Category: Waggle Weight Wisdom™ Answers

A poster on the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf forum website, with the member name of golfer55082, recently posted an inquiry regarding golf club swingweight. He first very briefly expressed his learned belief that “swing weight is the only deciding factor of ‘how heavy a club feels like,'” but then expressed confusion when a club (swung and evaluated by his 13-year-old son) having a heavier swingweight value actually felt no heavier when swung than a different club having a lighter swingweight value.

The few responses received were, as usual, for the most part incorrect and uneducated tripe, with at least one such response given by a supposed “expert” that had posted more than 22,000 times already on the forum. By itself, this chronic occurrence comprises nothing new at all and is pretty standard fare. I foretell considerably more damage being done to the game of golf by the forum referred to and similar forums of today due to the way they are commonly structured and/or run.

For example, the independent clubfitting trade (a potentially strong, positive, and driving force to lead the game of golf into the future) has been all but annihilated in more recent times. And the incessant ignorant comments by so many totally unqualified people (and so publicly) that seem to regularly participate on such forums have had a bigger hand in this annihilation than other potential factors like being forced out by any larger entities.

It remains to be seen whether the damage already done (damage that is still taking place rampantly) might ever be Read more »

I think I previously began something similar as I try to navigate business elements, like displaying my original work to help golfers while at the same time also protecting the intellectual property (including the ability to control who can further use it and how). This is a very natural and reasonable business goal, but the creator(s) of the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf forum website does not share this sentiment based upon that site’s published posting terms (noting that it is far from the only site that publishes and tries to impose such terms).

Greed that can be conspicuously observed in such published terms has already hurt such sites (and the game of golf) and will eventually sink them if it continues unchanged. The terms contribute to why posters on such sites are commonly utterly unqualified, why posts are commonly so poor in nature and erroneous regarding countless topics, and why such sites as a whole have developed extremely poor reputations. Despite supposedly wanting to help golfers and the game, these sites broadly achieve the opposite effect instead with the way they are currently structured and/or run.

A glut of technically incorrect and uncorrected content (especially instructional content regarding golf swing and clubfitting aspects of the game) has already been amassed by such forum sites. And the error-filled content can now be easily searched, referenced, and believed by Messrs. Gullible Golfer as well as the rest of the world, presumably for generations to come. If true, this will contribute even more to the ongoing delinquency and diminishing popularity of and participation in the game.

So for various reasons (some not even discussed here) I cannot really Read more »

A poster with the member name of Tim Schoch, on one of the multiple online golf forums that I will not specifically name in this particular entry, recently posted an inquiry that is somewhat of a poll meant to elicit responses from golfers. He asks whether the clubfitting process and/or results were a waste or wonderful for those who have gone through the process.

More than 100 responses were posted as of the time I chose to display this particular entry, many comprising the same ignorant nonsense (and often from the same ignorant posters) that frequently populate such forums. Countless pretentious “experts” seem more intent on playing one-upmanship with what they “think” they know (seemingly a more common occurrence within the golf industry than in many other activities) rather than actually trying to answer the inquiry. With very few exceptions these so-called experts are generally all wrong and clueless to varying degrees regarding their “facts.” Some of them participate in the game of golf when in a manner of speaking they would never even be let on the field in other common activities (and possess the knowledge and experience that accompanies such a scenario).

While I have addressed this previously in numerous, various ways, golfers and the golf industry as a whole still just do not seem to be able to see right in front of their noses regarding the matter inquired about. And certain pivotal facts not previously known are not being spread as much and as quickly as they might be. So in basically trying to just continue to help one golfer at a time, and with the hope that he/she will be sufficiently helped by the information to consider helping to further spread the information more widely, Tim’s inquiry can be responded to and explained as follows. This is information the golf industry needs to heed very badly and widely if it is ever going to recover and grow with honor from its current state of disgrace.

After what should be obvious as the number one priority of developing one’s swing as well as possible, clubfitting is Read more »

With the elements described in Parts One and Two, next consider the following. You should be able to meld your hands together in an overlapping or interlocking manner (mimicking the presence of a golf club) and make your golf swing in a very effective manner with no golf club or any other substitute device in or about your hands. In fact, and even though most people involved in golf still do not understand the concept more than one-hundred years after it was initially conceived, the whole purpose for the existence of developing an overlapping or interlocking gripping structure with the hands to begin with is Read more »

The process that began to be described in Part One that is related to direct (not indirect, which can be very deceiving and inaccurate) swing performance might seem to at least partially negate any advantage(s) of lighter weight shafts. This could be true depending upon any number of various elements that come into play, and in the end it is simply not reasonable to expect that one will be able to swing any better and stronger than one is capable of even when using a lighter weight shaft. But shafts that are lighter in weight could nevertheless still be advantageous (provided that a club[s] overall is fit to the actual swing capability of a golfer in accordance with valid clubfitting principles).

It is both funny and sad at the same time to see so many players, especially (but hardly limited to) less experienced players, crudely working to find different component grip sizes or making some other adjustment(s) when gripping their driver/woods and irons to try and get them to all end up with the same outside diameter of grip size. It is especially telling about the clubfitting knowledge and experience (or lack thereof) of anybody who does this when combining Read more »

An individual with the member name of bjp1 on the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf website forum posts that he has been fitted over the years by many “credible” establishments as he currently perceives them. Yet after a time playing with each of the suggested golf club specifications by the various fittings, he begins to struggle with tempo and swing speed issues. He broadly inquires whether or not the shaft weight could be responsible for what he is experiencing, inquiring about both swinging and ball travel result attributes (two distinctly different considerations) within his posting. The swing performance attribute can at least be addressed for bjp1 as follows.

First, as it stands at this particular point in golf history, the clubfitting industry as a general whole is anything but the advanced and proficient technological trade that many believe it is. The commercialized clubfitting trade is actually still so much in its infancy regarding being properly educated about certain even extremely basic golf swing and clubfitting theories and practices that the trade is figuratively still in diapers. An element like glitzy launch monitor use has (temporarily) helped to cover up this true fact, even for more experienced individuals and/or organizations that should (but seemingly do not) know better. But eventually the current ineptness of the clubfitting trade will become much more publicly known and understood by everybody.

In light of this, your commenting that “Cool Club, Club Champion, local top fitters” that you have apparently all been to comprise “credible” clubfitting establishments is anything but the truth and a very uniformed statement. Universally, the trade claims to be able to fit golf clubs to the swings of golfers. But it is wholly incompetent at doing so, basically just fitting clubs according to ball travel result numbers spit out by a launch monitor and claiming that the process is comparable or equivalent to fitting clubs to the actual swings of golfers. This is an extremely inaccurate claim by a very ignorant industry. And yet the trade somehow still cannot understand how it continues to have a longstanding very poor reputation, regularly sending golfers away from the process swinging and playing worse than when they began, even if ball travel results might (commonly temporarily) be a little better.

Based on the above, establishments in the game of golf as a cumulative whole that practice and/or teach clubfitting, including but hardly limited to those you listed, in essence actually practice and/or teach the “Swing Degenerative Method of Clubfitting.” This method categorically sacrifices the achieved swing development of golfers at the expense of blindly pursuing some golf ball travel result(s). And because this description is so very accurate in nature (and will remain so unless and until the clubfitting industry is able to straighten out its current debacle), it might enlighten better regarding how and why the clubfitting industry has markedly contributed to declines in the popularity and reputation of the game.

Furthermore, Read more »

A poster, as a member of the repeatedly embarrassing Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf online golf forum and with the member name of juststeve, recently made an inquiry on the forum with a distinct accentuating regarding how RELIABLE golf club fitting is for golfers. He acknowledged that he has heard stories about how clubfitters and clubfitting results can be so inconsistent for poor golfers, but that his information has been based on a small sample. So he was asking for the experiences or opinions of others. Out of the more than sixty replies he received at the time that this particular entry was displayed, I would characterize most in this instance not as being absurd (which is commonly the case on the noted and other similar forums), but more along the lines of being feeble, pitiable excuses for what is right in front of the noses of everyone yet continues to be vehemently denied by what amounts to a shamefully proud trade (and game) overall. But that is hardly the case here, so I can freely respond to the inquiry of juststeve with some actual correct information as follows.

Let us get right to the truth of the matter. Putting aside subjective and/or artistic aspects of clubfitting and addressing just aspects that can reduced to scientific elements, the clubfitting trade as a whole is Read more »

This is another slightly different type of entry as I continue to explore and experiment with various business issues and potential solutions. In forming the entry, I firmly kept in mind primary goals of my work to help better educate golfers, clubfitters, and others with corrected and/or advanced new information regarding golf swing and clubfitting theories and practices. Part of this process includes addressing other related topics when relevant, and a very integral and crucial element is also trying to find ways to initially introduce as many people as possible to my work as it is displayed for their consideration.

Recently, a current member of the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf website forum (whose name is indicated below) posted a rather extensive reply on the site (seemingly almost as long as many of my own entries). In response to the inquiry of another member, the post tried to compare the golf club specifications of swingweight (or swing weight) and MOI club matching techniques. (As I have repeatedly stated previously, technically MOI stands for Moment of Inertia, but in its current configuration [the MOI value about the butt end of a golf club] it is much better termed Moment of Insanity as a golf club matching concept). And unfortunately, the member posted some of the most uneducated and inaccurate information I have ever witnessed regarding these two particular golf club specifications. But that initial sadness quickly turned to folly when he simultaneously also self-proclaimed how much of an expert he is regarding the specifications. He went on to add that there were many experts on the forum site that had clubfitting knowledge equivalent to his own, and he tried to dissuade people from posting anymore if they did not possess his level of clubfitting expertise (unequivocally about as funny and priceless as it can possibly get).

Such posts and actual statements by forum members perhaps prove my point(s) regarding how pathetic and damaging such online forums have been to the game of golf as a whole (and the clubfitting industry more specifically) far better than any comments I have come up with to date in trying to expose the unexaggerated truth of the current situation. Not only is the game becoming more and more unattractive to more and more people, but in certain ways it is becoming downright repulsive thanks in part to the types of posts and/or posters that have become so rampant on the types of public golf forums that are typically presented online today. I will not repeat any specific quotes from the forum member post addressed here, as it is loaded with nonsense from start to finish and would simply further spread tremendous shame that is already plaguing the golf industry and clubfitting trade. But based on my response below you should be able to deduce much of what he posted.

A unique part of this entry is that Read more »

Unlike most other entries, this particular one is essentially a follow-up communication regarding wcgolf and his original inquiry that I initially addressed in my previous entry. He responded to me and offered some welcome feedback, both of which I am grateful for, including taking issue with my very harsh criticisms of the golf industry and clubfitting trade rather than potentially treating them with more kindness and leniency, and he also added another question or two. My follow-up entry to wcgolf is as follows.

Regarding my “bashing” of the industry as you termed it, suffice it to say that I Read more »

On the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf Internet golf forum, a poster with the member name of wcgolf has made an inquiry regarding clubfitting indicating that he commonly second guesses everything. In this case it was a recent clubfitting he had gone through and where he is skeptical about certain results obtained, asking a question or two and soliciting the opinions of others before he buys a set of irons. I will respond here to wcgolf as follows.

Your second guessing and skepticism are very well founded. They should be strongly directed at the commercial clubfitting trade, which as a whole is currently Read more »

On one of the current internet golf forums, a member having the name of wobgan asks an interesting question that is quite relevant for golf these days, about whether launch monitors are good for the game. None of the replies to the inquiry really addressed or even seemed to understand the far more important issue(s) going on with the clubfitting trade in particular these days, so I will discuss just a bit of what the true problem(s) is aimed toward wobgan’s inquiry.

At some point your inquiry might have some relevancy to it, but the commercial clubfitting trade as a whole is still so much in its infancy that it is a very premature question to say the least.

Many of the current clubfitting theories and practices typically applied to golfers and that underlie any use of launch monitors, from golf club balancing protocols, to grip size fitting, to the crucial order in which club specifications are fit, and far more, are universally Read more »

Scottie68 asks a question that can be at least partly replied to as follows. Plainly stated, you will not find a “best” thread regarding a topic that relates swingweight, total weight, and even grip weight to each other because there simply is none, particularly within the realm of the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf and other similar website forums. (No one with half a brain would ever contribute any original and protectable content to such sites due to the terms of posting they publish, and they are mostly populated with “experts” who commonly have very limited, incorrect, and/or incomplete knowledge, largely just repeating what they have heard from other clueless people. You mostly get what you pay for on such sites, and it is reader beware to be sure).

With that said, you will not find a best thread largely, though not entirely, because even after being around for nearing 100 years now, the golf club specification of swingweight generally remains extremely poorly comprehended by virtually the entire golf industry. In fact, the clubfitting trade, which “theoretically” should understand such a golf club specification the best, actually seems to understand it the worst, which is conspicuously demonstrated every minute of every day on Read more »

On the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf forum website, a poster with the member name of Noodler pretty much epitomizes how utterly bad forum sites like that can be and why the clubfitting industry remains the embarrassing laughingstock that it is (and rightly so). After initially making a loser type of comment that he would have clicked on a dislike button if there was one available in response to an earlier poster’s legitimate comments regarding golf club swingweighting, Noodler then proceeds to display his incredible ignorance and total lack of knowledge regarding the very same subject with the quote, “Adding weight to the grip end of the club does not reduce the MOI of the club. Adding weight to the grip fools the swingweight scale, but it won’t fool your brain; the swing heft of the club will not be reduced for the golfer (it will actually go up a bit).”

Such totally uninformed and/or inexperienced comments are generally made by golfers (and/or so-called professional clubfitters) whose golfing motions have never Read more »

Without explicitly mentioning the name of the particular online forum here largely because of the post’s more generalized nature of being presented as a poll, a recent post has attempted to take a poll and solicited votes generally regarding how golfers rate the clubfitting experiences they have personally been through and/or how important they feel clubfitting is to themselves and/or potentially to the game of golf. Because some of the responses were sufficiently entertaining in nature, yet so very sad at the same time, I was prompted to take the time to write and present the following. The poll and associated responses have seemed somewhat appropriate for this Halloween.

Many posting in the noted poll readily acknowledge directly or indirectly that the clubfitting industry as a whole is basically in a shambles at this point in time (and rightly so), with few (if any) truly knowledgeable clubfitters around the globe that have appropriate clubfitting skills to even turn to if one is not sufficiently skilled to fit oneself. And then, in essentially the same sentence, several posters have commented that under these current circumstances one of the few people they would trust to do a clubfitting for them would be Read more »

A poster on the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf forum website with the member name of drumdude96 wants to know why graphite shaft manufacturers seem to be making shafts with larger and larger butt diameters these days, and that anything much over a butt diameter of .600 (inches) feels too big to the member. Three other forum members initially responded, all with pretty clueless answers. And their specific names are really not worth mentioning here. But what is worth mentioning is that combined, more than 38,000 posts have been made to date by these three respondents on the noted golf forum, and I cannot help but wonder how many people might have abandoned the game due to some of the responses given by these three individuals since they started posting. Solidly supporting my comments that many if not most so-called clubfitting experts associated with the noted golf forum website and other golf information outlets have no idea what they are talking about regarding many very basic clubfitting (and swinging) topics, I will provide a legitimate and useful reply here.

As clubs get lighter and lighter in general (largely influenced by lighter and lighter golf shafts), you will generally need Read more »

Another golfer, with a member name of A.Princey, has asked for advice about his woods potentially being too light because he has been struggling with them compared with his heavier irons. And as is frequently the case, he has received horrible answers from so-called experts on the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf forum website, a site that continues to contribute to the declining participation and reputation of the game of golf with many of its wholly incompetent answers as presented by supposed golf experts. In this case, responses broadly recommended making sure that shafts are ascending in weight when going through a set of golf clubs, a ridiculous concept (yet another one by the clubfitting trade). But I will help out A.Princey just a bit here.

First, for those for whom swingweighting works, the only relevant club value is the Read more »

A poster on the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf website forum having a member name of Saint John states that he buys into the “grip end only fools the scale” school regarding the golf club specification of swingweight or swing weight, yet when he actually tried to put that theory into practice it did not work. There is no big surprise here, where yet another golfer is unfortunately gullible enough to apparently believe that most people posing as so-called clubfitting experts or educators on that and other similar forum sites are actually qualified enough to do so (which they are not). But here is a little more accurate information for Saint John.

Yes, you are missing something. People stating that grip weight changes only fool the swingweight scale have Read more »

A golfer with the member name of golfman009 has basically posted on the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf forum website that the shaft butt diameters on his irons are smaller than on his woods. And one of his queries is that he would like to know how many extra wraps of tape need to be applied (to the irons) in order to get all of his grip sizes across his set to be and “feel” the same. This is a somewhat common question especially among less experienced golfers, who in turn routinely get (equally inexperienced) inaccurate and/or incomplete responses from so-called professionals on this particular golf forum and other similar outlets. So I will offer him a bit of sound advice here.

The goal regarding golf grip size is not and should not be whether all of the clubs in your set look and/or feel the same. One ultimate goal is whether you are able to Read more »

I recently made an exception and went against my own recommendation of posting on golf forums that contain certain kinds of rules or terms imposed upon its members and posters, as I elaborated upon in Linking Today’s Golf Forums to the Game’s Ugly Deterioration: Part One. I posted a response on the Worrisome Reasonless Xenogolf site in reaction to a few specific statements made by an individual whose member name is Stuart G. (who has posted more than 15,000 times to date on that forum) that made me almost literally cry in sadness for all golfers in general.

It was certainly not an easy post to write, on one hand expressing what someone sure needed to say regarding the current state of the golf club fitting trade in particular. Yet I also needed to be extremely careful to not post any relevant new and/or unique information that could be utilized forever, in any manner so pleased including but hardly limited to altering my post, with absolutely zero permission from and/or compensation to me by the grubby hands of the forum site’s owners, management, employees, and/or associates. The term grubby is quite appropriately derived from Read more »

A couple members of one of the more popular golf forums of today, but a forum that substantially contributes to the continuing delinquency of the game of golf, whose full or partial member names are Josh and Phreddy, recently posted similar inquiries regarding the fitting of golf grip size. With a few partially valid, but uncounted horrific answers subsequently offered from so-called clubfitting experts, these two forum members will struggle for a lifetime with their clubfitting if following such advice, potentially persuading them to prematurely abandon the game like so many others have done in recent times. Thus, I shall address a few sound principles here for them to abide by if they are ever to achieve legitimate clubfitting success. Due primarily to the copyright terms of the noted forum site (as described in detail in Linking Today’s Golf Forums to the Game’s Ugly Deterioration: Part One), I (and anyone else with half a brain) would be a fool to post any original, valid, and protectable content such as this directly on the forum site, so I post it here instead.

Next to the balance of a golf club (which can turn even a superb underlying swing into an uncoordinated mess in a hurry if not fit correctly), the grip size at the other end of the club and shaft is the most important clubfitting parameter for a golfer. The size of your golf grip on any given club is largely responsible for whether you will physically be able to Read more »

In continuing what I started in Part One, I have been ready for quite some time already to help straighten out the dreadful and embarrassing mess that has been created over time by the golf industry as a whole and severely threatens the entire game, largely referring here to golf swing and clubfitting technical knowledge that forms the innermost core of playing, administering, and also growing the game of golf. But the terms commonly imposed by golf forums on contributors have made this essentially impossible to do through that particular medium. I am certainly not proud to be associated with the game of golf right now, and given the disgust and embarrassment I feel regarding the behavior and performance of the golf industry overall I am not really sure why I have any concern left at all for the game.

But at least here I will be able to contribute original, more correct, and fully protectable content in answering specific forum inquiries made on other sites to help out poor golfers and others that have been subjected to some of the senselessness and ineptness especially contained on most golf forums (but including other golf media outlets as well). And I can do so unencumbered by thoughts of my hard, original work being essentially legally stolen, used, and even altered by clueless forum owners and/or workers neither capable of comprehending the material to begin with nor developing such material, as well as no compensation or credit given for original work I developed (as per some of the self-serving terms or rules commonly published).

Now I am not referring here to Read more »

The following information reveals the crucial need for this particular augmentation of Waggle Weight Wisdom™.

There are postings made on various golf forums by individuals who oftentimes provide some reliable answers, individuals that appear to truly care and really want to help those having inquiries.  I could certainly support some of these individuals regarding certain topics.  On the whole, however, golf forums as they exist today are among the very worst places for getting accurate information about subjects like golf swing and clubfitting fundamentals.  This is particularly true for those seriously trying to learn or improve at the game (as opposed to more casual players), and in large measure the future of golf rests in the hands of what such people are taught about the game.  In view of this, the future of golf is currently in an awful lot of trouble.  There are a number of reasons that contribute to a rather poor reputation regarding forums, and I might further address these reasons in a separate Waggle Weight Wisdom™ article(s) at some future point.

But I will point out a couple of important ones right here and now.  The first is Read more »