Clubbing Up: Beginners Should Consider Boxed Sets

The boxed set may be the perfect way to get into the game of golf – yet it’s overlooked by nearly everyone.

Bag DropThe golf equipment section of the forum gets lots of posts from beginners on whether they should buy cavity-backed clubs or blades for their starter sets. Or, what kind of driver works best for newbies?

In the responses, hard-core golfers compare the benefits of Titleist AP2 vs. Mizuno MP-57 irons to people who don’t know the difference between a 5-iron and a pitching wedge. This often ends up with suggested club mixes that could easily cost $1,500 if bought new.

“My gosh,” says the beginner. “What should I get? Will I ever make it to the golf course?”

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The Instructor Quiz: Nine Questions You’ve Gotta Ask

How to avoid wasting your time and money: put your instructor through this simple quiz.

There are a lot of golf instructors out there. Many of them are qualified, intelligent instructors with the best of intentions. They want to help you, they want to see you improve, and they enjoy doing it.

Unfortunately, intentions don’t always translate into ability, and there are a good number of instructors out there who may not be helping their students as much as they’d like.

Over the last few years I have become increasingly frustrated with feedback I have received from students who have taken lessons from seemingly “qualified” instructors. In this era of the Internet and YouTube, I have also had the chance to view a large number of videos and read many instructional articles online and, again, it seems that much of the information is misleading at best. Because of this I took the time to devise a short nine-question “test” for golf instructors.

I would like to point out upfront that I, and all the instructors at my academy, teach based on the 5 Simple Keys®… but all of the questions and answers are the same for any efficient method of swinging the golf club.

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Bridgestone, Callaway, and Pinnacle Roll Out New Balls

New ball lineups from some of the industry’s top manufacturers aim to please a wide variety of players, with new offerings that deliver benefits to the areas of your game where you need them the most.

Bag DropAre you choosing the right ball for your game? Would you know if you weren’t? Are you playing a certain ball simply to keep up with what your buddy plays? These are all questions you should think about for a minute, especially if you’re serious about taking as many strokes off your score as possible.

If you are serious about dropping your score, maybe it’s time you seriously considered finding the ball that works the best for you. A few years back, a concept such as ball fitting was simply unheard of, though now, some say a ball fitting has become just as important to some as club fittings. If you think about it, it is the one single piece of equipment that’s in play for every shot. Fortunately, the golf ball market may the one area with the most choices, and the smallest impact on your wallet.

This week, we take a look new additions to that market from Bridgestone,
Callaway , and Pinnacle.

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Boxgroove.com Review

Private club golf without the private club price.

Boxgroove.comWant to play that private course down the road but don’t know a member? Now there’s a way to test drive private courses across the country without risking the trespassing charge.

A new online service called Boxgroove.com provides access to tee times at private clubs. Boxgroove currently has 70 participating courses and over 650 members, some of whom hold memberships at private clubs and may be willing to host other Boxgroove.com members (more on that later). The company plans to be in 30 states by summer 2010 and eventually to take the service international.

If you’re like me, you love those occasions when you get to play a course in excellent condition with great greens. The problem is that I don’t belong to a private club, so I play public courses where the maintenance is generally not quite as well applied. While it’s less expensive (unless you are really racking up the rounds) to play public courses, being able to play the occasional round on a truly well kept course is a nice change of pace, one I’ve found to be more and more alluring lately.

Enter Boxgroove.com. I’d been hearing about the service on the radio here in Columbus, my home and Boxgroove’s, as it turns out. When Boxgroove.com offered a membership to let me try out the service and write about my experience, I jumped at the opportunity.

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Volume Two Hundred Sixteen

Tiger is the brunt of some jokes, Monty needs a ride, and Q-school is down to the wire.

Hittin' the LinksHello and welcome again to Hittin’ the Links. It’s almost time for a long winter nap, but HTL has one last hurrah before vacation time.

In this final column of 2009 we start off with some Tiger news, then turn our attention to Colin Montgomerie’s driving record, and find out about Doug Barron’s appeal. Also on tap, we look at the LPGA Q-School, see how the PGA Tour Q-School is going, and do a wrap-up of the week’s silly season events. Read on!

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PING G15 Iron Review

If the G10 provides maximum forgiveness then what do you call an iron that provides even more forgiveness? PING calls it the G15.

G15 Iron HeroWhen you are setting up to a “classic” iron, what kinds of thoughts run through your mind? For me, I imagine the silky smooth feel of the sweet spot. I visualize the ball curving through the air at will. I can almost see the ball falling to the green with just enough spin to bounce twice and then stop. However, put a blade in another player’s hands and the reaction could be entirely different. They might look down desperately searching for that microscopic sweet spot, trembling at the thought of the painful reverberations of a mis-hit.

Karsten Solheim may not have been one of those golfers who feared the sweet spot but he certainly empathized with them. In fact, PING’s innovations were so significant that in 1966 the USGA outlawed all PING irons claiming that they provided golfers with an unfair advantage (due to a bend in the shaft beneath the grip). Nearly 40 years later, the USGA may want to reopen that claim.

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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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Callaway Releases New JAWS Wedges and Odyssey White Ice Putters

The new JAWS wedges give your short game some needed bite, while the new Odyssey White Ice putters might just heat up your game on the greens.

Bag DropThis week, we come to you with more clubs designed to help out your game from 80 yards and in, this time from Callaway Golf (who, in case you didn’t know, is the parent company of Odyssey as well).

The new Callaway JAWS wedges promise to give you the ultimate in spin and control in order to get on the green, while the new Odyssey White Ice putters are there to assist in rolling it true to the hole.

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Volume Two Hundred Fifteen

Silly Season is here, Lee Westwood pads his bank account, and we all need to stop littering!

Hittin' the LinksGobble Gobble Sand Trappers and welcome to the Thanksgiving Edition of Hittin’ the Links. It’s turkey time around the U.S., and you know what that means, right? Black Friday for the ladies and a quick 18 for the guys. Make sure to get that tee time ASAP!

In this edition of HTL we begin by looking at what Rory McIlroy said, then investigate who is in the final stage of the PGA Tour Q-School, and check out some opinions on Silly Season. Also, we explore the golf ball litter problem, watch the best Seinfeld golf moments, and do a wrap-up of the week’s events. Read on!

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