Bryson Dechambeau What's In The Bag

Here is recent NCAA champion, Bryson DeChambeau, on his unique set of clubs that he uses:


What's In the Bag - Bryson Dechambeau from College Golf Fellowship on Vimeo.

As Bryson discussed, he uses the same length irons throughout his set (37.5 inches). This concept has been done before, most popularly from the Tommy Armour Golf EQL model back in the late 80's.

From what I recall, Tommy Armour Golf claimed that the 8-iron was the 'perfectly designed club' and that they wanted to build each club to that length.

In order to do so (regardless of the length you want), the head weights have to be the same.  Typically, the head weights for irons go in 7-gram increments.  Here's an example of a spec sheet from Wishon Golf showing this 7-gram increment approach (click to enlarge):

The reason for the heads changing in weight is that the typical set of irons has shafts that change in length.  If you're going by the swingweight matching method with each club the same length while using incremental head weights, you're going to get extremely light long irons and extremely heavy short irons.

The same will apply if you use the MOI matching principle as well.  Certainly, there will be those that will ask  "Isn't MOI matching just incremental swingweights?"

Yes, it is.  But, you're going in swingweight increments of roughly 0.5 swingweight points per club.  When you have a 7-gram increment head weight that is going to drastically increase the swingweight, by far more than 0.5 swingweight points.

In the end, Dechambeau's MOI will be matched.  The issue with the Tommy Armour EQL irons is that while they were MOI matched, that didn't mean that the MOI fitted that particular golfer's swing.  If the MOI was at 2,650 for each club and the golfer actually fits more to 2,700 MOI, there is some discrepancy.  But, I still believe that MOI matching, even if it is not quite fitted is better than no MOI matching.

One of the questions I frequently get is "if MOI matching is so good, then why don't the Tour players do it?"

Well, there are a variety of answers why such as them not knowing about it, fear of trying something new, not having an educated and skilled MOI matching fitter available, etc.

But, what we have seen with Tour players is that they often grab 20 or so clubs of each iron in a set (i.e. 20 4-irons, 20 5-irons, etc) and then try them out and find the one they like best and bag it.  For instance, I had the opportunity to measure the MOI of Nick Faldo's old Mizuno T-Zoid irons.  Knowing that Sir Nick used this process I was curious to see what the MOI of the clubs were.  When I measured them, I found that Sir Nick was extremely precise as each club measured to 2,750 MOI except for his Pitching Wedge which measured in at 2,775.

So, I surmise that many PGA Tour players are MOI matching their irons without knowing it.  They are just taking a longer way to do it.

Anyway, congratulations on Mr. Dechambeau and congratulations to Edel Golf for building him a great set of clubs.





3JACK