Volume Five Hundred Ten

Tiger’s back, Day wins in SoCal, and Rory falls short.

Hittin the Links Welcome once again to this week’s Hittin’ the Links!

The PGA Tour paid a visit this week to southern California’s Torrey Pines Golf Course, where Jason Day pulled out a playoff victory over Alex Noren in the Farmers Insurance Open.

Tiger Woods also made his return this week to the Tour, posting a solid, scramble-filled T23 finish, which rocketed him up the world golf rankings. We’ll also check in on Rory McIlroy on the PGA Tour, and take note of this week’s LPGA Tour winner.

Let’s hit the links!

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Snell Golf Introduces MTB Red and Black

Snell Golf broke ground with the revolutionary My Tour Ball in 2015. What can they do for an encore?

Snell 2018 MTB Red Optic YellowDean Snell, owner of the eponymous Snell Golf company, and co-creator of the original Pro V1® and TaylorMade Penta®, has already made great strides in shaking up the golf world. For years, he’s been offering premium, Tour-level, urethane-covered golf balls which sell for $31.99/doz. And that’s the most you’ll pay, as buying as few as six dozen balls at once drops the price per dozen to about $27.

Meanwhile, balls from the big names – with their big marketing and player promotion budgets – continues to rise, currently settling in at about $45.99/dozen at most retail stores.

Snell LogoDean Snell is ready to shake things up again, as he offers what customers have been clamoring for on two fronts: today, Snell Golf is announcing the release of their new generation of “MTB” (or “My Tour Ball”) line, with two balls – an MTB Red and an MTB Black – as well as the release of their first bright yellow golf ball in the MTB Red model.

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Volume Five Hundred Nine

Tiger, Tiger, and More Tiger

Hittin the Links I’m sorry folks, but if you’re looking to avoid wall-to-wall Tiger Woods coverage, you’ve come to the wrong place.

We’re back after a hiatus longer than a striped Tiger Woods 2-iron now that there’s been some action in the world of golf, and as you can expect, we’ve got the Man in Red on the brain. If you haven’t heard, the G.O.A.T. came back this week for his first competitive round in nearly a year, and didn’t play too shabby in his return. Woods finished tied for ninth place, 10 shots back of champion Rickie Fowler, but did briefly hold the lead on Friday. A mediocre Saturday 75 sunk his chances at victory, but there were more positives than negatives to take away from the Hero World Challenge.

Let’s hit the links.

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FlightScope Mevo Review

For just under $500, does this little machine pack a powerful punch for the price, or is it just another in a line of expensive training aids and devices?

FlightScope Mevo HeroIt sounds too good to be true.

For just under $500, you can get a pocket-sized launch monitor from an industry leader, pair it with a free app on your smart phone, and get accurate information on clubhead speed, ball speed, launch angle, carry yardage, and four other parameters to fine-tune your game on your own time. Indoors or out. Short game through driver.

Well, FlightScope claims to have turned this dream into a reality with the introduction of the FlightScope Mevo. Billed as a “portable multi-sport radar,” Mevo is an acronym for “Measure your numbers, Evaluate your game, Visualize your improvement, and Optimize your performance.” (It’s also, confusingly, the name of a camera.)

FlightScope Mevo with Golf Ball
Yes, that’s a regulation golf ball, and a real-life Mevo. It’s that small.

Sounding too good to be true? Can FlightScope really deliver on these promises? Read on to find out what we thought in our extensive testing.

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TRUE Linkswear “Elements Pro” Review

Is TRUE’s last pair of spiked shoes (perhaps ever?) able to overcome some of the shortfalls of the in-between-years?

True Elements ProSince they first made their debut in 2010, I have been a huge fan of TRUE shoes. I owned a couple of pairs of the first version of the TRUE tours, the original Stealths, the updated Tours, a pair of Protos, two pairs of the Phoenix, the Classix, the TRUE Motion, and, my favorite, two pairs of the Sensei.

With the exception of the TRUE Motion on that list, you’ll notice that all of the pairs that I owned were older models. Part of that, of course, is that I had plenty of golf shoes and just didn’t need a new pair. That being said, there hasn’t been anything from TRUE as of late that really made me want to go out and get a new pair. When the opportunity came up to review the TRUE Elements Pro, I jumped at it to see if they were as good as the older TRUEs that I loved or if, like the TRUE Motions did, would disappoint me.

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Volume Five Hundred Eight

Tiger, the Presidents Cup at Liberty National, and more.

Hittin the Links Welcome back to Hittin’ the Links! The American team was victorious at the Presidents Cup this weekend, routing the International team to the tune of 19-11. Jordan Spieth had an interesting rules snafu, as we’ll dig into.

We’ll also hear from Tiger Woods, check in with the European and LPGA Tours, and summarize the Web.com Tour Championship. All that plus a deep dive into the personal life of Arnold Palmer.

Let’s hit the links.

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TRUE Linkswear “Outsider” Shoe Review

TRUE Linkswear returns to their roots with the release of the Outsider and the Original. In this review, I take a look at the Outsider line and see just how full circle the company has come after hitting it into the tall grass for a few years.

TRUE OutsiderA few friends who have seen my garage will jokingly call me Imelda Marcos. You see, I’ve got about 30 pair of TRUE Linkswear shoes. Some date back to the original Tours (reviewed here in 2010), while others are of a newer vintage.

Thing is… the newer models are much newer looking than they should be, and the older models are much more well worn. You see, while I loved the original TRUE Tours, and adored the Sensei sneaker-style model, and thought the Stealths were a very good shoe, several of the models that followed lacked the characteristics of TRUE’s early releases. TRUE got away from what made their first shoes so great, and I didn’t wear those models as much.

But that’s all changed. The company has “returned to their roots,” in their words, and released two new shoes. The Original and the Outsider harken back to the early days of TRUE – with minimalist approaches to footwear design that earned them a significant and passionate following.

TRUE Outsider Sides

Has TRUE succeeded at this about face and return to the principles from the Tour and Sensei? Are the Original and Outsider true descendants of what made us “#EnjoyTheWalk” over seven years ago? Read on to find out.

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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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