Like nearly every modern project of sophisticated design, the club creation process begins with computer-aided design (CAD) software. Ping, an Arizona-based equipment company, primarily drafts using a product design suite called Creo, according to VP of Engineering Paul Wood, although there are several software options that do essentially the same thing.

The ultimate objective in the early design stages, according to Wood? “Essentially using the tools as a sketchbook.”

Everyone on the Ping team is adept using Creo, so moving to another platform would “be like starting over again.” Cleveland golf, for its part, uses Altair’s suite of design applications.

So that G30 in you hand? It began as a digital sketch on Wood’s team’s computer screens.

Wood, who holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of St. Andrews, said Ping uses different software for different aspects of the design process. Alternatively, specialists have particular preferences, which may not speak to the inherent merits of one software over another, but rather to what a particular person doing a particular job is comfortable with.

[quote_box_center]”We use some Altair stuff to do our finite element analysis: taking a model … a driver head or whatever, simulating impact, looking at where the stress and strains are … predictions of performance … We have a guy that’s full time,” Wood said. “He’ll work with the design team and pull the design from CREO. We also have aerodynamics packages that will simulate airflow, which is another specialist role.”[/quote_box_center]

I asked Dustin Brekke, Engineering Manager, Research and Development for Cleveland, how the company uses the same Altair software. He said the ultimate objective with the software use is “to evaluate, eliminate, and improve designs prior to spending the time and money to make samples.” The process of evaluating design concepts is different for each club. For woods, the company is assessing the strength of materials and face thickness and simulating impact conditions.  

So, regardless of the particular software and its specific applications, the objective is the same: model initial concepts in CAD software and test them prior to production.

How CAD software was a game changer

Todd Beach, VP Product Development, TaylorMade Golf Company, laid out the differences between the pre-1990s method of club design and CAD-based design.

Before the 1990s, Beach said, clubmakers hand-shaped master designs “based on external cosmetics.” Companies would then use the masters to make the tools for the casting process. Adjustments and improvements would then be made.

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“Now clubs are designed with high powered CAD systems, which model all of the complex internal features and adjustability features,” Beach said. “The mass properties can be optimized on the computer before ever launching a prototype.

“The sound/feel, durability, aerodynamics and launch performance can also be simulated using sophisticated finite element methods [virtual prototyping]. Using these tools, it is possible to iterate multiple times to optimize performance before launching the first test prototype.”

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Cleveland’s Brekke highlighted the speed of the CAD-based design process. In the case of creating a “master” design prior to CAD software, not only was the process significantly more time consuming, a company was left with just one design to test, rather than multiple variations.

[quote_box_center]”That is how the industry has changed so much in the last few decades,” Brekke said. “With all the advances in modeling, simulation, and rapid prototyping exponentially more design concepts can be evaluated and therefore new discoveries are constantly within reach.”[/quote_box_center]

So from process, innovation, and speed-to-market standpoints, CAD suites like Creo and Altair have changed the game.

Working outside the product cycle

There are two modes of operation in the engineering world of major OEMs: inside and outside the product cycle. The companies try to do as much as they can outside of the product cycle, which isn’t surprising, given the innovation imperative in golf equipment and the need to produce game-improving, marketable products.

Rather than thinking about next year’s driver or specific clubs, outside the product cycle, the engineers are more concerned with concepts and technologies. As Wood says, outside the product cycle, “we try to do things generally,” saying, “this would apply to any driver,” rather than worrying about specific constraints or what was on the shelf last year.

However, at Ping at least, there’s a team that is perpetually working outside of specific product cycles whose only imperative is innovation.

[quote_box_center]”We have a dedicated innovation team that is much more outside of the specific product cycle, aiming at technology development, knowledge development, things that the design team can kind of plug into the next club they have.”[/quote_box_center]

The end goal, of course, is a market-beating offering. However, to deliver, say, the next great driver, said driver needs to be loaded with innovative components. It’s to this end that Wood says, “we want to know as much as we can about technology and materials and the specifics of what’s going on and what the customer needs.”

TaylorMade’s Todd Beach echoed Wood’s sentiments about the market and customer needs as well as the ongoing pursuit of innovation.

[quote_box_center]“We have several teams working on … concepts, which are more breakthrough, next-generation stuff. Stuff where you don’t know if it’s going to work, so you don’t have a specific time frame on it. And our product marketing group is constantly looking at the marketplace and seeing what products are resonating in the marketplace.”[/quote_box_center]

Interestingly, Beach added, R&D may continue to work on a concept for a long time, even in excess of 10 years if the marketing team feels a technology is truly groundbreaking.

Within the product cycle

Inside the product cycle, as you’d expect, things are more systematized, coordinated and deadline driven.

How long is the product cycle? Anywhere from one year to three years.

And rather than seeking to reinvent the wheel, companies often begin with the most recent design for, say a driver, and seek to improve upon it/implement technologies they’ve been working on.

[quote_box_center]“You’re taking ideas you might want to incorporate into the next model,” Wood said. “So for some of that, you can take an existing prototype … For example, we can take the G30 iron and mess around with it.”[/quote_box_center]

After the club in question has been sufficiently “messed around with” to create something worth investigating further, the company will produce a few prototypes for initial testing.

Alternatively, as Wood indicated, designers may want to build a few prototypes merely to test a new technology to arrive at a point called “concept validation,” which determines the viability of a technology for inclusion in a future club offering.

Beach said TaylorMade often begins a product cycle with the question: “What’s the best fit given the technologies the Phase I group has been working on?”

Beyond messing around to see what works and prototype creation, the rubber meets the road once a company enters into product development and firmer decisions must be made.

[quote_box_center]“Once you start to get into product development … we’ll start to make decisions like ‘this is going to be a cast iron,’” Wood says. “You start worrying about every little detail and that’s when maybe you’d start working with a supplier.”[/quote_box_center]

And an interesting note about product development, particularly iron development. Ping will often start with a 7-iron then build backward (6, 5, 4) and forward (8, 9) until they have a whole set, tweaking the initial 7-iron design. Likewise, driver design often begins with the 9-degree, right-handed model.

A component of club production, of course, is tool creation. For example, producing the metal blocks used in the iron casting process. And a big part of scaling up production is getting overseas manufacturers the appropriate tools with the appropriate tolerances to create quality products.

During this time, TaylorMade moves between durability, player and consumer testing as a lead-up to mass production.

Following these preliminaries, a company will usually initiate a pilot run to work out the details of production, costs (including scrap rates) and tolerances. At this point, a U.S.-based club company can authorize its overseas production facility to manufacture a run of five of 10,000 units.

Assuming the above goes off without a hitch, “ownership” of the project transfers from the design team to what Wood referred to as the “quality group.”

“Once you’ve gone through the pilot and have done all the tweaking and adjusting specs, it’s now a quality function … On our supplier’s end, it’s gone from product development to factory floor production … What they’re doing is developing these very detailed work instructions, which we help with … But it’s now a factory procedure … it’s the same thing if you’re Intel making chips.”

Likewise, Beach said that at this point in production, “It’s probably not that much different than other technical products.”

So that, in a nutshell, is how a team of designers in Carlsbad or Phoenix created the M1 or G30 that’s in your bag.