The Build Department at KZG Performance Center has built its reputation as one of the best in the industry. No surprise given our Master Builders only work with the finest teachers and fitters around the world. Every club built by KZG is individually handcrafted by a Master Builder to assure a true Tour Build that perfectly adheres to your fitters specifications, including:
Every clubhead is adjusted for loft, lie, face angle and weight and/or weight distribution
Every clubhead, shaft and grip are weight sorted
Every shaft is frequency matched and spine aligned
Meet the Director of the KZG Build Center: Eric Sherman
Transcription:
Interviewer: We’re here at KZG Fitting Center in Palm Desert, California and I’m here with Eric Sherman who is a master club builder.
Eric, welcome. Tell us a little bit about what does it take to become a master club builder?
Eric: A lot of passion for golf and years of experience working with clubs.
Interviewer: Take us through today. You talked about something — what do you call that today we’re going to talk about?
Eric: Weight sorting.
Interviewer: Weight sorting. What does that really mean — weight sorting?
Eric: Here at KZG, we weight sort our golf club heads, shafts, as well as our grips, all the way up to epoxy grip tape. We weight it and make sure everything is weight sorted.
Interviewer: So tell me exactly what weight sorting really means, Eric. That’s a term maybe most of the people watching this really don’t know what that means.
Eric: Most of the time our shafts and golf clubs are very inconsistent. So if I were to put this weight on the scale and weigh it out, it’s always going to give me a different number than what it’s supposed to be and it’s my job to make sure that I get this head to match that shaft so I have a consistent swing weight in the set of clubs I’m building.
Interviewer: Would all heads in a complete set that have been custom fit — would they all be exactly the same weight? I see 250g on here.
Eric: Yes. They would exactly be in 7g increments. Yes they would.
Interviewer: OK. So they would be 250g, so the next one — the 3-iron — would be 257g?
Eric: Exactly. In all the way from a 3-iron to a pitching wedge.
Interviewer: OK. And what about the shafts?
Eric: Shaft is not perfect so we always have to check them. Most manufacturers, when they manufacture shafts they stamp a flex on it as well as a weight and what we found is that it’s very inaccurate. A lot of times the shafts are weighing a lot less or a lot more than what they’re supposed to and they are stiffer or softer than what they’re supposed to.
Interviewer: So all shafts, just because they say stiff or regular or A…
Eric: It means nothing.
Interviewer: — means nothing.
Eric: We have to check it.
Interviewer: So you have to go and find — say, if I buy a set of clubs and there was eight irons in there, you have to go back and you have to find what?
Eric: I’m going to grab 15, 20 shafts, 10,15 heads and weight sort through them until I get a perfect set that all weighed the same and same thing with the grips.
Interviewer: Now let’s take this back to the club head. If that club head isn’t 250g or it doesn’t have that 7g increment, what do you do? I think this is where the master builder really steps up.
Eric: If it was 252g then I would drill out 2g out of the head. It was 248g then I would have to add weight to the head.
Interviewer: So is that almost like I came to you and you’re my tailor. And I say I have a waistline of 34 and you decide, “I’m going to make it 35” —
Eric: Yes.
Interviewer: — and I would say, “Eric this pair of pants seem a little loose.” Would that almost be like that gram weight being wrong on my club head?
Eric: Yes.
Interviewer: Would it make it perform differently?
Eric: That’s a very good analogy. Yes, sir.
Interviewer: Great. So your job is to fit that so when it goes out the door to that client they’re absolutely dead-on.
Eric: Dead-on consistent. Yes.
Interviewer: Don’t all manufacturers do this, Eric? Don’t they weight sort their clubs?
Eric: They do not. We’re different in the sense that we weight sort them, we flex them, we spine-align them and we frequency-match the shafts.
Interviewer: Wait, wait — what does spine-align mean?
Eric: Well, shafts are not perfectly round. So we have to test the shaft and see where the softest part of the shaft is.
Interviewer: OK, and that’s called spine aligning?
Eric: Spine aligning. Yes.
Interviewer: Where do you want that softest part to be?
Eric: Depends on the golfer.
Interviewer: So it varies.
Eric: It varies.
Interviewer: Do they call that flex point? Is that what that is?
Eric: Flex point. Sure.
Interviewer: OK. Alright, good. So it’s a high/low type of thing, or medium flex point?
Eric: Yes.
Interviewer: But you call it something different. It’s spine aligning.
Eric: Well, if we want to look at the shaft profile, then yes.
Interviewer: Great. So all manufacturers don’t do this. So as an example, if I have a set of clubs and I really like my 8-iron but my 7 and my 6 don’t seem to perform well, it could be because it’s the wrong shaft; it’s the wrong weight; it’s the wrong flex point or spine alignment. So that’s why it’s important to have clubs really custom fit.
Eric: Yes. Exactly. Because they’re all different. Like I said before, we make sure they’re exactly the same.
Interviewer: So when somebody needs to get their clubs fit properly, come see us at KGZ Performance Center in Palm Desert, California and you know you’ll have Eric Sherman, master builder on the job.