Clubbing with Vosh - Epsiode 1: Mizuno M-Craft Putters

Mizuno is releasing their new line of M-Craft putters tomorrow, marking the first time they've introduced a putter to the U.S. market in over a decade. 

 

Three different models forged from premium 1025 mild carbon steel are available in three stunning finishes.  And I sat down with Mizuno Product Manager Chris Voshall at the PGA Show last month to talk about the M-Craft and Mizuno's entire 2020 line-up. 

Vosh is a fascinating dude.  He's been with Mizuno for 15 years, designing and engineering numerous golf clubs.  He's been instrumental in evolving Mizuno's reputation as a leader in club fitting.  And most recently Vosh has also taken on the responsibilities of marketing the Mizuno story. 

 

Speaking with Vosh you immediately see his wheels are always turning.  In fact, you know how a young child's world is full of new games to play, new foods to taste, new people to meet, and new concepts to master?  Well this is basically Vosh.  Except he also brings with him a bottomless knowledge of golf equipment design, and a relentless passion to make the best clubs in the industry for all levels of golfers.

The first thing I noticed about the M-Craft is these putters are pretty much your babies.  It's not a Scotty Cameron Mizuno or a Bettinardi Mizuno.  M-Craft is Mizuno, period.  Why depart from using other designers when these are some big and respected names in the putter industry? 

Our strategy with putters previously had been let's pick a designer and go down that path, and it was really whatever they were doing.  So as you mentioned we had Scotty Cameron back in the day, we had Bettinardi, and David Mills or TP Mills of course.  The cool thing with David Mills is we were forging the parts he was making his putters from, so there was a connection there.  With Bettinardi he has his own blocks, sourcing, and process in place.  But we wanted to go away from that route where we could use our own technologies to make our own models, utilizing what we do best - which is feel. 

 

So when you say using your own technologies, just as a general example what sort of things are you talking about? 

We wanted to use our own forging process, utilize the 1025 material, and have a classic Mizuno look with precision milling.  Just to design something we could do to get the feel right and performance right on our end. 

What goes in to getting the feel right?  Because I hit these earlier and the M-Craft feel is like, eyes-rolled-in-the-back-of-your-head mouthwatering. 

(Laughing) First off, is forging.  There are no mass market forged putters right now, and if you look at the Golf Digest 2020 Hot List there's not a forged putter on that list in any category other than ours.  But forging is going to help the putter feel soft and have long continuous vibrations.  Then there's also the material.  1025 is a super soft material.  We tested different materials, and ultimately 1025 is what we use, we know the benefits of that material, and it's one we understand best.  

 

There's also a very pleasant sound element to the M-Craft, and it sort of blends with the feel to make it incredibly satisfying at impact.  How do you decide what sound blends or works best with the feel (for lack of better words)? 

The geometry itself.  When we do any design (whether it's an iron or wood or putter) we simulate in 3D how it's going to vibrate, and ultimately that vibration leads to the frequency or audible thing that you hear, and we want to dial in specific frequencies for you to hear.  So the actual design, including where its reinforced, the thicknesses of topline, thicknesses of the pads, thicknesses of face are all dialed in to hit specific frequencies.  Sound engineering is a huge part of everything we do.  

Putter faces have all different kinds of milling patterns.  How would you describe the M-Craft milling and what are a few benefits of it? 

The face milling itself (if you rub your finer nail across it) is very aggressive.  And there are two benefits to that.  One being to ensure it's perfectly flat for a true roll over the entire face.  And second, it minimizes the contact area.  If you minimize contact area, you minimize that portion of the head that's receiving the blow.  And that actually dampens the vibration and also makes it a little bit softer as well. 

 

If we can circle back to feel for a second, another cool thing I like about the M-Craft is the feeling of the swing itself.  It's like there's an effortless rhythm when you take them back and through. 

They're very well balanced.  You see a lot of putters where head weights and shaft weights and grip weights are funky, like really light shafts and heavier heads.  And ultimately (depending on how you take it away) that can mean less control with the putter not driving the movement.  So we wanted an overall pretty heavy weight, starting with 255 grams, 130 grams in the shaft, and 60-something grams in the grip to get momentum going and encourage a very smooth and repeatable stroke. 

The sole weights also extend that range of balance for golfers wanting a more personalized feel, right? 

Absolutely.  We wanted to give options, and on top of that we are so into fitting.  In our irons we have multiple head weights forged at different thicknesses, so on the putter side we also wanted to give fitting capabilities.   All the putters come with a weight kit including two 8 gram weights (that's the 355 gram headweight), two 3 gram weights, and two 13 gram weights.  So you can go down 10, up 10, and can even put a heavy one in the toe and light one in the heel to adjust toe hang so it can be self-fit. 

 

Wrap it up with the simplest question, what's the story on the M-Craft name? 

The M-Craft name comes from craftsmanship.  Looking at the head shapes themselves, these are three pretty traditional styles.  Almost like we wanted to make the musclebacks of putters.  So nothing too funky with a small mallet, anser style, and small squareback.  But definitely going for the craftsmanship of a boutique putter. 

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Mizuno has long been renown as an irons company, but recent years have shown they're really a full bag company.  

Like they do with their irons, Mizuno's drivers, woods, and putters are engineered with the highest quality materials using performance driven technologies and innovation to benefit everyone from highest handicap golfer to the Tour player.  Simply put, quality, craftsmanship, and performance is built into Mizuno's DNA.

I'll have more about the new 2020 Mizuno ST200 line of woods in my next episode of Clubbing with Vosh, dropping sometime next week.