Words Jo Barnes
Photos Sarah Hartley Photography
He checks the atmospheric conditions of the day, evaluates the lift and loft and works to minimize the drag. But his aerodynamic creation is more at home on the fairway than the runway!
Laird White, Director of Golf at Cedar Hill Golf Course, skillfully and creatively crafts golf clubs, a process that significantly delves into the world of science.
“Physics plays a major role. In fact, many of the golf club engineers come from the aeronautical world,” shares Laird. “There is a lot of aerodynamics in golf and you have to look at factors including wind, drag and optimizing speed and weight.”
Laird has spent years assessing and understanding these kinds of factors while crafting golf clubs and working with golfers. He has earned recognition for coaching and golf club fitting and has worked with the very best including Justin Rose, Vijay Singh, Bernard Langer and Brooke Henderson. There are many factors that can impact a golfer’s results on the course, such as the weight of a golf club or the weather conditions of the day. Whether it’s the speed of the club, the launch angle, the ball speed or the golfer’s swing, it can all be measured and represented in factual data. Laird is an expert on Trackman technology and this has made him invaluable to golf educators and coaches across the country. Trackman tracks such events and provides detailed data metrics. It is a system he uses extensively every day.
“We use Trackman technology here at Cedar Hill. We might be the only municipal golf course that has it. We provide tour quality support to anyone who wants it.”
Likewise, crafting quality golf clubs involves endless measuring and assessments. Each golf club consists of three components. The shaft is the long cylinder. At the top end is the second part, the grip, and the final piece at the other end of the shaft is the head. Designing and putting these parts together involves numerous measurements, each one affecting handling and play. “The raw shaft is where the build process starts. I measure everything, the gram weight of each component, and determine how it will come out,” notes Laird. “I take into account the length and weight progression from one club to the next, the swing weight, the loft of each club and the lie angle.”
Laird’s fluency in the language of golf can make any non-golfer’s head spin! It becomes clearer, though, when he explains that swing weight is how heavy a club feels when swinging it, loft is the angle of clubface relative to the ground, and lie angle is the angle between the shaft and sole of the clubhead. Shafts are cut, grips are applied and finishing touches complete his process. A set of 14 clubs takes time and patience. “It takes about half an hour to build a single club and a set of irons about three hours,” notes Laird.
Since moving to the West Coast in 2018, this dynamic golf enthusiast has been building and customizing golf clubs and working with golfers to make a difference in their golf game outcomes. It is a precise business that has changed overtime with new technology, materials and approaches. “When I first started in this, there were no manuals. It was trial and error,” says Laird. “Now with graphite rather than steel clubs, there is far less fluctuation in tolerance.”
As a teenager, Laird learned to play golf and thoroughly enjoyed taking his golf clubs apart, making adjustments and testing the outcomes. This experience was the beginning of a lifelong career. “At 15 I got a set of golf clubs for my birthday from my grandma and a junior golf membership from my mom and dad,” he relates. “I played lots of sports, but golf challenged me in different ways. I was always trying to adjust my equipment to better fit and support me, and eventually, my skill sets got noticed.”
He went on to serve as Head Teaching Professional at The National Golf Club of Canada, one of the country’s top-ranked courses and became Lead Club Fitter for the well-known Titleist Golf Company. In 2011, he was named the Ontario PGA Coach of the Year for developmental athletes. It was the art of club fitting, the process of designing the best clubs for any individual, that called to Laird and continues to this day. “The equipment is the controllable variable. I can help an athlete to rule things out that can influence, change how they play and affect the outcome,” he comments. “I get my joy from interacting with people; I love what I do!”
Whether it’s helping professional golfers in their quest for the ultimate title or enabling enthusiastic amateurs to finally make par on a hole, for Laird, it’s all about enhancing their system of play, improving their confidence, and helping them play better. As a master of aerodynamics, Laird helps golfers’ dreams take flight.
https://tinyurl.com/3bry94tn
