A topic that came up recently on the Golf Monthly Kick Point Gear podcast is that of hot melt, which begs the question… what is hot melt and how does it affect the performance of golf clubs?
Put simply, hot melt is a heated glue typically placed inside a hollow club head, primarily drivers, fairway woods and hybrids. Hot melt is the modern replacement for lead tape, which was previously used by tour pros (and still is occasionally) in previous years to change the weight distribution on the club head as well as the sound and feel characteristics.
WHAT IS HOT MELT USED FOR?
There are two main uses for hot melt with modern golf equipment and the first is to alter weight distribution in the head, which changes the CG (Center of Gravity).
It’s worth noting that given the advancement of golf equipment and the number of drivers and fairway woods we can purchase with adjustable weights on the head, using hot melt for changing the weight of a clubhead is not as prevalent now as it was two decades ago.
Players in the past would often use lead tape on their clubs to change the weight of the head to their liking. For example – if a player was missing to the right with his or her driver, they may have added lead tape to the heel portion of the club head for a more dynamic closure of the face as it reaches impact.
Lead tape is still widely used on putters in particular, but a lot less so on drivers and other fairway metals. This is largely because lead tape isn’t the prettiest look on the sole – but also because of the emergence of hot melt.
An example of a hot melt glue gun
(Image credit: Future)
The second main use for hot melt is to alter the acoustics. What is the point of a shiny new driver if it sounds like you’re smashing a golf ball off a frying pan every time you hit it?
Hot melt, once inserted inside the head of a driver or fairway wood, can be used to significantly change the acoustics of the club at impact with the golf ball, generally dampening vibration and muting the sound somewhat.
As mentioned by our own equipment expert Joe Ferguson on the first episode of the Kick Point podcast, numerous tour pros use hot melt to fine tune how their clubs sound at impact.
Joe highlighted one tour player who used the Ping G425 driver with extensive hot melt in the head for the sole purpose of changing the loud, high-pitched noise the driver produced into something more subtle.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF HOT MELT
Using hot melt allows players to make those little tweaks to their clubs that can make all the difference from a psychological point of view.
Hot melt can be used in such small amounts, too, meaning those players who need the smallest weight adjustments can do so without adding a clunky, ugly-looking strip of lead tape to the bottom of the club head.
As mentioned, those little tweaks can include changing the acoustics of the golf club, with hot melt being used to subtly dampen the noise at impact. This is a common practice in the makings of modern clubs by equipment manufacturers today.
WHAT ARE THE RISKS OF USING HOT MELT?
Given it’s a hot glue being poured into the hollow head of a golf club, if a player does not like the adjustments the melt has made it can be difficult to reverse such tweaks. Joe mentions on the podcast that the only way to remove hot melt from a club face is to “heat the club head to within an inch of its life” so the hardened glue can softly and drop out of the head. Once the hot melt is in the head, whether you’ve put too much in or it’s in the wrong place, it’s a difficult procedure to remove the melt.