Can New Irons Help Adam Rank Break 80?

🏌️‍♂️ Adam Rank is on a journey to break 80 in golf and is undergoing a club fitting to optimize his performance.

🔧 Club fitting involves testing different models, club heads, and shafts to find the best combination for a player's swing.

📊 Data such as ball speed, backspin, launch angle, and descent angle are crucial in determining the effectiveness of a golf club.

🟢 The goal is to get all performance metrics within the green range for optimal play.

💨 Increasing ball speed can significantly enhance the distance a golf ball travels.

🔄 Adjusting backspin and descent angle helps in making the ball hold the green upon landing.

🏌️‍♂️ Different clubs offer varying levels of forgiveness and spin, impacting a player's ability to hold the green.

🔍 The fitting process revealed that Adam's current clubs have lower backspin, affecting his ability to hold the green.

📈 Adam saw improvements in distance and ball speed with different test clubs, but finding the right balance of spin and descent angle remains key.

00:00:00 - All right, I am here with Adam Rank. Adam, we're on your journey to break 80. Yes. Um I think today we're going to do a club fitting for you. So, we're going to look at some new irons. So, tell me a little bit about kind of just your current set. Um sort of some of the maybe frustrations you have or just what you're looking for in a new set of irons. You know what? Um I think that, you know, I play Swicksons. I'm really happy with them. I just still want to

00:00:23 - make sure that everything's coordinated with my swing. Okay. You know, I want to make sure that I'm taking advantage of all the opportunities that are providing for you. I mean, like, if you get a chance to get fitted, why wouldn't you do it? Why not get something that's fitted for your swing? For sure. For sure. Yeah. So, we'll uh we'll take a look at your current set. So, I'll have you hit some shots just to kind of kick things off and see what the what the

00:00:44 - numbers look like. Okay. Um, then I'll have you test some different models and we'll use some different club heads, some different shafts just to kind of optimize where the ball needs to be as far as, you know, launch, spin, descent angle, things like that. And then we'll make a decision at the end and kind of go from there. All right, sounds great.

00:01:09 - Cool. All right, Adam. So, we've hit some shots. We've got some data now. Um, let's take a look at kind of what we saw with your current set of iron. So, uh, you see these gauges up here. These are color coded. Really, what we're looking for is to try to get all of these to be pretty close to the green range. So, you can see you're not too far off on a few of these. All right. Um, but there's a couple things that I think will help you. And, and we talked about this a

00:01:29 - little bit earlier. You mentioned to me just some shots maybe not stopping and holding the green. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, part of that is because of the backspin just being a little low. So ideally for somebody like yourself based on how fast you're swinging that should be closer to call it between the 5500 to 6500 range you're hovering right around 4500. So it's a lot lower. Um and then because of that your descent angle is also a little bit on the lower end as

00:01:51 - well. So you ideally want that to be closer to 45° with an iron. So that's the angle that the ball's going to come and land on the on the green. And then you couple that with the amount of backspin that you need. That'll help you hit shots that not only stay in the air a little bit longer but also hold the green when they hit it. Of course. So, I think what we can change potentially as we go through this, your launch angle is actually a teeny tiny bit on the high

00:02:11 - end. So, you're close to 24°. Ideally, we'd like to see that closer to between 15 and 20. Um, so kind of in that that, you know, 181 19 range for you. So, if we can get your backspin to be a little bit higher, lower your launch angle, and get the descent angle kind of where we want it by trying some different club heads and potentially some different shafts, that should go a long way to helping you increase your distance and and ultimately hit a lot more shots that

00:02:32 - hold the green. Okay, perfect. Team Okay. Yeah, I'd love that. Perfect. All right, Adam. So, the first club we're going to try is the Tailor- Made P790. So, this is the new 2025 version. It's got a little faster face. Uh, we went with a light a lighter shaft as well. So, both of those things should help increase your ball speed and potentially help raise your backspin. Okay. So, ideally, that's kind of what we're trying to do is get that back spin number to be a little higher so you can

00:02:52 - hold the green. So, let's hit a couple with it. Let's see what happens and then we'll go from there. All right. Sounds good.

00:03:04 - All right. So, we tried the Tailor Made. You hit a bunch of shots there. Here's kind of the average of all the data. So, saw your ball speed jump up by 5 mph. So, that's massive. Um, every mile an hour of ball speed you add, that's more distance. Good. So, super cool there. Your backspin really didn't change much. So, even with going with a lighter shaft, it stayed pretty much the same right around 4500. So, you can see how that's still kind of on the low end of

00:03:25 - our of our scale there. It's fine. We'll try some other stuff to potentially get that back up. But, what's really cool is because you added that extra ball speed, um, you gained about 10 yards of this. Nice. So, your carry distance went from approximately 135 yds to now 145 yards. Love it. So, ball stays in the air longer, which is really cool. Ball goes a little farther. Um, we'll keep trying some other clubs to see if we can get that backspin number to go even higher

00:03:46 - to help you hold some greens. Awesome. All right, Adam. So, test club number two. We're going to go the route of Mizuno. Um, I've got you in the JPX 925 Hot Metal Pro. All right. So, similar kind of head design to your to your currents or ZX-5s. Okay. Um, similar shaft what we tried before. Only difference is I'm going from a stiff to a regular. So, still going to kind of be in that 95 g range where where I think you kind of need to live. Um, but we're just going to go a little bit softer in

00:04:12 - the flex to again just try to help you get that back spin to be a little higher. Okay, so let's hit a few of that one and let's see what happens. I'm excited.

00:04:25 - Okay, Adam. So, you hit a few shots with the Mazuno, so we got some data over here. What's interesting is your backspin actually went down. No, it's okay. That's why we're testing this stuff. It's why we're trying some things. But even with that being said, you still jumped up with your ball speed another 4 mph. So, you went from 100 to 104. Um, which actually helped you hit the ball even further. So, uh, a couple things that I'm just a little worried about with this guy. The descent angle

00:04:47 - is getting a little bit too low. So, that's the angle that the ball's landing when it's when it's hitting the green. You're at 31 with this Mazuno, which is definitely not even on there's not even a spot on the chart. It's not even on the chart. Yep. So that's that's a huge thing just to be aware of because that's going to have a a huge impact on whether you can hold a green or not. Um so yeah, while we did see, you know, another five six yards of distance, we actually lost

00:05:08 - some of the descent angle. So, uh let's with Tesla number three, we're going to try to kind of bring that number back up again, get the backspin closer to what we would expect in that 45 to 5,500 range, and we'll we'll see what we can do with that. Try some different heads in different shafts. Sounds amazing. Okay. So, this is this is the dilemma with sometimes with club fitting. So, for you based off of your skill level, where you currently are, where you want

00:05:33 - to go to, yeah, you probably don't need players irons. You need something that's forgiving. Problem is is you start to go with more forgiving irons like your ZX4s, your T350s, your um Ping G440s. What tends to happen is because there's so much weight in the bottom of the club designed to help people get the ball in the air, the ball doesn't have any spin because essentially what happens is the CG just moves lower and lower and lower. And so when you hit it, you're

00:05:58 - essentially hitting it above the CG and it has very little backspin. Got it? So when you start to go to more players irons, there's less mass, therefore the CG gets a little bit higher, therefore you can create more spin. Mhm. So, it's like this battle of do I want to give you something that's super forgiving and easy to hit, but you can't hold a green with it or something that's a little less forgiving where you can create enough spin to hold it green based on

00:06:20 - where we're trying to go. And I I'm curious too like as we're starting this process like we're going to hopefully I'm going to get better. Should we be working towards clubs that are going to be more beneficial as we get better? Sure. We just want to make sure we don't go to the extreme of like there's no playability, right? So like that's where So for test club number three, what I really want to try like we want to I want to keep you in the stricks family, okay? But instead of the

00:06:46 - ZX-5, I want to actually go to the ZX7. Oo. Okay. So the and and we're going to go with a little bit lighter. The the shaft weight is going to be the same, but the flex is going to be a little bit softer. So you're in a stiff right now. I'm going to put you in a regular, but you're going to try the ZX-7 to see if we can get the backspin where we want it cuz we've we've got a couple good options in the, you know, I'd call it like the game improvement realm. Yeah. We've already seen. So, let's try

00:07:09 - something that's maybe a little bit on the crazy side and see if it does what we want for the backspin number. Let's go nuts. Okay, let's do it. Crazy.

00:07:23 - All right, Adam. So, third test club we went with the tricks on. uh same family that you currently play. We just tried the ZX-7 instead of the ZX-5. So, I didn't know if I was ready for the seven, but I It appears that at least numbers wise you are. So, it felt good. You hit some good shots. The ball speed didn't change from the Mazuno. So, you're actually still kind of in that 104 mph range. The lighter shaft and potentially the different head shape helped get the backspin closer to kind

00:07:48 - of where we were at the beginning, which is around that 4500. So, still not perfect. Not there yet, but still, but it's definitely closer to what we would want to see. Um, and I really like how the descent angle didn't really change that much from 45. You were right around that 44ish ballpark. Um, so that's the the stopping power that you really need to hold a green. And you didn't lose any distance. You were hitting them on average right around 152 yards in the

00:08:09 - air versus what you were doing with your current set, which was going like 135. So you hit it about 15 yards further and basically kept everything else kind of in the same ballpark. More ball speed. More ball speed. Your launch angle came down just a little bit. So, you went to 18 instead of 24. Um, and you actually hit these a lot straighter. So, yeah. Um, I would say that's probably the best option for you. But really, of the three test clubs we had, all three of them

00:08:35 - would be better in terms of like the distance variable. Yes. I just think the the stricks on that you're that you're that you hit last kept everything else kind of in the in the desirable ranges. I I did too. I mean, all three of them are great clubs, but once I got to the Swicks on and started hitting them, I could feel a little bit. And it's, you know, again, when you're changing a little bit, go from the five to the seven, which doesn't seem like a huge

00:08:57 - deal, but you can tell a little bit when you're addressing the ball, but it felt really good. For sure. The forgiveness factor is just a little lower, but again, I mean, for what you're working on, where you're trying to go, like it's not like you're going to strictly blades or something that has zero forgiveness. Like, there's still some some characteristics in there that will help you. It's just maybe not as a couple years down the line, maybe we go to Blades. That's that's always an option.

00:09:19 - So, um I definitely think you learned something today going through this process. No, this was huge. You know, that's one of the things, too. You play one brand of clubs or whatever it is, and you're like, "Okay." And you see people on the range or on the course, you're like, "Oh, I wonder if a different club would make a difference." But ultimately, uh the Strickson held true. Yeah, for sure, man. So, I think that's the the value of going through a fitting. That's really the value of

00:09:41 - having somebody as a coach and a fitter who kind of knows both sides of the spectrum. Um, like we talked about earlier, you needed some little tips to kind of keep things rolling. We're working on some things here. It's why we're here. So, um, really, really cool to see the distance jump as much as it did. And I think you're going to really like those. Yeah, I do too.

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