Brit
have you ever measured old clubs such as Bobby Jones played for MPF? It seems like they would be very unforgiving. I have recently seen good players on YouTube hitting extremely good, and some bad, shots with such clubs. Thanks for all you do.
Yes we have measured some really old clubs. Actually Ralph did back when he was doing all the research. Interestingly some of them had high MOI’s, but that was because of the extremely long hosels and massive head sizes on many of the clubs. The cg’s locations were awful. I’m talking irons here. In his book Ralph showed an early 1900’s Burke wood shafted #5 iron and the cg was 1/2 inch towards the hosel and 1.169″ up the face. That is why clubs of that era had so much loft. First, the design of the iron and the mass and dimensional characteristics did nothing to help trajectory and second, the golf balls were not very good at staying in the air. Hosels remained long because they had to be to accommodate the wooden shafts. This condition of having a club that can have a high MOI but very bad cg is why in the MPF formula Ralph put in a playability correction factor so that clubs with high MOI’s but bad cg locations did not get positive points. All of it is explained in his original book on iron MPF “The Maltby Playability Factor – Understanding Golf Club Dynamics”. It’s not in print anymore, but if you don’t have one or can find one, it’s a great reference.
Side note, we have hit some of the old clubs as well with modern balls. distance and trajectory difference was dramatic. Can’t imagine what it was like hitting the actual golf balls of the same era. Would love to try that some day.
Britt Lindsey