If we’re going to be brutally honest, ball fitting is more important than most average golfers think. Yet unlike every other kind of equipment fitting in the game, it’s simply impossible for most average golfers to do properly. Because the right golf ball for you involves a series of metrics unique to you that might involve everything from price to durability, let alone performance, feel and even look on every type of shot you hit from tee to green. Moreover, those are your metrics. The next golfer in line will have a completely different set of demands.

Not only that, it takes time. While an indoor launch monitor may tell you a few things about initial ball speed, launch and spin on your full shots, when it comes to how one ball might perform differently than another, we wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to things like distance, or even maximum height or landing angle. In many cases, those are projections based on a generalised ball flight trajectory algorithm — in other words, certain elements like the aerodynamic effects of a certain dimple pattern compared to another or how a softer ball might react differently than a firmer ball on an off-centre hit. And whatever data that might be generated from a full-swing tee shot or 7-iron approach on a launch monitor, that doesn’t cover the entire spectrum of shots that are going to determine differences that might matter to you.

Certainly, fitting initiatives from the major ball companies are helpful, and Ping’s Ballnamic app is an excellent deep dive to narrow the impossibly large field of golf balls and player types and preferences. But, ultimately, there is no substitute for taking a few leading candidates and putting them through the paces of how you play an actual hole or three.

That’s why a good first step in your search for a new ball should be an honest self-evaluation of your needs measured against your capabilities. We are reminded of the golf ball insider who once asked a bunch of senior golfers why they were playing a tour-level golf ball when a different model might get them a little more distance, higher flight and maybe better accuracy. “Simple,” the leader of the oldsters said. “We know with our limited speed, we’re going to hit the tee ball somewhere out there that’s going to be findable, and then were going to hit a second shot somewhere toward the green. But it’s the next shot, that pitch or chip or bunker shot, that’s going to determine our score. That tour ball gives us the best option to hit that third shot the best that we can.”

Moral of the story: The best ball for you is the one that enables you to enjoy the hole the most by optimising the shot that’s most important to you. For some that may be a big tee shot, for others it could be a low, checking pitch. But the only way anyone finds that out is to get out on the course.

Here are some general guidelines for things to look for in your next ball, from tee to green. (And truth be told, our advice is to start from the green and work your way back. A ball that answers your short-game demands is the best first step toward improving your score.)

PUTTER
Roll long and short putts to give you the sound feedback you need. If aligning the sidestamp is important to you, make sure the look suits your eye.

GREENSIDE
Spend most of your time here, and hit all the short-game shots you normally play. Spin and distance should be consistent and predictable.

HALF-WEDGE
You might not have this shot often, but if you have a controlled, checking shot in your repertoire, you’ll only be able to do it with the right urethane-cover ball.

FULL IRON
Hit shots from a distance you’re confident attacking the green. Watch for trajectory height and whether you can control it. Are well-struck shots stopping the way you want them to?

DRIVER
Given most golfers’ inconsistency, this area might not be a game-changer. If you see something here, make sure you’re not compromised elsewhere.

One final reminder: The least-expensive two-piece balls might be longer than the most expensive multilayer, urethane-cover golf balls. That’s almost exclusively what they’re designed to do. Still, when we had players at two swing speeds hit both kinds of balls, we found the distance advantage was small at best, almost irrelevant. A 110mph swinger found the cheaper, two-piece “distance” ball to be about five yards longer than the more expensive, multilayer urethane cover ball played on tour. But for a more average male golfer swing speed of 90mph, we barely saw a yard difference between the two balls. Where the difference becomes substantial is when you look at greenside spin. The urethane cover ball was spinning 30 per cent more than the two-piece distance balls. That’s the difference between a controllable shot and one where the ball prevents you from getting a well-played greenside shot from stopping quick enough for a short putt.

The post Ball fittings can start with high tech, but the real answers are always on the course appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Lilia Vu’s dominant closing round on Sunday to win the AIG Women’s Open at Walton Heath and secure her second major of the year sparked stories of her resilience and mental fortitude. She rallied from being relegated to the Epson Tour and nearly quitting golf in 2019 to now being top of the Rolex Women’s World Rankings.

But Vu’s mental strength also applies to how she plays her own game with her clubs, too. Vu has won both majors this year without a fairway wood in the bag. At least technically. Next to her driver (a 9-degree TaylorMade Stealth Plus), Vu’s longest clubs are 15- and 17-degree utility woods. Specifically, Vu has been using Callaway’s Apex UW in both slots (essentially occupying the space of a 2-hybrid and a 1-hybrid). They are clubs that have been around for two years and are also favourites of Xander Schauffele, Jon Rahm and Phil Mickelson.

As Sunday played out, Vu took early command thanks to her twin utility woods. She laid up off the tee on the long par-4 second hole with her 15-degree and then hit a dagger from 205 with her 17-degree utility wood to set up an eight-foot birdie that opened her lead to two shots. None of the challengers ever got closer.

The lesson in Vu’s set-up is there for anyone to adopt, as well. Don’t be so sure that you need a traditional 3-wood or 5-wood. Maybe a slightly higher lofted first fairway wood (16.5 degrees for example) is a better option, as it might be more versatile for shots from the fairway.

In addition, like Vu, maybe look outside the realm of the current landscape of clubs to fill these longer shots. Some golfers, particularly higher skilled players, find that many current hybrids offer too much draw bias. The original Apex UW, as well as its newest iteration, adopts a more centralised centre of gravity for a neutral ball flight. As well, its compact size adds versatility and workability to this section of the bag — another requirement for skilled players. Vu’s 15-degree Apex UW is a special tour-only prototype, by the way, further evidence that this is a club designed for specific elite-level demands.

“Three-woods don’t really work the way I want them to,” Vu told Golf Digest. “I hit my Callaway Apex UW 2-hybrid really well, so I asked if they had a lower loft hybrid, and they did.”

What Vu’s set-up shows us is that each of the clubs in your bag needs a specific distance (and playability) function, and too many average golfers have clubs that might serve little distinct purpose or are overlapping with what other clubs are doing.

A recent study by Arccos, the stat-tracking GPS app, in conjunction with Cobra Golf, found that 99 per cent of average golfers have at least one gapping problem in their sets and 38 per cent have three or more. It’s worth a trip to a fitter or some time with your teacher and a launch monitor to get your yardages checked through the bag. That may mean different kinds of clubs in the longer end of your bag, including hybrids, high-lofted fairway woods, utility irons and yes, like Vu, even utility woods.

The post Lilia Vu used no fairway woods in winning two majors, and here’s why every golfer should consider her bag set-up appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

It’s not often you’ll see a training aid immediately sweep through the top ranks of professional golf. But that’s what the ProSendr training aid has done upon its launch earlier this year.

Co-founder David Woods doesn’t see it stopping there.

“I want the ProSendr to be as big as Trackman, where you see every player using it on the range before their round,” Woods says. “It’s another way of getting them dialled.”

“I’ve been approached to do a lot of training aids over the years,” adds co-founder Sean Foley. “I didn’t want to do it until I found one I actually believed in.”

The ProSendr is that one Foley says, who explains that there’s some good science behind it, too.

ProSendr

The ‘golden’ wrist range

The rise of 3D technology is helping golf instructors understand more about the mechanics of golf swings than ever before. Among the many other things they’ve learned is that pros’ wrists work in very specific ways.

The trail wrist — which is the right hand for most right-handed golfers — is an increasingly key focus. Hold your arms out in front with your palms towards the ground then bend your wrists towards you. You’ve just put your wrists into what’s known as “extension.” It’s a crucial move within the golf swing, and pros operate within a pretty tight range.

“Pros generally have between 42 and 63 degrees of trail wrist extension between the backswing and downswing,” Woods explains. “That’s their range where they want to operate within.”

When their wrist is in that range, it helps golfers do a number of important things, really well, Foley explains. It helps you release the club at the exact moment for maximum speed, and prevents your swing from moving too far from out-to-in, or in-to-out, which cause slices and hooks.

Of course, pros don’t want to go into a tournament thinking about the exact number of degrees one of their wrists is extending. They want a feel they can put into play, which was the inspiration behind the training aid.

The ProSendr looks a little like a wrist brace. Golfers wear it over their trail hand — right hand for right-handed golfers — and the shell is pitched just off the back of the trail hand. As they begin their swing, the golfer’s hand will meet the shell; the goal of the golfer is to keep the two in contact during the early part of the downswing. If you do that, Woods explains, your swings will be within the same parameters as most pros.

Rory McIlroy was spotted using the device before his T-2 finish at the 2023 US Open, along with Senior Open Championship Alex Cjeka and many other pros.

Byeong Hun An, a student of Foley’s, is one of those. He’s been working on keeping his arms wider on the backswing, he says, and the ProSendr helps him do it.

“We’re trying to stay in the middle range,” An says. “I hit it a lot farther. I was about 172 [with a driver] before. Now it’s about 180 to 182. That’s about 10 yards of gain without me trying to hit it hard or anything, just making little swing changes. Golf is a lot easier when you can hit it farther.”

The post The ‘golden’ metric pros know — and the innovative training aid behind it appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

If you’re considering new clubs, or perhaps even wondering about your current set, what might be right, or worse, what might be wrong, you could focus on the vast array of specifications that could affect performance: loft, lie, length, weight, shaft flex and on and on and on. Or you could take a cold hard look at the only part of the club you actually touch during the swing.

“Grip size is the most important element related to grips, and it is a significant component of a properly fit set of clubs,” said Craig Zimmerman, general manager of RedTail Golf Centre in Beaverton, Oregon. “Grip size is often overlooked or an afterthought of the fitting process, and the wrong grip size can have a substantial impact on how clubs perform.”

It’s not merely that so many average golfers don’t think about size, or even the texture or the composition or even the weight of the right grip for their games, they may not even think about them at all beyond some superficial surface-level motivation, like what model a favourite tour player uses. But here’s the thing, there are dozens of grips and grip configurations being played at the elite level today. Case in point: Take a look at Ping’s club specs of every member of its tour staff. Each listing is unique and sometimes even within the same player’s bag. For instance, Harris English plays the Golf Pride Tour Velvet Align 58 plus one wrap and plus one black tape except on his G410 Crossover hybrid iron, which uses a Golf Pride MCC with three extra wraps under the right hand and one extra wrap under the left hand and one black tape.

RELATED: A hidden driver power key

Every element in your choice of grips can affect performance, but that doesn’t mean the right grip is only about personal preference. “I prefer to get something that feels good in the player’s hands, but many times what feels good does not work,” said Woody Lashen, principal at Pete’s Golf in Mineola, New York. “Larger grips often feel good at first but can turn out to be not the best choice for the player. We look at someone’s hand size, how they grip the club and the pressure they apply to the grip during the swing so we can see the results. Just like testing different shafts, the player may need to test different grips to find what’s best.”

Zimmerman and his team at RedTail developed a chart they call Total Hand Size, which measures the distance from the first crease of the wrist to the tip of a golfer’s longest finger and the length of a player’s longest finger, as a static starting point. Typically (although not always), larger grips, like those listed as Midsize or even larger, can help a player who is struggling with a hook. Smaller grips can help a player who is fighting a slice to help the hands to release more efficiently to square the clubface at impact.

“A player with a large hand size may have less face awareness with a grip that is too small,” Zimmerman said. “This may also cause a player to have excessive grip pressure. This can cause tension in the forearms and make it more difficult for a player to square the face. Conversely, we increase grip size if the player struggles with over-rotating the face. Larger grips or those with a built-up section for the lower hand, like the Golf Pride Plus 4 models, are better for someone who closes the face too much. Look at players like Bryson DeChambeau, Bubba Watson and Tony Finau. They play extraordinarily large grips to ‘take their hands out’ and try to reduce over-rotating and closing the club face.”

Most fitters agree that better players with faster swings tend to favour grips with a firmer feel, but there are no hard and fast assumptions golfers should make about their grips. That said, a player should be aware of certain physical tendencies (like how sweaty his hands get), as well as how often rounds are played in wet or rainy conditions. There are certain grips that better answer some of those specific problems, but they may come with a compromise in terms of what feels right when they’re trying out a grip on a simulator indoors compared to what it might feel like in a cold, gentle rain during an early morning round.

Furthermore, a softer grip may also require a player to pay a little more attention to maintenance and wear. Those softer grips may help golfers struggling with hand injuries or arthritis or even those who opt out of wearing a glove, but they may not last as long for a player with stronger swing speeds. While that softness can be a blessing, “these grips tend to have more give in them, adding to the natural torque of our hands”, said Kyle Cullum, owner of No Bogeys Golf in Southern California. “We typically do not encourage better players to use softer grips with more play/give/torque, because this is not beneficial for consistency under pressure.”

Average golfers need to pay attention to how their hands fit a certain grip size, realising that while there are “midsize” or even jumbo grips on the market, the right grip adds the kind of consistency that can be the foundation for an improved swing. Players should insist that the selection process go beyond sorting through dozens of boxes of new grips or grabbing on to some partially shafted grip samples. Testing them during a fitting should be as common as trying a different shaft or a different setting on an adjustable driver.

“If I were a betting man, I might go as far to say that grip fittings will become the next hottest trend,” said John Hutzler of Swingfit in West Virginia. “It’s just that important and when compared to buying a brand-new golf club it’s not a bad way to breathe new life into your clubs at a very small cost.”

The post Why grip size is way more important than you think appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

There’s nothing less fun than playing golf in the cold and rain, but nothing more fun than watching pros have to deal with it.

Pros, indeed, had to deal with it on Saturday at the PGA Championship. The rain poured, but never enough for play to be called. And when it did, we didn’t just see lots of predictable bogeys. We also saw something unexpected: Players turning their hats around backwards.

 

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If you’re wondering why, you’re not the only one. Lots of golf fans on social media were asking the question, and the answer is simple: When the rain gets heavy and players’ hats get drenched with water, the water starts dropping down the brim of their hat. That, simply put, gets annoying when players are tilting over their ball at set-up. It’s hard to focus on the ball you’ve got water drip, drip, dripping down in front of it.

Rory McIlroy. Kevin C Cox

And so, the hat goes backwards. Tiger Woods was the first to do it — the first time I can remember him flipping the hat backwards was during his infamous 81 at Muirfield during the 2002 Open Championship.

Tiger Woods. Timothy A Clary

Why not take the hat off all together? Some do, but for most golfers, wearing a hat is simply more comfortable — even if it’s the wrong way around.

The post Why do players wear their hats backwards in the rain? The answer is simple appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Robert ‘Bob’ Bettinardi has always chosen the path less travelled — especially when it comes to creating golf clubs.

His Bettinardi Golf company is now known across the globe as the world leader in creating unique pieces of equipment, tailored to each individual golfer — specialising in bespoke and ‘One-Piece Technology’ putters.

But it has been a journey of more than 25 years — and a lot of hard work — to reach the pinnacle in golf equipment design and production.

In 1991, Bob turned the putter industry upside down by crafting a tool from a solid block of metal — what he phrases as ‘one-piece technology’ — rather than follow the herd and opt for castings, forgings and weldings to create putters. He soon had all the top golf industry original equipment manufacturers lining up at his door when word got out about the advantages his distinctive products could offer the top professional players on the greens.

A talent for design and state-of-the-art machining methods has seen Bettinardi Golf add some of the top manufacturers and golfers to its portfolio.

And once more, that determination and talent has has been rewarded as Bettinardi Golf claimed an unprecedented five golds in the Golf Digest Hot List 2023 Awards.

Golf Digest Middle East recently caught up with Bob and Dean Cheesley of eGolf Megastores — the region’s leading golf equipment supplier and fitter — to talk about the Bettinardi journey and plans for the future.

“I started dealing with Golf Digest 20-something years ago, and I was always begging to get into their gold or silver list [on the Hot List], but it seemed they always went with the Scotty Camerons and the Pings and so on,” Bob tells us with his dry humour always lurking during a recent visit to Jeddah. “So around 15 years or go I said to myself: ‘I’m done trying. I will never get on that list.’ As soon as I did that — boom — it all started to happen. It’s like when you give up chasing that girl you were after for years, then she starts calling you.

“That’s when I brought in my son.”

Bob and Sam Bettinardi in the workshop

In 2012, said son, Sam, joined the company’s ranks as head of marketing and sales, helping the company embrace the ever-evolving e-commerce market. Today, Sam serves as Bettinardi Golf President, clearly inheriting his father’s eye for putter designs, as well as player development alongside Bob.

“He’s 33 and he’s fantastic,” Bob continues with fatherly pride. “He’s grown the business about 1,500 per cent in the past 10 years. I was always trying to keep things small, but Sam said: ‘No, I need graphic designers, marketing people, this and that,’ and now he has grown the business very nicely into what it is today. But this year was the icing on the cake! On the Hot List we have five Gold putters and a Silver wedge.”

Then the humour creeps in again: “The greatest thing about the Hot List is it is listed alphabetically so we are listed first ahead of the Pings and TaylorMades, so it looks like we are on top — double gold!”

But as we rewind back to the conception of the solid putter and how it was received, Bob takes on a more serious tone.

“So it’s really a simple,” he explains. “When I first got into the business in 1991, everybody was casting their putters out of a mould and then pouring molten metal into the mould, let it cool and there you have your putter.

“I ended up doing some milled putters for Ken Giannini, and they were all welded. The body of the putter and the little hosel were welded together to make a milled putter.

“I started questioning why and how they were doing things. And one of the things that I questioned was, why would you weld that little hosel on to the body of the putter, because when you weld you add heat to the metal, and me being a metallurgist and engineer, I knew that when you add heat to metal, you distort the metal.

“When you’re trying to put the ball into a four-and-a-quarterinch cup from 20 or 30 yards away, you need all the precision you can get, and distorted metal will take away from that and hurt you.

“You want that putter without any spot or wrinkle basically. That’s what you want the putter to be.

“So I said to a couple of people I was doing business with — TP Mills and Scotty Cameron — ‘Why don’t we make the putter from one piece?’ And they go: ‘What do you mean?’

“I explained, we get a big block of metal and carve everything off that until we get to that putter inside.

“At first they were worried it would cost too much. But I knew if you want a precision instrument, instead of welding, you need to carve the entire thing out of one piece.”

And so Bob went off to prove it was worth it and the One-Piece Technology (trademark Bettinardi Golf!) putter was born.

“The first putter I made was very similar to the Ping Anser,” Bob continues. “I made it for Scotty and he gave it to a guy called Bernhard Langer, who in 1993 won The Masters with it. That was ‘Big’ for Scotty and me as Scotty’s name was on the putter and I was manufacturing them.

“Roll on to 1997 and Tiger Woods, you know him? He, at 21 wins The Masters. His big ‘Hello World!’ moment. He did not three-putt for four rounds with a putter that was made in my shop — a onepiece putter.

“In 1998, I decided to go out on my own, and Jesper Parnevik picked up my putter for the 1999 Greater Greensboro Open. My first tournament on my own and he wins with 27-under with 99 putts. Then my name was getting out there and my name was on the putters and that’s how we got started.”

“After a short time with Ben Hogan, I decided to set up my own company. So from 2008 Bettinardi has been on its own and we have grown into what we are today. Francesco Molinari wins the Open with our putter in 2018, Matt Fitzpatrick wins the 2022 US Open with our putter.

“I read comments about my product like: ‘I can’t describe this feeling … This putter feels like butter … It putts itself.’

“That is the culmination of doing things the right way, making it the right way. If there’s another way in the future that’s going to be better than milling, I would like to know what that is. I would want to do that. I want to make sure I’m always on the cutting edge of making the best. That’s what Bettinardi is.”

Bob and Sam Bettinardi have built a unique empire

Bettinardi golfers have claimed nearly 100 elite tour titles since 1998, with players still knocking on Bob’s door for the latest blades and mallets to give them that extra edge.

Just last month up-and-coming LIV Golfer James Piot joined the likes of Matt Fitzpatrick and Georgia Hall, who carry a Bettinardi putter in their bags.

“Jason Kokrak, who won three times in one year about two years ago, uses a production Bettinardi putter that is actually off-the-rack,” Bob says. “Georgia is using a putter that is off the rack — but she wanted her name stamped on it and made a couple of custom things done to it, so we tailored it to her requirements.

“Shergo Al Kurdi is an example of one player who uses a custom putter, not a production, called our BB0, which is really meant for people who want something special. We don’t sell these production, they are made to order for each individual. Some like the Toyota, Shergo has the Ferrari.”

RELATED: Take a look at the latest Bettinardi creation

One of the most popular of the Bettinardi putter ranges is the ‘Hive’ — high-end luxury and Tour putters with one-of-a-kind designs and made-to-order diverse looks and appearances with highquality finishes. “These are very limited-edition and constructed one-to-one,” Bob explains. “It took us nearly a year-and-a-half to persuade Matt Fitzpatrick to find one of our putters that was perfect for him. I’m talking probably eight to 10 times of trial and error. So he was a very difficult person to deal with — in a good way! He would be like: ‘No, it doesn’t feel right. No, the weight is wrong. No, the loft is wrong. No, the lie is wrong. I don’t like that shaft.’

“So you were talking about days, weeks, months of working on a putter specifically for Matthew.

“But now Matt is very happy because he has the right putter for him.

“This just illustrates that the Hive and customs are really all about taking the time and the extra effort to make this special product that a golfer would like. If there is a customer that wants his initials, or a logo, or his son’s name on the putter, we will take that extra time to make the putter just the way they want it.

“We will add a special head cover, a special grip, a special shaft.

“The client is shown renderings, and they may want a few changes — so really the client is being treated like a professional golfer.

“Once we get the green light, we make the putter and 10-15 weeks later, the client has their unique product.”

Just something to ponder — imagine seeing your playing partners’ faces when you whip out that majestic, personalised mallet on the green for the first time …

Visit any eGolf Megastore outlet to work with their team to curate your very own one-of-a-kind putter.

The post Putting things right: Bob Bettinardi’s long journey to golf-club perfection appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The putter, the MC-10, is based off Parnevik’s BB10 and the shape is nearly identical. The 303 stainless-steel head is 360 grams and features a gold-flame finish with the company’s hallmark honeycomb milling pattern on the face. The neck is a one-piece milling plumber’s neck with seven copper plugs. The neck includes a “1/250” engraving to mark its limited quantity while a red hex milling with Roman numerals XXV are on the face.

The putter comes with a red leather headcover with crimson accents and a red perforated-leather Gripmaster grip with a white stitchback.

Bettinardi got his start in the industry milling putters for several companies from 1991-1998. Milling — a method regularly used today — was novel back then and producing a putter from a solid block of steel without using forging, casting or having welds, delivered a look and feel that resonated with the consumer. The company’s heritage is strong as well. Parnevik’s win was the first of more than 100 tour wins worldwide including four professional men’s major championships.

Don’t miss the May issue of Golf Digest Middle East for an exclusive interview with Bob Bettinardi

The post Bettinardi’s latest limited-edition putter is based of the one that gave the company its first tour win appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Callaway Paradym

Included on this week’s conforming list are 13 versions of Callaway’s latest driver. Those include several standard models with what appears to be a rear sliding weight and several models with a “⬥⬥⬥” marking that in the past has been a version targeting better players, especially those on tour. There also is a Paradym X model. Details are coming this week, but a look at the heads shows references to ‘Forged Carbo’ and ‘Jailbreak AI’. The former refers to the company’s bundled composite fibres that can be formed into non-linear shapes with multiple thicknesses. The latter is Callaway’s internal structure that joins the crown and sole to stiffen that region to direct more flexing into the face. Callaway has used ‘artificial intelligence’ design features on its clubs to enhance forgiveness and ball speed in the face and other weight-saving structural elements.

Cobra Aerojet

Put on the conforming list last month, the new models feature markings that include ‘Pwrshell’ and ‘Pwrbridge’. The former has been seen on past Cobra woods and irons and refers to a face design that overlaps into the sole for better flexing. Full details on the Aerojet models are due next week, but the conforming list shows a standard Aerojet, an Aerojet Max and and Aerojet LS.

Ping G430

These drivers, which are expected to be announced later this month, went on the conforming list in the autumn and already have been played on tour. Keegan Bradley used the G430 LST during his victory at the Zozo Championship in October. These models (G430 Max, G430 SFT and G430 LST, the latter the most prevalent among tour players) seem to continue the general theme of past models with the Max version offering the most forgiveness, the SFT aimed at fighting a slice and the LST being a low-spin option. One notable change is the phrase ‘Carbonfly Wrap’ that appears only on the LST model. Seems a reasonable guess that ‘Carbonfly’ refers to the use of carbon composite, something that hasn’t been a part of Ping drivers since the Rapture driver more than 15 years ago.

Srixon ZX Mk II

The company’s driver family looks to be getting larger as it now includes three models: a ZX5 LS Mk II to join the ZX5 Mk II and ZX7 Mk II. All models again include a marking referencing Rebound Frame. That technology was introduced in 2021 and refers to a design feature that uses alternating stiff and flexible regions around the face, and into the crown and sole, to create more face flexing across a wider area. The ZX7 has been the more compact, lower-spinning model compared to the ZX5, which has been a larger shape with more forgiveness. Presumably, the LS references lower spin. Details likely to come this week.

TaylorMade Stealth 2

The company’s follow-up to last year’s big hit, Stealth 2’s family of three drivers looks to be next version of a carbon-composite face. The line-up includes the standard Stealth 2, the Stealth 2 Plus, which again features an adjustable weight track in the sole, and Stealth 2 HD, which last year referenced a head designed for higher launch and fighting the slice. These models again include the ‘Speed Pocket’ in the front of the sole, which has previously referred to a cut-through channel in the sole designed to improve the way the face flexes. More details are expected next week on these new models.

The post 5 new drivers on the USGA’s conforming list — and you might see on tour this week appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Tiger Slam irons bring millions

Could a set of irons whose authenticity is questioned by the man who used them really bring a whopping windfall at auction? The answer was definitively. Irons put forth as being the clubs that Tiger Woods used to win the “Tiger Slam” (2000 US Open, Open Championship and PGA along with the 2001 Masters) sold to an unnamed American buyer in April for an incredible $5.156 million on Golden Age Auctions.

Houston businessman Todd Brock sold the Titleist 681-T irons, after buying them in 2010 former Titleist director of tour operations Steve Mata for just $57,242. However, as they did in 2010, Tiger’s camp denied these were the actual irons.
“Tiger has the authentic set of the Slam irons in his house,” said Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg. “Do you think Tiger would ever give away something that meaningful to his career? Could there be replicas out there that he was generous in giving away? Sure. But replicas versus authenticity — read into it as you will.”

Putter changes propel Scheffler

PGA Tour players switch putters all the time. Few, however, enjoyed the immediate success that Scottie Scheffler found in February. Scheffler went to a Scotty Cameron by Titleist Special Select Timeless Tourtype GSS at the WM Phoenix Open, where he won his maiden PGA Tour title. That sparked a career-changing run for the 26-year-old, who went on to win three of his next five events, culminating with the Masters, and ascending to No. 1 on the World Ranking in the process.

Scheffler’s putter has a finished length of 36.25 inches and two 25g adjustable weights in the sole. But at Augusta National, some changes were needed. Prior to the tournament, Scheffler felt something wasn’t right with the putter and had Scotty Cameron tour rep Drew Page check it. Scheffler’s instincts were spot on. The shaft had been bent and the loft and lie angle were both off by multiple degrees. A new shaft and grip were installed, and Scheffler went on to win his first major title.

The passing of a long-time equipment writer

If you read about golf equipment, you’ve probably read some of Jim Achenbach’s work. That made it a sad day in the equipment arena when Achenbach passed away in April at age 78.

Jim Achenbach got his own parking spot in the Masters Media Lot after earning the Masters Major Achievement Award. Courtesy of Streeter Lecka

The lanky Achenbach was known to tour pros and industry execs alike, with a passion and enthusiasm for covering the equipment beat that kept his readers informed, educated and entertained for the 24 years he worked at Golfweek, a run that ended with his retirement in 2015. He earned the Masters Major Achievement Award for covering 40 Masters in 2010 and several awards from the Golf Writers Association of America.
As Golfweek’s Jason Lusk wrote, “He could hobnob with USGA or R&A executives just as easily as he would listen to the preachings of a local club fitter at a small, independently owned retail golf store. He was always happy to talk golf.”

Grips less than an inch apart lead to DQ

Ty Gingerich and Cole Harris, teammates at the University of Cincinnati, were 1-down with two holes to play in their quarter-final match at the US Amateur Four-Ball in May when play was stopped due to darkness. As it turned out, they never got a chance to stage a comeback.
That’s because the split grips on Gingerich’s 39.5-inch TaylorMade Spider putter were too close together. According to the rules, split grips on the same club must be at least 1.5 inches apart. Gingerich’s grips were less than an inch apart, according to the USGA, which discovered the issue the morning that the match was supposed to resume. Because he’d played with the club already throughout the match, the violation of the rule came with the harshest of penalties: disqualification.
For his part, Gingerich handled the gut-wrenching situation with class. “I was just shocked,” Gingerich said. “I didn’t even know it was a rule. I had never heard of it before. No one has ever told me about that. But you know I guess it’s my fault. I should have looked deeper into that. I made a mistake.”

Stark didn’t check the list twice

Maja Stark, a 22-year-old Swede who earlier in the summer earned her LPGA Tour card, learned the hard way to be careful when using prototype clubs.
That’s because Stark was disqualified from October’s LPGA Ascendant event in Texas ahead of the second round for putting a Ping G430 driver in play. The problem? Stark jumped the gun as the club had not yet been listed on the USGA’s List of Conforming Clubheads.
Stark took the DQ in stride (she shot 75 in the opening round so just making the cut would have taken some doing), taking to Instagram to explain the situation.
“So I’ve gotten some questions regarding my DQ this week. Yes, I played with a driver that wasn’t on the list of approved drivers yet (but it is conforming to the rules). I got it on Wednesday from a tour rep and hit good shots on the range. There was some miscommunication, which resulted in neither me nor my caddie (who was with me when I tried it out) being aware that we couldn’t use it in competition yet. It’s my responsibility to know that my clubs are all right to use according to the rules, but I didn’t even think of looking it up or asking because I just assumed that the clubs I get will be OK.”

Excessive paint leads to Matsuyama DQ

Hideki Matsuyama is a former winner of the Memorial in 2014, so he was likely looking forward to teeing it up in the event this past June. His week didn’t last long.
After just nine holes officials pulled the 2021 Masters champ from the course, informing him that the 3-wood he was using was in violation of the rules because it had white paint on the face. The paint was deemed to be a foreign substance and applying those to the face of golf clubs is an equipment no-no. The club would have been OK if it had not been used, but Matsuyama confirmed he hit his opening tee shot with it, resulting in a DQ. Although the paint was for alignment purposes, it was deemed there was an excessive amount of it on the face.

Hideki Matsuyama gets DQ’d for a marking on the face of his fairway wood.

The ? ? @gdm43pga managed to snap this one of Hideki’s at Muirfield. Gotta assume the white areas, which were likely meant to frame the face and center, caused the DQ. Wild stuff. pic.twitter.com/Ek4Oj1xeH9

— Jonathan Wall (@jonathanrwall) June 2, 2022

“Our committee became aware through some pictures that were posted that there may be a substance that has been painted on the face of one of Hideki’s clubs,” rules official Steve Rintoul explained. “And we approached Hideki [on the second hole] and went through the process. Hideki, are you carrying this club? Yes. Have you used this club? Because if he hasn’t used the club, it’s okay to carry a nonconforming club, you just can’t use it. Have you used this club? Well, the poor guy has played one hole, and he managed to use it off the first tee.”

Would you like a sleeve of balls with that?

Shane Lowry is the epitome of the everyman, despite being a highly successful PGA Tour player with a major title to his credit. So, it was no surprise that after breaking his putter during the first round of the CJ Cup at South Carolina’s Congaree Golf Club in October that he took a perfectly logical approach to a replacement: He went shopping. Lowry went to the PGA Superstore in Bluffton, South Carolina, about an hour away. Originally it was thought he went there on his own, but as it turned out, a member of Lowry’s team called Odyssey, which got a replacement White Hot 2-Ball Pro to the store. When Lowry went to pick it up, he bought another putter as an additional backup, forking over the full $229 like any other hacker would. Sometimes being the everyman can be costly.

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Odyssey expands its putter lineup with four revamped, upgraded or completely new families of models. Included are expanded models from its White Hot OG line from last year, a fresh rebuild from face to sole of the Toulon Design family and two new shapes that take on the idea of just how similar well-designed mallets and blades might actually be. The overriding theme across all models is that forgiveness, contrary to much conventional wisdom, might have more to do with how close the centre of gravity is to the face rather than how close it is to the rear.

PRICE: Odyssey White Hot OG, $230 (steel)/$280 (StrokeLab); Odyssey Eleven, $300; Odyssey Tri Hot 5K, $400; Odyssey Toulon Design, $450. All putters are available for pre-order on Jan. 14. They are expected at retail Feb. 4. (Ed’s Note: UAE Pricing and release dates to be confirmed)

THE DEEP DIVE: What we’ve thought was true about putters has been changing a lot over the last decade. Time was when we thought only real hacks used mallets, whose forgiving designs made up for those lousy strokes. Now, most weeks seven of the top 10 players in the world use a mallet putter.

What that switch in thinking really has shown us is that forgiveness and stability, technically under the catch-all called “moment of inertia,” are vital to the consistency that leads to more successful putting, whether it’s paydays on tour or in the grill room.

But what might be changing most in putters is the very nature of “forgiveness,” particularly with regard to where the centre of gravity should be. We’ve seen real hints of it with designs like Cleveland’s Frontline and TaylorMade’s Spider FCG. For the longest time, the thought was the CG should be pushed far back from the face to get the best performance on off-centre hits.

Now, Odyssey, the No. 1 putter brand in golf, has dug in on the idea of forgiveness and stability, and the primary result are two new putter lines, one mallet (the Eleven) and one blade (Tri Hot 5K) that both incorporate all of the forgiveness of the one with the control of the other. That theme continues, as well, with new mallets in the White Hot OG lineup and revised faces and sole weighting in the sleek milled Toulon Design lineup.

Essentially, the entire Odyssey roster for 2022 reflects not so much how to make mallets better mallets or blades better blades, but rather how to make mallets and blades both better putters. The key seems to be making off-centre hits roll close to the same distance as centre hits, while at the same time reducing the way off-centre hits finish farther to the right or the left. The answer lies in not pushing the CG so deep while at the same time super-boosting the off-centre stability, said Patrick Dawson, Odyssey’s senior R&D manager. That’s not a contradiction in terms.

“It seems like the classic club designer’s problem: Do you want ball speed robustness or do you want side angle or sidespin robustness?” he said, referencing the idea that maintaining ball speed across the face and reducing side spin solves the twin putting problems of distance and direction. “Well, in the putter space we really think the side angle is going to be what causes somebody’s putts to go offline. So if you can get outsize gains in moment of inertia at that same depth of CG, then you’re really cooking with fire. Because now you get some of that additional ball speed robustness, you maintain all of your side angle robustness and the result is something pretty unique and special.”

The result is the Eleven, a forward CG larger mallet with high MOI, and the the Tri Hot 5K, a traditional-looking blade with an MOI in line with or even higher than most top mallets. Both putters get to that perfect mix of high stability and forward CG with extensive use of multiple materials. The Eleven, which is shaped like a trapezoid with the face wider than the rear perimeter, uses eight distinct parts and includes the White Hot polymer insert on the face, as well as a heavy dose of steel on top and in front, aluminium in the back and sides and a thermoplastic urethane brick in the middle to produce a highly stable head design. The CG is forward so off-centre hits show less dispersion because of reduced sidespin but better ball speed because of all that heel and toe weighting for stability.

Of course, getting to this shape isn’t just science. It’s also player feedback on mallets, said Sean Toulon, Odyssey’s general manager, who’s been studying the prevalence of mallets on tour and why some players switch back and forth between mallets and blades.

“What we’re seeing is when that CG tends to get too far back on putters that have relatively high MOI, they can be very difficult to rotate enough on the way through back to square,” he said. “It takes a lot of energy from a golfer to be able to override those two forces, and the miss biases end up being to the right.”

The Eleven aims to fix that effect with a more forward centre of gravity. Like all Odyssey putters, it includes the combination graphite and steel Stroke Lab shaft, which raises the balance point closer to the hands to improve repeatability in the stroke. This latest version features a shorter steel section at the tip and a stiffer profile with less total weight for more stability.

So if the Eleven exhibits much of the face control benefits of a typical blade through its shallower, blade-like CG location, could a blade develop some of the mallet’s stability? Enter the Tri Hot 5K, five recognisable blade styles which use steel, aluminium and especially tungsten to produce a true blade shape with MOI numbers higher than many popular mallets (above 5,000 grams-centimetres squared, which for perspective is also higher than many drivers). The Tri Hot 5K, which also uses the White Hot polymer insert, features a steel hosel and face area and then inserts 121 grams of tungsten up front in the heel and toe behind the face. The back flange is made of light aluminium and then another pair of 28-gram tungsten weights in heel and toe ports in the sole. Nearly half of the putter’s total weight is high-density tungsten.

Odyssey’s other putters are taking off on some of those learnings, as well. The Toulon Design all-milled putters have been redesigned in two key ways to help ball speed consistency. First the diamond-shaped milling pattern, including horizontal lines that split each diamond, extends across the entire face for consistent roll and feel. The Toulon Design line’s blades and mallets all have switched out of a centre sole plate to heel and toe weights positioned toward the front for that more forward CG position.

“With milled putters the focus has always been on shaping or materials, but where we always thought we could make a difference was to bring a level of technical performance to this category so we could get these products to really perform at the very highest level not just of milled putters, but of putters in general,” Toulon said. “But this is the highest level of performance we’ve ever had.”

The new lineup includes three familiar blades, three traditional mallets and two new modern mallet shapes, the Daytona Beach and LeMans.

Not to be forgotten in this new thinking about forgiveness are new higher-MOI shapes added to the White Hot OG lineup. The collection introduced last year grows with the Double Wide blade and three new versions of the twin-fanged No. 7 (including the No. 7 Bird with a back bridge that joins those parallel wings). The White Hot OG line also adds three women’s specific lengths and weights to its popular No. 1, No. 7 and 2-Ball shapes.

Pricing for the White Hot OG is $230 (steel), $270 (Stroke Lab); Eleven, $300; Tri Hot 5K, $400; and Toulon Design, $450. All Odyssey models will be available for pre-order on Jan. 14 and will be at retail Feb. 4. (Ed’s Note: UAE Pricing and release dates to be confirmed)

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