Love the channel I'm 70 and just switched out my three metal shaft to a 55 gram senior flex and counterbalanced it with 25 gram weight. I'm hitting it father and straighter than my driver now. I was very close to removing it from bag last year but know it's a go to club especially for tight fairways. Love the content here and I'm a sub / like smasher for life!
Had a reshafting to graphite, with shafts 50g lighter and heavy heads. E6 was the old swing weight. With little CBs I changed it to D3-D5 progressiv. The player ist happy and enjoys handling and feel.😊
Extend the club 1", put the weight there and leave that 1" behind your hands. (you can also do this with 1/2" depending on the weight used). If you do that you'll get the maximum affect. Been doing this with my customers for years. Thanks for all of your videos! Nice job..
Great video series, thanks. 15 years ago I used those weights and also the down the shaft version. Some really good results for long irons, hybrids, and drivers. It takes time tuning to what feels best and still gives good consistent accuracy. Ultimately for irons I only weighted my 1,3,4,5. The 3i had a weight in the shaft (just under my right thumb) and CB on the end (also +1" - loved that club). Issues: had more distance but less control over the shorter irons. Finesse shots were harder to control both directions and distance. Created a larger gap between my 5i and 6i with 3/4 shots on 5i being unreliable. I still use them some, have an old 1 hybrid with 20g on the back and occasionally put wight on my driver especially if it's over length. It's fun experimenting. Good luck!
What were the swing weights. I am very sensitive to swing weight. I haven't tried adding weight to the but to lighten a club but I did buy a new PXG driver with a counter balanced shaft and it allowed me to add more weight to the head. The problem for us is we can't pop off the grips and try things at home.
Really like your testing! I've often wondered what results would occur with "floating mass" or variable swingweighting. That is, if an iron shaft was loaded with 12-20g of tungsten powder then capped at the grip end so it could move freely from head mass at address to grip mass at the top, and back down to head mass at impact. Any thoughts?
This is what my experience has been. Add head weight . When u feel a loss of control. Add butt weight. This max efficiency. Speed and mass. Ball go far. feel gives u control.
Counter balancing is such a weird misunderstood area of club building. Works for me, especially driver and putter. I think a nice control group test would be to add weight back into the head of the 105cb. Ping uses CB to add length and add head weight to their drivers
Really interesting. I have a set of irons DG105 with backweights and I have been feeling like they may still be too light. I used to play Rifles with backweights, but that was 20 years ago and just assumed I should be going lighter in my old age.
I’ve experimented a lot with this with lead tape under the grip. I’m curious to try it with these plugs. 12-16 grams seems to be the sweet spot for my irons/wedges with lead tape. 16-20 grams for Driver and 3 wood.
Thanks for your reply. I will not counterbalance the DG 105 so hope to get positive changes in clubhead speed, ball speed, carry and total yards (as you did) with the 105. (by eliminating the counterweight and going from the 120 to the 105 I will lose a similar amount of weight as you did going from the DGS400 to 105. The increase in spin you observed could be due to either increased clubhead speed OR a slight difference in shaft dynamics with the lighter shaft.(OR face contact location, or AoA etc!)
To answer the leading question: YES it does work, especially if you want your clubs to all feel the same. Then the only variable is when you grip down or up for an in between shot. This should be very important if you go to same length clubs.
Maybe you could try the 105 with a 12-gram counterbalance and see if that makes the difference to your control. I'm betting that you have too much weight in the handle for it to be effective.
Interesting test; I set up a club building station in my garage thanks to your inspiration and have followed all the counterbalancing tests both here and on TXG. I know results vary based on the individual, but I DO recall your previous advice that if a club comes out heavy in static weight, you recommended NOT to ADD counterweight to get to a specific swing weight. This recent test seems to counterdict that. I got new ZX7 Mark II irons this past spring, 1" long, with Dynamic Gold 120 X100's and they came out D7-D9, so I added 16 gram counterweights to get them to D3-D4. I am 6'3', 66 yo and swing driver around 100 (+ - 5). I am doing an experiment with my 6 iron by changing to Dynamic Gold 105 X100 and choosing one of two grips (depending on swing weight) to get back to D3-D4 but now with a significantly lighter club (ie minus weight of the heavier shaft and counterweight). I will see if swing speed and distance improve without increasing dispersion . I was not unhappy with the heavier setup but they ARE heavy irons (even my teaching pro thought so). What do you predict?
Still not enough data for me to make any predictions. With this test I did, The CB 130 shaft felt good and gave good results but the CB 105 was the worst by far. Full disclosure, I had just gotten back from Europe the day before so results might be different if I rerun this experiment.
In the video you mentioned that increasing the counter balance weight shallowed your swing, if you have a fairly steep swing would counter balancing help shallow that out in irons/woods also?
It showed that for me during this test however I would not assume that will be the case for every golfer. Would need to try it with your swing and equipment.
I’ve just changed grips from a standard size which were around 50 grams or there abouts to a oversized grip to help my arthritis in my hands is this the same as adding a weight to the club
I tried the previous effort by putting 30gms in the handle end of my Driver - with disastrous results. The ball seemed to die in the air due to a massive increase in backspin and a fade became a wild slice.
Yep, there is no one size fits all in golf. What works great for one person might be terrible for someone else. Just have to be willing to experiment to find out.
I have PXG 0311P with Elevate 95 stiff shaft. Golf Pride Midsize grip. It seems like test with DG 130g CB created the most consistent shot with a draw and tighter dispersion in your case. How could I create a similar effect with the lighter 95g shaft?? Any guess or suggestion on CB?
I always lean towards heavier shafts so I think that explains my performance. If you know you like that 95g range, I would look at only using 10-15g CB weighting to get a possible benefit. That said, no real way of knowing what will work until you try it. Maybe build a test club.
Would you build a Driver and iron for a senior with slow swing speed using this method with a senior flex shaft. Trying to increase swing speed. Thanks
I have had some senior players tell me this worked for them but really just need to try it and see if it proves beneficial. Blowing on and off grips makes it much easier to test out.
Thanx a lot, very useful! That's exactly what I'm about to do with my irons. They are +1 inch due to my height and apparently for this reason feel very heavy. About D7 that is. To get it back to about D2-D3 I shall put an insert of about 20 g? Is is right? And one more (sorry, if stupid) question. How much two extra layers of tape (for the grip) will decrease the swing weight? Or is it negligible?.. Thanx a lot in advance, regards!
Would not worry about the grip tape weight of 2 extra layers. 20g counterbalance weight sounds right. Just remember that a counterbalanced D2 golf club is not the same as a standard D2 golf club. Won't know if it achieves the desired effect until you experiment with it.
