What I want to know is when is Tom going to start using “AI” and wind tunnels to develop his next SUPER driver head, isn’t that the wave of the future, lol…I’m just kidding of course and putting a dig into the ribs of the Callaway and TMs of the world. Actually on a good note (if you can call it that) I heard in the wind about some of these manufactures may be going back to glued hosel/shafts in the near future, hmmm, wonder why that would be. So what’s old is new again………….I wonder if “AI” led them… Read more »

JULIAN The 919 passes air cannon durability testing easily for a 120mph clubhead speedbut if you are up at 125 and higher then you have to expect that the head is approaching its upper limit of normal durability and would/could fatigue over the course of a year to two. Spin wise I have always felt the 919 performed better than most any other driver for higher speed players because of its GRT face design. Pretty much every company uses a vertical face roll radius of 10″ to 12″, with maybe a couple at 14″. I use a 20″ vertical face… Read more »

ERIC Yes it was a vacation, which now that I am semi retired, I am hooked on and need more and more of!! HA ! As long as they include golf, and as long as I don’t play badly too ! Since you said you have a 108mph clubhead speed, I can’t imagine you ever wanting to try a driver loft as high as 16*. That would only be applicable if you hit 3w off the tee on a tight hole. For an actual full out first string driver I would think you’d lose distance with the 16* bigly, even… Read more »

ERIC Sorry for the delay in responding as I was out of town for about a week and a half. I enjoy doing the responses to help golfers so no one else was covering for me on the comments responses while I was gone. Hope that it did not inconvenience you too much. In searching our data base of shaft bend profiles, the only Matrix Studio 84 shaft we have in the DB is the Studio 84 in the Firm flex. If that is in fact the actual one you have in your driver, the software shows that these other… Read more »

JOHN Launching a new clubhead is not something we take lightly here at Wishon Golf. Due to production issues with the samples and first batches of clubheads which arrived here at Diamond Golf HQ in early Spring, we have decided to delay the launch. The main issue was with the strength of lofts, which would make on-spec handpicking a real problem. There were also quality issues which left us no option but to halt launching to our customers who, as we know, demand a quality product from Wishon Golf. So we have gone back to the factory to work on… Read more »

That’s okay it will give me the time to try out the new THi 919 driver and the F/D before I decide to try the new driver head. So far they’re the best I have ever tried. But please do let us know when the new head is ready for release.

Dallas Not conveniently, but it is possible. All my driver, wood and hybrid models are designed with a bendable hosel but I did that primarily to offer custom changes in lie angle and face angle, not loft. However, if the hosel of the 11* model is bent 1.5* open, then if you always grip the driver so you address the ball with the face square to the target line, the loft will now be changed to 9.5*. Doing this requires not soling the head on the ground as you would have to hold the head square to the target. That… Read more »

LINCOLN Since you have a strong interest in this topic, it is very easy for you to find the VCOG to measure yourself. Get a 1/8″ pin punch and secure it in your bench vise vertically. Now balance the driver head on its face on top of the pin punch. It’s not hard to do that. That tells you where the CG projects forward from the inside of the head to the face. The VCOG is 2mm lower off the ground than the mark of the balance point on the face because of the loft. You see, when you balance… Read more »

Tom
Thank you for your reply. I have a simple COG measuring stand from Golfmechanix and I tried to measure the VCOG of the Wishon testing heads I have. They seem to be at 20mm from the top of the crown and a little to the heel side. Really interesting to learn that the actual VCOG will be 2mm lower. The test heads have the Faz-fit connectors so I wonder if the extra weight in the hosel would have shifted the VCOG. I will test again, have a 919THI coming in tomorrow.

Tom’s Wishons book,Common Sense Clubfitting, is an an outstanding book that explains clubhead and shaft designs and how they relate to the fitting process. That is my go to book. It should be in every golfers/clubfitters library.

I have read Tom’s book twice and always go back for references when something is unclear. I have read Maltby’s book, Jeff Sheet’s book, all are great but Tom’s book is the easiest to follow, the most practical out of all of them. It tells you what matters to get the best performing set of clubs, not the brouhahas that’s out there. I think everyone that is either a club fitter/builder or a golf professional in general should read this book and keep it as a reference.

BRETT: It is possible to find the same exact bend profile (stiffness design from butt to tip) in a $50 shaft or less that you can find in 95% of the high dollar shafts. I know this because from 2006 to 2016 we created, supported and sold our Bend Profile Software program which showed and stated the bend profile stiffness measurements of many different shafts from many different companies in numerical and graph form. With this software it was possible to select any of the 3,000 shafts we had in the data base and then have the software run a… Read more »

LOUIS BINGO !!! You have just discovered for yourself why a shorter driver is better for the vast majority of golfers. 30 yrs ago the standard men’s driver length was 43″. No one, and I mean no one made one any longer because it was well known that longer drivers are more difficult to hit as straight or as on center as a shorter one. Unfoertunately heavy competition for sales among golf companies starting in the 80s-90s pushed the companies to go longer to try to lure more sales on the basis of golfers hitting one out of ten shots… Read more »

KEVIN The change of the hosel length of the 919 drivers was done to incorporate a bendable hosel to offer clubmakers the chance to much more precisely custom fit a golfer for a specific lie and face angle that would help his accuracy and an aspect of consistency. Those are certainly performance elements that were affected by the change in the hosel construction. If by performance you mean distance then no, the 919 was always as close to the USGA limit for COR/CT as possible and its off center hit performance has always been at the top because of the… Read more »

Tom, I know this may be an impossible question but I purchased a set of your Sterling iron and LOVE them. Shot the best round of my golf life (even par at Pinehurst) in the second round of my trial. Amazing. Now I want your 919 driver but I dont have a wishon fitter anywhere near me. I have done many fittings and always end up with a mid kick shaft such as a speeder 757 or currently a hazordous Black in stiff and X flex. I bought the superlite in my Sterlings and love them. I also know my… Read more »

KYLE Yes, the final testing is being done on the new 519SHPR driver in anticipation of having it join the product line next spring. It is smaller, running at 412cc and will be available to begin with in RH in 9* and 11* lofts. WE will keep all models in the 919THI so we can evaluate how the new 519 does when it is released before we make any other decisions about whether we tool up other models in the 519 or what. It will be done with the same type of bendable hosel as the 919 so it will… Read more »

Thank you Tom,
I’m very excited to see the new design. I was planning on getting a new 919 this winter, but can manage to wait until the spring.
Kyle

MIKE Good question and I am happy to answer for you. With the irons lie is all about accuracy – as loft increases the face is tilted more off line when the lie is not fit right to make the sole travel level to the ground through impact. With the driver and woods it is different. For one, with less loft the misdirection angle is not so much and this is also muted by the fact the fairway is much wider than a typical green. But there is a definite importance in having the lie of the driver and woods… Read more »

Mr Fowlkes Thank you very much for your interest. While I would put the 919THI up against any driver ever made anywhere by any company, that won’t mean anything to you coming from me. Of course you would think I would say that. So the only possible way you can have a chance to see if such a move would be worth your time and money would be to contact a custom clubmaker in your area to see if you can test hit one of the 919’s hopefully in test specs that would be reasonably well fit to what you… Read more »

Peter Thank you very much for being so interested in golf club performance that you decided to read one of my books! That’s very nice of you and I am so pleased to hear that you acted on some of what you read and found the results to be positive for your game. I’ve been digging into the performance of golf clubs since 1974 and I can tell you three things — I don’t get tired of learning something new about club technology, I really enjoy sharing what I learn along the way (which is why I write) and the… Read more »

Stephen No I am sorry but the 919 Offset was discontinued last year. As is the case whenever any model is discontinued, it is because the demand from the clubmakers just is not enough to sustain the requirements for production and inventory. Once we created the bendable hosel on the non offset 919 driver heads, that allowed clubmakers to bend more of a closed face angle to reduce a slice tendency. The Offset model’s main reason for existence was to help reduce a slice. So with the bendable hosel there really was no need to keep the offset, also since… Read more »

Tariq The hosel bore depth of the 919 is 35mm and the weight bore depth is 15mm. Both do have a +/-1mm tolerance so they could be 34 and 14 or 36 and 16. I would be highly unlikely to impossible for the actual bore depth to be 20mm due to all of the procedures and checks that are instituted in the production of these heads. The hosels are made separately by machining and then welded on to the body of the head so it just is completely unlikely for a mistake of this magnitude to ever be able to… Read more »

Tom, This is used head. I believe the previous owner ,in trying to clean out the hosel,drilled past the 35 mm mark right through the bottom of the weight cavity. Theoretically if a weight were to now be inserted into the hosel it would slide right down to the bottom of the head,but that is not happening! At the 35 mm mark there has formed a metal circle which reduces the diameter of the hosel such that it prevents the weight plug to descend further.Hence my comment that only 20 mm was left when I inserted the weight plug. I… Read more »

Tariq
All of the 919 driver heads made with the longer length hosel are bendable. The non bendable early version of the 919 had a much, much shorter hosel length.
TOM

Andrew
This is so hard to try to use only written words to explain how to fixture the 919 for proper specs measurement. Since I can’t show you in person I will try to send you some photos to your gmail address to try to help. But I just got back from being away for a week so I need a day or two to catch up on the things that happened before your question arrived. So forgive me for being a few days late with this.
TOM