FIELDREPORT Blue streak
Nike’s new Fly range for 2016 is based around the concept of increased distance through higher launch. The brand’s global product line manager for clubs, Matt Plumb, explains the products to Duncan Lennard, and the engineering that has created them.
was draped in, you’d better hope they like blue. Or to be precise, Photo Blue. Across the $30bn
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Nike empire, the colour has been chosen as its official ‘Road to Rio’ hue. That means we’ll be seeing quite a bit of it for the foreseeable future, starting with the shamelessly cyan crowns of the brand’s new Fly drivers. “As a brand we clearly don’t shy away from the
polarising effect of colour,” says Matt Plumb, global product line manager for clubs. “We want our products to talk to people who like that sort of stuff. But in the run-up to the Olympics there will be greater connection across the brand, including football and track and field, and of course this year golf is very much part of that.” Aside from the cosmetics, 2016’s Fly range was
Vapor Fly Driver
inspired by a meeting with Nike staffer Rory McIlroy at the back end of 2014. “Rory had just won two majors, and was hands-down the best driver of the golf ball on the planet,” Plumb recalls. “He loved the Covert 2.0 he had been using, but we brought some new ideas and some prototypes, which he tried out. The new drivers gave him launch increases of 1.5-2º and distance gains of between seven and ten yards. This gave us the impetus to press on with an entire range based on increased distance through higher launch.” According to Plumb, a key engineering tweak to
those driver prototypes was a crown that weighed some 30 percent less than existing models. “We achieved that through something called FEA, which stands for Finite Element Analysis. This is technology that simulates impact and looks at areas of the club that are stressed and ones that aren’t. So we were able to isolate areas of low stress and scrape and thin the walls out of them. There are low- stress areas on the crown, and that’s how we were able to save weight.” A lower centre of gravity is an age-old driver
Vapor Flex Driver 26 SGBGOLF
theme, but Plumb describes it as a line, coming out of the clubface at an angle. “When impact occurs above that line, the collision with the ball adds loſt to the face; when impact is below the line, it deloſts the face, producing that thin, spinny drive that goes nowhere. “So the more clubface we can get above that line,
the better. By thinning the crown and other low- stress areas of the head, we were able both to lower the angle on which the CG protrudes, and increase the vertical footprint of the driver. Both of those encourage extra loſt and launch at impact, and consequently more yards.” While the engineering is fresh, the three new
drivers for 2016 are clear evolutions of the 2015 Vapor trio. Fly replaces Speed, Fly Pro replaces Pro and Flex 440 replaces Flex. “Vapor Fly is our highest-launching, lowest spinning driver,”
Plumb explains. “It’s for the majority of people who will tend to create a steeper attack angle that produces lower launch with more spin. It is used by the likes of Paul Casey and our new signing, Brooks Koepka. “The Vapor Fly Pro, used by Rory, is more for the
player who already hits it fairly high, and the Flex 440 is our most aggressive driver in terms of being lower-launching. We appreciate all golfers prefer certain launch windows – they expect to see the ball at a certain height in a certain position – and our three drivers cater for that.” All drivers offer independent loſt (8.5-12.5º) and lie
adjustability (neutral, leſt, right) and re-engineered compression channels. But of the three, the most intriguing is the Flex 440, for while the other two are craſted from titanium, Flex 440 is 60% RZN. This polymer, created with Nike’s material-engineering partner DuPont, first appeared in the core of 2011’s 20XI and One balls, and went on to form the inserts for the brand’s Method Matter putters. Now the material has found its way into drivers. “RZN has become like the Air technology we use
in our shoes, a technology platform we can apply in different ways,” Plumb argues. “It can be as a lightweight structural element, as in the driver, as a
f your customers have been turning down Nike product for the last few years because they didn’t like the Covert red or lime green Volt it
Vapor Flex Driver
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