if I could describe the 3D printed putter line in one word I would describe it as Innovative and if I could describe the Vintage line in one word it’s Timeless it’s kind of that marriage of of performance science and as golf clubs are art we have two great franchises 3D printed and vintage both packed with a ton of performance 3D printing is the utmost Innovation performance uh we’re talking 3D printing this is the latest and greatest technology that’s out there and available bringing High stability designs uh ultimate forgiveness for that consumer aluminum insert descending Loft technology great feeling putter vintage our classic design vintage is our Evergreen shapes great new insert in our pack materials also has descending Loft Technologies but definitely going to be on the softer side of things so if you’re a consumer that and there’s a lot out there that love that softer feel vintage is going to be a great family too to take a look at this season as we’re exploring 3D printing we see a lot of potential value for every Club in the bag but uh our first foray was with Putters and continues to be with Putters as it’s an area that the loads the club is subject to are a bit less than a fullswing club so from a durability standpoint we had a little more leeway way there also it’s Putters are very technical and they’re a club that everybody regardless of ability can can kind of see the benefit from a new technology and a new performance and so we thought it was a great starting point as we kind of reemerge in the putter space to provide this new level of performance with advanced technology to the golfer when we first started using 3D printing we realized that there were some benefits that really applied nicely to golf in making structures that you can’t make with our normal manufacturing processes structures that would improve performance and as we have investigated that and learned what 3D printing can do we’ve realized that it can uh greatly affect the Mass properties of a head and allow us to create new designs that weren’t possible without this technology that would improve performance beyond what you can do with current standard manufacturing techniques such as casting and forging and injection molding on the Innovation team we are always looking at emerging Technologies and see how they can apply to our golf products how can we bring new technologies to Bear to improve performance improve aesthetic improve desirability of our products improve manufacturing of our products in the case of 3D printing we’re in the kind of the early phases of using this technology and as we keep looking into it I think we can see the advantages of performance but also personalization and customization with this technology that is not possible when you’re making tooling for mass production I’d say all golfers can benefit from this technology even Pros hit it off center right so if whether you’re starting out whether you’re an established golfer without the low handicap a little more forgiveness in a putter that feels great looks great stable through the swing is something that everybody will benefit from [Music] when Cobra gol was first getting into the putter Market we started off by looking what was out there and what wasn’t being addressed and this one this one being launch angle inconsistency was definitely something that people weren’t really discussing much and and addressing the setting Loft technology is a face insert technology in all of our Putters where there’s four unique Loft planes in the face insert itself it starts with the top plane which is at 4 degrees of Loft and it goes down to 3° 2° and 1° and so you have these four planes on the face and why that’s beneficial is that we have found through testing that a lot of players when putting will vary the shaft lean at impact and so when you vary the shaft lean if you’re a forward shaft lean player you tend to impact higher on the face if you then on the very next putt change the shaft lean at impact to more backwards you’ll actually move the impact location down onto the face and what happens when you do that in traditional Putters is if there’s a constant Loft on the face your launch angle changes pretty considerably and that can cause all kinds of problems so what descending Loft technology does is it minimizes that variation in launch angle so putts hit high in the face will launch very similarly to H putts hit low in the face because the corresponding shaft lean will will essentially be absorbed by the technology and you’ll get a much more consistent launch throughout all of your different putts what’s great about descending Loft technology is that it changes with the player and their stroke so if their stroke is on one day off one day if they hit it high in the face low in the face as a result they’re going to get a much more consistent result one of the largest effects on uh putter accuracy and putter consistency is launch angle and so we felt that this was a very good area to start and base the entire putter line on so that’s why it’s such a prominent technology for us in the putter market and why I think we’ll continue using it for a very long time to come so putter insert feel is very subjective there’s kind of two segments in the industry where some consumers like a firmer Feel Some Like A softer feel we’ve tested a bunch of different Alloys we landed on a 6061 which an aerospace grade aluminum uh insert that provides a firmer feel but something that that consumer is looking for and for golfers that like more of a softer feel Our Vintage line is a great family for them to look into something we use a paback insert so paback is a tpe which is definitely a softer material we went through a lot of iterations with paback paback is actually a shared resource that we’ve actually used in Puma for running shoes um there’s a lot of applications for this material and it comes in a bunch of different densities we went through a lot of testing with with players with tour players a lot of our staffers a lot of just intercepts off the street with consumers and we landed on the one that we have in our vintage line today and something that feels great especially for that consumer that likes that softer Feel So the plan was for this new generation was piggy back off off that industry-leading construction and allow the golfer the ability to customize their weights move weights around so how we achiev that was we ditched the forged aluminum Crown we maximized the 3D printed lattice structure and combined it with a carbon fiber Crown to reinforce the overall structure the biggest design goals for the 3D printed were hey this this construction is really cool right like this exoskeleton in with this cartridge but let’s make it even better so step one was you know before it was all bolted together you couldn’t get to the weights so it was twofold it was how do we get rid of this top piece and make it accessible to remove weights from just the sole so an end end user could replace the weights but also it needs to be strong enough without that aluminum to you know survive in a bag shake or survive in someone’s bag for 10 years so it it was a lot of uh FEA a lot of physical part sampling and we found that putting that piece of carbon fiber on top of this this nylon provided the rigidity and and toughness that we needed and then that weight that we saved we were then able to make weight housings from the soul side so that you could access weights and pull them out and change them out like people are used to so yeah with a 3D printed line you know it’s the concept car to the Design Group of of Putters right we can kind of go wild is that some somewhat unobtainable aspirational hyper car but you know it’s accessible as a golfer in in our industry so we can have a little bit more fun with with shapes and just play around with maximizing Mass properties and have fun with materials and just do stuff that no one else is doing with the Vintage line it’s it’s more in line with like classic cars muscle cars the shapes that have been around for a while everyone’s familiar with everyone has has that special shape that they know that they can drain putts with but of course we have to add some technology to that which provides a a soft responsive feel which separates it from the aluminum and the 3D printed line Putters are are funny they’re like seemingly simple right but there’s a lot of components that come together in a very small space and we’re putting all of these different materials and components into one tiny little package so more so than any other golf club that we manufacture there there’s a lot going on in Putters the projection we’ve seen year-over-year with with improving technology um just really excited to see where we’re going to take it in the future putter fitting I think is a a big opportunity we’re seeing more and more accounts and professional Fitters invest into and from our endpoint we want to make sure that we have the tow hangs available to do proper fittings and really tow hang comes down to finding a model that fits your face closure and gets you a consistent face angle at impact face angle makes up about 92% where the ball initially takes off so it’s Uber critical to get a face angle or a toe down putter or face balance putter that that fits your stroke type when it comes to potting potting is very uh personal it’s the one I I think closest connection that somebody has to the golf ball as they’re playing around a golf so we wanted to make sure that we have that point of difference between our two families 3D printed ADV vintage and I think we landed in a good spot to have uh the Best of Both Worlds and we know that this entire lineup there’s going to be a consumer out there that can fit into any one of these Putters and definitely recommend everyone to go out there and give these things a rle this season
Related Posts
