How does the DIVNICK™ compare to other adjustable golf clubs currently on the market?

The "All-In-One" adjustable is our club, but marketed by one of our distributors under their tradename of All-In-One. In other words, we supply clubs to them. They are exactly the same, but more expensive from them due to early agreements.

We also supply our club to Hammacher Schlemmer if you happen to have seen it in one of their catalogs or airline skymalls.

Separate Heads, or Multiple Adjustable or Telescopic Club Sets

Over the years, various companies have offered different ways to achieve portability. Several companies have had one shaft with a bag of 14 different heads. You can imagine how time-consuming that was to change heads on the course, and the bag was nearly as heavy as a normal bag. Not much advantage there.

Others have offered a reduced number of clubs with 2 or 3 lofts each such as the one shown in this section. However, these sets normally cost hundreds of dollars and you still have to lay down the clubs you are not using when you make your shot. So the rest of this page will focus on single clubs with adjustability.

Direct Copies

A few years after we introduced our Whole-In-One, a mail-order company made a direct copy. In fact, they made their molds right off of our club...didn't even try to change the look. A couple others have followed...

However, these clubs did not include several of the most important features of the Divnick such as the half-loft transmission and the telescopic shaft, and were not a significant threat to our proprietary design.

Telescopic Shafts: All other clubs with telescopic shafts use a .375" tip-diameter iron shaft that is cut into two sections. So they collapse down to only about 28" in length and are very stiff. Remember, when you overlap a few inches of shaft sections, it stiffens up the shaft dramatically. So the 4-iron head-weight that they copied, ends up on a super-stiff shaft that yields unrewarding shots. We designed our head to fit on a .335" tip-diameter driver shaft. Ordinarily, if it was a one-piece shaft, that would be too flexible. But we cut the shaft into 3 sections with 2 overlapping portions. Not only does that collapse down to a shorter 18" length which is much more convenient for travel, the overlapping sections stiffen it back up to a normal 4-iron flex which produces a rock-solid shaft, majestic shots, and a great feel. We also include a short proprietary carbon steel inner shaft that strengthens the tip.

Lofts: Most other adjustable clubs have only had odd lofts (3, 5 ,7, 9) because they do not have a "ring gear" transmission which is quite a bit more expensive to make. Also, they mold their heads out of 300-series stainless which is not tough enough for the number of teeth necessary for a transmission, while ours is 17-4 stainless...a more expensive and more rugged material.

Lever: Some others have used levers that are chrome-plated plastic. Because plastic flexes, the chrome is vulnerable to flaking, so it is not a good engineering option. It also adds weight to the heel area where it is best to keep it light. Our lever is glass-filled nylon, which is designed for the automotive industry in various high-heat and strength environments, so it is very rugged. The lever is pressed over a grade 8 nut, so the lever is only providing a little leverage for tightening. The nut provides the actual locking.

Collapsing

The Divnick uses a proprietary machined stainless steel collapsing cap that is pressed onto the end of the shaft. As shown in the accompanying picture, a portion of it extends up through an enlarged hole in the end of the grip. So the impact from striking it on a hard surface during the collapsing process (see instructions) is transferred directly into the shaft to make collapsing very easy.

Other clubs do not use a collapsing cap so the soft end of the grip cushions the impact and absorbs the force making it very difficult to collapse their shaft. It also tends to make the club "bounce" back up which can cause injury, or "cookie-cut" through the end of the grip after only a few collapsing attempts.

Center of Gravity

The prior patents had their gear mechanism high and on the back of the head. The reason they did this was so that the mechanism would not hit the ground on the steeper lofts. However, in all of the designs, the mechanism would begin to hit the ground on about the 9-iron loft. This forced the bottom leading edge of the face up into the ball rather than allowing it to slide under thereby interfering with ball-contact on all the steeper lofts rendering the short game next to impossible. Also, it resulted in a very high center of gravity. Can you imagine the hand-stinging feel of hitting a club like the one pictured here? We discuss the center of gravity in more detail in our side-by-side photo comparisons linked further down this page.

Super Stick

For a couple of decades prior to our introduction of the DIVNICK™, perhaps the best design was being sold as the "Super Stick". It was strongly-built and replicated the traditional lofts.

Its drawbacks were that it did not have perimeter weighting, the mechanism was high on the back of the head which produced a high center of gravity and caused it to interfere with the ground on steeper lofts, the shaft alignment was behind the head rather than offset in front as with modern clubs, it required a coin to loosen and tighten, had 3 confusing index marks and numbers to line up, and the 2 piece shaft was a stiff .395" diameter that fit over-the-hosel. It could not collapse any shorter than 23" which is too long to fit into a brief case or other small carry-on luggage.

"Universal" or "Walker "

A few years after we came out with the DIVNICK™, the originator of the Super Stick adapted some of our design features on an improved version of their club which they called the "Walker". The name was later changed to the "Universal". We have side-by-side photo comparisons linked later on this page.

We believe the Universal is an improvement over the Super Stick and the best of the other adjustables on the market. But there are still some important weaknesses. It still includes the stiff .395" shaft and 23" closed length. The shaft exposes a critical performance difference. As mentioned above, normal iron shafts are .375" diameter at the tip which is epoxied into a female hosel socket. The Universal uses an extra large .395" tip that fits OVER a male stud which is easier to manufacture. When it is cut to make it telescopic, the overlapping sections result in an even stiffer shaft.

The Divnick's 38.5" model (97.8 cm) is a full 3/4" longer than the Universal. Ours is the length of a modern 4-iron. And you can also order extra long shafts, up to 40" (101.6 cm).

The Universal replicates each of the traditional lofts while ours can be set on twice as many because it includes half-lofts.

We consider the Universal/Walker to be the closest comparison to the DIVNICK™. So the rest of this report will be comparing the DIVNICK™ to the Universal Golf Club.

We have had many customers who have previously purchased a Universal and have offered some direct comparison feedback. In addition to the DIVNICK™ hitting farther and more accurately, which will be discussed below, the most common report is that the DIVNICK™ is much easier to use. The reasons for this will become more evident in the photo comparisons linked below.

Robot Laboratory Comparisons

In October 2002, Golf Laboratories, the premier club performance laboratory in the world compared the DIVNICK™ and the Universal producing 16 pages of graphs and tables. We invited the Universal manufacturer to participate in the tests...sort of a "may the best man win" competition, but they declined. So we purchased one of their clubs and paid for the testing ourselves.

The testing protocol used a robot to hit 30 balls on 3 different lofts of 3 clubs (3-iron, 5-iron, and 9-iron) with 10 balls each on the center, heel, and toe. A second test was done two weeks later on all three lofts with center hits only to validate the first test. The input energy was the same for all swings. Distance, dispersion, and spin-rates were plotted for every shot.

Golflabs reported an early problem with not being able to keep the telescopic Universal shaft from rotating on each hit. They tried two different Universals, and neither one would hold. So the shaft sections were epoxied so that the robot would not need to be reset for each swing.

The Universal and DIVNICK™ were then alternated throughout the testing period to minimize wind or other environmental affects. The only measurable wind gave a slight tail-wind advantage to the Universal while testing their 3-iron.

Distance

Total distance was very similar. The DIVNICK™ hit a couple yards farther. This was expected as there is nothing magic about delivering mass and club-head speed to a ball with the perfect swing of the robot.

Accuracy

The total dispersion (accuracy) shows the DIVNICK™ 38% more accurate! Of the center, heel, and toe comparisons, the largest difference was on toe hits with the DIVNICK™ being 138% more accurate. Since that is where the majority of amateur golfers hit the ball, this gives the DIVNICK™ an extraordinary advantage. This is a result of the design which places much more perimeter weight toward the toe of the DIVNICK™.

The ball spin-rates (rpm) show the distinct advantage of the lower center of gravity of the DIVNICK™. The total center-hit spin rate of all the Universal hits was 16,920 and the DIVNICK™ was 17,920 which is almost a 10% increase. The advantage for the Divnick was even greater with heel-hits at 20% and toe-hits at 23% for a total average of 17% greater spin rates. Of course, higher spin rates result in getting the ball to stop more quickly. The only time it is desirable to reduce spin rates is with a driver.

Summary

Since the goal of hitting irons is to be able to predict the place you want the ball to land and stop, the 38% tighter shot pattern and 17% greater spin rate results in a huge advantage for the Divnick.

Click here for a head-to-head photo comparison of the DIVNICK and the Universal/Walker.

Click here to read testimonies from customers who own both a Universal and a DIVNICK.

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