By Leonard Finkel
Good question. Nick Sherburne, co-founder of Club Champion and Matt Saternus, noted golf writer and founder of Plugged-In Golf went looking for an answer. Though hard to believe, there is a custom fitting process that hundreds of PGA Tour players have used and few golfers are even aware of it. It’s PUREing their shafts. SST PURE has been a fixture on the PGA Tour for more than 15 years. Players using this technology have won over $1.5 billion.
Club Champion tested whether PUREing delivers measurable benefits or if it’s just a placebo. To varying degrees, golf shafts are not perfectly straight or perfectly round. Irregularities might cause problems when the shaft twists and bends during a swing. What does PUREing do? According to Club Champion, it identifies the most stable bending plane or “Neutral-Axis”. SST claims that when the club head is installed in the proper orientation, golfers will see more consistent performance.
For the test, two seemingly identical 6-irons were used. The clubs had the same head, shaft, grip, loft, lie, length, swing weight and total weight. In essence, they were exactly the same. But were they? The only difference was that one shaft had been SST PUREd and the other was not. All testing was performed at Club Champion in a controlled environment.
Seven golfers, whose handicaps ranged from the mid-teens to scratch, each hit ten shots with the PUREd 6-iron and ten shots with a non-PUREd club. Players alternated hitting, using the PUREd iron first. No one knew which club was hit until after the testing had concluded. All shots were recorded on Trackman and no shots were deleted.
The test concluded that “PUREing” a shaft led to significant distance increases. On average, the subjects gained more than 7 yards of total distance with the PUREd 6-iron compared to the non-PUREd club. That’s nearly a full club of extra distance! Players were able to swing the PUREd club faster and generated an extra 2.8 MPH of ball speed.
The study also concluded that PUREing does, in fact, boost accuracy. Overall, the test group was 2.2 yards closer to the centerline with the PUREd 6-iron versus the non-PUREd iron. That could be the difference between a makeable birdie putt and a challenging two-putt. On the PGA Tour, that would be the difference between being #1 in proximity to the hole and being 91st.
PUREing helped players narrow their dispersion pattern. The average distance between players’ furthest right and furthest left shots was 2.1 yards tighter with the PUREd club versus the non-PUREd iron. The study concluded that “The SST PUREing process is no placebo. It is one of the most impactful technologies that we’ve ever tested.”
SST PUREing is available through Club Champion at 15 locations nationwide. Their club fitting studios carry all the top golf club, shaft and grip manufacturers, which allows for 15,000+ equipment combinations for customers to try. Studios are equipped with advanced analysis technology and highly trained certified fitters. Club builders all must graduate from an extensive training program. For more information about Club Champion or SST PUREing, visit clubchampiongolf.com or call (888) 340-7820.
Test Results Data Available at:
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Leonard Finkel is the author of The Secrets to the Game of Golf & Life and former editor in chief of Golf Journeys Magazine. His work has been featured in almost 200 publications including Golf Magazine, Golf Digest, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Golf Illustrated, Golf Tips and Player Magazine. He has written more than a dozen cover stories for Golf Today Magazine. He has written extensively about golf and travel and has added poker to his writing repertoire. Finkel also works as a marketing and public relations consultant. His specialty niche is writing advertorial copy. Prior to his career in golf, Finkel owned a chain of retail stores and a consulting and import company based in Asia. He attended the University of Utah.