"Finding Feel" offers an inside look at Titleist's iron R&D process.
Titleist
When discussing golf equipment and performance attributes, one thing that has always been difficult to quantify is feel. For many players, the perception of feel can be hard to describe, even though every golfer knows the sensation when they hit one just right — and it’s that feeling that leaves every golfer wanting more.
So, with the challenge of trying to quantify feel, the engineers at Titleist set in motion a research plan to better understand what feel means to different golfers with the result to this point being the development of their newest T-Series irons, which includes the T100, T150, T200 and T350.
Titleist new T-Series irons.Ryan Barath
Now, “Finding Feel,” a mini-documentary from Titleist, gives golfers a behind-the-scenes look into the iron R&D journey, to demonstrate how designers and engineers work with golfers across the board including many of the world’s best to merge the idea of feel with impactful performance gains.
Inside of the Titleist T200 iron.Titleist
One of the standout points of the doc is made by Dr. Alan Hocknell, Titleist’s VP of advanced research and Innovation, when discussing the challenge of combining feel and technology performance: “[Feel] is a difficult problem for an engineer because when you add complexity to the design of the club head, to gain advantages such as easier launch conditions or better off-center impact, these are naturally in conflict with the best feel performance.”
Watch it now
“Finding Feel” is broken up into three acts demonstrating different parts of the process, including a trip to the Western Electroacoustic Laboratories to visit an anechoic chamber that captures impact acoustics — which for gear geeks is both extremely nerdy and also endlessly fascinating.
Gathering acoustic information in an anechoic chamber.Titleist
The full doc is available now on YouTube, and can be found here: Titleist Finding Feel
Ryan Barath is GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com’s senior editor for equipment. He has an extensive club-fitting and -building background with more than 20 years of experience working with golfers of all skill levels, including PGA Tour players. Before joining the staff, he was the lead content strategist for Tour Experience Golf, in Toronto, Canada.
