Thursday, July 5, 2012

SCOR Golf President Terry Koehler talks all things golf in this exclusive one-on-one interview and shares his opinions on:
  • the controversial debate between blades and cavity backs
  • the neglected importance of shafts in club performance
  • what he'd like to see different on the PGA Tour
  • Hogan's influence on him
  • how the golf industry has significantly changed over the past 30 years
  • of course his Golf Digest Hot List SCOR4161 scoring clubs which are slowly moving their way into golfers' bags everywhere
  • and much more ...
Hope everyone enjoys it.
~ Pete



Stroke Of Genius: The Terry Koehler Interview
An extraordinary visit with SCOR Golf’s Game Changer

By Pete Pappas 
On twitter @PGAPappas
And on blogspot at PGAPappas.Blogspot

He’s a golf guru with over 30 years experience in the golf equipment industry.  He’s a mad scientist with more than a half-dozen golf club patents and nearly 100 iron, wedge, and putter designs to his credit.  And some day he might be known as the pioneer who transformed the short game in golf as we knew it.

He’s SCOR Golf President Terry Koehler and he’s hit the ground running with SCOR Golf’s new SCOR4161 scoring clubs.



Speak with Koehler and three things become evident almost immediately.  His passion is unlimited.  His knowledge is profound.  And his effort is round-the-clock.  Koehler is one of the good guys and his conviction and desire to revolutionize short game equipment in golf is inspired by his genuine love for the game.

In fact it’s easy to mistake Koehler for someone talking proudly of his children or grandchildren and their accomplishments when he discusses SCOR4161.  He has that same kind of love, pride, and belief in these new scoring clubs.

Koehler shares his insights and opinions candidly and unabashedly - holding nothing back.  He even provides exclusive pictures of the "Custom Built and Made to Order" process as seen only in this interview.

 


And when you spend time with someone who’s as enthusiastic about what they do as Koehler is - it’s genuinely fascinating.

P.P:  Terry thank you for your time today.

T.K:  No, thank you, Pete.  As a small company tackling the giants it’s always a treat to get to tell golfers who we are and how we’re challenging years of “conventional wisdom” in the scoring club category.
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P.P:  How did SCOR Golf get started?  Was there an “AHA!” moment that led to the creation of your new SCOR4161 line of scoring clubs?






T.K:  Well Pete, the process started with the change in the rules regarding grooves.  Like everyone else we began to experiment with various new conforming grooves on our EIDOLON wedges.  But new grooves on old wedge designs didn’t satisfy us like it apparently did with others.

Somewhere along the way we found that the shots that left the clubface lower retained more spin.  That got me thinking a little outside the box.

Golfers have problems keeping their trajectories down with their high-loft clubs and therefore have inconsistent distance control, and shots hit high on the face just go nowhere.  We’ve all experienced that.

But all wedges are designed with a very low center of mass and very thin top section which aggravates this problem.  Hmmmmm.

So I braised some material on the back of an EIDOLON 60 to significantly raise the CG and make the face thicker.  The result was a lower ball flight and higher spin rate.  And more forgiveness on shots off the top half of the face.

Then the wheels really got going from there.  So I stepped back and decided to create a completely new approach to the short range scoring clubs, starting from scratch.

With the goals of forgiveness, lower trajectories, pinpoint distance control, superior feel and the ability to handle any kind of lie your ball might encounter, we developed and/or applied technologies to address each of those goals.
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P.P:  What are some of these new technologies that you incorporated?

 

T.K:  We applied my patented V-SOLE design, which has built quite a loyal base of believers in the EIDOLON wedges.  It combines a high and low bounce into each club’s sole so that it can work for anyone equally well from tight lies, rough, bunkers, fairway, rough . . . you name it.  I’ve always thought it absurd to have to choose a specialized bounce for a lie you’re going to have sometime in the future.  Impossible.

Then we created our SGC3 Progressive Weighting so that each high loft club is specifically designed for that particular loft.  No one has ever done that in the scoring clubs – all other brands apply the same back design to all lofts.

We developed our own short-game-specific shafts to optimize feel and performance.  We call them the GENIUS series.  Two weight of graphite, two weights of steel, 2 - 3 flex options in each.  We can perfectly fit any golfer, from the senior to the tour player.

 


There are many more innovations in this product – Tru Form Forged process, every loft from 41 to 62 degrees, all wrapped around the most complete custom-fit, custom-build process in the industry.  We have no stock clubs at SCOR.
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P.P:  Terry you’ve written more than 500 articles about golf in the past five years for various golf publications and blogs.  Why do you write so often?


T.K:  Why would I want to keep to myself any knowledge that might help someone improve their scores and enjoy the game more?  I wasn’t raised that way.

Everything I have ever achieved in life is because someone else was willing to share their knowledge and their time with me.  As I get older I want to do the same to help anyone and everyone I can.

And I love to write actually.  Maybe in my next life I’ll tackle the Great American Novel.  Right now I’m focused on improving golfers scoring and love for the game.  Writing on Tuesday and Friday mornings is something I really enjoy.
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P.P:  If you don’t mind how about sharing some of your knowledge with a wedge technique lesson right now?



T.K:  Sure.  The most common issue I see in golfers’ short game technique is they are too fast.  Too quick.  I think it’s because we’ve had this notion of “accelerate through the ball” pounded in our heads.

Well, if you speed up from 3 miles per hour to 4 or 5, that’s still acceleration.  This is the precision part of the game.  Everything you do in life that requires precision . . . you instinctively slow down.  Think about that.

You don’t pull into a parking spot at 25 mph.  You don’t paint the trim around a window at the same speed you move the roller on the big wall spaces.  Precision requires patience and deliberate action.

That’s the “what.”  The “how” is to lighten your grip, particularly with your right hand, and “feel” the end of the backswing on all your short shots.  Then just make a relaxed pull of the club through impact with your left side dominating.
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P.P:  Terry you said earlier SCOR4161 clubs will work “from any lie” and “for any golfer.”  I can’t get that out of my head.  That’s an incredibly bold statement.  How is that possible?





T.K:  Because it combines both a high and low bounce into the sole of each club.  All other wedges have a single bounce angle, either high, low or in between.

The companies advise us that we need high bounce for fluffy lies and soft turf, and low bounce for tight lies and firm turf.  What good is that advice?  I have no idea what kind of lies my ball will find the next time I play, but I do know they will not all be the same.

The V-SOLE has a low bounce in the main part of the sole so that the club can handle the tightest lies with ease.  And a very high bounce in the first quarter inch behind the leading edge so that it also works from lies where you would need high-bounce characteristics.

It’s the most versatile and forgiving sole in the business regardless of the level of skill of the golfer.
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P.P:  Can you take that just one step further and explain how the club works in two different lies?  And give an example how V-SOLE benefits both the more accomplished player as well as the recreational weekend golfer?





T.K:  Let me try.  For the good player, the sole will never get in your way of executing the various shots you know how to play.  It won’t dig, it won’t skip into the ball.

For the average player the V-SOLE offers more forgiveness to you.  If you hit slightly behind the ball it will tend to “scoot” right under the ball rather than lay the sod over or bounce into the belly of the ball.  Because your swing path varies from steeper to shallower the sole will always interact with the turf to provide a measure of forgiveness.

No matter what the grind every other wedge by design is really good at a few shots, so-so on others, and really bad at some.

In contrast we’ve been told numerous times that our V-SOLE never met a lie it didn’t like.
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P.P:  Great stuff Terry.  Ready for the “Front 9” rapid round of questions?
     T.K:  Fire Away.

P.P: When you have time to relax what things do you like to do?
     T.K:  Time on the water fly-fishing is number one and bird shooting in the fall.  I’m also a range rat and love to just go out and hit a couple hundred shots, mostly with wedges of course, then play a few holes by myself to just engage the game.

P.P:  Is there significance to the name Eidolon?
     T.K:  When we started the company back 2003 we found this obscure word defined as “the image of an ideal.”  That stuck with us.  I’m a very idealistic person.

P.P:  I know you’re a “Hogan” guy.  What’s one of your favorite Hogan “pearls of wisdom?”  You wouldn’t happen to know the “Hogan Secret” would you?
     T.K:  Wow.  I have so many favorite Hogan stories but maybe my favorite quote was “A golf club is 90% shaft and 10% how it goes through the dirt.”  In wedges I think that is more like 60/40, but no other company seems to put any attention at all in the shaft.

I admired Hogan because he did everything first class, full-speed-ahead, with no relaxing of standards of excellence.  I hold him to be a role model that way.  A complex man, no doubt.  I wish I would have had the chance to spend time with him – I can’t imagine how fascinating that would have been.

As for his “secret” there is much speculation.  I think it was that he knew the hands rotated through impact, more than unhinging.  That’s still never written about.  But golfers misunderstand what the hands do in that critical zone.

P.P:  The golf industry is very different now than it was when you started back in the 1980s.  Is there any particular difference that stands out most to you?
     T.K:  The impact of major brand advertising and PGA Tour endorsement exposure has somewhat usurped the importance of engaging the golf professional and shop manager in your equipment search.  Back then golfers turned to those people for sage advice.  Nowadays they just seem to march in lockstep with whatever is the hot flavor of the month.

The other thing that troubles me is the relentless focus on distance.  I think it is a large contributor to the lack of interest and participation in the game.  Some guy hits a 9-iron from 188 or a pitching wedge from 160 – who can relate to that?  It could make you feel inadequate.

P.P:  You learned a lot about the game from your dad and Carl “Swede” Gustafson.  Can you share one of your favorite personal stories about one or both of them and how they influenced you and your passion for the game?
     T.K:  Well Pete that certainly wouldn’t be a short answer.  There are dozens if not hundreds of stories I could tell.  But essentially they taught me to love the game, play it hard, spend time learning, and respect and enjoy it.  My dad was a fierce competitor, but truly loved golf for what it is, the challenge of man I guess.

P.P:  What’s the best shot you’ve seen on Tour the past few seasons?


     T.K:  It would be Phil Mickelson’s wedge approach on 18 at Torrey Pines last year.  He had his caddie tend the flag as he had to hole out from 72 yards or some such.  I thought, “how arrogant”, then he almost holed it.

Look up his post round interview for some real insight.  What he explained later is that he knew his odds of holing from that range were better than from the bail-out spot right of the green, and to get there he would have to also hit a remarkable recovery from the rough.  So he went with the odds of a simple iron shot to wedge range and then his lob wedge.

All golfers should develop that kind of confidence in their wedge play.

P.P:  OK how about the best shot YOU hit this year?
     T.K: The easy answer would be the hybrid I holed out from 205 for an eagle on our hardest par four.  But really what stands out just as much is a wedge shot from about 80 yards I hit to five feet to save par on our tough 18th par five.  I had the choice of trying to hit a third shot with a low running 4-iron from under the trees and hopefully threading between the water and the trap.  But I only needed a par that day to win the hole so I chipped a 6-iron out to about 80 yards because I was confident that I could dial in a wedge shot from there.  And I did.

P.P:  We hear a lot about wanting to “grow the game of golf.”  What would you do to change the game or improve it?
     T.K:  Get the country club kids involved.  Make it fun for them.  Create beginner greens and larger holes, not just moved-up tees.  I have a concept for Little League Golf.  Kids want to be part of something.  Let them play scrambles to get going.  And why should a kid or beginner try to negotiate the same slick greens, bunkers, water and other greenside trouble, and get the ball in the same size hole the tour player does?   And help golfers score better . . . get off this distance thing.  Sheesh.  No one quits golf if they are getting better.  And you get better by learning how to score.

P.P:  What SCOR4161 set-up is in your bag?
     T.K:   I have a 41 SCOR bent to 39 and the sole tweaked, replaces my 8-iron.  I then carry 43, 47, 51, 55 and 58.  That gives me 11 - 13 yard gaps from 140 on down to about 75.  All with our GENIUS 7 graphite in Firm flex, standard length, 2 degrees flat.  Grips built up one wrap on the 39 - 47, two wraps on the 51 - 58.  And I feel like I can dial it in within 3-4 yards at any range in there by changing hand position and face angle slightly.  I wrote a book on that method by the way.
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P.P:  Back to Hogan for a moment.  We talked a bit about why you’re a Hogan guy.  From the equipment side of things is there also a Hogan influence in the design of SCOR4161 clubs?


T.K:  I have three Hogan pictures above my desk:  an autographed print of the cover of the 1983 catalog commemorating his “slam,” a photo Jules Alexander took of him just past impact, and a photo of his one-iron from Golf House.

His influence on me from an equipment side is more general actually.  But Hogan knew that an iron had to have thickness behind the impact area to give you pinpoint distance control.  That is a benchmark of the SCOR4161 design.

And Hogan’s Apex shaft was legendary for its playability.  Developing your own shafts was unheard of when he did that.  Our GENIUS shaft series does that for scoring clubs, and we are the only company to specifically design shafts for wedges – FOUR of them, two steel and two graphite.

Oh, and Hogan was a stickler for quality.  I absolutely share that passion for all our clubs at SCOR Golf.  Tour player’s clubs get built right next to the rank-and-file golf consumer’s.
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P.P: Most companies and people categorize irons as long irons, middle irons, and short irons.  You categorize irons differently.  What’s the reasoning behind that?





T.K:  I like to dissect the set like this.  You have a driver on one end, and a putter on the other.  In between you can assemble a “team” of 12 clubs to allow you to score in the most efficient manner.  I divide those into three categories – distance clubs, positioning clubs, and scoring clubs.

The distance clubs are a fairway wood or two and a hybrid or two.  Most golfers don’t need more than two of these, maybe three, as they are simply used to advance the ball down the hole to set up a positioning shot or scoring shot.  You don’t need great distance control with these, you just want to be accurate.

The positioning clubs are those you use to get the ball in a reasonably good position from which to finish the hole.  These are the longer approach clubs, those of 25 - 40 degrees of loft, or 4-iron/hybrid to 8-iron typically.  If you can always keep those shots somewhere on the safe side of the green or flag you’ll do just fine.  Distance control of 30 - 50 feet long or short is totally workable.

Then you have the scoring clubs – those over 40 degrees of loft.  And golfers by and large do not have enough of these as iron lofts have strengthened over the years.  Regardless of whether you are trying to win a PGA event or trying to break 90 or 100, you’re going to do it with your high loft scoring clubs.  You HAVE to be able to dial in your yardages to 3 - 5 yard increments to give yourself good looks at pars and birdies with these clubs.

But most golfers, including tour players, are carrying too many distance and positioning clubs and too few scoring clubs.  If you hit your 9-iron over about 125 you need to have more scoring clubs in your bag.  Hogan carried seven clubs that he hit within 160 yards – most modern players only have 3 - 4.  They would have to be twice the shotmaker Hogan was to make that work.  And they are not.   Regardless of your skill level you should be able to hit confident golf shots from any range from your 9-iron on down.
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P.P:  Earlier we discussed V-Sole design and what it accomplishes.  SGC3 is another significant technology in SCOR4161 clubs.  What are the benefits of SGC3? 





T.K:  SGC3 is an acronym for “Short Game Control times 3” – Trajectory control, distance control and spin control.  We created the first progressive weighting scheme in the scoring clubs so that we could optimize ball flight and forgiveness for each scoring club individually, and therefore distance control for each club.

While all other wedges have one back design applied to all lofts, SCOR4161 has seven distinct head designs across 21 lofts, so we can give any golfer the exact set make-up that blends with his or her irons and optimize their gaps in between clubs in scoring range.

This is a radically different approach to club design.

But the 9-iron should not look like a 6-iron.  There is a full discussion of this on our website and I could conduct a full discourse on this.

We manage mass to positively affect ball flight, forgiveness, distance control, and spin with that particular loft.  Lowering the CG in fairway woods, hybrids, and long irons makes them easy to get airborne.  But you don’t need that in your scoring clubs – they have high loft to do that!  What you need is more mass right behind the ball to optimize ball flight and spin.

This isn’t just about “wedges”.  It’s about your entire scoring club arsenal.  Wedges from every other brand look pretty much the same as they have for decades.  In fact one company even re-introduced a 1988 design as their “new” club for 2012.  Really?  What other category would that work in?
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P.P:  You’ve written extensively and are very outspoken on the controversial debate about blades versus cavity backs.  Can you talk a bit about that?


T.K:  I’m a believer that most golfers are being penalized by their iron designs.  These very thin faces and extreme perimeter weighting do not do as much for you as you think.

I’ve written about this a number of times and anyone can look up the response to this notion from golfers of all skill levels.  The big companies’ ads practically say, “You are a really crummy golfer who can’t hit the ball anywhere near the center of the face.  So we’re giving you this big radically weighted shovel to help you out.”

I say, “You’re not as crappy as they think you are.  Get a good set of modern blades with mild perimeter weighting and a thicker face and watch what happens to your scoring.”

It is a proven fact that thin-faced, perimeter weighted irons do not produce the same accuracy off dead center shots as do clubs with thickness behind the impact zone.  SCOR4161 clubs are designed to preserve that thickness and they are scary accurate in giving you pinpoint distance control.
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P.P:  SCOR4161 clubs are Tru-Form-Forged and that touches naturally on another controversial debate - forged versus cast.  What is Tru-Form-Forged?

 




T.K:  OK, here’s the simple answer.  The process – casting vs. forging – doesn’t make a club hard or soft.  The material does that.  All sticks of butter are cast, OK?  So is ice cream, Jell-o, lots of things you don’t think of as hard.  Casting allows more precision, forging does compress the molecules a bit to make a club more responsive.

We combined the two processes in SCOR4161.  The heads are cast of 8620, a mild carbon steel, then each is reheated and put into a forging die for finishing and struck with an 800-ton forging hammer.  It is a small thing, but it contributes to the superior feel of a SCOR4161 club over any cast wedge in the market, and is indistinguishable from a forging in that regard.
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P.P:  Moving on to the “Back 9” rapid round of questions.
P.P:  Who’s in your dream golf foursome and where would you play?
     T.K:  My Dad, Ben Hogan, and my brother.  And it could be anywhere, but I’d like to tour the best little 9-hole courses in the country and world as that is the environment I grew up with.  Of course we’d all be playing persimmon and forged blades.

P.P:  Can you share a hard-knock lesson you learned working in the golf industry?
     T.K:  I’ve had my share of disappointments in others whom I’ve trusted.  But I continue to give people the benefit of the doubt.  You can’t stop trusting going forward because you got burned in the past.  Each day is a new one, and each person gets a clean slate to start.  That doesn’t mean throw caution to the wind.  But it does mean giving people your trust.  The big lesson looking back from 60 is that I wasn’t nearly as smart in my 30s as I thought I was then.  No one is.

P.P:  What’s one of the strangest or funniest things you’ve seen on the golf course?
     T.K:  Gosh I’ve seen my share.  Maybe the funniest is seeing a guy actually knock his own cap off his head by topping a 3-wood.

P.P:  What would you like to see different on the PGA Tour?
     T.K:  I would like to see a tour ball that could reel distances back in.  I’d like to see the pros play the game within two clubs of how most of us play it.  To me it would be more interesting to see 160 yard 7-irons and real three shot par fives than what we get to watch.  But I realize that the PGA Tour’s “customer” is only about 30% golfers and 70% non-golfers.  That’s the TV audience make-up.  So it will never happen.

P.P:  Were you surprised to see so many players struggle with their short games at the U.S. Open this year?
     T.K:  You’re going to ask me to pick on the best players in the world?  The only observation I have is that I saw a number of shots that weren’t nearly as good as I would have expected.  Sure the course was tough but so tough that tour professionals can’t make pars?  If they had the kind of wedge games they should why couldn’t they have played those brutally long holes with two positioning clubs and a wedge shot to 5 - 10 feet giving themselves good looks at par on every hole?

P.P:  SCOR Golf has an interesting “No Risk Performance Guarantee.”  What is that?
     T.K:  Pete we are asking people to give us their trust, confidence, and money for a golf club they might not have even seen live and in person yet.  We know that over 99% of people who try this technology and experience this feel and performance will fall in love with it.  Our average owner is carrying 3 - 4 SCOR4161 clubs because we earned that.  So we have two ways that golfers can experience the SCOR4161 difference for themselves with no risk at all.

One, they can purchase any single or set of SCOR4161 precision scoring clubs and play them for up to 30 days. If they are not completely satisfied, they can return them to us and we’ll go out and buy them any major brand, off-the-rack wedge(s) they think they’d like better.

Or two, we’ll build you one custom wedge in the loft of your choice – any shaft, any flex, any custom specs.  Play it for up to 30 days to see what we’re all about.  All we ask is that you pay for the ship costs of $9.95.  If you don’t like it, you can send it back . . . you’re out nothing but $9.95.

P.P:  Will Tiger win a major this year?
     T.K:  Who would know?  You can’t bet against him, but lots of people are cheering both ways on Tiger.  Interesting story, to say the least.

P.P:  Have you ever thought about becoming a golf instructor or golf coach?
     T.K:  I love helping people try to figure this game out and get better.  Writing is how I do that right now.  But being a youth golf coach would be fun and rewarding I’m sure.  Maybe I’ll do that in my next life.

P.P:  Speaking of writing you wrote a 27 page book called “The SCOR Method” and made it available to everyone for free (The SCOR Method).  What is it about?
     T.K:  It’s a simple way to help dissect short range shotmaking.  Few will learn how to drive it 280+, but anyone can learn how to build a repeating scoring club swing that delivers consistent distance.  And if you can do that you can play anywhere.  I wrote the book to help golfers shoot lower scores.  And it will.
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P.P:  Starting a new business in any industry is incredibly challenging – especially one as competitive as the golf industry.  Run through what a typical day is like for you as President of SCOR Golf.



T.K:  Well “typical” might not describe any of my days but here goes.  I rise early and start working around 4:30 or so, but sometimes I just wake up and get a head start an hour or so earlier.  Those make for long days.  I use that early morning time to answer emails, write creatively, planning, analysis, those things that take focus and a fresh mind.

I generally break for breakfast about 7:00 then dress and head to the office by 8:00The day is filled with phone calls, meetings, and all sorts of things that are unplanned.

That’s one thing I love is that every day is different.  I might be working with a salesman on training, or a staff member on a project.  I like to get my hands dirty regularly by working in the shop, usually creating something.

More of the same in the afternoon.  Often lunch with a friend, or by myself with the paper, maybe run an errand or two.  One or two afternoons a week I’ll go to the club about 4:30 - 5:00, hit a couple hundred balls, and play a few holes practicing real-world chips and pitches out there.  Usually there’s a group on the back deck outside the card room solving the world’s problems and I’ll sit in and have a drink with them to see what I can learn.

Home for a light dinner and maybe a little more work, or some TV, or a chore around the house.  Lights out for me typically about 9:30 . . . I’m beat by then.
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P.P:  How important is the shaft in club performance?  And what are some distinguishing features of SCOR4161 shafts in particular?


T.K:  It troubles me that wedge shafts are given so little attention.  Maybe it’s that Hogan thing.  The shaft is the “engine” of the golf club, and that applies to wedges as much as a driver.  We ask our scoring clubs to do a lot.  Perform at full swing speed and deliver optimum results, and at almost putter speeds on our touch shots.  That’s a tall order for a shaft.

We turned to my friend Kim Braley at KBS for our steel shafts and developed a pattern that delivers a slightly firmer tip and softer upper section.   So we have two weights – GENIUS 10 and 12, in 2 - 3 flexes in each to fit golfers who prefer steel.

Then we turned to our friends at UST Mamiya for two graphite shafts, one about 75 grams, and a heavier one about 95 grams.  Again, 2 - 3 flexes in each.  I’ve played graphite in my scoring clubs for over five years and could never go back.  The feel properties from this kind of premium graphite are astounding.
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P.P:  Can you take that just one step further and explain why (scoring) short iron shafts should be designed differently than (distance) long irons shafts and (positioning) middle iron shafts?

T.K:  The shafts in the longer clubs are typically swung only at full swing speeds.  A softer tip helps get the ball airborne and you want that shaft to really load and unload.

The scoring clubs on the other hand are used at a very broad range of swing speeds. Too soft in the tip and they deliver ballooning trajectories.  Too firm and they compromise feel.  Iron shafts are also traditionally progressively stiffer from long to short.

But we’ve found that making the entire set of scoring clubs – all those over 40 degrees of loft – have the same shaft characteristics in weight, material, and flex delivers much improved feel and performance.

I don’t know of any other company that has put this much attention into the wedge shaft.  But we know it’s the right thing to do.
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P.P:  Everyone pays attention to what the PGA Tour players use every week.  SCOR Golf is not out on Tour that I’m aware of.  Why is that?

T.K:  We’ll earn our way onto the tour in due time I’m sure.  A product this good will always find its way to the top.  But our focus right now is putting clubs in the hands of everyday golfers who influence their peers, and their golf professionals, and shop sales people who can tell this story.  To chase tour players with wedges and a checkbook isn’t in our first-stage business strategy.
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P.P:  Let’s talk about your fitting philosophy.  What is SCORFit and how is it different than other fitting philosophies? 



 


T.K:  We have an online process called SCORFit designed to show golfers what their optimum scoring club set make-up should look like.  The old 52/56/60 loft matrix is a throwback to 48 degree pitching wedges.  Well, no one has made one of those since the 1998 Hogan Apex.  Modern blade ‘P-clubs” are typically 47 or even 46 degrees, cavity backs more likely to be 44 - 45 degrees, and there are at least a few jacked up irons out there with a ‘P-club’ of only 43 degrees.  Sheesh.

What you need are the right scoring clubs over 40 degrees of loft, and SCORFit lets you see what that is for you and your set.  We build sets every day at 47/51/55/59, 45/49/53/57/61, and every other conceivable combination.  We’re the only company that can do that without bending something to something else.  That precision is why we make every loft from 41 to 61 degrees.

Once the lofts are determined we figure out which shaft and flex will give you what I call a “seamless transition” in feel from your positioning clubs to your scoring clubs.  The same material, weight, and flex is important, but you won’t get that from any off-the-rack, “Assembled in China” wedge from a major brand.  Those heavy and stiff “wedge flex”  shafts create a huge “disconnect” in performance for golfers playing light steel, graphite, and anything softer than an X flex in their irons.

SCOR Golf is a full custom-building company.  We don’t have any “stock” wedges in inventory.  If you order a “standard” length, lie, and grip size, it gets built-to-order just like the fully custom spec’d out set next to it.

Our custom process is modeled off the way things were done in the Hogan tour lab.  Our production line clubs were awesome, but there was something about the way things were done in the tour room that I thought could be scaled up.  And we’ve done that.
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P.P:  Last question Terry.  Brand loyalty in golf is big – really big.  And that has to be a huge obstacle for a new company.  Someone out there right now is looking at a handful of different wedges, including one from an OEM they’re loyal to.  Tell them what benefit or advantage they’ll have with a SCOR4161 wedge as opposed to others they’re considering?



T.K:  These are not “just wedges”, Pete.  This is a completely new way to build out the scoring end of your set, the “money clubs” as I call them.

I respect brand loyalty, but 2012 wedges from every major brand are almost identical to their 2011 models, even those made 20, 30 years ago.  You can do better.  Your driver, fairways, irons, putters, balls, shoes . . .  everything in golf has been overhauled by technology.  Hybrids didn’t even exist 15 years ago.  Why not the scoring clubs?

We thought it was time to do that, and the reviews from our owners bears out that we’re doing it right.

No, I’m not afraid to say that everyone else is doing it wrong, because I believe they are.

Low weighting, the same design for all lofts, even numbers only, bending to hit the “in betweens,” one shaft for all golfers, off-the-rack for your most important clubs . . .  this approach will not get you what you want from short range performance.

Big brands are OK, but you don’t get the same thing their tour players get.  You get the mass-produced, assembly line, maybe even “Assembled in China” version.   We make a bet with every customer we build SCOR4161 clubs for.

You’ll like them better than what you’ve been playing and anything else you might buy.  If you don’t we’ll take them back and go out and buy you whatever off-the-rack wedge you think you’d like better.

Who else will do that?  We’re that confident that this is the right thing to do in the scoring end of the set.  All we ask of golfers is to give us a chance to prove it.
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P.P: Terry thanks again.  It’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you and learning so much in the process.  I wish all the best to you and SCOR Golf going forward in the future.

T.K:  Thank you, Pete.  I’ve enjoyed the visit as well.  It’s always fun talking about something that I love this much.  Every gram of my heart and soul is right here.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To learn more about SCOR Golf check out scorgolf.com and connect with SCOR Golf on facebook for their latest news and official announcements.



You can also stay in touch with SCOR Golf on twitter @SCORGolf and read Terry's blog at The SCOR ZONE.

Follow Pete on twitter @PGAPappas
And for more interviews and articles visit Pete on blogspot at PGAPappas.Blogspot

©PGAPappas

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