sm8 nonsense....

[Graymulligan]

 

I think the new line from Cleveland, or was it Srixon, is actually going to move the CG into the next club in your bag, the one you're not swinging, to stabilize the hitting area even further.

[Tiptx1122]

Thats a bunch of marketing garbage as I've played several different brands of wedges and I've played mostly Vokey's but for them the say how bad the SM 6 & 7's are doesn't make me very happy. I'm sure the SM 8's are nice but there not leaps and bounds better as they are pretty much the same except for a few domestic changes. I had my SM 6's for 2 years and ready to upgrade. Now when I say up grade I mean I went to a betting feeling wedge better spin and more forgiving. I'm back to PING as I bought 2 PING Glide 3.0. 52* ss and a 58* Eye2. Much better all around for if anyone has ever played the EYE 2's years ago will not be turned off by the new GLIDE 3.0 EYE 2. I almost went with their forged wedge but it's a smaller head and I have more confidence with what I bought. Good Bye Vokey's, it was a good run

[GoGoErky]

Not sure why anyone gets upset with club marketing. Marketing in general is there to get people interested/talking about a product and to try and sell that product. It’s not unique to golf.

Where is anyone from titleist saying the sm6&7 are bad? If they are then pretty much that standard can be applied to every club from every brand upon release.

[BuzzCat]

My thoughts exactly...all that matters to me is that SM7s are on sale and I need to upgrade my SM5s. Everything else is nonsense.

[bogeypro]

Vokey was saying it on the txg video. Saying how they were getting feedback about how sm7 snd sm6 my having real problems with pros hitting high right weak shots due to the higher cg. Attempting to push the new marketing against higher cg in the blade and more weight in the hosel.

[AFcelica]

Well he says the issue with the sm7 especially was with how they put the weight in the top line. They moved it too rearward. High is still good but high and back caused the top 0.01% of golfers to notice an issue. I’m not sure how them learning something is evil marketing or something but hey it’s winter, guess we have to be grumpy about something ?‍♂️

[bogeypro]

I'm not grumpy. I'm just laughing at vokey for thinking we're idiots.

[AFcelica]

If them learning something makes you feel something personally, maybe take up a second hobby? Again not sure what you’re point is? If you like it buy it if you don’t then don’t. I dont assume you share this similar opinion that bud light didn’t get you any girl you’ve ever wanted and post that all over the internet?

[bogeypro]

Dude, why do you feel responsible for defending vokey? Read my original post again if you can't comprehend my point. Please step off my doorstep.

[DFS PFD]

How dare they learn from the couple of years of SM6/7 use and try to tweak the design after more development. Should have just gotten it right in 2010 and not changed anything since!

[AFcelica]

Your out of context incoherent babble? Yeah I get it. They aren’t made for you, literally less than 100 people in the world noticed the design was flawed so he changed it what’s hard to comprehend about that? I guess it’s better than Boeing hemorrhaging billions figuring out how to engineer a work around for a flawed design

[bogeypro]

What's your deal? If you don't want to add to the discussion about stupid marketing techniques, then don't. Move along...

[AFcelica]

what’s stupid about fixing a flawed design?

[bogeypro]

I don't think it's a flawed design. They do do much testing on these. I think it's purely marketing. They have to make the previous generation sound inferior to sell the new. Now, is it's truly flawed, I'd expect a refund. LoL

[Jack Pearsall]

its enjoyable regarding the contortions marketers yearly go through to make their products indispensable. It’s gratifying knowing all that money creates side businesses and a lot of jobs.

 

....they should have those damn woodchucks chuckin’ a set of Titleist woods with some Judge Smails type all bent...

 

[J9293]

I doubt that even the top PGA tour players noticed a difference between the SM7 and SM8. It’s all marketing jargon.

The natural differences in between shots make more of an impact than the 1 mm of CG movement by Titleist. Even swing robots don’t land shots on top of each other so how can you reasonably think a human could discern such a minute difference?

[dwboston]

How did that not show up in their Tour validation of the SM7 and SM6 wedges? It's just a bad look for Vokey, and I've played the wedges for years.

[AFcelica]

That's an interesting opinion... compared to most major companies they hardly spend on r&d at all. F1 teams spend hundreds of millions every year and every single week they make small adjustments that seem like improvements, so they adjust their car more in that direction only to find out hours sometimes days and even months later that the first tweak was wrong and they have been chasing their tails the whole time. 

 

 

 

ive seem some people say tm did the same thing, forward cog, then rear, then forward. Do you remember the rear cog craze from say 10 years ago with square drivers and whatnot? Sure it was great for moi but it spun like crazy and didn't have near the ball speed of a forward moi look at g10 vs r7tp significant ball speed differences and well over 1000 rpm of spin difference. 

 

Compare that to today where the likes of ping, titleist, and cobra now have similar moi to those old crummy square drivers. They now are very close to the top of any driver in ball speed and don't spin significantly more than the forward cog drivers of today. And are much more forgiving. Was low rear cog a bad idea, a marketing gimmick, or did they just not understand how to optimize a rear cog back then? Given the success of these rear moi drivers getting closer to the best of all worlds it's not wonder tm is going back towards a more rear cog. 

 

It's funny what happens when you learn things isn't it? Now if they were claiming 3000rpm more spin and 100% dispersion reduction I would be with you. But having set up my own car for track days and auto cross and falling to the same pitfalls as Mercedes and Ferrari with their almost unlimited budgets, I can see how a rear cog on a wedge could make for less than optimal performance. Am I going to notice that difference? Probably not. With all their r&d only some of the hundreds of tour pros even noticed the flaw in the first place. So I'm sure whether you play sm2, 6, ,8 we will all be just fine. 

[DFS PFD]

I am no tour pro that's for sure, but my miss with full swings to 60 yard shots with my lob wedge is a high right floater when I'm expecting a piercing mid spinner. So it may very well be marketing sham, but if there's one thing we can't argue with it's the laws of physics, and manipulating CG in wedges plays directly to that. Moving CG higher and forward should help with flighting the ball lower and potentially offsetting that high right miss. Guess we'll have to wait for some independent testing to tell us. I'll get myth busters on the line.

[Pepperturbo]

IMO the position of SM7 COG, hosel weight and design of wedge grooves will NOT prohibit using the wedge and spinning the ball; it's technique. Every OEM makes manufacture/design errors. Some years are worse than others, and some years they get it right as Titleist did with my 620CB&MB irons.

Compared to most people, I play a lot of golf, well over 140 times a year, and after four years still using SM6 wedges. The wedge face and grooves are not worn down. However, Vokey wedges are not like forged in that my forged wedges have worn spots in the front, yet still perform. Fact, Pros get them for free, so it makes sense for them to get them as often as possible. Doing so supports Vokey sales. Like VJ supported Cleveland by switching out his wedges every few months.

FYI: over twenty-five years back, I bought three (3) sets of four (4) original 1018 Snake Eye wedges @$175ea made by Snake Eye founder Ernie Vadersen. Not the cheap wedges that later sold in a specific retail chain. I used those wedges till about five years ago before switching to Miura (lasted about 8mo), then Scratch (about a 1y) then to Vokey SM6 in 2016 and making do till someone makes a forged wedge to my feel and design satisfaction. I still practice with the Snake Eye LW nearly every day and spin the ball like it was new.

Point - Vokey and other company's SELL product and have to say something in Advertising to get people to upgrade. Are the changes Vokey talks about going to affect a Pro or my ability to use an SM7 wedge, NO. It's not so much the wedge but again user skill that hits the ball straight and creates spin. @bogeypro  and  @BIG STU  are right. SM8 advertising is questionable but NOT to the average NAIVE consumer/golfer. They have no idea about club specs, probably weak wedge skills, but more than like believe advertising sounds good, though he doesn't make sense of it.

[farmer]

Hawkeye, a clever ploy to rid yourself of the boyfriend?

[A.Princey]

Yeah, I agree. Beyond innovations in bounce and groove tech, the standard wedge model is pretty similar year to year, regardless of what BS they feed the media. Outside of aesthetics and such, the one piece muscle-back wedge is not really any better today than it was 10 years ago.

[Hawkeye77]

LOL, just a gift! He’s okay.

[Llortamaisey]

What other wedge designs incorporated a forward CG? The only one I can think of besides SM8 is JP’s design, and his CG was forward/low towards the toe not forward/high.

[oiler45]

 I find it ironic that ONLY golf marketing is less than 100% accountable to their claims. It's not like car companies or cell phones (or any other product) tout the benefits of their most recent model over their previous models.

It's too bad us golf addicts on GolfWrx are the only ones to get the short end of the marketing stick.

[bogeypro]

All this being said, I'll probably get a set of sm8

[StarFleetGolfer]

Because cars are regulated and many of their claims can be objectively measured. For golf, low spin, forgiving, etc...are subjective.

[Ping Player]

Completely tongue in cheek here. But when in college in the early 80s how were we able to flight our crappy wedges? Which then, were a PW (50) and SW (55). Again, just joking above.But it's amazing the advances in wedges from those days, it's a great time for wedge selection.

We made it work back then......

[Hawkeye77]

Just a bit of a reality check - Bob Vokey isn't saying anything close to the SM6 or SM7 were "bad".

As I've said, it seemed odd to me also the first time I listened to that explanation, but he's talking about "evolving" and feedback and although you can certainly take it in a direction of strange marketing (and it kind of is), it's also a little refreshing.

That's the video. I guess I could pour over the website again, but I'm not sure the marketing campaign itself is quite what Bob was saying.

At the core how does any manufacturer justify its new design, that is always replacing the old design? Isn't "we got this better" always "we never had it figured out right before"?

Strange, but nice to have something different to talk about. ;-)

I'm still testing them when I get the chance!

[brkuck]

Every company does this in one form or another, they have to. Its all marketing. If someone wants to buy the newest stuff, thats their perspective. If someone gets mad and hates that they are being subjected to more "improvements" and go to another company, thats cool. But in the end, people buy on emotion.

Also, MOST golfers arent as informed as we are on this site. Many just follow what they are told like sheep.