PING Proving GroundsEpisode 63: G440 Driver (Feat. Dr. Erik Henrikson)
Shane and Marty are joined at the PING Proving Grounds by Dr. Erik Henrikson, PING Director of Golf Science, to dive deep into the G440 driver family. They discuss the evolution of the ‘G’ series, the driver R&D process, and the innovation and technologies that deliver more speed and distance off the tee than ever before.
The guys from Ping. They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters. I just love that I can hit any shot.
I kind of want.
We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
Hey, hey, everybody, welcome back to the Ping Proven Grounds Podcast. Marty Jertsen. We have made it twenty twenty five, year three of the podcast, and with the new year comes some very new and exciting equipment.
Uh yeah, Shane. And we're gonna start with my favorite category, which is the driver category. It's the most you know, not quite a hot take anymore, I don't think, but it is the most important club in the bag, you know, the driver in the putter. And yeah, we're gonna have some fun with this one, Marty. The driver's been so close to you throughout your career. I know you said it's obviously one of your favorite clubs and one of your favorite clubs to talk about. But when something like this launches, where's your excitement level?
Uh?
Super high? Because I think consumers and you know our listeners out there are always wondering, well, what can Ping do next? What can the manufacturers do next, and we're gonna be able to kind of deep dive that here today with doctor Eric Henderson.
Eric is with us. Is this your second appearance on the pod? Second time on Okay? Weel learn some from my first Go Good Go.
We're gonna talk G four forty because obviously that is the new product with Ping, and before we get into some of the specifics and the excitement with the clubs, I wanted to ask both you guys, how do you come up with the name for a new product, Like, where does G four forty come from? Marty?
Well, G G G kind of originally evolved from I, like the I two, and then we made the I series irons. You know, we had the I three irons, the I three plus blades.
Uh.
Then we created G out of that, right, and then you know, G two, G five, G ten. We kind of evolved it and then we had to go to uh to triple digits there for a while.
And from their card you got to make sure you add enough numbers. How long is the meeting Eric about G four forty? Is this like a week long or like a month long uh?
For the name for the then, yeah, that's starts pretty early. I mean, depending on uh, there's a number of different factors that go into it, so it can be a week and it can be a lot longer depending on how those meetings go.
I wanted to ask Eric when when product becomes official? I mean, obviously we're launching and now people at home have seen it, obviously have a chance to hit it and buy it very very soon kind of at the end of the month. When does the product become finalized in terms of you seeing what people at home are seeing right now?
Yeah, so I think I mean the process, I mean, some of the technologies and the insights that go into this are years in the making.
You know.
We we have kind of this two year life cycle, and so we here have been working with this product and it's current embodiment for you know, i'd say a good year already doing a lot of testing, you know, making some you know, little tweaks, but in terms of what you see here, we've probably had it in our hands nine months to a year in its current embodiment.
Eric, talk a little bit about like just some of the fundamentals of driver design. What is the foundation of what we're trying to do, you know, And I would say approach it with your golf physics hat on.
Yeah, So, I mean it comes down to implementing the principles of conservation and momentum conservation of energy. You're trying to deliver as much energy to the ball as possible, increasing that ball speed, as well as thinking about launch conditions and so you know, we talk about being in the business of moving mass around. That was something I first heard at like my first sales meeting. John A got up and said, we've been doing this for fifty one years, moving mass around in the most efficient way possible. And we'll talk about some of the things that went into this to give us some discretionary weight and allow us to put the center of gravity in an optimal location boost MOI maintain that industry leading forgiveness that we're known for with our drivers. And then ultimately the geometry, right, how do we design the package to transfer most energy to the ball. It's face design that structure, how that bends, so where we put the mass and what we do with that structure pretty key to you know, unlocking the most performance possible with the driver.
Eric, what's kind of the hot button topic words and things right now around driving? Because you know what changes. It feels like every couple of years. What we talk about. You want to launch it high, you want to watch it lower, less spin, things like that. Going into G four forty, what was like the main focus for this particular series.
Yeah, so I think our strategies tend to remain pretty stable. You know, We've talked about moving that CG down and back for as long as I've been here, right, maxing moment of INERTI forgiveness out. And so for us it was continuing kind of down that consistent trajectory of and I think the success of our drivers just kind of shown the merit of that trajectory. And so for us, it was some small tweaks of unlocking some extra masks to move the center of gravity a little lower in order to improve energy transfer to the ball. And we did that through a number of different number of different technologies and design elements to help us get the CG in the right spot. Aerodynamics always comes into play, sound always comes into play, but the big thing here is just optimizing the weight and the mass to deliver speed and just overall performance.
Eric, you brought you brought up a few topics there, but you know, I've always found it a very big challenge to take two steps forward without taking one step back. So, what's an example or a few examples in driver design of a few different characteristics or properties that naturally kind of fight each other. You know, I think you've seen some, you know, our listeners have seen some drivers on the market that have chased one thing myopically at the sacrifice of another. You know, something we pride ourselves on is trying to take this kind of holistic approach. What are a few examples of things that fight each other and how did we overcome those?
Yeah, so there's two ways. So we talk a lot about trade offs, right, You're alluding to trade offs of like these things that I can maximize this, but it's gonna come at the cost of something else. So early on we worked on aerodynamics and kind of go, we can make something very very aerodynamic, but its mass properties are going to stink, right, And that's where kind of turbulators kind of came out of that. How do we break the trade off? Right? Innovation for us is identifying those things that fight against each other and figure out a way to break that relationship. And so I think aerodynamics and say forgiveness and center gravity placement are one of those that tend to work against each other.
So we're about i would say, probably about ten years into two turbulators. Give the listener a little refresher on exactly what they do and how they work.
Yeah, So ultimately these features we first put them on the G thirty driver, one of the drivers that Marty designed in his design days, and basically we saw this identified this trade off we're like, well, came in and said, well, we could do this to the shape of the driver and improve aerodynamics. And the more we looked at it, we realized, well, we're gonna make a big trade off here and it's not worth it. And so drew some inspiration from aerospace and from some other areas a sport where we saw features being implemented, saying on the helmet of some of these sports, you know, like downhill skeleton cycling, and we felt that was a way to kind of maintain our shape. And essentially on the crown of the driver, flow comes over that leading edge, and by implementing these features, it energizes the flow. So there's this thing in aerodynamics called separation. It's bad leads to drive and so you're trying to delay the separation. So those features influence the flow as it goes over that leading edge trips the boundary layer and gives us reduced drag, which breaks that trade off layer. Yeah right.
I like that you mentioned the turbulator starting out and Marty kind of being the king of the turbulators. I feel like this driver kind of touches a little bit of that driver that Eric had mentioned. Marty. I mean, you think about the colorway with the G four to forty. Also the sound, I mean the sound of this driver. I hit it a couple of days ago. I mean it is the best sounding ping driver that I've come across to date. And I know, you know it sounds so silly to talk about sound when you're talking about driver, right, I mean, we want to hit the ball far, want to hit it high, want to hit it straight. But sound is so important in terms of something new one hundred percent.
And that's that's another example of one of those trade offs that we are constantly battling against. Is there's some design changes that we know will be optimal for say mass placement or launch conditions, and they might work against producing a that's pleasurable. And I think you know, on paper, sounds a hard thing to quantify in terms of performance because you're kind of like, well, Newton didn't say anything about kind of you know, sound in terms of like you could do the equations and this is what's gonna happen with energy transfer. But how that influences and how the player interacts with it, is they begin to hear that sound, it could definitely influence how they perform, right. It's one of those kind of external elements that influence the psychology of a player, can really help them. I mean, you're gonna see if it sounds better, like evidence to suggest they're going to swing it faster and with more confidence.
Yep, yep. So it's one of those pieces that kind of touches your is a golfer, it kind of touches your soul, you know what I mean? Shane, Well, what's interesting, Marty?
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, But I remember years ago kind of average players wanted a little ting your sound. They liked hearing kind of that ping, if you will, And I always remember that the pros didn't want to hear it. They wanted to hear more of the thud. I remember you guys would use glue in those instances to make it a little more thirty. And it seems like we've moved more towards what the tour players want in terms of sound versus maybe what we were playing with a decade ago.
Yeah, definitely, And I think that's you know, that's one of the advantages of using more carbon fiber in the driver. I think that's a that's a good question, Eric for you, is just that the advantages of the carbon fly wrap. How have we expanded and built upon, you know, our initial entry into that with the with the G four to thirty. Now in what you see an expanded surface area and volume here in the four forty.
Yeah, so here's an example of that piece. So it's implemented now on all three of our models. So right, we have the SFT, LST, and MAX and each of those has their different lofts and we'll hit on that shortly. And the big thing here is this is only eleven grams and what really helped us kind of beat titanium in that trade off was extending that rap around and ultimately that's saves us, you know, about ten grams and gives us ten grams of discretionary weight to then move around and go into places like our backweight. And as you mentioned, the other element of this is it changes the acoustic right, A metallic and a piece of composite are fundamentally going to have a different sound signature to them, and so that's another tool that the designers can use to then dial in that sound. And for the four forty, players are going to notice a little bit more of that muted kind of maybe even crunchy kind kind of sound to it. And some of that's due to this carbon fly wrap and that combination of materials producing that acoustic.
Eric you mentioned the models, you mind walking through the new models for the G four to forty and maybe something new in terms of MAX or LST.
Yeah, so I think. So we have the MAX, which is yeah, kind of that just middle of the road comes in three lofts. We have our nine degree, ten and a half and twelve in the MAX. It's gonna have a slightly smaller footprint than the four thirty. Provide some differentiation there with some of the other models that we're offering. You have the LST, which is going to be a similar size, the more pair shape kind of footprint with the LST that's coming in the nine and the ten and a half. And then we're really excited about the SFT offering a nine degree loft, and we'll hit on that in a little bit of why we decided to add an extra loft skew and the s FT. But that one's you know, geared to fighting the fade, right, and we have two settings there with our CG shifter, draw and draw plus. So those are the different models and the different loft skews available in those different models.
Eric, I think it's fun just to look from the fitting angle to look at, now how many options we have, and you throw in the lower lofted SFT. I think when I'm looking at the driver right now, the four to forty driver, I think the first thing people are going to know is just the enormous you know. We like to call it the CG shifter because it shifts the CG, but you know, otherwise knows the backweight. Tell us a little bit about how much heavier that has gotten over the years, you know. And also I think when people first look at the four forty, they might appear as if the CG shifter doesn't move that much, Right, is it still moving the center gravity the same? Does still change the ball flight the same amount? And why is it moving less than what it used to?
Yeah, So you know I talked about this discretionary weight. Some of that we put into the backway. So we've gone as a standard and our kind of stock build gone from twenty six grams to twenty nine grams. So I mean, if you have an opportunity to feel that backway, that is a that's a pantload, a weight to put back there. It comes with some engineering challenges when you have that much weight concentrated in one area. But with that added weight, we can be a little bit more efficient with the movement of that weight, so it takes a lot less movement to create the different shot shapes we're looking for and fitting environment. And so with the four to ten we had that right you work, you're the lead designer on that driver. We worked a lot on on dialing in that first CG shifter. We had quite a bit of travel with that weight to kind of get the movement we're looking for. And so now with this added weight, not only does it give us just like just net CG location that's really optimal we've minimized the amount we need to move that weight in order to toomball flight.
Marty co this is the thinnest face of a driver that Ping has ever made. I'm always amazed by things like this because you feel like, you know, you get four thirty and that's the thinnest face, and obviously you get a chance to see incredible distance with that driver. How can you continue to kind of push the limits of something like a thin face of a driver without you know, finding a whole bunch of them being sit back and broken.
Yeah, No, it's uh, it's it's fun. I think a big part of it is Eric's teams has incredible tools to do some modeling, right, So we're getting better at better at being able to model what happens without having to make a physical prototype.
Are you doing? What are you doing?
That?
Is that like all computer based? How does that work? Eric?
Yeah? So a lot of it is uses finance element analysis. So it's a computational technique where we can break the CAD file down and virtually ram it into a ball, right and predict the ball speed and the launch conditions. And so we have a high power computer here on campus send the simulations over there. It cranks away and comes back and gives us the insights we're looking for. It helps us to optimize. So indeed, this is the thinnest face we've ever put into a driver, and part of that is we've reduced the face height a little bit. And so we found with all that research we were doing and the model and we were doing that if we reduce that face height, we can make the face a little thinner and net extra ball speed can serve more energy during the impact interval and ultimately lead to that performance that we're super excited about.
Yeah, save a little weight from the face as well.
Yeah, so we ended up saving two to three grams out of the face by making it a little thinner, and then we could talk about the free hozzle. So another area that's really close to the face that we looked at and ended up removing some weight from. If you look inside where our hostle sleeve enters the head, used to be this kind of titanium tube in there that kind of held that together. In that tube is then really close it's coincident to the heel side of the face, and so we ended up doing is taking that tube and removing kind of the centerpiece of it, which did a number of things. It freed up four grams for us to then redistribute in the head, but it also kind of freed up that area of the face, so we end up with a little bit more freedom for that face to flex in the heel area. And we talk about face design. We did go thinner, but we also had to move that VFT a little bit to kind of balance out the extra kind of heat we were getting in the heel area. There's different kind of thicknesses in that face. Again, the mean the average thickness is thinner, but then we have kind of some thicker areas that we moved over to the heel region, so you'll see that on all the different models. This kind of cutout in there, and again it frees up the face, gives us some extra mass that we then put in the back weight and used to kind of lower our center of gravity.
S This is this is why the driver is so fun, because you know, you think how good the four thirty was. Right here, we are right here talking about the four forty and how much weight is a designer and a driver if you can save one gram.
I was going to ask that is that like, is that like losing twenty pounds? Yeah, human it is.
It is one gram is is worth everything. As a designer, here we are. We saved it, you know, we way from the fazzle. So, uh, it's really really fun. We've concentrated more mass than the CG shifter. One of the other aspects of the driver design is just looking at the whole system build. Right, So Eric, talk to us a little bit about you know, what we've done to the holistic design, the standard lengths, the head weight, the system weight, how that research operates, and then how and what we've converged upon for the four to forty.
Yeah, so freed up all this extra discretionary weight. Some of that went back into the backweight. But we were doing a bunch of research on optimal headweight, right, and so in a very simple way, you can say, we'd go really light with a head, right, and you'd swing it a lot faster. Right if we went a lot lighter with the head, but now you're delivering less mass to the ball. We go really heavy and you deliver more mass to the ball, but you're not going to swing it as fast. And so we had done a we have a last time we chatted, we were over in Focal, our motion capture system, and so we've had everybody in the company go through mocaps, swing some drivers, a lot of people from outside tour players, and for different categories of player, we found these optimal head weights where it's this kind of Goldilock zone where it's heavy enough where you're delivering a good amount of mass to the ball, but not so heavy that you're hindering clubhead speed. And so it's just this is quirk of how conservational momentum con conservation of energy kind of work together. And so we use like a bowling ball analogy. It's like, how do you know, my mom might use a really light ball, but you give her, you know, a really heavy one, she can't get it down there with a lot of speed. You can throw the light one down there really fast, but you're gonna find you're gonna be more successful with something heavier because you can get it down there. And so through all that research, all of our headweights are about two grams lighter, two to three grams lighter, and and so not only is the headwaight a little lighter to kind of leverage, what we found was optimal for the different player categories, and so the alst's going to be a heavier head, SFT is going to be our lightest head, but all of those about three lighter. So while maintaining are really forgiving package right and getting our center of gravity in the right spot. We then took a look at the shaft and said, okay, we got a head that's three grams lighter. Can we remove some weight here in the shaft to help people swing it gain more cliphet speed. So we ended up taking three grams out of the structure of the alta structure shaft structure. We ended up lightning. There's a plug in the back end that helps caunter bounce. Took four grams out of that, and then we went a quarter of an inch longer. So those are a lot of changes, right, but in the end we got a bill that's ten grams lighter, a quarter of an inch longer, delivering a very forgiving optimized head, which then leads to that mile an hour ball speed increase we've seen in testing center gravity locations a little lower, which lowers are spin rate by one hundred and fifty rpm on average and leads to yardage gains. You know, for for our end consumer.
What is tour? What has tour feedback? Then about the four to forty.
Yeah, we were just chatting to some of our tour ups about today.
First feedback chain just like when you hit it sound phenomenal, it's they're very incentivized by it, and launch conditions are amazing. I think one big piece we've seen in our testing is that compared to the four thirty, because the center gravity is lower, folks are having to fit into a little bit less loft, so on average probably about three quarters of a degree less loft than four to thirty. So it's a great chance if you haven't been fit for a driver recently, go in, get on a launch monitor, be very open minded about what loft you might end up in. But with that playing a little bit less loft, they're even experimenting with a little bit longer lengths. We've seen this with the likes of Victor and Joaquin Neman right, going a little bit longer. They're seeing higher ball speeds picking up two sticks and ball speeds are the the one to two punch from the tour feedback so far.
And the tour influence in terms of that is of a new driver. I mean, are they telling you stuff about four thirty they like and maybe don't love that you guys will listen to and put into four forty.
Yeah, I mean there are most discerning, kind of detail oriented of customers, and so we're constantly.
Getting got a golf So yeah, yeah, I know what they're doing, and.
So we get that feedback directly. We get that from our tour reps, and that's you know, every time we're looking at, you know, a driver design, we're kind of outlining those those problems, those trade offs are trying to break and take it into account, the tour feedback, the feedback of the everyday golfer, and and some of that's going to be weighted more toward the different models, right depending on who they're geared for. But obviously they're a huge influence and player in terms of their feedback and what we decide to go tackle as engineers and the trade offfs we're looking to break. On the innovation side.
Well, Marty, I mean the models is so important. I mean you think about, you know, the old introduction of new drivers and here's your new driver. I mean this is the head and we'll try to fit it for you, and we'll also try to fit it for the number five player in the world. I mean, now, obviously there are options which are extremely helpful because the seven year old player that maybe hits it two twenty can fit into a model that maybe Victor Hoblin's not into.
Yeah. Absolutely, And as Eric said, we put a premium specifically on the LST for the PGA tour player to kind of ent our LPGA staff because it's such a high percentage of the usage is that low spin head out on the tour, So you're gonna see the LST be a little smaller profile at address. It's got a little more domed crown to it, so it feels a little more you can say, maybe bulbous or rounded in the playing position. Really try to optimize what we call the resting face angle or the face angle that you when you set the driver down. The tour players obviously very kind of sensitive to that aspect. Obviously the acoustics as well.
Big question for me personally, Marty, the thrivers still in play, can we still thrive for the four forty I mean, you introduced me to it.
I got mine in the back, Okay, I got mine in the back.
Say so, what is your set up? Which driver? Which driver head? Did you go with a big boy?
The twelve with the big Boy? Yeah, twelve max?
Okay, twelve max for the thriver and then your main driver? Did you go longer as well?
I went longer? Yeah, so I went from forty five and three quarter to forty six inches with the shaft I use uh you pick up some speed too, yes, yeah, added ball speed. I didn't increase my swing weight, so I kept my head weight. Did get a little bit lighter because I went a little bit longer at length and then forty six inches max nine degree. I went down and loft about a degree and a half. So I'm playing it in the big minus uh at forty six inches, So I'm getting a lot of dynamic loft in a little bit more club at speed, which is good CG shifter in the fade position, and uh so far loving it. Especially the sound very incentivizing. I think that that's kind of a you know, we've talked about a little bit, but when you when you do have that really good acoustics, it does kind of free you up to swing it harder.
And the acoustics are so important for players. It's so funny. Again, I just don't think it's something you would put number one on your list. Maybe tour players would put it higher on their list, but it's so important in terms of like your relationship with a golf club is, like, does it sound good? I mean even you know, I mean we've talked about putters throughout the years, Marty, I mean even putter sound. I mean so massively important for the feel of the player and really getting a feel for how that thing performs for you personally, and your sound might be off from somebody else's.
Yeah, no doubt about it. A lot of different materials in this driver ic we got an aluminum trajectory tuning sleeve, right, seventy seventy five high strength aluminum. Tell us a little bit about the two Titanum alloys that are used in the in the driver head we talked about we talked about the carbon fly wrap. Let's talk a little bit about the face and body.
Yeah, so body's eight one to one cast titanium, and then the face is our ten nine S plus alloy. And so that's not all that we've been using and having a lot of success with. Let's say alloy used on the four thirty and we're continuing that through on the four forty. Just gives a really good mix of weight and some called modulus which is kind of how how the material bends right, and so a good mix of strength and weight and modulus that again we've had a lot of success with and yeah, players will see the advantage of that in the four forty.
You mentioned the nine degree SFT, and I know that's been a big, big point of interest in terms of the four forty. Why that introduction.
Yeah, so that's a that's a new one for us, offering that s FT and the nine degree loft, And I think it's been really cool to see golf welcome a lot of new players and and uh, and we've actually seen a lot of people coming over, athletes from other sports coming over and taking up the game of golf. And so you know, they have clubhead speed, but they could really benefit from something that can help, you know, promote more of a draw trajectory fight to fade. And so you know with the nine degree offering for those higher clubheads, be players that need that need that type of model offering in a little bit lower loft. Can it kind of keep the spin down and I think really unlock a good fitting option in the fitting environment here at the proven grounds and out out of various accounts for that type of player you're coming into the game, have clubhead speed, but really want to, you know, help help fight the fade and promote a draw.
I think one of the things I'm always excited about our our product is that you can kind of the adjustability with both the trajectory tuning sleeve and the CG shifter. You're not stuck, you know, let's say you do. You are, you know, someone just getting into the game. You fit into the nine s ft, you got the CG shifter way over there in the draw plus and you start getting better at golf, your path gets a little bit better. Uh, you can adjust it. You can turn the loft down a little bit. If you need to reduce your spin a little bit, you can move that CG shifter more more towward. And that that's an added benefit of having all the adjustability and all the different model.
Yeah, Marty, I mean it's been such a point of interest throughout the history of ping, is being able to fit a golf club for you specifically, and you just think about the way that has changed over the last couple of decades in terms of actually putting that in the player's hands as well. I mean, you go get fit. You obviously have a club that makes the most sense for you, but we change I mean, we pick up speed, maybe the golf swing gets a little bit more tuned. You have an instructor that you're working with. Now all of a sudden, you're able to change that club as well. And it feels like it feels like this driver more than any that I've seen, have those options. You pick up a club and then you can change it multiple ways as your golf game changes.
Yeah, and we've gotten more efficient in the execution. So all three of the positions of the CG shifter, so whether you have it in the fade or the draw, are all now higher inertia, so they're all more forgiving. Right we first came out with it, if you put it in the toe or you put it in the heel, your inertia would drop a little bit. Right now it still drops a teeny bit, but all those positions have been elevated. The trajectory tuning sleeve. Again, it's one of those things where when we first were looking to do it, it was it was hard to pull it off in a way that didn't add a lot of weight or wasn't really bad to the aerodynamic performance. So it's easy to take those things for granted, but those are a big benefit to the golfer to be able to make some little fine tune adjustments. And Andrew clubfitter out there.
Eric, is this like a stressful week for you when clubs launch and you get to kind of introduce something to the world or has that stress already happened, you know, a month.
So that stress came a while back.
I now past that, your exits past.
It's very exciting to then be able to kind of, you know, all that stress leading to you know, a product, being able to kind of start to talk about it and let the world see it. It's super exciting for the entire team, right everybody's itching to get it in their own bag and be able to talk to it, you know, talk to people about all the hard work they put into the product. And so this is an exciting season for everybody when we get to introduce the world to the new G line.
Eric, Always appreciate your time. Always appreciate when you're a guest on the podcast and always appreciate your work on these golf clubs best drivers in the game, so thanks so much, happy to be you. This is fun. Eric Henrickson the doc. This is the Pink Proven Grounds podcast
