Tri-State University’s golf club design, repair, and fitting class pitted old against new in a technology test designed to gauge performance versus hype in a class experiment Feb. 21 and 22.

Bill San Giacomo, head men’s golf coach and TSU’s golf management program director, set up an experiment in which students took 10 swings with a 1968 driver with wooden head and steel shaft while special software measured the club’s head speed, the drive’s approximated distance, and the accuracy of the shot.

The next day, they took 10 strokes with modern-day clubs from such makers as Nike, Cobra, and Calloway. “The modern club makers contend their clubs increase these three factors, so the kids are hitting with their high-tech clubs to compare,” San Giacomo said.

Not surprisingly, when senior Clint Miller, varsity golf team captain, picked up the modern club, he gained 40 yards in distance and 30 mph on his drive speed with the up-to-date product.

It’s all part of the hands-on aspect of the course, San Giacomo said. After learning some history on the courses, clubs, players, and equipment of golf, students learn club specs and how to build, adjust, and change them. Finally, they learn personalized fitting by analyzing a player’s swing.

“They have practice shafts and club heads, and they learn to use all the equipment,” he said. “Our program is defined by hands-on stuff. We perform every operation of building a club—we change the shafts, grip, loft and lie, we shorten and lengthen them and see what happens to the playability. And they fit each other for clubs. I get good reports on the kids that are hired, because they have training, information, and experience.”