take the clubhead and push the ferrule down to make sure that the ferrule is in its correct position and the shaft is fully inserted into the hosel of the clubhead.

After that, we then take the clubhead off the shaft and put some more epoxy inside the hosel of the club and then insert the clubhead back onto the shaft. We make sure the ferrule and the hosel have a nice, flush fit and then wipe off the excess epoxy.

You have to make sure to support the clubhead as you flip it around to make sure the shaftband and graphics are centered to the clubface. We must be sure that the shaft is set flush with the bottom of the hosel. Once all of these steps are completed we wait roughly 15-20mins for the epoxy to harden. Even though we give you your clubs that day, we recommend that you do not hit the clubs for 12 hours so that epoxy has plenty of time to set.

Check back to see the next step in the building process!

Hey Readers,

Sorry about the long delay since the last post.  We have had a lot going on the past couple months.  The PGA Merchandise Show was keeping us busy, and then we have been getting ready for our new products, which launched just this past week!

But lets get back to the Building Series. The last post in the series was about cutting the shafts to the correct length. Once that is accomplished, we then have to swing weight the clubs to make sure the set FEELS the way it should.  We do not want one clubs that is weighted completely different from the others in the set.

We use a Mitchell swing weighting device. We measure the clubs without the epoxy, ferrule, the grip and the grip tape so the numbers are slightly different than what you would be used to seeing. Before we can start with the set of irons we are building, we have to zero in the scale to D-0. For this we use our “Master Club,” which is measured at D-0.

What we look for is this exact picture below. We want that bar to be right where that is. That way we know that the club is balanced and whatever it reads on the scales that is what the club weighs in at.

Below is what each of the clubs in the set weighted in at. As you can see, this set is actually pretty close to being right on the number. We only need to put weights in the 4,5 and 7 iron. Since they are only a half a swing weight off, we put a 1 gram plug into the tip of the shaft. One gram equals a 1/2 swing weight.

Here below is a club with the swing weight inside the tip.

For the clubs that do not get a swing weight plug, we put a plastic 0 gram plug in the shaft tip to keep the length all the same. It is a very minimal amount added, but we want to keep consistency in the sent.

Well there you have it! Check back next for the next step in the Building Series.

Hello readers,

In this post we are continuing with the Building Series. The next step in the process is prepping the shaft and cutting it to its correct length depending on the iron it is going into.  Depending on what type of shaft you are using whether it is a tapper tip or a parallel tip shaft, there are a few different steps you have to take. With a parallel tip shaft you have to cut the tip off the shaft to move its kick point.  Parallel shafts already come flexed, however we “tip” it to put the kick point in its correct position for the iron. In the picture below we are tipping the shaft 1 1/2″ for the 4 iron that the shaft will be going into.

Here in this picture we are cutting the shaft on the tip where we marked it. Again, we are doing this to move the kick point of the shaft to its correct position for the 4 iron that it will go into.

Once we have the shaft “tipped,” we now have to abrade it or prep it. What we are basically doing here is taking the chrome plating off the shaft. This helps with the epoxy to stick nice and tight on the exterior of the shaft and on the inside of the hosel.

Once we abrade the shaft, we now have to measure it to the correct length for the iron that it will be going into.

Here is the final step of this stage of the building process. We are cutting the butt of the shaft to get the desired length for the iron it will be going into.

There you have it! This CG 7 iron set is cut to the correct length and we can proceed to the next step in the building process.

Be sure to check back next week for the next stage in our building process!

Frank

Hello readers,

We are going to be starting what we are calling “The Building Series.” In this series we’ll be going through step by step what we do on the Tech Van when we build your fitted clubs on the spot. For this first post we are going to show you our Mitchell Lie and Loft machine and how we use it in the building process.

We use the lie and loft machine to make sure the clubs lie and loft are correct before we build them as well as changing the lie and loft. We can change the lie angle of the clubs flat or upright and bend the loft strong or weak if necessary. Making your lofts strong means that you are taking loft off the clubs. For instance, we would bend a club with 56 degrees of loft to 55 degrees to make it a degree strong. To make a club one degree weak, we would bend it to 57 degrees. Once we grab the club heads were going to build we check to make sure that they match the standard specs. If they don’t, we make the necessary changes to make sure the lie angle is correct to what the customer was fit for. Continue reading below to see the steps we go through to make a set of CG 7 Black Pearls 2 degrees upright for a customer we fit last week.

In this picture we are putting the clubhead into place.

Here we are making sure the shaft is flush with our machine to make sure we get an accurate reading of the lie angle.

The club was at set at a standard lie of 62.5 for a 7 iron. In this instance the customer needs his clubs to be bent to 2 degrees upright from our standard specs .(62.5 degrees to 64.5 degrees)  Some clubs you have to put more effort to move the angle over others. Typically, cast clubs require more effort then forged clubs. This is due to the softer metal of forged clubs.

After we bend the clubhead we have to check to see that the clubs angle has moved to the correct position of 64.5 degrees which it has.

Check back for our next post to read about the next step in our building process.

I’d like to start off this post by giving you a little background information on my partner. He has been building clubs since 1990 and for Cleveland Golf since 2006. His mechanical engineering degree helps him with understanding how the metals will react and behave in the building process. We have been having a lot of fun bouncing ideas off of each other on the building and fitting process. A perfect example of this is the fitting below. more

This past weekend we had a great time at some of the Dallas areas best tracks. Out of all the fits we did last week, one stood out to Simon and I. We fit this gentleman into a Launcher DST 9 degree with the stock 44 gram Red Diamana shaft in a regular flex. With this driver he increased his ball speed from 131 mph to 137 mph, his launch angle increased from 10.8 degrees to 11.9 degree and his total distance increased by 9 yards! His old driver specs were, 9.5 degrees of loft with a 65 gram stiff shaft. That club was working against him rather than for him. more

Hello readers, my name is Frank and I was recently hired by Cleveland Golf/Srixon to work as a Tech Rep. What that means is that I will be traveling the country fitting golfers for our products and building them on site! Does it get any better than that? First, here is a little background on myself.  It all started 10 years ago when I got my first job as a caddy. I didn’t know a thing about golf when I started and now I am working in the industry. I recently graduated from Marquette University and am very excited to start this next chapter of my life with this great company.

Along with working on the Tech Van, I have been asked to write a blog about my experiences along the way. I will be writing about anything and everything that goes on during my journey around the country.  Feel free to leave comments and mention anything you would like me to talk about or touch on.

Let’s start by getting everyone caught up with what I have been doing the past couple weeks.  My first day was Monday, September 13^th and we got the ball rolling quickly.  I first met Jesus, our head builder, in Customer Repairs to learn how to build golf clubs the right way. Jesus is a great guy and has been building clubs for about 30 years.  On Wednesday, the Tech Van I was assigned to came in and I met up with my partner in crime on this journey, Simon.  Since then I have been getting used to building clubs on the van; which in many ways it is different than building inside the factory, due to the limited space inside the van.  This past Wednesday Simon and I went over to our Consumer Testing Center to check out how some of our new equipment performs.  We came on a day when golfers were testing our new wedge, which is coming out next year.  Players of all handicap levels hit shots with our wedge and then we get an average of 5 quality shots for our results. A trackman is used to measure the results of the shots. We are very pleased on the numbers we are getting from the tests.  On Saturday I drove down with another Tech Van to Golf Mart in Del Mar at the Surf-N-Turf driving range for a Tech-Van Demo Day.  This was one of the most unique driving ranges I have seen. You hit off grass but you’re hitting balls into a massive dirt field to big trampoline looking targets. But the most unique aspect of the range was the view.  This range had one of the best views I have ever seen!  It was a mini mountain range in the backdrop with some houses on them.

This week I have been spending my time back with Jesus in Customer Repairs gaining more experience building clubs.  Be sure to keep checking in for my next post as I will be heading out to Texas this friday!

Also…did everyone else just see Roy Halladay’s no hitter against the Reds?!