Author: Erik J. Barzeski

TaylorMade Penta TP Ball Review

The Penta TP the world’s first five-piece golf ball. And you thought Gillette would never have anything in common with Taylormade…

Penta TP OutsideTaylorMade can’t be accused of shying away from technology. If anything, the company behind “MWT” and “FCT” and countless other technology acronyms is one of the most technologically adventurous around.

With the Penta TP, TaylorMade has moved the golf ball into new territory: the Gillette razor blade land of “more is better.” In shaving equipment, it’s the number of blades. In golf equipment, it’s the number of layers.

Joking aside, the buzz around the Penta TP has been tremendous since the ball was given to pros late in 2009. Can one ball – albeit one with five layers – really fit everyone? From the guy who is happy to reach the occasional par four in two to the guys who routinely reach par fives in two on our televisions each weekend?

Let’s find out.

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aboutGolf and the 3Trak Launch Monitor

aboutGolf is branching out from simulators to launch monitors. We spent a day at aboutGolf HQ and talked with Chuck Winger. See how he feels aboutGolf will compete in both markets.

Throwing DartsAnyone who watches PGA Tour golf on TV enough has seen a launch monitor in action, often describing the launch statistics of a player on a long par five or a tricky par three. Almost anyone who has been fitted with a driver or a new set of irons in the past few years has used a launch monitor to check their statistics before plunking down several hundred dollars.

The biggest name in the launch monitor market these days is TrackMan, with others like Flightscope and Zelocity coming in further back. A relative newcomer to the market is aboutGolf, long known for their simulators, who have developed a camera-based launch monitor they’ve dubbed the 3Trak, ideal for use indoors or out.

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“It’s All About Impact” Book Review

Many of golf’s greats have said that the secret to playing good golf is consistently arriving at impact. This book from Andrew Rice promises to help you with precisely that.

It's All About ImpactAndrew Rice describes himself on his site as a “golf swing junkie.” Unlike amateur golf swing junkies, Andrew has studied under some of golf’s greatest teachers and taught some of the game’s best players.

Originally from South Africa, Rice competed in junior events against Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. He played for University of Central Florida and finished Second Team All-American with Justin Leonard in 1991. He played the mini-tours before getting into instruction at David Leadbetter’s Junior Golf Academy.

Rice currently serves as the Director of Instruction at the prestigious Berkeley Hall in Bluffton, South Carolina. He’s taught PGA Tour players like Nick Price as well as other PGA, European, LPGA, Champions, and Nationwide Tour players.

As a “golf swing junkie,” Andrew has seemingly never been content to take what David Leadbetter or any one person says about the golf swing, and much in the style of Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer, has spent time analyzing the great swings to discern the truth about what works and what doesn’t.

His first book – It’s All About Impact – The Winners of Over 100 Majors Prove It – is the result of such efforts.

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“The Stack and Tilt Swing” Book Review

If you consider yourself a student of the game, you owe it to yourself – and your golf game – to own this book.

Stack and TiltI’ll plainly admit it (and have, a few times, in the forum): when Stack and Tilt first came out in Golf Digest in 2007 I said things like “I don’t know much about it, but it seems like they’re trying to sell it pretty hard and I’ll wait a little while to see if it’s still around in a few years before I really devote much thought to it.” I didn’t look into it, I didn’t seek understanding, and I kept tinkering away at my own “conventional” swing.

Ooops. My bad.

Earlier this year I hooked up with a Stack and Tilt instructor in my hometown – and given that there are only about 20 truly qualified instructors, I am fortunate to have one nearby – and my opinions about Stack and Tilt changed as I gained insight into the swing pattern built by Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer.

Throughout the summer, my instructor applied a few “pieces” of the Stack and Tilt pattern to my golf swing. The more instruction I got the more the information made sense to me, and the closer I got to “full conversion.” Any objections or disinterest I had regarding Stack and Tilt slowly dissolved away in the face of information and consideration.

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Mizuno MP T-10 Wedges Review

Some of the best wedges get even better with the addition of Quad-Cut grooves.

Mizuno MP-T 10 WedgesLate 2009 seems like an odd time to release your most aggressively grooved wedges to date, but that’s just what Mizuno is doing with the MP T-10 wedges. The wedges are similar to the company’s MP-T wedges (reviewed here) but up the ante a bit when it comes to grooves. Mizuno says their new “Quad Cut” technology provides strict control of the width, depth, draft angle, and shoulder radius of every groove.

End result? The biggest grooves and the most spin allowed under the rules.

And really, the end of 2009 is the perfect time to release aggressive wedges. Mizuno has all of 2010 to assemble and sell the clubs, and amateurs like you and I have anywhere from four to fourteen years to play the clubs.

Though I don’t advocate “stocking up” on wedges to “beat” the groove rule changes coming down the pipe, I do advocate stocking up on the latest wedges from Mizuno simply because they’re so good!

I’ve spent a few weeks with the MP T-10s. Read on to see what I think of the latest scoring clubs from Mizuno (if you couldn’t figure it out already).

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PING i15 Irons Review

Freakish forgiveness at the cost of a little feel? To mix my sports metaphors, that sounds right up the alleys of a lot of golfers.

PING i15 HeroI admit that I held out on the hybrid craze longer than made sense. I carried a two-iron in place of a 5-wood or hybrid and would use it from the tee, the fairway, and the rough when the lie was good enough to goad me into going for it.

What’s that have to do with a set of irons? My two-iron was a PING Eye2, and until I tried the i15s, that single club represented the vast majority of my experience with PING irons. Sure, I’d seen how popular the Eye2s were with players in the 90s, but I never liked the look of the excessive high toe weighting, the bulge in the heel, the thicker topline, and the general look and feel. Even that two-iron had a bit too much offset for my taste – I had to watch that I didn’t hook the thing off the planet.

Having played with the i15s for several rounds now, though, it’s obvious to me that while PING has stayed true to their roots (the i15 is immediately recognizable as a PING iron), they’ve made substantive improvements through the years and deserve consideration from a wide variety of players.

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Golf Talk [Episode 129]

A live episode. In other words, you’ll find new appreciation for how much we normally edit. 😉

Golf Talk PodcastWe catch up on Tiger, Phil, Michelle Wie, the PGA Tour (and its first drug test failee), and everything we’ve missed in the past month, and a whole lot more in this episode of Golf Talk.

You can subscribe to the RSS feed for our podcasts here or download Episode 129 as an MP4 file. For those who want to subscribe to us in iTunes, click here.

For this week’s Show Notes – links to articles we discuss in the show and additional information – just read on.

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Tiger, You’ve Crossed the Line

Once is a mistake. Any more than that and it’s a pattern, buddy.

Thrash TalkAustralia wisely invested $3M to lure Tiger Woods to the JBWere Masters, and they were treated to nothing less than Tiger’s best effort in a two-shot victory.

Fortunately for Tiger and those same Australians, nobody was treated for an injury caused by a flying Nike driver, which only moments earlier had let the world’s best golfer down with a poor tee shot on the thirteenth hole Saturday.

I’ve excused Tiger’s verbal outbursts in the past. Ben wrote an article about them and largely supported Tiger as well. I continue not to care about Tiger’s verbal outbursts, and will point out that he seems to have improved both in volume and content in recent years.

But tossing a club into a crowd of people? Well, now, that’s well across the line.

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Sneak Peek at Sun Mountain’s Upcoming Micro E Cart

Some YouTube footage of Sun Mountain’s Micro E Cart.

We liked Sun Mountain’s Speed E Cart. We liked their Micro Cart too. So – and I’m going out on a limb here, I know – it stands to reason we might very well like this upcoming Micro E Cart when it comes to market.

Have a look:

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