One can’t help but feel anxiety every time you go to the airport now, and this is doubly true for golfers who travel with their clubs. There is nothing more fear-inducing than leaving your most-prized possession in the hands of one of these boneheaded airlines. Even in the odd chance they do show up at your destination, you then have to worry about whether or not they were damaged along the way.

Now imagine what it’s like to be a struggling tour pro who has to make an actual living with those clubs. All of Wesley Hunter’s worst anxieties and fears came to fruition after a flight from Denver to Pensacola, with a layover in Houston, on Monday. Hunter, a mini tour grinder from Alabama, tweeted out photos of what happened to his bag and his clubs, tagging United in the post. “Ridiculous,” he said. “My bag and clubs ruined to a point I didn’t think was possible.”

After seeing the photos, we tend to agree:

Ridiculous @united my bag and clubs ruined to a point I didn’t think was possible. pic.twitter.com/jbxkqbKixb

— Wesley Hunter (@kwhunter22) July 24, 2023

You almost have to try to mess up a bag this badly. Like set the thing on fire and throw it off a cliff for it to look this bad. Driver broken, wedged chopped up, travel bag looks like it was burnt, just a really bang-up job here.

Wesley Hunter

Wesley Hunter

Making these pictures all the more painful is the fact that Hunter is not some big-time pro who can easily replace these things. He’s a grinder in every sense of the word, as Ryan French AKA Monday Q Info reported nicely here after Hunter just missed qualifying for the US Open at LACC last month. He gave French a brutally honest quote in that piece that is even more brutal now.

“This game just kicks you in the [expletive] over and over again,” Hunter said. You’re not kidding. Here’s hoping Hunter can replace these clubs soon and get his luck to turn around.

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Like its predecessor, the G710 irons use a maraging steel face insert. That’s surrounded by a 431 stainless-steel body. The maraging steel face provides metalwood-like face flex that launches the ball higher, allowing for slightly stronger lofts for more distance without sacrificing the shot-stopping ability that comes with height on iron shots.

Tungsten weights in the toe and heel provide higher stability on off-centre (up to five per cent more moment of inertia compared to G700) hits to help mitigate the loss of ball speed on such shots, helping golfers have a tighter dispersion pattern. A wide sole makes it easier to get through the ground when taking more turf than desired.

The big differences in the G710 from the G700 (aside from a stealth black finish for the clubhead), however, are more nuanced. The company received feedback that the sound could be improved, and it set out to accomplish that without sacrificing the distance gain.

“We wanted to try and keep out a couple of unwanted frequencies,” said Dr. Paul Wood, Ping’s VP of engineering. “There were minimally invasive things we could do to achieve that without compromising the benefits of a hollow body golf club. It really came down to what could we do with the least amount of weight added?”

The answer turned out to be one they were familiar with. “The best solution turned out to be the use of hot melt, which we often use in drivers,” said Wood. “It’s a polymer that you can melt and place where you want and can get rid of a frequency in the club. A thin layer of that behind the face helped us get rid of undesirable frequencies that we were able to identify through modal analysis and our player testing showed the sound of the G710 was much preferred over that of the G700.”

Another leap forward is employing Arccos Caddie smart grips and a free trial of the Arccos Caddie app, something suggested by company president John K. Solheim after some first-hand experience with the product.

“I personally started using Arccos more than a year ago and have seen significant improvement across my entire game,” Solheim said. “It helps me during a round with club selection, and I really enjoy analyzing all the data after the round to uncover areas to help me play better.”

Each iron is built with an embedded sensor in the grip to automatically record and analyze every shot taken during a round when paired with the Arccos Caddie app. Golfers receive a 90-day free trial of the app and extra sensors to use on other clubs when purchasing six or more irons.

Another move to help golfers play better with the Ping G710 irons is the addition of a new ultra-lightweight shaft option for those needing to increase swing speed and height on their shots. The Alta Distanza Black 40 graphite shaft is a feathery 43-gram iron shaft with a more flexible tip section to help bring higher trajectories and more swing speed.

The G700 irons are available in 4-iron through sand wedge in 10 colour codes (lie angle) at $175 per club in steel (Ping AWT 2.0) and $190 per club in graphite (Alta CB Red). Several no-upcharge shafts are also available, including the True Temper Dynamic Gold, Dynamic Gold 105, Dynamic Gold 120, Project X LZ, True Temper XP95, Nippon NS Pro Modus 105 and KBS Tour in steel and UST Recoil in graphite. A “Power Spec” option featuring lofts that are a degree-and-a-half stronger on the long and mid-irons to two degrees stronger on the short irons also is available. The G710 irons can be pre-ordered immediately.

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