Now, with 257+, High Heat again beats the major brands to the punch.
The new technology results from a USGA rules change two years ago, and was believed to be impossible to achieve, reflected by the fact that no brand had accomplished it in that span. The highest ball speed has always been in the center of the face, and the CTs in the toe and heel areas have been in the low 200s.USGA Impact Area and CT limits 2
But designer Dean Knuth saw the possibilities, and made it happen. Now, High Heat is the only company in the market with this new technology.
The USGA changed its 18-year CT Rule (Characteristic Time—trampoline effect) that regulates the amount of time that a ball stays on the face of the club in microseconds, which controls how “hot” a club face can be. With this change the USGA permitted a golf face to be much hotter with a CT above 257 and up to 275, but only in the large toe and heel areas.
Knuth figured out a way to incorporate the now-conforming extra spring effect into the toe and heel of the already successful and popular line of High Heat metalwoods. The end result with High Heat’s new technology is that there is a significant increase in ball speed on toe or heel hits in the large area where the CT can be as high as 275. And it is a known fact that greater ball speed equals more distance.
His ability to bring this technology to fruition will certainly solidify Knuth’s reputation as one of the golf industry’s brightest minds. His early High Heat designs were ahead of all major brands incorporating a much lower and much deeper CG, for which he was the only club designer honored by Golf Inc. magazine as an “Innovator In Player Development” in 2016. And during his USGA days he created the USGA's Course Rating and Slope Rating System used in handicapping.
“Most amateur golfers struggle to hit the center of the clubface consistently,” said Knuth, former USGA Senior Director. “It was with that thought in mind that we created our first High Heat clubs. Now, with this new CT technology, amateur golfers will have an even bigger advantage when playing High Heat.”
Major brands have focused on the center of the entire face to achieve close to 257 CT. They gradually reduced the thickness of the face to the outer edges to improve ball speed on off-center hits which is referred to as a “variable thickness’ technology, but nevertheless their efforts still resulted in very low CTs in the toe and heel areas.
By contrast, after the USGA rule change Knuth focused on the novel idea of creating three distinct CT areas on the face to enable much higher ball speed from hits in the large toe and heel areas with the increased limit to 275 CT. This wasaccomplished by substantially reducing the thickness of the toe and heel areas immediately adjacent to the Central Impact Area.
As a result, Knuth was able to achieve 257-275 CT values in High Heat 257+’s toe and heel areas, producing that desired higher ball speed. Testing showed High Heat 257+ produced increased distance of over 20 yards compared to Callaway’s GCB Epic, TaylorMade’s M2 and Titleist’s 917 drivers and fairway woods in the large toe and heel areas. This combination makes High Heat 257+ the Hottest Face In Golf, delivering greater distance with no swing change.
Golfers who tested High Heat 257+ drivers raved about the performance.
“I hit towards the heel more often than I should, but on 10 hits on the heel with the new 257+ I ac
tually gained 10 yards from when I hit it on the center of the face.” – Brad Franklin
“I really like this new club. I hit toe hits 10 yards farther than center hits each time which is really important to my game as I hit off-center towards the toe as often as I hit it on the center." – Bryan Fuller.
“The big difference is that with High Heat it feels like that I hit the sweet spot every time, even though I was surprised to see that I was all over the face. The huge sweet spot makes this driver very forgiving and easy to hit.” – Diane Marshall.
"High Heat 257+ feels much better than the Ping driver that I used in last year’s U.S. Mid-Amateur hampionship and I prefer High Heat 257+ because its sweet spot is much larger. I will purchase one." -- Mike Mendez.
This new High Heat 257+ technology will be on display for testing from hitting bay 1 at the PGA Merchandise Show’s Demo Day Jan. 23 at Orange County National in Orlando.
Knuth Golf’s principals Dean Knuth and Steve Trattner will also be available for meetings at the PGA Show from Wednesday to Friday in ClubING, Room W309A near the media center.
High Heat 257+ drivers and fairway woods will be available for delivery in April 2018, and hybrids in June.
For more information on Knuth Golf, visit www.knuthgolf.com or call 410-353-0446.
No comments:
Post a Comment