The new PING iDi utility iron from PING represents the latest driving iron technology from PING, offering explosive distance and playability to golfers at the top of their iron sets. The PING iDi is available in a 2-iron, 3-iron, and 4-iron, with the PING iDi 2-iron having the most application off the tee.
In this edition of From The Tour Van, PING club builder Matt Kistler walks through a build of a PING iDi for Two-Time PGA Tour winner Austin Eckroat with 2nd Swing’s Drew Mahowald.
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All right, Matt. So, tell us uh what you’re starting on here. Yeah. So, working on our new driving iron, the IDI. We’re going to put a couple together here for Austin Ecro. Uh, two and three iron, one with the graphite, one with the steel shaft, have them test it and see what he thinks. So, all right. So, what would be I guess now it looks like you got a couple things pre-cut shaftwise here. So, kind of talk us through the first step then from here. Yeah. So, yeah, I already prepped I already prepped each one. Put the fereral fererals on each of them here. Um, got them ready to roll. Now, we’re just going to actually do the shafting. I’ve gotten all the tip waiting kind of sorted out properly. So, all I got to do is glue and have them cure a lot fly cut, grip, so all that. So, we’ll just begin the gluing process. We use a quick set epoxy, a two-part epoxy that we mix. Um, and then cure on our curing cell next, which we can get it to set and cure in in five minutes after we get it on the uh curing machine. Mix it up. Use a little epoxy in the head. We get a little in the head and then we will roll the the shaft tip in the epoxy as well. Kind of get it all in there. And then we dip it in this uh shafting beads here just to kind of help center the shaft into the head. Ensure a little tighter fit. Just glue that on. Take a look from here to center the shaft. Make sure the label’s right. Just kind of tap it down there. We’ll just use a little wipe off the excess. Clean it up. That’s pretty much good. And from here, like I said, we have our curing cell that will expedite the curing so we can get a club fully cured and ready to hit within five minutes. So, we just kind of prop it in place here. How long have you had this the the curing machine there? Uh, quite some time. I I I’m not sure how far it goes back, but as long as I can remember. That’s a pretty that’s a pretty significant thing I feel like to have the curing machine able to you know have things ready a lot quicker than maybe elsewhere where a lot of times we’re building a fresh wedge or maybe a a backup driver for a staff player we need to get it done within you know 15 20 minutes. So being able to do this and connect that process makes it nice otherwise you have to wait it still will only be 20 30 minutes before it fully sets even if it’s not being cured but obviously that 15 20 minutes is pretty big to save. So now we’re just going to blend the fereral. So we have a sanding belt that’s just to make the fereral to the hosel transition smooth. So pretty easy. Spin that around a few times. Make sure it’s kind of flush and blends nicely. And then we use some acetone to wipe it off to make it shine a little bit. Just looks a little cleaner. There you go. Now we’re nice and blended. So now we’re fully shafted, good to go. Now we can the player can hit it. Now, of course, as soon as we get it built and gripped and everything, so it’s ready to roll. Um, so we’ll take it over to our loft lily. So, we have database here, as you can see, with any and all pink clubs ever made, any irons or wedges we’ve ever made. Um, sorted kind of by you can just kind of filter and choose by any given letter. It’s sorted. So, pretty cool. It’ll have the standard loft and l for that given model. And then we we’ll actually put the glove on the on the gauge to take a picture of the face to see what it’s at and then adjust accordingly from there. So in this case, we’re gonna look for IDI or new new driving iron. We make it a two, three, and four. So it’ll show what loft should be at standard and then what this actually is. So check it. Just put it in this little magnetic clamp. There’s a little camera gauge here that when you press forward here, it will take a picture of the face. So, I confused the machine a little bit here, but so you lock it on, get set, and then just kind of press it forward. So, that one’s reading at actually 16 degrees. So, it’s a little strong and a little bit upright. In this case, we want his built at 17 degrees loft. So, standard loft, 60° law angles. Um, so we’ll adjust it 60. Weaken loft. We’ll just use our We need the bigger handle here. Wider sole. Need to add about a degree off. I’m just going to kind of yank on it a little bit back here. Make it a little bit flatter as well. Yeah, there you go. There it is. 18 and 60.5. So, yeah, within about a tenth of a degree, we’re pretty much right where we need to be there. So that was good. At what point, you know, we’re dialing in the loft and eye. At what point is there like would a player notice a big difference? Like you’re getting it within a tenth of a degree, which is pretty darn tight, but like Yeah, I mean, probably a quarter. I’d say probably a quarter to to a little more than that. Um, yeah, like I said, we shoot for a quarter if not a little bit tighter, but it’s almost and and there’s a little bit of play on the machine, too. like just it can be pretty touchy just based on slightest adjustment of how it kind of locks into the the magnetic holder there and how you kind of press on it as well. So there it can be between two guys that do it all the time. It could be a 0.05 difference unlock a lot too. So uh try not to do any more than that because get to maybe Yeah. Yeah. 15.12 or higher you probably start noticing a little bit. Sure. But Okay. Yeah. So yeah, we have a ruler designated specifically for irons and wedges um that we uh just kind of prop the club in. It it holds it kind of holds it nice and tight in place and then we can just mark and cut from there. So we want 39.5 on his two iron and we’re going to do 39 and a quarter. Only a quarter inch difference on the on the three iron. Trying to get him to play pretty close quarter. That one’s right there. Perfect. Actually pretty pretty close there. So, cut this one. So, yep. Move the tape now. So, now we’re taping. So, we have a spiral uh grip spindle. Um, so this just ensures that there’s no overlap of any tape. Um, like the traditional way, if you had like a 3-in tape and rolled it over, this just ensures no overlapping at all. So, uh, pretty cool system. So, in this case for Austin, he doesn’t do any any buildup or anything. So, we just do one wrap of the standard double-sided tape. So, put this on. You set the tape at a certain angle so we can kind of get the spacing just right. And then you just kind of kind of flip it and twirl it. And then cut it right here. This the serrated edge so it starts that exact same angle on the next level that you tape. You just kind of seal it off. Ready to roll. This one might not be the greatest because it doesn’t go on the spindle very good, but yeah. Yeah. You mentioned the graphite design doesn’t fit on there just as as good as the the other iron shafts. Little little tighter butt diameter on it. Yeah. So, it just doesn’t go in very good, but just kind of mark a spot where we should start. Same thing. Twirl it. In this case, I’ll have to cut it reach. Wrap it over. It’s pretty slick for the grip tape anyway because you’ve seen the you see the kind of the more popular method of doing it can be like you said there’s there’s some additional potential error there that can that can happen for sure. Yeah. And that’s that can be a lot harder to than it looks too. We have uh we have some lady we always joke at in our standard ping HQ. We have some ladies that work in our production line that have been doing it for years and years and years and they can just twirl it like super fast and get the club bouncing around and flinging at a big it’s it’s moving fast and they’re they’re very good at it. Um, but like I said, tougher than it looks. It’s easy to overlap the tape or or create potential gaps or too big of gaps. You want just kind of a kind of a tight spacing there. And we just use an odorless mineral spirits. Um, a little bit inside the grip and a little bit onto the shaft. Just kind of helps it slide on easier. Works with that double-sided tape to set and uh dry real quick. Usually 15 20 minutes or so till player can play it. Just double check. Make sure everything’s straight. Good. That one’s good. Repeat for this guy. All right, sweet. Uh, final step now that we have pretty much everything done. We just got to finish off the uh the waiting. So, we’ll take the wrapping off the heads and just determine what to screw we need to put in to uh make sure the build is complete. So, over here have our own in-house uh swing weight scale that that tells us exactly what the swing weight is to the tenth of a degree or tenth of a point or so. In this case, we want D1. So, we got C7. We have up to 14 grams of room uh between two to 14 grams of a toe weight that we can put in to achieve that swing weight. So, roughly seven swing light points or so. We need four here. So, about eight grams. Just put in the weight we think is going to work. Double check it. Make sure it shows us D1 in case it’s a touch heavy. D1 plus. We’ll check one more time. There you go. So, D1 the dot there. So, we’re good. Now we can just tighten that in. We know that’s going to work. That’s it. So that one’s done. Ready to go. He can hit it in 15, 20 minutes once that dries. So that’s his two iron ID. Perfect. So that one’s good to go as well. You can swing that. Just a few minutes. There we go. IDI. Two Ping IDI driving irons for Austin Ero. Yep. Here we go. Heat. Heat.
1 Comment
Amazing !