 An interesting story (to me at least) that came out of the PGA show: "One of the most respected reporters in the golf industry - James Auchenbach - in a story about Strategic Shaft Technologies - revealed that Tiger Woods was able to pick two sets of PUREd irons out of 12 sets that he was testing. Those two sets are now his primary and backup set for his return to golf - hopefully in a few weeks.
This is an incredible scoop for Auchenbach. It is very rare for Nike to say anything about Tiger's equipment. For Nike to acknowledge that they PUREd Tiger's irons and then that he chose the two PUREd sets out of 12 that they sent him to try out is an extraordinary endorsement of SST PURE technology." Full article is here (it prompts you to print it). Now if this does not ignite the "does it, doesn't" debate, nothing will !
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 Great stuff. I certainly listen when Tiger talks equipment, but let also remember he's a real freak who can tell the difference in weight of a club down to a few grams.
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 I'm surprised they admitted this, surely most OEM's don't want to admit this as it is like saying "Yes you can tell a difference, but no we aren't going to do it in our own clubs we sell you mere mortals"
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 OK OK. I give in, I'm sorry, I am so naive, stupid and backward shouldnt be allowed to use a knife and fork let alone vote but what the **** does 'Pured' and 'Spine & Flo' mean exactly? laymans terms you understand!!!
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Try reading this (from my website and don't have time to cut and paste then reformat it!).
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| Edited: 10/02/09 14:55 |
 hmm - sounds good stuff - wonder if makes a difference to us mortals. Rgjusa - if i am right handed in a normal manner and put a clock face at the top of the grip with 12 o clock facing directly ahead of me (if i looked forard - not to target which is to my left and would be 9 oclock!) how would the shaft be aligned? eg 9-3, 10-2 etc?..... I hope that king of makes sense!!!
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hmm - sounds good stuff - wonder if makes a difference to us mortals. Rgjusa - if i am right handed in a normal manner and put a clock face at the top of the grip with 12 o clock facing directly ahead of me (if i looked forard - not to target which is to my left and would be 9 oclock!) how would the shaft be aligned? eg 9-3, 10-2 etc?..... I hope that king of makes sense!!!
It does make sense. And if you thought opinions were divided on PURE, now we add in the way to orient it ! So, to back track a little, when SST got this past the USGA rules committee, they agreed that they would orient the shafts (and this includes all their licensees) in one direction only. As part of their patent they also say that they have identified an orientation that can produce/influence fades and draws - but they agreed that they would only put the club in the "neutral" position.
Dick Weiss used these words to describe what it is he does: "What we look for is not a perfect movement back and forth. We look for the most stable plane closest to the hardest point of the shaft in the hitting direction." What I do is the same using the spine and FLO process (and that is another debate as to whether it it gives the same result as the PURE process). Let me add that the spine is generally agreed to be the hardest point, and in a steel shaft at 180* to this is the "natural bend point" (NBP), or "N", and it has been called other names too. And for uniformity sake I will always put N toward the target to ensure that each club is setup the same way.
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 If they sent him 12 sets of Pures clubs and he picked 2 he liked, that means he rejected 10 he didn't like. Surely if they sent him 12 sets that were not Pured he would have done the same thing, picked one set as his gamers and one set as back up? Did Tiger know or even care that they were pured? It is not clear that this is the case. Just playing devils advocate here! 
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wonder if Nike will let me have one of the other 10 sets?  slightly used 9/10. I am in the market for some new bats - Out with the scaffold poles and get some new shafts put in by rgj Then off to EXMAX to get some new heads put on them - can't be doing with forged blades, and will be as good as new!
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 Flounder Tiger might have not known or cared but he picked them out of the sets( that only had two sets of PUREd) he tried, whats the odds on doing that?
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1/132! chance of first set 1/12 x chance of seconc set 1/11 what they don't tell you is that he's been trying these out since his layoff!!!
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Fen You would make a good bookie!
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ah thats the statistical odds, as a bookie i'd give you about 8/1 given Tiger can feel a gnat farting in Malaysia giving his propensity to stop swiging halfway through because someone sneezed 10 miles away!
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I was looking into getting my graphite shafted Driver, Utility and 3 wood PUREd. However i was playing with the assistant pro one day and he said you may notice some slight improvement if you hit every shot in the exact middle of the sweet spot. He went on to elaborate that most of us rarely ever hit the sweet spot, so for the sake of some possible marginal improvement i decided against PUREing.
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 Fen, was it not that the guy 10 miles away was about to sneeze?
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 There isn't much detail, but still a good story, which is all it is. Did he hit all the irons, or just one from each set? Tiger uses X100 tipped an inch, with those shafts and at his level, its just not comparable for mere mortals to make sweeping generalisations. The best you can say is that it MIGHT help you, which is what this company relies on. No proof, just catalogue of anecdotes, and this one takes the prize tbh, its just brilliant for them, millions of pounds saved in advertisng revenue to get this coverage and what exactly do you know now that you didn't before? You know that the worlds greatest golfer who uses brutal 1" tipped X stiff shafts can feel a misaligned shaft. If that info is relevant to you then hey, go for it. I've said it before, I will get my irons done, golf is a drug, and if it might do something then why not. But lets keep this in perspective! Modern shafts are not the fubars they were. I accpet that a lab can produce results that suggest the ball flight might be affected and as I say, I will get mine done, to many decent club makers say its worth doing. But all we still have is lab results and Tiger's endorsement, nothing m,ore nothing less.
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