5 Questions with GolfSpy T

Fresh off our interview with GolfSpy X, the 5 Questions team (the MyGolfSpy Forum Managers) is back with 5 Questions for GolfSpy T. For those of you who don’t know, T (real name Tony Covey) is employee #2 at MyGolfSpy. He’s the guy who, in addition to overseeing most of MyGolfSpy’s club testing, also produces the majority of content for the site.

Here’s your chance to get to know him a little bit better.

By all means, if you have any questions of your own, don’t hesitate to ask.

5 Questions: How did you get started in golf journalism and for MGS? Is it difficult to stay in good standing with the OEMs while remaining honest about their products?

GolfSpy T: I think you’re cheating a bit here, Theoo. That’s definitely two questions. I was told I’d only have to answer 5. Anyway…

I still can’t believe I am in golf journalism and that the industry as a whole largely treats me like I belong here.

My journey to wherever the hell I am now started with an idea for a better way to review clubs. It seems crazy now, but 4-5…however many years ago it was, the idea of using launch monitor data instead of just a pair of eyeballs as the basis for a club review was revolutionary.

I took the idea to GolfSpyX. We had never met, and I was just a casual reader at best, but given what everyone else in what used to be called the blogosphere was already doing (mostly eyeballin’ it on a lot of gear reviews), MyGolfSpy, with it’s fairly limited number of club reviews, seemed like my best opportunity.

I emailed Colt (GolfSpy X) and laid out the idea. He called me a couple hours later, and after some back and forth about how it could actually work, we had a plan for a golf club review system.

The plan was never for me to be a writer or journalist or, dare I say it…a member of the golf media, but after I flew off the handle about TaylorMade’s RocketBallz Fairway press release (which was originally written as forum content), we started to realize that I had a particular knack for stirring the pot and telling stories in a way that’s unique and entertaining…at least by golf industry standards.

The rest, as you know, is history.

As for that 2nd question you snuck in there…

Yeah, absolutely it’s difficult to remain on the nice list. I think most of my direct contacts, especially the ones who have taken the time to get to know me over the last 4 or so years, understand my approach to how I write my stories. At that level, most are willing to take the good with the bad, and most understand there’s no negative bias, and no agenda; it’s simply what I think about the product or industry news item du jour.

The reality is, however, that most of the people I work with have bosses, and once we’re making waves inside the executive wing, the perception of MyGolfSpy can vary from day to day. We do sometimes encounter a what have you done for me lately kind of mindset…and if lately what we’ve done has been less than complimentary, or involves a spy pic that wasn’t supposed to be released then some become instantly reticent to work with us.

In many respects, I’m only as good as my last story.

I will say that some companies are better than others when it comes to accepting criticism. I always single out Nike for being exceptional in this regard. While I’ve written some very positive things about Nike Golf over the last few years, I’ve also written some things that some readers, and no doubt some inside Nike would categorize as negative. At no point has Nike shutdown communication, withheld equipment or refused to work with us in any other capacity. As a company, it takes the good with the bad, and always wears big boy pants.

I think much of how a company responds to media criticism is a reflection of leadership. I won’t say much more about that piece of it, but I also understand that I work in an industry where the media’s role has traditionally been to report the facts as dictated by the people who created them. That’s not how I do things, and that doesn’t always go over well.

I should also add that the same is true for some readers as well. I think for the most part guys who have been here since I started spouting off have seen the ebb and flow, and mostly understand that while I do have an opinion, there’s no bias one way or another.

I’ve written positive things about nearly every golf company. I’ve written negative things about nearly every golf company, and along the way I’ve been accused by my readers of being in bed with everyone and hating everyone…sometimes in response to the same article.

For whatever reason some golfers form deep personal connections with the brands they play, and so a Callaway article with a negative tone must mean I hate Callaway, while a TaylorMade article with a positive tone must mean I’ve sold out. At the end of the day we’re talking about brands, not people, and quite frankly I don’t think any of us should be that personally invested in somebody else’s logo.

The point is that, for some readers as well, I’m only as good as that last article.

And while I’m on the subject…

You really want to see all hell break lose? Write an opinion-based article that contains the following two words:

Tiger Woods

I’m not sure they even need to be in that order.

Readers choose sides, assume a bias, make accusations.

Somebody will call you a racist. Every time.

So as long as we’re still talking about it, once upon a time that was my biggest complaint as a writer trying to give my readers real information presented in an entertaining way.

It’s a frequent occurrence that someone who has never met me, knows nothing about me, and less about what really goes on in the golf industry or how this site works would make assumptions and accusations about my motivations for stating an opinion.

Minuscule differences of opinion that would result in rational conversations in the real world are reduced to vitriolic nonsense online. Some people are crazy. I honestly don’t know how they survive in the offline part of society. I guess maybe being an online ignorant tough-guy jackass is a form of therapy. In which case, get well soon, guys.

While I still find it off-putting as far as what it says about the state of humanity, it doesn’t get to me on a personal level anymore.

You learn to ignore ignorant people with oversized pieholes, and truly appreciate the guys who can rationally and articulately disagree as gentlemen.

The upside is that it’s made me more aware of my own words, and I’m better at my job because of it. So yeah…let’s call that a word of thanks to the haters.

Sorry, what were we talking about?

5 Questions: You’re a pretty big gearhead, is low & forward CG the solution? Which OEM do you think is on the right track to offering the best equipment for golfers?

GolfSpy T: You’re cheating again. Once again, that’s two questions. At this rate, you probably should have called this 10 questions with GolfSpy T, but I digress…again.

I’m not sure low/forward is THE solution, but it is a solution. Low back (G30) is a solution too. And there are good solutions in the middle. Almost everybody benefits from low…you probably want low. Forward vs. back…that’s much less cut and dry.

As golfing consumers it’s our responsibility to know what we want to achieve through our equipment, what compromises we’re willing to make, and then find the club (in this case the driver) that does the best job of meeting our individual requirements.

I find it absolutely infuriating when otherwise reputable fitters says things like I would never let a guy walk out of my shop launching at 17° and 1700 RPM?

Why not? If the customer wants to maximize distance, and understands that there will be a forgiveness loss because of it, then fine. Leaving what most golfers can practically achieve out of the discussion for a moment; You’ve got a guy who can get to 17°/1700 and you won’t let him walk out of the shop? As a consumer, if I knew that, I wouldn’t ever walk into your shop.

Woah…epic T tangent there. Anyway, the point is that golfers need to understand that a R15 is very different from a G30. There are tradeoffs inherent to both designs (and every other design in-between). Do you want maximum distance, maximum forgiveness, or do you want to be somewhere in the middle?

Do we have time to talk about why CG matters? Probably not….

We’ll talk about the rest of the bag some other time, but when it comes to irons my personal philosophy is much less complex; play the most forgiving iron you can stand to look at. Put the right shaft in it, build it to a playable (and comfortable) length, and get your lie angles right. Boom. Done.

All this stuff about blades and workability is proven nonsense. There’s no gear effect with irons, and curvature (the working part), is mandated solely by the relationship between face and path at impact, not because of some Harry Potter magic sprinkled into irons with more compact heads.

Sure, some us need what are classified as less forgiving designs because we can’t get the launch conditions right with SGI or even GI clubs, but the best players in the world are slowly moving to more forgiving designs and yet 15 handicaps are still buying blades and compact CBs. It doesn’t make any damn sense.

As for who is on the right track…I think all of the brands have strengths and weaknesses on both the product and marketing sides of their business.

I love what Cobra is doing with metalwoods this year. I love that TaylorMade has committed to something (low/forward) that runs contrary to what the rest of the industry is doing. It’s a renegade position, and that’s where they’re at their best. It sure beats the hell out of puppets. I love that Mizuno always makes a great iron for every ability level. I love that Titleist suddenly looks innovative again, and I love while other companies are only now starting to put the golfer at the heart of every decision and every product, PING hasn’t really known any other way.

But right vs wrong…that’s simply a matter of perception. Anybody who matters in the equipment industry is making better stuff than they were 10, 5, even 2 years ago. Yes, it’s true that revolutionary products are few and far between, but everyone is evolving for the better.

5 Questions: What is something you feel is wrong with the industry today and how would you change it?

GolfSpy T: How much time do we have?

In general, I think the industry needs to move out of the dark ages. I talked about this when I answered question 1B. The consumer deserves real industry coverage, and the outlets that act responsibly in providing that; good or bad, they shouldn’t have to live under the constant threat of being put in metaphorical timeout.

The world has changed around the golf industry, and while golf companies are quick to point out how they’re on the leading edge of technology, the coverage expectations are positively archaic. If the golf industry is going to hammer its nebulous brand of innovation and technology down our throats, then it probably should embrace innovative media to the extent that other tech industries have.

Since you’re asking more questions than you were allotted, I’m going to give you an extra answer (how do you like them apples?).

Where golf companies really fall short is in explaining their technologies to the consumer. They rely on guys like me, and the reality is, most media outlets don’t have the page space to dig deeper (gotta save room for the ads). The end result is that actual technological advances, and at a minimum technologies that differentiate one brand from the next get watered down into what are largely meaningless marketing taglines.

Loft Up …ok, but why?

There’s a legitimate, no bullshit reason why, and I’m guessing most of you reading this…even if you own a SLDR have no idea what it is. I use TaylorMade as the example, but it’s equally true for most everyone designing and marketing golf clubs.

I will say that while I don’t always love the format (still a bit too marketing driven, IMO), Callaway is making a real effort to get their tech stories out to the golfers that want those details. They deserve plenty of credit for that.

So I guess my point in all of this is that golf companies need to do a better job explaining the actual technology (what it is, and why it’s different), but at the same time, the consumer needs to do a better job of asking…hell, demanding the explanation. Until we as golfers do that, the industry won’t have any reason to move past longer(-IER), faster, farther, etc. etc..

5 Questions: Datacratic is a big movement with MGS; what numbers should a consumer be most concerned with and which aren’t going to have a noticeable impact on their games?

GolfSpy T: It’s true that we tend to obsess over numbers. When we test especially, I think the process is much more controlled and analytical than some people give us credit for, but the reality is the average guy probably has never hit a golf ball with a launch monitor anywhere in his vicinity.

So while we can talk about the importance of ball speed, launch angle, and spin rate, or how there’s more distance to be gained through a lesson (fixing path and angle of attack issues), for most golfers – even most competitive golfers – the only number that will ever really matter is the score.

I’m not sure helping a guy drop driver spin by 200 RPM is all that impactful in the big picture, so I think most of us would do well to focus on ONE…1 more fairway, 1 more green, 1 more par. Properly tuned equipment can help, but golfers still need to work to improve…one stroke at a time.

I’d also add that sometimes we lose track of the fact that golf is a game and games are supposed to be fun. That aspect of golf is harder to quantify with our datacratic approach, but there’s probably something to be said for measuring success by the hours spent and friendships made on the course, and if you’d like, the number of beers consumed afterwards.

5 Questions:With so much tech being put into clubs nowadays which do you think is the better choice; game improvement or play what makes you feel good?

GolfSpy T: Is that some kind of trick question? I think that if you keep score, how good you feel is often a reflection of the number you write down.

If that’s the case, I can’t make a rational argument against game-improvement irons. Wedges…there’s so much feel involved…different strokes for different folks for sure.

The driver becomes almost philosophical. As I discussed before, it’s distance vs. accuracy vs. consistency. Where, and how much are you willing to compromise? The prevailing wisdom is that accuracy is the most important, but the numbers in Mark Broadie’s Every Shot Counts makes a strong argument for sacrificing a bit of accuracy for more distance.

I’m sure there’s data to support both sides of the distance vs. accuracy debate, but I’m not sure there’s a definitive, universal right or wrong answer.

What’s the right approach for you? That’s the only thing that actually matters.

5 Questions: And there you have it folks, 5 7 questions with Golfspy T. As with before don’t be afraid to ask anything I didn’t.