Redhill

I had a custom club maker as a client for about 10 years and enjoyed going by that shop on my way home from work and watching and learning as the owners would assemble clubs. This particular shop was very prominent in the area and would buy steel iron shafts in bulk and then weight sort them into bundles of 8-9 shafts which I thought was ahead of True Temper. They sold both knock off heads and component heads and I would put them into those two groups. The knock off crap was just short all the way around with QC, This shop would loft and lie adjust each iron club before it was sold and would find huge discrepancies in the measurements as they came from the foundries. At the end of the day the component heads from this shop for their irons were well assembled but still a wee bit short of the QC seen on OEM parts. The wood heads were even farther off the boat and had many returns if sold to better players due to caved in faces. This was with the component heads, iron and wood, from known component companies with the wood heads even worse. Still beyond this were the knock off heads as far as quality. This shop would sell excellent after market graphite shafts similar to or better than the OEM woods. With shafts either steel or graphite and fittings this shop was superior Biggest problem was them working with bad QC on the heads that they had to use in their clubs. Simple. I bought/traded for about 3 sets of irons and while they served me well when my handicap was higher around a 12-14, when I started to lower it due to lessons, practice and playing I found my clubs lacking. This shop also would aid you in your swing development with what was then a flight simulator and aid you in making better swings to get better results. After my first set of OEM clubs which I think were Hogan somethings, I found a tremendous difference in the QC and the "feel" of the clubs and the handicap continued to decline more and more down to a 4. Finally I went whole hog OEM with Titleist stuff and found that the shop was a good source of changing out graphite shafts,and no more. This shop was unusual in the quality of their service and assembly but could not serve the lower handicapped players so they depended on the beginning golfer and did well for a while and then saw the slide coming and closed the doors. While the value of any golf club drops quickly the OEM stuff especially the upper end of the line will hold some small value after a year and maybe two. Any component club/set will most likely not be accepted for a trade in.

I played yesterday with some 3.25" wooden tees and don't think I broke one. On other days with say 14 tee shots I could easily break 5-7 during the round. Just depends on the swing da jour.

I carry two in my bag. One is almost never used off the fairway and reserved for tee shots only. It is a Stage 2 Tour TS 13* that I've turned down a degree or two to open up the face. I've reshafted it with a RIP Alphs Xstiff and love it off the tee when a tighter tee shot is required, It's only failing is that sometimes it is too long. The other is a RBZ Tour 5 wood 18* with a Xstiff Matrix Ozik in it and it is pretty much reserved for off the deck shots. After using it yesterday off the deck I decided that I should use it more than I have been. My Hybrid is a Stage 2 4H at 21* but also turned down a degree or two and has a 80g. Stiff TM TP shaft in it. I came to the conclusion that I had been using the hybrid too much off the deck and in situations where I thought the lie wasn't perfect. After smoking some shots with the 5 wood I know now I should hit it more and from my difficult lies where before I thought only the hybrid was the correct club.

I recently bought a SLDR with a AD Tour MT shaft in it and have been well pleased with the performance. When I found it in a Dicks on sale for $169 and with some discounts it was down to $149, which for the shaft alone is a steal. I noticed that it was packaged differently and had the instruction manual in Japanese as well as some of the labels on the club being bilingual. I know that many of the USA products are made in Japan but this club appears to be targeted for the Japanese domestic market. Some of indicated that these products are subjected to tougher QC screening as the cultural demands of that market are more targeted for quality rather than cost. I can tell no difference in the apparent QC from my untrained eye but wondered about others experiences. I know that some of the Japanese foundries have fantastic reputations when dealing with the forged iron club heads but didn't know if that extended to other clubs, like this driver. I first used it on the course and used it off the tee on 13 times and had 11 solid hits with it that were very long and very high and in the fairway, the other two "misses" were due to my swing errors but overall very pleased with making this my gamer in the bag.

If I were to list my yardages by club I would need two columns. One for when the contact is nutted and another for when there is nothing nutted. The averages of each club in those two columns would also be goofy. I've had great drives of 310 yards and power drives into the left rough drives of 180 yards. I've hit my 13* 3 wood turned down to 11* with a xstiff RIP Alpha shaft 297 yards and also 148 yards. As you could imagine this makes club selection a treat. I have to see how the day is looking and then weigh the past 3 holes to further adjust selection. Had about a 6 week lay off and returning to play has been interesting/frustrating. However a round filled with nutted shots is a delight....heck a round with 20% nutted is wonderful.

It seems as though he also lowers his body a wee bit too. Looks like he is going from the" looking at the hole stance" to the" ok now I'm going to pull the trigger stance". My guess is that he has found position of his body to be the most successful at producing his best shots and just returns to that stance when he starts to swing the club.

I like Feherty and understand his type of humor. People may not know how good a player he was, but still not good enough to stick on the different tours. He does have a tendency to get a little "blue" at times and some people will cringe why that comes out, but most find his knowledge of the game and the shots required to be interesting

These SLDR 460 Black are for the Japan market apparently and are said to have some flatter lies. This might offset the need to buy a higher lofted head and lower the loft to make the face more open if the left side of the fairway calls your name. If you order the 9.5* head there are some great shaft upgrades with any shaft not affecting the packaged price of $169 with free shipping for the online sales and also apparently a $20 off coupon for today to bring the price down to $149, A real steal if you want/need a driver and have been looking at the SLDR and can use a stiff or regular flex shaft These are some of the shafts and I was interested in your opinions for the lowest launching low-mid spin shaft. There is some commentary on the website about these shafts but actual experience is more helpful. 1. Attas 5GOGO in 6 or 7 2. Diamana Whiteboard 3. TourAD- MT 7 4. Motore Speeder 661 5. Motore Speeder 757 Any input ???

My understanding was this was not TM's most successful driver so prices should continue to drop. As mentioned above the adapter is not symmetrical on the inside and allows this adjustment to occur. Interesting is that if you want to open up the club face, for the hookers(golfers not the ladies), you would lower the loft of the club-head and those two measurements will change. Not what you think is happening but it is. The adjust-ability can come into play if your swing improves and most importantly with the newer adapters the ability to change out shafts becomes a plus. Take you driver head with you when you go to a demo day and change out a couple of shafts to see if you need an upgrade. Sometimes a change of shaft will require a lot of fitting changes also. But most of the time, except for the shaft changes, the adjustments are generally tweaked once and left that way. But at least the were tweaked for YOU not something you are given off the shelf and being told "here".

I had a distance experiment the last two times I played this year. Each time out when I mishit a drive and had a duck hook at 225-230 yards off the tee, I would retee the same type of ball and with everything the same hopefully put a really good swing on the shot and concentrate on really good quality of contact. Then I would walk up to the first ball and measure the distance with a lazer range finder from the 1st bummer of a tee shot to the great one and note the distance. Guess what the difference was???? 57 and 61 yards the two times I did this in those two rounds. What this told me was that my efforts should be pointed toward making great contact all the time and reduce the pursuit of excellence through different equipment. Just hit the darn thing better was the key.

I play golf from about April 1 to October 31 of each year and then clean up and oil the clubs and put them away and go hunting. Come next April I'm ready to go and can tolerate 3-4 rounds a week if the back and knees are ok. I once OD on golf. Playing in a charity tournament to raise money for a high school football program. We played at the end of June and teed off at a little before sunrise and played until past sunset. We did have carts and I logged 108 holes. The next day my hands and back were too sore to move other than from the bed to the shower and then back to the couch. My wife was very sympathetic and said "Maybe this will be the cure" I found that for me a complete break from golf to pursue another hobby was working and besides it's too cold and snowy in Idaho in the winter

I am new to this website but not new to golf websites as well as other forums on different subjects and every forum has a few......... Back to the discussion of balls, I played the Pro V-1 when it first came out and we would seem it on the tee. Then progressed to the Pro V-1X and then off to try a bunch of other premium balls only to return after each foray back to the Pro V-1X. At the beginning of this spring I was given a sleeve of the Srixon ZSter XV yellow balls and the first thought was back to the days when colored balls meant cheap balls. After playing a couple of rounds with those XV's I bought 4 boxes of them and played away this summer with them. Last week I found a mint Pro V-1X and hit a second drive with it after hitting the XV. They both seemed to be just fine with a very little difference in feel, distance and performance. I thought well the Pro V-1X's are still a great ball. I've played some of the balls that my grown sons play, Gamer 2, E5+,and even some Slazenger Raw Distance Feel and came away with the impression of ,other than putting, I could score good with any of those balls and did score good when playing with them. (Beat both of them, Yessss!) What I found was that the quality of the contact I made with the clubface was more critical for the ultimate distance and performance of the shot than the label on the golf ball. Just my opinion,.....but I like it.

Newby here so be gentle. I played the 33's for about 5 years from when they came out until this year. This year I bought a set of 68's and found them to be a whisper more forgiving. I had a set of 32's for back up until last year and played them a wee bit off and on. I also had a set of 14's when my handicap was higher and found them to be the most demanding of 4 that are mentioned. The 14's simply felt a little more harsh to the feel. I like the 68's followed by the 33's, then the 32's and then the 14's. Any of those first three models are very forgiving for someone who is a reasonable golfer. I would think someone with a handicap of 12-14 and of course lower could handle them. None of those 3 were low launchers for me and I hit them all pretty high. They are the best feeling clubs and do have that "butter" feeling when struck well that Mizuno is famous for. They are wonderful to play, but they do get a lot of bag rash easily. If you play with a cart go slow over any speed bumps.