Category: Clubs

Ping G400 Driver Review

Ping’s latest offering promises to be their fastest, most forgiving driver ever. It was good enough to debut at the U.S. Open, but does it perform in the hands of the average golfer?

PING G400 Driver HeroWhen I first started playing golf, I was given a set of clubs (with bag) by the person who introduced me to the game. He found it at a garage sale and bought it for me so that I would have my own clubs to play and practice with. It was a set of irons, 4-PW, with a random SW and an old blade-style putter that rattled when I shook it. It was enough to get me going in golf, but I knew at some point that I would need a driver.

Fortunately I had some pretty good friends, as another friend of mine eventually found out I picked up the game and gave me his old PING G2 driver. I loved hitting that club. Granted I was still a very poor golfer, but it made a world of difference just to have a driver that happened to be easy to hit. I even drove my first par 4 with it (honestly I haven’t driven many since).

It’s been almost ten years since that first driver but I finally have another PING driver, the G400. I’ve gotten a little better over the years but still maintain a love/hate relationship with my driver. Will the PING G400 revolutionize my game like the G2 so many years ago? Read on and see.

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Mizuno JPX900 Driver Review

The Mizuno JPX900 driver delivers a ton of adjustability. Can it keep up with the top driver models this year? (You might be surprised.)

Mizuno JPX900 DriverThe Mizuno JPX900 is the brand?s performance counterpart to its game-improvement JPX-EZ (which I thought was a pretty decent game improvement driver). The 900 is lower spinning and more workable, and provides a wider range of adjustments to fit your swing. I mean a really wide range.

The 900 replaces the JPX850, a pretty solid, lower spinning driver that required a reasonably good swing to produce consistent results.

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Callaway GBB Epic Driver Review

Callaway’s latest driver introduces Jailbreak technology that should add some speed off the face.

CallawayJailbreak technology. Sounds evil. Sounds non-conforming. Well, Callaway has been working on the new technology for some time now and were able to get their newest driver, the Great Big Bertha Epic, on the USGA’s conforming list.

With the promise of extra ball speed off the face of the club, the Epic ma be the most anticipated driver of 2017. It certainly created a lot of buzz in December and early January. Does the Epic deliver on its promise? Just how much does Jailbreak technology boost your distance? Read on to find out.

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Bridgestone J15 Hybrid Review

Bridgestone ups the ante in the hybrid game.

Bridgestone J15HY HeroWhen I say “Bridgestone” to you, hybrids probably aren’t what come to mind right away. You’d think of golf balls, tires, Brandt Snedeker, the annual WGC event, and maybe even their forged irons. Hybrids would probably be well down the list.

Bridgestone has spent more than a decade trying to change that, but I’m not sure they’ve actually made much headway. They’re a little like Mizuno: hyper-specialized, but with the ability to occasionally surprise you when you don’t expect it. I played a Mizuno MX-700 hybrid for several years, and never thought twice about how strange that was because that club played go great.

The Bridgestone J15 is a lot like MX-700. No one is going to be beating any doors down to get their hands on a J15 hybrid, but the few who do are going to come away glad they did.

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Ping G Fairway Wood Review

Ping makes their case as the industry’s best clubmaker.

PING 2016 G Series HeroAt last year’s TST Newport Cup, the guys and I got to tour PING’s facility in Scottsdale, Arizona. I’d never owned a PING club, but I was excited all the same. PING is known for being an engineering leader among OEMs, and their U.S. base of operations makes them a particularly intriguing company. Though they no longer cast and manufacture many clubs in America, they still have quite the impressive setup.

It wasn’t long before I knew I had to try the next PING product that came our way, if only to reap the benefits in real life of everything we got to see on the shop tour. So when the PING G series woods came up for review, I jumped at it.

Though they don’t have the splashiness of drivers or the utility of hybrids, fairway woods have been hot lately. TaylorMade used them to drive their marketing for several years, and recently PING has picked up the same mantle. The G series, now numberless, may be the most heralded set of fairway woods on the market right now.

Do they live up to the hype? Let’s take a look.

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Mizuno JPX-EZ Driver Review

When you name a club “EZ,” certain expectations are set. Can a company known for its forged irons deliver with a game improvement driver?

The Mizuno JPX-EZ promises forgiveness and low spin in a driver.Mizuno has long been known as being among the top, maybe even the, top brand for forged irons. In the last 10-15 years, Mizuno has expanded its iron line to include options for every skill level and playing style. For right or wrong, however, its metal woods options have almost always trailed the industry leaders in terms of public perception for their playability and technology.

Mizuno’s JPX-850 was a very solid driver. But it was distinctly geared to the “better” player, with too little spin to keep the ball in the air at lower swing speeds. The JPZ-EZ is a forgiving “game improvement” driver, but also promises lower spin.

With a name like EZ, you can bet this one is aimed at Joe Everyman Golfer. So, does it deliver on that game improvement promise? Read on to find out.

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PING G Irons Review

Can switching to a game improvement club really make that big of a difference? Read on to find out.

PING G Irons - HeroLet me start off by saying I have never been a great golfer. Heck, I don’t know if you could say I have even really been a good golfer. At my best I had a 9 handicap index and that was at a time that I was practicing a lot and playing two to three times a week. When you get the opportunity to play that much, it isn’t too difficult to consistently shoot rounds in the low 80s with the occasional 78 or 79. Throughout this time, I probably had a higher opinion of my game and my ability level than was true and I found myself playing clubs that weren’t really the best for me. I played a number of different player’s type clubs and because I was playing a lot, I kind of got away with it.

Recent life events have changed things. A change in job has made it impossible to play the amount I had previously. Add in the fact that my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world, and the free time has dropped significantly. There is nothing more frustrating in golf than getting to the point where you feel you are starting to put things together only to see it all go away. Due to this, I decided that I needed to face reality so to speak and not play clubs meant for players better than me. I know that I am not going to be playing as often as I like, so I need to make sure that the clubs in my bag are helping me and not hurting me.

Having the opportunity to review the new PING G irons has given me the chance to see how big of a difference Game Improvement irons could help my game. Read on to find out if the irons have lived up to their promise.

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PING Crossover Review

The Ping Crossover design creates a new club category to combine the precision, workability and control of an iron with the speed and forgiveness of a hybrid.

ping_crossover_heroPING introduces the Crossover hybrid iron. Billed as a new category of iron and not a driving iron, it promises to create higher, longer shots. This can be an advantage to holding greens from long distances out. Let’s take a look at the Crossover.

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TaylorMade M2 Rescue Review

TaylorMade’s current marketing campaign is all about distance with forgiveness and the M2 Rescue definitely fits the bill.

TaylorMade M2 Rescue HeroFor a number of years, TaylorMade has been known to crank out one line of clubs after another in quick succession. The entire business model has turned off some golfers who were confused by the multiple offerings out or preferred to sit and wait for the newest line of clubs they know is coming just around the corner. TaylorMade has gone away from that lately, choosing instead to market fewer clubs than they have in the past. They now just have a high-end line, the M1, and the simpler (and cheaper) M2 lineup. This doesn’t mean the M2 clubs are inferior; they are still high performance clubs.

The M2 Rescue is a performer. I love hybrids; they need to be workhorses for me and I usually carry two in my bag at all times. I use them as long iron replacements and for teeing off when I don’t want to hit driver. I also like to use them to try and reach a short par five in two or to advance the ball out of the rough after an errant tee shot.

TaylorMade has produced some very good hybrids in the past. How does the M2 stack up to its predecessors? Let’s find out.

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