October 2007

I‘m now the proud owner of a 19 degree Hybrid from Bobby Jones Golf.

It’s been raining here for the last 5-7 days and pretty chilly, so today’s 60 degrees and sunny skies was the first chance I’ve had to drop by our range and hit this sweet little par 5 killer.

Why would I refer to it as a par 5 killer ? Because that’s what I overheard Gary McCord refer to his hybrid as. I can hit 3-wood or driver off the tee and then hit this hybrid and easily get to every green that’s 470-500 yards away. Easily.

My friends hated it that I could hit my 3-wood 235-250 off the tee and then hit my old Adams 20 degree hybrid 220, making most par 5’s an easy birdie hole, with 2 putts or an easy chip on and a birdie putt.

Today’s 60 degree temperature and with the wind quartering in to me didn’t stop me from peppering the 225 marker on the range with our Srixon range balls.

10-20 feet of fade or 20-30 feet of draw was the shot of the day with the Bobby Jones Hybrid. And for my first time hitting it, that’s not too bad. Not too bad at all.

If I can hit the 20-30 feet of draw, getting me a little run on a dry fairway, I’ll hit it on tight or short par 4’s. The fairway plays so much better than the rough. Seems to promote lower scores for some strange reason.

If I can hit it with a 10-20 foot drop over fade into green’s, it’ll easily hold 225-235 yard approach shots. Easily.

MY only nitpick is the shaft selection I made. I had never hit a JS-7 shaft before and every clubfitter and salesperson who sees my 6′2″ 250 lb. frame assumes I need a stiff shaft.

If they’ve never seen me swing, they don’t know I’m a fairly smooth swinger, on occasion and really prefer a softer shaft.

Maybe not a full blown regular, as when I build my own clubs I tend to cut the shaft exactly between stiff and regular, maybe you could call that a firm.

But, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like the stiff version of the JS-7 is as stiff as a board, like the green NV was in my Adams hybrid. I hate that shaft with an ugly, burning passion.

This stiff is just barely a teeny bit too stiff and makes me swing a tad harder than I want to. Barely. Not much, just barely.

The sole of the Bobby Jones hybrid is one of the best features about it.

It’s lower in the middle, like a keel and it really allows you to go down in the dirt after the ball, so from bad lies it really worked well.

I believe it’s a throwback to some of the old time wooden clubs that worked so well, before metal got in the way.

I put the ball into divots, tall grass and on bare, moist dirt and it went and got it and moved it forward with purpose.

It’ll also come in handy when I have to use it around the greens as a chipping club, as I went over to the practice green and tested that too.

The biggest surprise for me was the ‘thwack’ sound it made, instead of a tinny, metallic ping of some sort that most clubs make today.

As you would expect, that’s because the designer, Jesse Ortiz was around working on wooden clubs with a rasp and file when he started years ago, instead of just in front of a CAD program, like a lot of today’s golf club designers.

It really feels like a solid club and that distinctive sound adds to the solid feeling, as mind, ears and hands all work together to provide the final feedback you feel.

The grip is perfect for me. It feels like a Winn, that’s a compliment, and has great markings and is visually appealing.

Not too hard, not too squishy. Just right. Kinda like the porridge that Goldilock’s loved so much.

Overall, I’m tremendously happy to own this hybrid and I’m looking forward to calling some friends tomorrow and asking them if they want to venture down to Alabama and play a couple of the RTJ Golf Trail courses.

I need to play a few rounds with this sweet little club before the winter weather makes golf a dream, instead of a reality.

A few years back Jesse Ortiz revolutionized the fairway wood part of the game of golf. Today he’s done the same thing for hybrids, as I’m pretty sure it can’t get any better than this.

He also made sure it would look great in your bag by giving us another throwback, the knit headcover.

I like it much, much better than some of the ginormous headcovers we’re stuck with today.

It’ll work itself easily into my carry bag and won’t make me get a map just to find a way around it, looking for another club.

If the driver and fairway woods are anywhere near this solid and easy to hit, my carry bag may well look a lot different next spring !

My 3-wood is pretty well settled in, theorhetically, but that Cobra driver with that awful green NV shaft has been looking for an escape clause all year.

Do yourself a favor and drop by the Bobby Jones Golf website and use their convenient store locator to find the nearest shop to you.

Believe me, you’ll be glad you did.

What are the chances that I can get away with using this sweet little thang as my ballmark the next time I play a round at my local club ?

It’s called EEZ-READ and pronounced easy read and the inventor says it will give me a quick read to see if the green is uphill, downhill, breaks left, breaks right, etc.

I don’t know about you, but even if I can’t use it in competition, I’d still like to go out and survey my local clubs greens and make a nice little diagram like the well paid boys use.

If anybody has any experience with this, let me know what you think.

For those who think and say that golf is a game of feel, Dr. Robert Grober may change the way we feel.

Dr. Grober developed the technology behind Sonic Golf, a system that translates each golfer’s swing into a series of audible tones that reflect speed and tempo. By listening to the sounds generated during the swing, a golfer can more easily make changes, resulting in dramatic improvements for beginning golfers and easy tweaking for advanced players.

“Sonic Golf helps golfers make the transition from mechanics to golf swing.” – Jerry King, PGA Teaching Professional, Kapalua Golf Academy, Maui

We all know that good golf swings are rhythmic, but usually a beginning golfer’s swing hasn’t progressed to that level yet, unless he/she was born with a sense of rhythm.

So Grober, a physics professor at Yale, spent more than a decade researching the golf swing. The Sonic Golf system that he developed and now uses with everyone from new golfers to PGA Tour pros utilizes a sensor that is installed in the grip of a club.

With the information about the swing that the sensor generates, sound is transferred to wireless headphones that the golfer wears. The feedback helps the golfer adjust the swing; results can be seen in as little as 20 minutes.

“Sonic Golf provided me a different way of understanding my swing.” – Charlotte Mayorkas, LPGA Futures Tour

Most professional golfers already have a good idea of tempo and rhythm.

Take Tiger Woods for example.

He takes 1.08 seconds to hit a driver, and he takes 1.08 seconds to hit a wedge. A swing that’s repetitive and consistent is the hallmark of a great golfer.

The company plans to release a version of the Sonic Golf system that users can purchase for their own use. Interested golfers will be able to purchase a club already outfitted with the sensor, or can buy the sensor for their own clubs. Plus, Allen says the company is working with a major grip manufacturer to have grips that will open for easy insertion and removal of the device.

Sonic Golf is likely to appeal to teaching professionals, too, as another way to get across their messages about swing changes.

For those of us who struggle with tempo and weren’t born with great rhythm, this invention could be the difference in long lasting golf happiness versus a lifetime of frustration.

Visit the Sonic Golf website for more info.

According to the PGA Tour website, the screen shot below shows that per event, Tom Watson, a young 58, is 67.5 % more effective per event, than Loren Roberts, the leader of the Schwab Cup Points race.

Watson averages 184.7 points per event and Roberts averages 124.7.

Tom’s only played 11 events, compared to Loren’s 21, yet he’s still not too far behind him.

Had Watson played 21 events, and still maintained that average, he’d be way, way ahead in the race for the Charles Schwab Cup.

Too bad Tom’s hip, which needs to be replaced, is bothering him and keeping him from playing as many events as the younger guys.

Jay Haas said it best this weekend, when he said basically the same thing. He knows Watson could still be kickin’ some senior butt, except for a bad hip and other things to do besides play golf every single week, like Dana Quigley.

Hat’s off to Tom Watson, one of my favorite golfers of all time and still a force to be reckoned with on The Champions Tour.

Trying to do some research for an article, I used The Golf Channel’s website and their search box, which, in my estimation … simply sucks.

Here’s a screen shot of the results, along with the search term I used.

As you can see, I searched for Schwab Cup Standings. As you can also see, their search function has no idea what that means, yet you’d think they’d be an authority on that subject or at least could enable their search bot to return results that were relevant to the search.

I’ll just go to Google and use their search box and get some results that are a wee bit more relevant to my search.

I don’t get around the southeast like I used to, due to a different career position, but a good friend visited Mississippi a few weeks ago and brought back some great reviews of the Magnolia Golf Trail.

I was wondering if anyone out there could give us some reviews of any of their courses ?

My golf blog buddy Tony K., over at Hooked On Golf, alerted me to a new golf blog written by Master Club Designer Jesse Ortiz.

In The Studio with Jesse Ortiz looks like it will be a great read, although the posts look like they’ll be longer than the average golf blog post, if the first couple are any indication.

We’ll see how it goes for Jesse, but there’s a glitch or two as of now, since I tried to register to comment and was sent an email thanking me for signing up to receive updates, which I didn’t do. And, it didn’t get me registered either.

I added Jesse to my Blog Roll and subscribed to his RSS feed and I’ll try to give you an update on how it goes.

Click thru and join Jesse In The Studio.

Did you happen to read The Presidents Cup Report Card written by ESPN.com golf writer Jason Sobel ?

If not, click HERE to open it in a new window.