Have you read Ralph’s book “The Complete Book of Fitting and Performance: The Principles, Procedures and Playability Factors”? If you haven’t you need to. Let me make this perfectly clear, the mass and dimensional characteristics of all the models we measure are what they are. They are not manipulated and results are not our opinion. They are actual and factual. They are what they are. I ask myself all the time why any major club company, with all the resources they have, would produce a model, like the R9, that was clearly designed for cosmetics (or to satisfy a tour professionals eye) instead of using sound design principles and design a model with the cg in a position that enhanced playability. TM has produced many models that are rated very high in playability. The R9 is not one of them. How a club sells in the marketplace, in the beginning, is driven by marketing. It’s success in the market and it’s longevity is totally dependent on the playability. There are many examples through history to validate this.
I think you really should invest in the book and get to understand what the Maltby Playability Factor is, and what it is not. It is totally possible that you or anyone else can have success with a model like the R9. The facts are, that if you honestly assess performance on off center hits, the higher the MPF rating, the better the performance. The mass and dimensional characteristics of the mass we call the club head determine it’s stability, plain and simple. If you hit every shot dead on where the center of gravity is (which is not always in the center of the face, by the way), then it doesn’t really matter what the playability is. Unfortunately, nobody does, even touring professionals. I know, because I have worked with them.
I am glad you are going to try some of our models. I am confident, if you have an open mind and honestly assess performance through measured testing, that the Maltby models will perform as well or better than any models available.
Britt Lindsey