Shaft Weighting System Report

Shaft Weighting System Report
Testing Balance-Certified Golf Inc.’s Pro-Balance Shaft Tuning System, Part 1

The concept of adding weight to the grip end of putters, irons, and woods has been around for a long time. Tour professionals have known for years that a little lead tape under the grip will change the club’s feel. By definition, the term counterweight refers to "an equivalent weight or force". While practically this can be achieved by placing lead tape under a grip, the technique is time consuming, inaccurate, and extremely difficult to optimize for a given golfer’s swing. A couple of years ago we met Jeff Lindner, President of Balance-Certified Golf, Inc. Lindner is a former NASA research scientist and his company produces a product called the "Pro-Balance Shaft Tuning System" that provides an elegant engineered solution to counter weighting putters, irons, and woods. While we think it is impossible to test feel, we set out to conduct a test that assesses the performance gain obtained by incorporating the Pro-Balance system into a set of drivers and testing them with real golfers. The objective of the test was to evaluate changes in performance resulting from the installation and adjustment of the Pro-Balance Shaft Tuning System in drivers. Part 1 of this three-part report focuses on the distance and ball velocity results from the test. The second part of the report will focus on the accuracy results and the combination of the Pro-Balance system with the Grafalloy ProLaunch Blue shaft while the third part will analyze how the system actually changes ball flight.

Approach

The test was conducted at the Richland Golf Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Data was acquired from six golfers of various skill levels and swing types. The golfer’s handicap indexes ranged from 2 to 21 while their swing speed varied from 87 to 114 mph. A Vector launch monitor equipped with a Laser swing speed analyzer was used to monitor ball trajectory and club dynamics. The test drivers were provided by Balance Certified Golf each installed with the Pro-Balance system. Each golfer was fitted with an appropriate flex club and allowed to thoroughly warm up prior to data acquisition. Measurements were first acquired without the Pro-Balance system installed in the drivers (i.e., weight insert #0). The Pro-Balance weight inserts were subsequently installed and tested in random order. Three swings were analyzed and averaged with the Pro-Balance system configured at three different weight insert settings (#1, #2, and #3).

Result

The following table summarizes the results obtained from our conduct of the test session.

Summary

The test provided some interesting results. First, it clearly shows that each golfer’s ball flight could be fine tuned using the Pro-Balance system. We found that each golfer exhibited optimal performance at a specific weight insert (see chart). We also found that the optimal weight insert varied from golfer to golfer and even club to club. Finally, each player was required to try the different weight inserts to determine his most desirable ball flight characteristics. The optimized Pro-Balance equipped drivers increased driver distance by an average of 14.61 yards and increased ball velocity by an average of 4.83 mph when compared to the non-equipped club. While on the surface these results may seem staggering, we feel the results are likely due to the agreeable combination of the new ProLaunch Blue shaft and the Pro-Balance System. Based upon our initial testing, we found that the Pro-Balance Shaft Tuning System from Balance-Certified Golf has real potential to offer golfers a new level of custom fitting.