SST Pure

DRGjr72 wrote:

PunkRockPGA and anyone else interested....

Here is a study done by SST:

http://sstpure.com/pdf/sstpure_study_08.pdf

Pretty interesting as clubs were apparently sent to a third party testing facility. Results are in graph form to illustrate benefits and negatives.


***I also want to make perfectly clear that I am neither affiliated, nor attempting to sell any service, with SST pure in any way. The only reason that I mention them is they are used on the PGA Tour and I have used their services personally, so I can speak from experience. Also as a leader in this part of the industry they do have some validity to what they say. Plus it is easy to find info on them via google search.

I have read the pdf file as per recommended attached by DRGjr72 with great interest.
The more I study the data, the more doubts appeared in my mind. In order not to get any of my personal bias involved towards this finding, I decided to list down types of data we usually need for each club in our bag and extract the data to make a comparison.

So far I see only 2 type of club being tested, namely the 60* lob wedge and the Drivers.

First the Lob Wedge, I don’t understand why they choose to use the average Spin rate, Maximum Trajectory Height, Vertical Launch Angle and Vertical Ball Landing Velocity data as comparison?! What is there to do with wedge control? I personally think that I only need the following,

1) Consistent spin rate – here I don’t really mind how much it spin but rather how consistent it spin so I can control the distance precisely. I am picking the data from the “std. dev.” data of the Spin. (From Wiki, In statistics and probability theory, standard deviation (represented by the symbol σ) shows how much variation or "dispersion" exists from the average (mean, or expected value). A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be very close to the mean, whereas high standard deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a large range of values.) Who need a wedge that have an inconsistent spin rate?

2) Consistent carry distance – Without a consistent carry distance, how am I going to score? I am taking the “std. dev.” data of the C-Dist


3) Dispersion – A wedge need both accuracy and precision to place the ball near to the pin. Here when we talk about precision in golf equipment, we talk about dispersion. I am taking the “std. dev.” data of the C-Disp

And these are what I got, (Win in each of the category score 1 point)


Now I start wondering, pure or unpure is better? Or does it have any significant impact on our golf game after minus away all these marketing tricks?

More to come on the drivers……

Saat!

Wow...damn powerful and a lot of ink leh ! Respect..

Wow... Surprised this thread doesn't get the hits and comments as the other...
This makes more sense

my goodness....This topic really fly past me!!!! Too deep when I see the tables....

But Bro, good effort to on your part to share this test report.

Cheers man

Jon, has Titleist replied to you?

Eric showed me the other day, a stable shaft measures very tight variances of cpm (+/- 1cpm) from any axis, when pulled from a clamp the shaft wobbles more straight up and own almost fr any angle

Not so stable shaft differs +/- 7-9 cpm away fr the spine and wobbles more oval-ish away from spine and more straight up and own at the spine.

Then I understood what usga meant when they said manufacturers need to produce more symmetrical shafts in 1999.

pushslice wrote:

Jon, has Titleist replied to you?

Nope...

jimmychoo wrote:

DRGjr72 wrote:

PunkRockPGA and anyone else interested....

Here is a study done by SST:

http://sstpure.com/pdf/sstpure_study_08.pdf

Pretty interesting as clubs were apparently sent to a third party testing facility. Results are in graph form to illustrate benefits and negatives.


***I also want to make perfectly clear that I am neither affiliated, nor attempting to sell any service, with SST pure in any way. The only reason that I mention them is they are used on the PGA Tour and I have used their services personally, so I can speak from experience. Also as a leader in this part of the industry they do have some validity to what they say. Plus it is easy to find info on them via google search.

I have read the pdf file as per recommended by DRGjr72 with great interest.
The more I study the data, the more doubts appeared in my mind. In order not to get any of my personal bias involved towards this finding, I decided to list down types of data we usually need for each club in our bag and extract the data to make a comparison.

So far I see only 2 type of club being tested, namely the 60* lob wedge and the Drivers.

First the Lob Wedge, I don’t understand why they choose to use the average Spin rate, Maximum Trajectory Height, Vertical Launch Angle and Vertical Ball Landing Velocity data as comparison?! What is there to do with wedge control? I personally think that I only need the following,

1) Consistent spin rate – here I don’t really mind how much it spin but rather how consistent it spin so I can control the distance precisely. I am picking the data from the “std. dev.” data of the Spin. (From Wiki, In statistics and probability theory, standard deviation (represented by the symbol σ) shows how much variation or "dispersion" exists from the average (mean, or expected value). A low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be very close to the mean, whereas high standard deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a large range of values.) Who need a wedge that have an inconsistent spin rate?

2) Consistent carry distance – Without a consistent carry distance, how am I going to score? I am taking the “std. dev.” data of the C-Dist


3) Dispersion – A wedge need both accuracy and precision to place the ball near to the pin. Here when we talk about precision in golf equipment, we talk about dispersion. I am taking the “std. dev.” data of the C-Disp

And these are what I got, (Win in each of the category score 1 point)


Now I start wondering, pure or unpure is better? Or does it have any significant impact on our golf game after minus away all these marketing tricks?

More to come on the drivers……

The attached pdf was an extra item (check this out) to support what I was stating in my post. I do think that SST did great work for me and my sets that were done by them, both when I played in the PGA Tour event and when I did not. They worked well for me, if not better than my normal sets. Also they have been on the PGA Tour for over 10 years, says something as to what they are doing.

Since you are personally biased (per your statement), you might be cherry picking what you think is relevant or non-relevant. Maybe not, but that is what appears via your post. So to examine you claims:

1. C-disp. 1.44 feet Std. dev. Pretty small amount of deviation. That is less than 1/2 of a yard in real world terms.

2. C - dist - It appears as if your claim is true that the wedge tested has a wider range of deviation than the un pured version. That could be worrisome, I would suggest maybe a 100 ball test to get a more accurate result.

3. Spin rate - Pured goes from approx. 8800 to 10800 and the unpured goes from 8800 to 9700 approx. So you are speaking about a differential of 400 rpm in the differential (approx). Maybe that is significant, maybe it is not...I don't know. Bottom line, according to the stats, the pureed 60 spins more which could be good or bad depending on your individual needs.

Here is a recent wedge test. Maybe it will give you some more data to crunch. I did not look it over thoroughly but it should be ok for this discussion.

http://www.golfballistix.com/docstore/sst_wedge_testing-may10.pdf

As evidenced by my post I am not affiliated with SST nor am I a suggesting that anyone utilize their services. My insertion into that thread was to shed some light into the practice and what it can potentially achieve, and what it did for my personal set as I have used them in the past and have had experience with pured clubs. Also, as per PunkrockPGA's request I attempted to provide some type of data that would validate what they claim. Obviously they have opted to protect some of their tests, maybe for professional reasons, I am not sure as to why they would. I am merely a retired club pro that was trying to shed some light on the subject, and did a google search to find some info.

I will be anxious to see what you have to say on the drivers as the comparative studies appear to indicate that a pured driver vs. a non pured is better in many instances, as per the stats they tended to be lower spin, and far less off the center line than the non pured (something that many seek in a driver).

Also there appears to be 6 shots rom each club. Not sure if that is statistically significant or not relative to the study being done. Maybe they needed more shots, maybe not, I don't know. I was merely trying to provide some information that was requested in the thread and that is all that was available.

I am also curious as to what other data you would consider significant for your bag??? Anything from the data provided that would lean you more towards or against a pured set of clubs or driver??

DG

IMHO and no offense bro,
Perhaps concentrate on essentials rather than details, as quoting frm a web :"Off-line bending and twisting of the shaft are minimized and impact repeatability on the center of the clubface by the golfer improves up to 51%". The purpose is more likely to enhance the "feel".

DRGjr72 wrote:

jimmychoo wrote:

I have read the pdf file as per recommended attached by DRGjr72 with great interest.

I never "recommended" the pdf file, merely attached it as an extra (check this out) to support what I was stating in my post. Although I do think that SST does great work and my sets that were done by them, both when I played in the PGA Tour event and when I did not, worked as well if not better than my normal sets. Also they have been on the PGA Tour for over 10 years, says something as to what they are doing.

Since you are personally biased (per your statement), you might be cherry picking what you think is relevant or non-relevant. Maybe not, but that is what appears via your post. So to examine you claims:

1. C-disp. 1.44 feet Std. dev. Pretty small amount of deviation. That is less than 1/2 of a yard in real world terms.

2. C - dist - It appears as if your claim is true that the wedge tested has a wider range of deviation than the un pured version.

3. Spin rate - Pured goes from approx. 8800 to 10800 and the unpured goes from 8800 to 9700 approx. So you are speaking about a differential of 400 rpm in the differential (approx). Maybe that is significant, maybe it is not...I don't know. Bottom line is the pureed 60 spins more.

Here is a recent wedge test. Maybe it will give you some more data to crunch. I did not look it over thoroughly but it should be ok for this discussion.

http://www.golfballistix.com/docstore/sst_wedge_testing-may10.pdf

As evidenced by my post I am not affiliated with SST nor am I a suggesting that anyone utilize their services. My insertion into that thread was to shed some light into the practice and what it can potentially achieve, and what it did for my personal set I have used them in the past and have had experience with pured clubs. Also, as per PunkrockPGA's request I attempted to provide some type of data that would validate what they claim. Obviously they have opted to protect some of their tests, maybe for professional reasons, I am not sure as to why they would. I am merely a retired club pro that was trying to shed some light on the subject, and did a google search to find some info.

I will be anxious to see what you have to say on the drivers as the comparative studies appear to indicate that a pured driver vs. a non pured is better in many instances, as per the stats they tended to be lower spin, and far less off the center line than the non pured (something that many seek in a driver).

Also there appears to be 6 shots rom each club. Not sure if that is statistically significant or not relative to the study being done. Maybe they needed more shots, maybe not, I don't know. I was merely trying to provide some information that was requested in the thread and that is all that was available.

I am also curious as to what other data you would consider significant for your bag??? Anything from the data provided that would lean you more towards or against a pured set of clubs or driver??

DG

DG, I am sorry if I have put you in a spot, I enjoy reading your post because the subject you post are always on neutral ground. Blame it on my lousy English, my selection of word to use is not appropriate. I think using the word "attached" is better than "recommended"?

The whole idea of me putting up this post is because I think the SST Pure process did very little or maybe none to the shaft we are using nowadays. I try to find way to change my mindset by reading into the report but when I start reading the data in the report, I just can't convince myself to buy it. They are focusing on those in my opinion unrelated data.

The standard deviation is equal to one sigma (σ) value. If we are going to convert it to a range (possible spread of data) we have to interpret it as 6 sigma which shall cover almost all of the possible range. Meaning with a 1.44 std dev, we will be expecting a variation range of 6 x 1.44 = 8.64

Read this if you want to know more http://www.robertniles.com/stats/stdev.shtml

The normal sampling size for this kind of study is usually recommended at least 20 or more but in this case the lab are using a robot (the reproducibility is lower compare to a human) to perform the swing so the sampling size can be lesser. 6 in my opinion are still too little but this is generally acceptable for presentation purpose. Anyway, I am not a real expert here so my information may prove wrong.

DG, I have no intention of going against the idea of SST pure but I just want to find out whether it has any significant impact on our today equipment to justify it. I am just basing on the data the report provided.

I will post up the Driver finding in a later post. Meanwhile let me go and get some bites first. Thanks for reading and pardon my lousy English.

No worries my friend. I hope that I did not come across as too defensive, and as such edited my post accordingly. I too am a fan of a good debate and like to hear various sides to a story to get a better picture. It was late last night when I replied and I was getting a little tired, so I forgot to edit.

I am a little rusty on my stats, but do understand the standard deviation, however maybe not to the degree that you do... So I will yield to your knowledge when it comes to this. I do recall that is a pretty good measure of the spread of the data where the average is more of a location?? And if that is the case, there are some concerns of large variation as you presented, which could be a problem with consistency.

However in the real world (on the golf course/range) I never had any distance control issues with my clubs that were spined or whatever. So there was not this large range of distances that I was hitting clubs just out of the blue from one swing to the next. I would say that I did not experience that type of deviation from my average distance with each club. Maybe it was more me than the process and it was a mental thing. I really could not tell you as I never tested them on a trackman type device before and after. I think that would be a super test actually. Have someone hit two identical clubs, one pured and one not, but the golf will not know which one is which. Get the data and see the results. Might be a cool study.

Like you I think maybe a larger data set might give us better data to look at and might present a clearer picture as to the proposed benefits and see if they actually pan out.

Today let see the data on Driver #1


Basically I selected these 3 base on what I think I want from a Driver,

1) Overall Distance (T-Dist ave) - We see that FLO shaft has the longest distance and Pured staft has the worst.

2) Dispersion from center (T-Disp ave) - I have some struggling though here as to whether shall I choose this data or not, question in my head is who set the "center" to be? Here, I will give it a benefit of doubts. Pured shaft perform the best here and FLO shaft has the worst data (But why it hit the farther? I though a off center hit will result in a shorter distance?).

3) Dispersion from mean (T-Disp std dev ave) - This is the data where it tell you how precise is your shot. Unpure shaft won in this area and FLO score the worst (if you see the report, there is actually some wind blowing while they conduct the FLO test, I don't know why and I don't understand why)

I want to explain here the different between T-Disp Average and the T-Disp Std Dev. T-Disp average here measure the total dispersion from the "preset" center line whereby T-Disp Std Dev . here measure how precise is your shot. When you choose a driver, will you be looking for a driver that sometime go left and sometime go right Or a driver that consistently drive ball to an area? Well I think this is depend on individual as everyone aiming is different too.

Again, I do not see any significant results here except item no. 2 which I give it the benefit of doubts.

PS: Some may ask why I don't choose the Spin data. I think spin is one of the factor which may affect distance of the ball, if we already have the total distance data, I don't think we need the Spin data, right?

K & N... isn't it obvious that he using wrong shaft? X-Flex for 100mph Swing speed?

duffader wrote:

K & N... isn't it obvious that he using wrong shaft? X-Flex for 100mph Swing speed?

Maybe they need the x-flex to reduce the spin rate leh? Don't forget the head is a 11* loft.
Let not talk about whether is it appropriate but the data they present is appropriate or not
They have select the below 4 data
1) Spin - When the total distance is available, select spin for what purpose?
2) Maximum trajectory Height - So we can understand how high a tree is for our driver to clear?
3) Carry Dispersion from center line - this make some sense but like what I have written, who set the center?
4) Verticle ball landing velocity - I don't understand this, anyone can explain? What does it do to our distance or dispersion of our driver?

My 2 cents......

Maybe they need the x-flex to reduce the spin rate leh? Don't forget the head is a 11* loft.
Let not talk about whether is it appropriate but the data they present is appropriate or not
They have select the below 4 data
1) Spin - When the total distance is available, select spin for what purpose? (Whether you prefer roll or no roll)

2) Maximum trajectory Height - So we can understand how high a tree is for our driver to clear?
(Depending on course, high wind links course might want something lower, anyway, I not pro, so not important to me.)

3) Carry Dispersion from center line - this make some sense but like what I have written, who set the center?
(Whether you want left right left right or you want to miss in one direction but i think the later is more determined by the swing isnt it?)

4) Verticle ball landing velocity - I don't understand this, anyone can explain? What does it do to our distance or dispersion of our driver ( If the ball land very fast, your ball will get pluck lah.... this is also donno.)

jimmychoo wrote:

duffader wrote:

K & N... isn't it obvious that he using wrong shaft? X-Flex for 100mph Swing speed?

Maybe they need the x-flex to reduce the spin rate leh? Don't forget the head is a 11* loft.
Let not talk about whether is it appropriate but the data they present is appropriate or not
They have select the below 4 data
1) Spin - When the total distance is available, select spin for what purpose?
2) Maximum trajectory Height - So we can understand how high a tree is for our driver to clear?
3) Carry Dispersion from center line - this make some sense but like what I have written, who set the center?
4) Verticle ball landing velocity - I don't understand this, anyone can explain? What does it do to our distance or dispersion of our driver?

First, I must say I am impressed with your statistical skills.

I think the dispersion from centre line is the dispersion from the line perpendicular to the club face when the ball strike. However, as the face do not close perfectly (systematic error) due to alignment, shaft flex, swing speed etc, I would see this data as useless. Eg, you could be hitting the ball on the same spot off center slightly and that is recorded as a dispersion but in sg army term, we say that your weapon is not zeroed.

The dispersion from mean is a more reliable data.

Incidentally, you can convert standard deviation to percentile to make it more meaningful. Dispersion rate can be taken to mean this-

Playing very safe as the green is an island, I would want to aim 3 sigma from the edges to give me 99.75% chance of not getting into water. Of course if your dispersion is super huge, then 3 sigma may end up on the other side of the edge.

Or you can use the average dispersion to calculate the probability of clearing an obstacle, hitting OB etc. But of course all these are theoretical. Most amateurs have dispersions that is so great that it makes NO difference using a pured or non-pured shaft.

The argument that puring helps amateur is statistically flawed. Variations in dispersion is determined by a wide number of factor such as swing speed, path, club face, balls, angle of attack etc etc. If all these are not repeatable and the variations are not showing consistent signs(eg dispersion to right or left, front or back), they may at times cancel out or augment each other. In fact, when the variations introduced by non-pured shafts are consistently cancelling some other factors, you may even see a decrease in overall dispersion. Since everything is so random, you need a dispersion data of an actual amateur striking the ball to say that the average amateur benefits from it rather than looking at data from a robot. In fact, I would even go on to say that like club fitting, you need your personal and actual dispersion data to see if you personally benefitted or is disadvantaged from puring.

My humble opinion from statistical point of view.

Thanks Sunny, so long never see you. How have you been?

I gain my statistical knowledge when I am in the Manufacturing sector as a Quality guy. We have been using methods for our process control like Statistic process control, process capability study, repeatability and reproducibility study, 6 sigma & etc. All these are used to determine the capability of a process. I am applying to Golf equipment data study now, hope I am applying correctly

Hi Jimmy, I am fine.

Yes you are applying it correctly.

Just like in manufcturing, different processes and machineries introduce variations in the overall product and hence the six sigma methodology is developed by motorola.

They key is minimising the overall dispersion and not each individual component. Of course if you are able to get the dispersion of each part down to near zero, that is good but is often too costly and unachievable.

And if you have done manufacturing, you will know that the final dispersion is often determined by the largest amplitude. Similarly in a golf swing, if the dispersion introduced by all the myriad of factors are small, we would probably see a difference in dispersion in the overall. However, when the rest of the variations are large and probably of opposite signs, they may cancel out each other often and such noises do not add to overall amplitude. Eg... In a quiet room, a whisper can increase the recorded decibel of the room. In a room where a few activities are often on, eg radio, TV, washing machine, people talking. Adding a whisper does not change the overall decibel recorded.

Hence I said, unless you do an actual dispersion test for all the factors that you deem important, eg max drive distance, accuracy, iron carry distance, dispersion etc and check if you benefit from it, doing it is useless. Unfortunately, statistics is hard to understand by lay people.

Oh, by the way, there is something called placebo effect too. Telling you that your shaft cost $10000 and all work had been done to ensure that dispersion is minimised, you will actually perform better. If you believe strongly enough that you will play better with skirt, you actually will!

Damn! Think I am working too hard liao......

....was blind enough to read it as SYT Pure!

My bad.....

I play better in a skirt! And my driver swing speed is not much more than 100MPH and I use an X flex shaft.... that explains my nick I guess.....

shorthitter wrote:

I play better in a skirt! And my driver swing speed is not much more than 100MPH and I use an X flex shaft.... that explains my nick I guess.....

I know you soft stepped your X flex shaft