Update - Aug 2008: Since the show in April, the Elmer Golf team have been working flat-out on some unique distribution deals that are almost ready to be launched. Watch this space!
Elmer Golf will be exhibiting at the UK Golf Show from 10th to 13th April at Whittlebury Park Golf and Country Club near Towcester in Northamptonshire. John Elmer, founder of Elmer Golf will be in attendance to launch the long-awaited Elmer M Series putter range that includes the revolution M1 and M2 putters. He'll also be showing off some of the other products in the Elmer range including Hybrids and Irons. John will also be hosting daily seminars in the conference centre on the subject of putter technology.
More info on the UK Golf Show can be found on their website at www.theukgolfshow.co.uk
From the official UK Golf Show release:
The UK Golf Show turns into an international event with the addition of Elmer Golf.
Elmer Golf was recently established to take advantage of many years of golf club research, development and design by its founder, John Elmer.
The company has developed a range of technically superior products with significant beneficial features that all comply with the Rules of Golf and are subject to many international patents. Elmer’s products feature unique technical benefits, such as putters with adjustable lie angles and patented sliding distance control technology; hybrids with adjustable lofts and power generating faces; plus irons with patented ellipsoidal energy transfer technology that virtually eliminates miss hits from off centre strikes. The International unveiling and launch of these products will take place at the UK Golf Show at Whittlebury Park on the 10th – 13th April 2008.
Elmer Golf’s intention is to supply these products exclusively throughout the UK to on-course golf professionals. Elmer Golf believes golf professionals have the requisite knowledge to appreciate the significant beneficial features only their products offer. The company is currently also seeking regional distributors in the UK to achieve their distribution aims. Anyone interested can discuss this opportunity with Elmer Golf at the show.
From the age of seven, John Elmer was brought up on golf courses in the UK where his father was a qualified PGA golf professional. John was apprenticed to former open champion Max Faulkner and spent time setting up equipment for many of the British Ryder Cup players at the time. In his late 20's John moved out of golf into the office automation industry. The early 80's saw him develop the world's first electronic typewriter-based word processing machine, which held over 60% of the total UK word processing market and was exported to over 20 countries.
Retiring to South Africa in the late 80's he returned to his golfing roots by developing a comprehensive range of custom-fitted golf equipment under the Option Golf and Hugo Boss brands. For the last few years John has been working on a number of significant new developments that have been described as ‘industry-changing’ and are to be exposed to the public for the first time in the UK at Whittlebury Park.
[From Pitchmark magazine, a local magazine for golfers in the Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire area)
When Spalding member Sandy Watson was playing golf in South Africa, he played with a guy who was using the most incredible putter he had ever seen.
Sandy, a six handicapper who admits putting is the weakest part of his game, was struggling on the super slick greens he describes as 'smooth concrete'. But when offered a chance to use the Elmer M1 Putter, his game was quickly transformed.
He was so taken with it that the guy who he was playing with took him to see the manufacturer of the club, who happened to be a friend of his.
A few months on and Sandy is now the club's representative in England and the only man in teh country who can get you teh amazing Elmer Golf M1 putter.
But why is the putter so amazing? Well, to start with, it's 439,745 putters rolled into one.
It is a club tinkerer's dream. It's a totally interchangeable putter.
The Elmer M1 Putter is the result of over 10 years of ground-breaking research and development.
According to the club manufacturer, it is a truly revolutionary product, the likes of which have never been seen before on a golf course. With a number of patented features, the M1 Putter is an essential addition to any golfer's bag.
Milled from a single solid aluminium billet to ensure perfect consistency, the M1 Putter has been designed with a number of revolutionary features that will change your game forever.
It comes with two different putter faces, the first made of milled aluminium with a polymer insert inside which provides a softer feel (ideal for slick greens) - and the second face has no insert and provides a harder feel (perfect for slower greens).
But the most amazing aspect of the club is the ability to adjust the lie angle of the putter.
A special in-built mechanism can easily be used to change the lie angle just with the use of a wrench.
And you an change it from right handed to left handed too!
The back of the putter head, the billet, is also designed to be moved around, changing the distance from the putter head and moving the centre of gravity around.
There are also amazing rails which slide in and out of the putter head to change the weight and feel of the club.
The possibilities are absolutely endless. You can have hours of fun just changing the setting until you find what's right for you.
Sandy said: "I have never swung a club which has so much balance." And everyone who has played with it says exactly the same thing.
| Spalding businessman, Sandy Watson has the exclusive distribution rights of the Elmer M1 Putter in England. If you are interested in buying, contact Sandy on sandy@w-bm.co.uk or through Pitchmark on info@pitchmark.co.uk and he will talk you through the club's capabilities and set up a trial for you. |
The Making of the Elmer M2 Putter
The first sample production models of our M2 arrived on the 19th October. We mothballed the first one for our competition winner through SA Golf Trader magazine!
We were extremely pleased with the end product that emanated at the culmination of this development process. All the tolerances were well within specification and the nickel plated finish is just ‘too good’.
Particularly impressive was the way the face balance showed virtually no bias, regardless of where the face was rotated. This really helps to ensure a smooth pendulum action throughout the arc of the putter swing.
The head cover design also worked well with a small pocket built in to take the adjustment tool.
In an earlier post we have stressed the critical importance of ensuring the lie angle of your putter is correct. The rotating hosel on the M2 allows for more than enough lie angle adjustment for both left and right handed golfers.
Going back to the first post in this Birth of a Legend series, our goals were to achieve the following design criteria:
- Balance - must be exactly in the centre to achieve perfect face balance.
- Head Weight – 340 to 350 grams including the adjustable hosel.
- The specific gravity required to achieve the above weight at our design dimensions determines we must use stainless steel as the production material.
- Loft 3°
- Shaft perpendicular to the body (ignoring the face loft) and set to 1 degree more than R&A and USGA rule appendix II 1.d
- Vertical moment of inertia to achieve maximum top spin roll.
- CNC Milled Polymer face insert to R&A and USGA compression specifications.
- Hosel must connect exactly in the centre of the face so the shaft is directly in line with the impact point.
- One model for both Left and Right hand golfers
We are really delighted with the excellent job the team at our product development and production partners did to create such a fine product.
Hopefully, these 3 articles produced over the last few months will give you a much better insight into what goes into the design, tooling and production of today’s up-market golf equipment. You might even think twice before kicking the salesman for a discount!
The following article explains the best kept secret in golf. Shhhhh!
Any time the club face (score lines) of a golf club are not square to the target i.e. the toe is up or down at impact, the ball will fly to the left or right of target. This effect is magnified as the loft increases. Therefore, if we could hit a club with 0 degrees loft we would not see any directional deviation, regardless of how much lie angle error is present. Contrary, a pitching wedge with say 48 degrees of loft will show significant deviation.
 |  |
Incorrect Lie
Ball hit left of target | Correct Lie
Ball hit straight at target |
Now, most golfers think their putter has a flat face. Believe it or not, putters normally have a loft angle of 3, 4, or even 5 degrees - for this exercise we will assume we are using a putter with 4 degrees loft.
Let's say our golfer's putter sits with its toe ¼" or 6.5 mm in the air - that means the putter head is at an angle of 10 degrees toe up from horizontal. With me so far? OK, so what?
Well, let's look at a 6-footer on a very flat and true green; the nap is running with us so we don't have to allow for any borrow, just a dead straight putt!
Our golfer sets his putter exactly square to the target and, with a smooth and perfect technique, strokes the ball at the target. Missed! The ball misses on the low (left) side of the hole. How could this happen? Everything was absolutely perfect wasn't it? This time the golfer CAN blame his tools - the fault lies with his putter. And here's why:
We already established our golfer's putter had a loft of 4 degrees and was sitting 10 degrees toe up at address. Each degree toe up we rotate the face of a club with a loft angle of 4 degrees we change the direction by approximately 4mm per metre the ball travels. Therefore, the ball on our 6-footer (2 metres) moved 80mm, or 3", to the left over the length of this putt.
4mm x 2 metres = 8mm x 10 (deg) = 80mm (3")
If our golfer had aimed exactly for the centre of the hole which is 4¼" or 108mm in diameter, this putt would have missed the hole by 1".
So, the secret is out. You now know why you always miss on the low side! Just don't tell everyone, Shhhhh!
Better get that flat stick flat!
(All the above figures quoted here are rounded to make things easier.)
Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru has an interesting review of the Elmer M1 on his blog: Hooked on Golf. It includes a series of informative images and videos showing the M1 in action.
The Making of the Elmer M2 Putter
Here in the 2nd part of this article, we explain the process of taking the brass master and turning it into a stainless steel putter.
In my last post, we left off at the point where the brass master had just been machined and finished. As explained, this master is machined a few percent oversize to allow for some shrinkage in a future part of the process.
Body master and hosel master
We now have to produce the actual production tools for the body and hosel. These tools are machined on a piece of equipment called a copy mill. The copy mill uses a laser to scan the master and machines the scanned image in two parts (top & bottom) into a block of metal called the die. The two parts of the die fit together and have a perfect machined female of the M2 Putter inside.
The next part of the process is to inject the die with molten wax. Once cooled, the die is separated into its two parts and a wax M2 putter is removed. This wax is +/- 3% smaller than the mould in the die.
A wax M2 body and hosel. I can see a few of our readers asking the obvious - what on earth is the need for a wax putter and what is the big lump sticking out of the M2’s underneath for?
Answers: The wax is waiting for its ceramic overcoat and the big lump is the branch of a tree!
Hmmm, I think I better explain this in a little more detail!
The waxes are arranged onto a pre-formed body of wax called a ‘trunk’ - this enables several putters to be produced at a time.
Wax bodies (left) and hosels (right) assembled on their trunks
The next part of the process is to coat the wax trees with ceramic. This is achieved by dipping the whole trunk into liquid ceramic and allowing it to dry in a special temperature and humidity controlled room over a 24 hour period. This dipping process is repeated 4 or 5 times.
Hosels (left) during, and bodies (right) after, ceramic coating
We now have some M2 bodies and hosels covered in ceramic. The first coat was a very fine grain ceramic and subsequent coats were progressively coarser. The fine grain first coat is to ensure the M2 has a hard, smooth and very fine detailed finish. The next part of the process is to fire the ceramic - in the same way pottery is fired to strengthen it and to make it tolerate high temperatures. The complete tree is placed in a furnace with the funnel shape at the bottom and the wax that is still inside the ceramic tree melts as the temperature rises and the molten wax pours out of the funnel.
Hosel 'tree' with funnel underneath after the firing process
The inside of each tree is now a ceramic female of the wax that has melted out. The waxes were produced in the die which featured all the small detail and lettering that were present on the brass master so this detail is now moulded in.
The next part of the process is to pour stainless steel into the tree through the funnel. The room where the steel is melted is occupied by workers that look more like astronauts, due to the special heat resistant protective clothing and headgear they must wear. They told me the temperature in the room would melt the plastic parts of a camera so I don’t have any pictures of this procedure!
However, the stainless steel (formulated to 431 grade) for the M2 Putter is heated to a molten temperature of 1600 degrees and poured into the tree. The tree then takes about 4 hours to cool before it can be handled. Once cooled, the ceramic is smashed (read carefully chiselled!) off the stainless steel parts. These parts, known as AC (As Cast), are placed in another small furnace for 4 hours at a special temperature to anneal and remove the brittleness from the metal.
Rough Cast M2 Body (left), Hosel (centre) and Annealing Cabinet Furnace (right)
The AC parts then go off to the finishing plant where they undergo various treatments. The following pictures show various stages of the finishing process including Sandblasting, Masking, Painting and the Paint Baking Oven.
Sandblasting, Masking, Painting and the Paint Baking Oven
We finally decided to go with a nickel-plated finish on the top, bottom, hosel and back of the M2; with a baked, textured paint finish inside the cavity and a black polymer insert - which will be CNC machined to ensure perfect flatness.
In the next and final post of this article, we will show you the final product and give readers the opportunity to win the very first M2 off the production line.
The Making of the Elmer M2 Putter
You're probably already aware of the Elmer M1 mallet-style putter (if not, have a look at www.elmergolf.com). This product was designed and developed to provide the ultimate in balance, weight adjustment and, most importantly, lie angle adjustment. If you missed the article ‘Why the flat stick MUST be flat', visit http://www.elmergolf.com/articles.htm to understand the importance of this vital putter specification.
Following the launch of the M1 we received many requests to produce a ‘normal' heel toe style putter (some golfers just don't like mallets) incorporating our same patented lie angle adjustment feature. So the idea and specification of the M2 was born. I mentioned to Clinton, the editor of SA Golf Trader, that we were going to produce this new model and he asked if we would be prepared to walk readers through the whole design and production process. So, here goes:-
Following some rough sketches on the back of the proverbial envelope, a 3-dimensional drawing was created allowing us to view the M2 from all angles and make small adjustments to the size and shape to achieve the basic specifications:
- Balance - must be exactly in the centre to achieve perfect face balance.
- Head weight - 340 to 350 grams including the adjustable hosel.
- The specific gravity required to achieve the above weight at our design dimensions determined we must use stainless steel as the production material.
- Shaft had to be perpendicular to the body (ignoring the face loft) and set to 1 degree more than R&A and USGA rules.
- Vertical moment of inertia to achieve maximum top spin roll.
- CNC-milled Polymer face insert compression tested to R&A and USGA specifications.
- Hosel must connect exactly in the centre so the shaft is directly in line with the point of impact.
After much ‘tweaking' the drawing below shows a three dimensional drawing of the finished design.
This and many associated CAD files go off to the toolmakers. The toolmakers utilise the CAD files to produce a Computer Engineered and Machined (CNC) brass master of the design - more about this process later!
Whilst the drawings are ‘winging' their way to the tool makers we start working on the cosmetics as some of these features may need to be incorporated in the ‘brass master'. As always, all those involved have their own ideas as to how the M2 should look. So, after much discussion we decided to get two different cosmetic versions sampled and also get you, ‘the customer' input.
 |  |
Black Nickel plated with CNC machined
White face insert and White lettering. | Satin finished Stainless with CNC machined
Black face insert and Black lettering |
We will give you the chance to vote for your preference and all participants will go into a draw for the first M2 produced!
[This article originally appeared in SA Golf Trader]
Have a look on the Elmer Golf website for details of the just launched fairway woods from Elmer Golf. These three new clubs have some distinct advantages over the competition. They're also available to buy direct from the Elmer Golf online shop for R995, including free shipping anywhere in the world.
Come and see the Elmer M1 Putter in action at the Festival of Golf which runs from 23-25 February at the Vodacom World of Golf in Woodmead, Johannesburg.
This just in. Some glowing praise from one Peter Quantrill of Kloof:
"I purchased the Elmer M1 putter some five months ago. I have to add that I am considered a very average putter at Kloof Country Club, and play golf off a handicap of 15. I have enjoyed over the past twenty years a variety of putters. My problem has been that no matter how hard I try, my swing is outside-in, resulting in an average of two or more three-putts per round. "Since acquiring your putter, which is set-up with maximum weights and a low shaft angle, somehow or other, my swing take-away has been on an inside line.It is incredible how the ball keeps on the intended line of putt. Whereas before I was normally short of the hole, I am now either in or just past.
My handicap incidentally has dropped from 15 to 11 and to this I attribute your putter. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Once again thank you for bringing the pleasure back to golf."
If you have had similar experiences with your M1, we'd love to hear from you. Post a comment here or drop us an email on
info@elmergolf.com.
We have recently updated our website to include more information on the M1 Putter. Have a look at
www.elmergolf.com.