Don't Cry For Me, New Zealand

A few weeks ago, Tiger Woods decided to end his twelve year relationship with caddy Steve Williams; I don't think many people lost any sleep over it.  In a country where nearly one out of every 10 citizens in unemployed, its hard for most people to feel bad for someone losing their job when they were pulling in at least six-figures a year.  To boot, Williams had already been caddying for Adam Scott for a few weeks, so its not like he was going to have to stand in the unemployment line anyways.

So how did we reach this celebrity break-up?  For starters, Williams has basically had two jobs from the time he was sixteen: professional tour caddy and race car driver.  Ask any child, and most adults for that matter, and I'm pretty sure that there would be a long line of people willing to trade places with Williams.  He has been lucky enough to do what he loves for a living for the past 32 years.  When Woods was at the height of his career pulling in $10 million a year in tour earnings, Williams was pulling in over $1 million a year and that's just in pay from Tiger; that doesn't count his sponsorship deals with companies such a Valvoline or his racing earnings.

Out of all the commercials you've seen Tiger Woods in, do you remember how many Steve Williams was in?  Did a golf club company ever release the Tiger Woods/Steve Williams Blades?  The point is that Williams isn't Scottie Pippen if Tiger is Jordan.  Yes he did a lot for Tiger, but he was a role player, he wasn't swinging the clubs.  In crunch time Woods wasn't able to pass the (golf)ball to Williams to take the last shot.

For one thing, he definitely cost Tiger a win last year at the Chevron World Challenge.  When he took his caddy bib off before Graeme McDowell attempted a putt to force a playoff (taking your bib off as a caddy is a way of signaling that the round is over), it motivated McDowell to make the putt and allegedly say "Put that f#cking bib back on" directly to Williams.  After the twenty-foot bomb, McDowell eventually won the playoff and that loss may have pushed Tiger's rise to the top back a year or more.

So maybe it was the right time to make a change.  Perhaps Woods wanted to distance himself from every aspect of his old life in order to move on.  Maybe Woods identified Williams as an enabler and didn't want to fall back into his old habits.  The only thing that really matters is that Woods gets back to some semblance of his former career performance.  Ultimately Tiger Woods makes the money for TV add dollars, he sells the sports drinks and luxury watches , and writing stories about Woods get more people to read the magazine articles than the albeit amazing piece you once wrote on Vlade Divac back in 1999, Mr. Rick Reilly.

If you're a fan of golf, now would be a good time to start rooting for Tiger Woods, because when he's at his best, the game of golf is just about at its best as well.

Miyazaki Shaft Review

So there's not been a whole lot of exciting action on the PGA Tour recently, which has prompted the first equipment review for this blog.  For the first product spotlight, I chose the Miyazaki shaft line, which is owned by Sumitomo Rubber Industries - which also owns Cleveland/Srixon.

Background
First, as a little background on the shafts, they are manufactured somewhat differently then other graphite shafts within the golf industry.  Without getting too technical, a shaft starts as a bunch of sheets of graphite fiber, with each sheet rolled around a rod called a mandrel, and each layer is applied until the desired weight and flex point is achieved.  Miyazaki shafts incorporate an extra step in the manufacturing process in which after a layer of graphite is applied to the madrel, a film is also wrapped around the graphite layer increasing tension and decreasing the amount of air pockets that are produced within layers, making the shaft lighter, more uniform within the shaft, and more consistent from shaft to shaft.

Aside from the manufacturing side, the composition of the shaft is also different in that Miyazaki doesn't see the flex of the shaft as 'Regular' or 'Stiff' like most companies, or even as CPM's (cycles per minute) as a few within the industry define them.  Instead, a Miyazaki shaft is viewed in ten inch segments that each have their own flex based on a scale of one to nine, with nine being the stiffest.  This philosophy enables various versions of the same shaft, and instead of designating one model high launch and another low launch, you can find the four-digit flex code on a Miyazaki shaft and and immediately tell if the shaft has an active tip, soft mid-section, or firm butt end, which each help the golf ball do different things.

For this product review, I was lent a Miyazaki C. Kua 59 gram shaft that was tour issued, with a flex code of 5674.  Basically, this is a light-weight shaft that has a stiff tip, very stiff mid-section, and slightly softer tip.  I was given this shaft after explaining to a Miyazaki employee that I usually used the Diamana Whiteboard 63 gram shaft in a stiff flex.  Using a private database, that employee was able to find the four-digit flex code of the version of the Whiteboard I use and recommend a similar Miyazaki shaft, as the company has tested just about every shaft out there so that they are able to manufacture shafts for their tour players to fit their swing styles.


The Testing Data
The driver that I used for this test was the Nike VR Pro, 440cc model with a loft of 10.5 degree set 1 degree open.  The shaft that I was custom fit for in this head was a Mitsubishi-Rayon Diamana 'Ahina 63 gram stiff flex.  As a baseline, my launch numbers with the 'Ahina were as follows:

Launch Angle:  14.3
Ball Speed:  154
Spin Rate:  3120 rpm's

After installing the Miyazaki C. Kua into the same head, with the same shaft length and grip as the 'Ahina, my launch numbers were as follows:

Launch Angle:  13.1
Ball Speed:  159
Spin Rate:  2850 rpm's

So, the Miyazaki shaft managed to launch the ball 1 degree lower with more speed coming off the club face and slightly less spin.  All these technical numbers add up to approximately a 15 yard increase in distance, from 260 yards with the 'Ahina to 275 with the Miyazaki.  Both shafts had a nice trajectory and feel to them, and both still produced my natural draw, but the Miyazaki shaft had less of a tendency to hook, partially due to the decrease in spin, which meant the balls I hit with the Miyazaki were closer together, on average, than those hit with the 'Ahina.

The same golf ball was used for all of the testing, the Nike 20XI-S, and all numbers were collected on the same day under the same weather conditions with a Flightscope launch monitor.


Conclusion
The Miyazaki shaft performed admirably, and at a price-point of $50 less than a Diamana shaft, it definitely wins out on value, and will win out on performance as long as you are custom fit for the shaft.

One weakness for the brand is the fact that they have done extensive testing of the other shafts on the market, but unless you are a tour player or know someone who knows someone, you don't have access to any sort of comparative data or recommendations.  It would be nice if Miyazaki could do a web fitting module, where you would enter information on what shafts you prefer and what type of launch characteristics you achieve with those shafts and in turn recommend one of their shafts.  They could also do something similar to the Mizuno shaft optimizer, somehow taking data from a demo club to recommend the different flex code you would need.

The other weakness is the fact that they are owned by a club manufacturer, Cleveland/Srixon.  If they were independent, they would be a custom option already for every major manufacturer.  Because of their parent company, TaylorMade refuses to put the shafts in their clubs, the same stance adopted by Titleist.  Nike Golf is the only manufacturer to my knowledge that currently has the Miyazaki shafts as a custom option.

Hopefully Miyazaki can overcome these weaknesses, as they make a great product with a great philosophy behind it.  If they can implement the fitting tool, look for the brand to be a real force among top amateur players in the near future.

This weakness is a simple fix, and if corrected

McIlroy Captures US Open Victory

It's fitting that the first ever post on this blog comes on the heels of an impressive US Open performance from Rory McIlroy.  This eight-shot victory took place just months after his monumental collapse at The Masters during a final round in which he was brought to tears after not only vacating first place, but hitting shots in places that reminded amateurs of their own golf games.  Once McIlroy reached the 13th tee box that Sunday afternoon the television coverage quickly shifted away from what most hoped would not be his career-defining round.

In sports, and golf especially, we tend to let one singular performance define an athlete.  In the sport of golf, 18 holes can either erase a shaky start or flush away was would have been an outstanding outcome.  More often than not, legacies are either forged through years of winning or one afternoon where a lead slipped away.  Jean Van de Velde is not remembered for his four career wins, but for the closing round of the 1999 Open Championship where he needed double-bogey on his final hole to win the major and managed to make a triple-bogey to force a playoff he would eventually lose.   If you ask the casual golf fan how many career PGA Tour wins Rocco Mediate has, they would be hard pressed to tell you.  What they would be able to tell you, however, is where they were when he stood toe-to-toe with the former number one golfer in the world and lost in the 19th hole of a Monday playoff  at Torrey Pines.  Conversely, Jim Furyk has no career defining collapse to speak of, and will be remember by most as a consistent golfer who won a few tournaments, the Fed Ex Cup, and had an unusual swing.

For McIlroy, this US Open win did more than just inject $1.44 million into his bank account or open up new doors to lucrative sponsorship deals.  After each round he led, fewer people questioned whether he would once again fold like he did at Augusta National.  At the young age of 22 Rory McIlroy has begun revising his legacy the same way others his age revise term papers.  He went from the golfer who let a Green Jacket slip away to the golfer with the most dominating performance in a US Open ever.

From this point on Rory will be the author of his own legacy, and thanks to his dominant performance at Congressional Country Club this weekend, it has gone from a tragic novel to a coming-of-age tale filled with redemption.