Category: Bag Drop

Ping has long been one of the top club manufacturers of game-improvement clubs. Their latest innovations continue along this track as they plan to release two new sets of cavity-back irons, the G10 and i10, along with a new addition to the G-series of drivers with the G10 and G10 Draw Drivers. And that’s not all: Ping is also releasing new fairway woods and hybrids to accompany the drivers and irons.

Let’s take a look at Ping’s latest clubs.

Continue reading “Ping Introduces i10 Irons, G10 Series Woods, Irons, and Hybrids”

Titleist, the king of all ball manufacturers, yesterday updated its NXT line of golf balls. While the Pro V1 and Pro V1x line may be the preferred ball among low-handicap golfers, the NXT line is the ball for the masses.

Previously, the NXT line featured two balls: the NXT and the NXT Tour. With the 2007 revisions, the NXT Tour has been updated and the plain-old NXT has been updated and re-christened the NXT Extreme.

Continue reading “Titleist Introduces New NXT Tour and NXT Extreme Golf Balls”

One day I would love to have an extended conversation with somebody who works in an equipment van on the PGA Tour. I’m betting the stories of the tiniest tweaks they are asked to make week in and week out could fill months of Bag Drops.

In the absence of such juicy fodder, however, I’ll continue where we left off last week with some of the things I’ve seen, heard, and read over many years playing the game. None of this may help you break 70 this year, but it may help you explain to your playing companions why you’ve suddenly been able to morph your standard 40 yard blocked banana into a sweet five-yard baby fade.

So here goes…

Continue reading “Golf Club Specs: Little Things that Count, Part Two”

Most golfers are aware of basic club specs when they venture out to buy new sticks or, better still, be fit for them. Shaft flex, lie angle, and perhaps driver loft are all well-known ways of matching clubs to your swing. We wrote about some of these in earlier Bag Drops you can find here and here.

But there are a number of other factors that go into the way a club works for you. Some are so subtle that only someone playing as much as a touring professional can feel or see the difference. Even so, sometimes tweaking a little something here or there can make a positive change in your game.

So here are some things to check out next time you’re buying, or when you think you might want to play around with your current clubs…

Continue reading “Golf Club Specs: Little Things that Count, Part One”

Nothing to me so embodies the evolution of golf equipment as the current crop of game improvement irons. I never imagined that when Karsten Solheim introduced the first cavity back cast irons that he was opening the door to a whole new world of irons that over the years would make the game so much more fun for the average golfer.

Of course, the newest additions to our bags are hybrids or, as Cobra chooses to call them, utility metals. And where once they were simply replacements for long irons, now they are now becoming the foundation for complete sets. Adams Golf and Nickent, whose early success has been based on their hybrids, have both bet heavily on the integrated iron set concept as we’ve written about here and here.

Continue reading “Cobra Debuts Transition-S Integrated Iron Set”

Playing with a couple golf writer buddies the other day, a couple incidents led to this week’s column. The first was when our fourth, the son of one of my friends (and an exceptionally strong player), asked me what iron his 20° hybrid corresponded to. I suddenly realized how difficult a question that is to answer.

While 20° is generally the loft in a 3-iron, the answer really isn’t that simple. The graphite shaft in most hybrids, varying club lengths, and a hybrid’s ability to launch the ball higher means the distance difference between a 3-iron and a 3-hybrid can be significant. Add to that the fact that hybrid manufacturers give different lofts different numbers and it gets even more confusing.

The second thing that happened was that Chuck Stogel, who writes an equipment column for cbssportsline.com, told me about a new hybrid fitting system that Mizuno is rolling out. Voilá… this week’s Bag Drop. Thanks, Chuck.

Continue reading “Mizuno Offering Hybrid Fitting System”

As we saw this weekend, Oakmont Country Club proved itself capable of growing some of the toughest, most gnarly, luscious grass this side of Kentucky. So while some are calling Oakmont the true victor this year, I think it might have been modern agronomy that really won.

To deal with the combination of deep, thick rough as well as the extremely tight lies on fairways and in the runoff areas around some greens, players had to resort to wedges that could more easily cut through the thick stuff and not bounce off the tightly mowed turf and blade the ball (as happened to Tiger at the third hole Sunday).

Many opted to use wedges with less bounce and a grind that produced a sharper leading edge. Here’s what that means and why you might consider doing the same depending on the courses you play.

Continue reading “Wedge Bounce and Grind: What it is and Why it Matters”

It’s always great to see a golf club become popular without endorsement or bonus money. For a PGA Tour player to give up income just to use a putter he believes in is pretty refreshing in these days of logo festooned shirts, caps, and bags.

So when Zach Johnson won the Masters this year with his SeeMore putter, it said a lot. It said even more when he won the AT&T Classic a month later. It also doesn’t hurt that Vaughn Taylor, who led the PGA Tour’s top 50 money winners in fewest putts on greens hit in regulation, uses it.

So while no less than Nick Faldo cast aspersions on Johnson’s putting style during the Masters broadcast, it obviously works. And that’s really the story of the SeeMore putters. They promote a specific kind of stroke and technique. Here’s the story…

Continue reading “SeeMore Putters Make a Comeback”