Nike Tour Van comes to town

[WUTiger]

The Nike Tour Van visited Stonewolf Golf Club on Thursday to give scheduled fittings to club members.

Our head pro Chris Bagwell has put out an e-mail call in April for members interested in getting an hour-long fitting. I happened to see the e-mail about 10 minutes after it hit cyberspace, responded quickly, and got the 1 PM time slot.

The van brought a three-man crew into Stonewolf:

• Denny Osborne, Regional Sales Rep. After playing college golf at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Denny found a 35-year career in golfdom. He spent 20 years with Hogan golf, and now has 15 years with Nike. He territory includes eastern Missouri and western Illinois.
• J.D. Lindert, Nike club fitter. Grew up in a golf family with father who was a golf pro. J.D. tried a couple of years as a golf pro, and then joined Nike in 2006.
• Greg Paine, Nike club fitter. Went through Professional Golf Management program at University of Colorado – Colorado Springs, and earned a degree in marketing. Now works for Nike.

I did my homework after I got my fitting slot in April. I decided to focus on irons. Nike 2015 offerings are the Vapor Pro, Vapor Pro Combo and Vapor Speed. I decided the Vapor Speed likely would be my best match. Greg, who fitted me,  talked to me briefly and agreed with my choice.

For Golf Digest Hot List watchers, the Vapor Speed falls in the Game Improvement category. Competitors include the Callaway  Apex and XR, the Cleveland CG Black CB, the Cobra Fly Z, the  Mizuno JPX 850 (regular and forged), the Titleist AP1, the  Srixon  Z545, the Ping G30, the TaylorMade RSi1, and Tour  Edge  Exotics E8.

The van itself is impressive. The trailer slides out sideways to create a front porch, with work space for the crew. Included on the right side is a club repair station for bending irons and checking loft and lie. The equipment is outside under a tent. There's the fitting cart that contains the woods and driver head, several staff golf bags of intact golf clubs, plus a table with several iron heads laying on it, and several more staff bags full of every shaft imaginable. Kind of reminded me of Q's gadget shop from the James Bond movies.

Greg started my fitting by asking me questiona about my game, and by taking the measurements of my X20 Tour 7 iron while I warmed up. He then put together Speed iron head and shaft, and captured a mix of shots on Trackman. The data was gathered on about 50 shots, with me alternating back and forth between different shaft models and lengths.  I hit about a third of the shots with the C-Taper Lite, as Greg gave it back to me a couple of times for additional hits. Note: None of the shots with ½ ” short shafts were included in the analysis, as most were thin shots or line drives.

The diagram below shows the scatter patterns of the main shafts, which I sketched from the screen display. (I probably should have asked for a copy of the Trackman display).

I also hit a few 5-iron shots with the CTL, and tried the 4 iron. It works well off a tee - maybe a driving iron - but I'm not sure how reliable it would be from the fairway.

I also got to hit the Nike hybrids, the Vapor Speed with a Fubuki Z70 (70 gram) shaft, and the Vapor Flex (adjustable) with a Diamana S+80 (80 gram) shaft. If I got a hybrid I would likely mix and match, getting, I might get the Speed with the heavier Diamana shaft.

So, I got a pricing on the Vapor Speed for 4-AW. Now it's decision time...

Note: The Nike Tour Van is on a national tour this summer. Future stops include Springfield and Effingham (IL), Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake City, and stops on the West Coast. If the van visits your town, and you schedule a fitting, feel free to add on to this thread.