Golf Equipment

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.

Let’s start by saying I have never owned, as of yet, a golf ball retriever.

I’m kinda like Natalie Gulbis, who said in a commercial, that she let’s ‘em stay in the water, lest they come back and infect the other ones in the bag.

BUT, and that’s a big butt, but not quite as big as J-lo’s, I may just have to invest in one of these sweet little retrievers I just read about in a Press Release.

This season’s greatest gift idea for golfers may be the one of the most versatile golf ball retrievers ever built - The Dipper (TM) compact golf ball retriever from www.dippergolf.com.

The small, yet sturdy Dipper clips to the shaft of the golfer’s three iron,
or other bladed club, and extends to over 12 inches. This configuration
makes it ideal for the easy retrieval of golf balls from hazards such as
ponds, creeks, and wetlands. Yet when collapsed for storage, the retriever is only 7 inches long and weighs less than 3 ounces. In addition, it has an integrated groove-cleaning tool for extra versatility.

The Dipper’s compact size makes it ideal for golfers, like me, who don’t want to carry a bulky, unsightly ball retriever with their golf clubs.

Easily stored in the pocket of a golf bag, the retriever enables a golfer to ‘just clip and dip’ to recover a golf ball in a water hazard. At a time of rising golf ball costs, it’s an easy and inexpensive way to protect your investment.

The Dipper is an ideal holiday gift and comes in several colors.

Constructed of aircraft aluminum and high impact plastic, The Dipper is
rustproof and is built for years of service on the golf course. It’s available in selected golf pro shops and at the company’s Web site at
www.dippergolf.com for a suggested retail price of $12.95.

Discounts are available for large quantity orders — and can be branded with an organization’s logo.

If you buy one and save an almost drowned ProV1, you can always say you ” Won one with The Dipper ! ”

Sorry Knute, that was kinda sad.

Have you seen the new blog by the folks at Hireko Golf ?

I found out about them thru an email and have been reading their blog and checking out their website lately.

The driver head you see to the left is one of many innovative designs I found while cruisin’ their website.

Maybe I’ll convince ‘em to send me one for review (hint,hint) !

I need a new driver anyway. I got a new Callaway 3-wood earlier this year and I’ve been playing it off the tee for several months.

Just this weekend I played 9 holes with two young guys at the club and out drove them on 5 of 7 driver holes. They were noticeably upset when they figured out I’d hit 3-wood every time.

Check out Hireko and see if they have anything interesting enough that you’d give ‘em a try and subscribe to their RSS feed on their blog, which happens to use WordPress.com. Wise choice, except for not getting their own domain name.

We all remember the magical putting and play by Mark Calcavecchia that won the PODS Championship back in March.

He had two putters in his camp that week. A prototype that Ping had sent him and a Redwood Answer that he’d bought in a store because it felt good.

Well, I’ve got the same symptoms that the 26-year PGA Tour veteran suffered from - none of the putters in my camp, and there are many, many in there, feel good to me.

I’ve hit the ball well most of the year, but my putting has sucked out loud.

Back in March, Calc said, ” I was in a major putting slump. And we all know the story about the putter, the store bought putter, and it looked good to me. It’s called a Ping Redwood, which is their milled version of their Anser, which Scotty Cameron and everybody else in the world copies. But it looked good to me, and I figured something out.”

When I read that, and I admit to scouring the ‘net looking for divine intervention with my putting, I searched high and low for the tip and finally found it -

” I guess it was Friday morning, when I was hitting some putts on the putting green. For some reason it dawned on me to pull more with my left hand. So then I kind of loosened up my right-hand grip and tried to putt basically left-handed with my right hand just on the putter for guidance, and here I am.”

Okay. Pull more with left hand, loosen right hand, buy a $240.00+ putter and win a tournament. No problem.

I also searched for more info on Redwood putters and figured they’d be very expensive after that Miracle on Grass and here’s what I found -

The Redwood series, which came on the market in late 2006, is milled from 303 stainless steel. Three models are available — the Piper S, the Zing and the Anser, which Calcavecchia used. The putters got their name from Ping founder Karsten Solheim’s home in Redwood City, CA, where he made the first Ping putters.

” I just kind of look at it and see which one looks less ugly to me, “ he said about choosing which putter he will use for a round. ” It’s basically what I putted with all of my career, just that it’s an Anser. ”

As you might imagine, Calcavecchia plans to keep the Redwood in play.

” It earned it’s way for quite a while I think, “ he said. ” Hopefully I can just keep with the same thoughts and feel that I had the last three days. It’s earned bag time for a while, even if it goes south. I know I like the putter, and I know I can putt with it, so that’s about three-quarters of the battle. ”

By the way, he sent the prototype back to Ping.

Now, I’m off to find a golf equipment store and see if I can find one that “feels” good to me.

A new device created by a certified hand therapist at Howard Therapy, LLC provides superior treatment for sports-related wrist pain.

For professional athletes, wrist injuries are serious setbacks. Standard therapy for the most common type of athletic wrist injury is rest, immobilization, and treatment with NSAIDs, followed, if necessary, by arthroscopic surgery. Bottom line: an athlete is out of work while the injury heals. This can cost an athlete hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. Which has been proves as wrist-injured, top-ranked golfers Michelle Wie and Phil Mickelson have demonstrated in recent tournaments.

After a week in which five patients showed up at with the same problem, hand therapist Wendy Howard became determined to find a better and faster solution. Each had an injury common in many professional athletes: a wrist injury in the triangular fibrocartilage complex (TFCC). She soon realized that no brace or splint on the market fully addressed the pain and grip problems associated with these TFCC injuries, and applied her 17 years of physical therapy experience to the creation of something completely new.

“Ninety-nine percent of all wrist splints,” Howard says, “are developed by large companies with marketing in mind. Only one percent of wrist splints come from people who are the experts in human anatomy and splinting.”

After a year of research and testing, Howard developed the WristWidget, a device that stabilizes the wrist, but allows full range of motion to the wearer’s hand and thumb, a critical feature for athletes. Lightweight, waterproof and comfortable, the WristWidget is much smaller than most wrist splints, about the size of a wide wristwatch band.

Its unique design stabilizes the two bones of the forearm, the ulna and the radius, taking over the role of the TFCC ligament so it can heal. The Wrist Widget’s straps are adjustable to avoid the temporary hand or finger nerve irritation caused by the pressure of conventional wrist splints.

Designed to withstand the demands of the high-impact world of professional athletes, the WristWidget has been used successfully by over 1,000 wrist-pain sufferers from all walks of life. It’s suitable and affordable for anyone suffering from wrist pain. Satisfied customers include golfers, snowboarders, surfers, bowlers, and tennis players.

Clinical testing of the WristWidget with 170 patients at Howard’s clinic has shown an immediate reduction in pain and an immediate increase in
wrist-related strength for all 170 participants. To be included in the
study, patients exhibited at least one of the symptoms the WristWidget is designed to treat: TFCC-specific injuries, ulnar-sided wrist pain, or wrist pain associated with gripping, weight bearing, or rotation.

Has anybody tried any of the hybrids or other clubs that Jesse Ortiz has been allowed to manufacture using the Bobby Jones name ?

I haven’t actually seen any as of yet, nor have I watched the infomercial on The Golf Channel, so I can’t really comment and I trust the rankings in Golf Digest and Golf Magazine as far as I can throw the Brinks truck the ad dollars go into.

If you’ve actually tried one, please send us a review or comment here.

I’ve often wondered where my British, English and European readers might do their online shopping for golf clubs.

I noticed in my server stats that I’ve had over 13,000 pages viewed so far this month by readers from those locales, so I investigated the choices.

The best place I found to buy Golf Clubs was Click Golf, located in London.

They seem to have everything a golfer would need and you don’t have to leave home to get it.

Click Golf stocks a wide selection of golf clubs from top names including Taylor Made, Mizuno, Callaway, RAM, Cobra and John Letters.

They have a great selection of drivers, fairway woods, irons, putters, starter sets, utility clubs and wedges and they’re all from some of the finest golf equipment manufacturers.

If you’re a reader of Travelling Golfer based in the UK, give Click Golf a try. If you’ve already done business with them, let me know what the experience was like.

How would you like to own the same headcover that Natalie Gulbis owns ?

Click thru to the Winning Edge Designs website and buy the same Fierce Swan that Natalie uses and it has her autograph embroidered on it.

You can also see a headcover that looks like Gary McCord, a Luck of the Irish headcover for all you golfers whose name ends with Hannigan, a Rocky the Squirrel and Bullwinkle the Moose, if you’re near my age and used to watch them outsmart Boris and Natasha, a Little Duckie hybrid cover that I’m going to order and many, many others.

By the way, you guys over at Winning Edge need to sponsor Travelling Golfer and I’ll give you some website advice, as I saw some simple tweaks that would help your search engine rankings with very little work.

I like simple things !

Has anybody bought this new system of packaging tees yet ?

PrideSports, maker of the Professional Tee System™ and the #1 wooden golf tee on the PGA TOUR, today unveiled a new look to the golf tee market with the debut of Rounds of Tees.

Their package features 18 rounds of tees per pack, including 90 ProLength Plus™ (3 1/4″) tees and 36 Shortees™ (2 1/8″). PrideSports is enabling golfers to obtain multiple length tees in one pack to accommodate today’s large head drivers, as well ironwoods (hybrids) and multiple size fairway woods.

As part of its debut of Rounds of Tees, PrideSports has also teamed-up with Golf Digest Publications for a first-of-its-kind golf tee promotion that enables golfers who purchase the tee pack to receive 12 months of Golf Digest. As an added bonus, golfers will receive 12 issues of Golf Digest’s Electronic Pocket Tips

” Through our many years of golf tee research, we’ve found that, on average, golfers will go through approximately 7 tees per round, which is the basis for our Rounds of Tees introduction, ” said Joe Zeller, President, PrideSports. ” Equally important, with the advent of large head drivers, ironwoods and other unique clubhead designs, golfers require multiple length tees during a round. Thus, Rounds of Tees provides golfers with two distinct tee lengths to meet the needs of every club in their bag. ”

In addition to the 18 Rounds of Tees pack, PrideSports has also unveiled a 10 Rounds of Tees pack, featuring 70 tees, including 50 ProLength Plus and 20 Shortees. Golfers purchasing the 10 Rounds of Tees will also receive 12 issues of Golf Digest’s Electronic Pocket Tips.

Here’s something I missed earlier this year. Fuzzy Zoeller is back with Powerbilt, playing their irons.

I lived in New Albany (IN) for 6-7 years and was a member at New Albany Country Club, where Fuzzy’s family were members before he built Covered Bridge.

I’ve done a review on Covered Bridge Golf Club which you can find by following that link.

I used to eat lunch up at Covered Bridge a time or two a week and when Fuzzy’s in the house, he always says Hi to the people in the Grill Room, the Pro Shop or Fuzzy Place, where Wednesday night is Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner ! night and people come from miles around for the best fried chicken, mashed taters and green beans you can find.

I just noticed that Fuzzy is back where he started, as Powebilt, New Albany and Louisville are separated only by the Ohio River.

It could be called golf’s “warm and fuzzy” story of the New Year. But it might be better to call it golf’s “Orange and Fuzzy” story. That’s because after 15 years, Masters and U.S. Open Champion Fuzzy Zoeller is re-uniting with PowerBilt.

It’s an exciting partnership that will have Fuzzy playing PowerBilt, carrying the bright orange bag, and designing clubs for both Tour and amateur play.

” I’ll be swinging PowerBilt clubs on Tour again and we’re bringing back the orange PowerBilt bag, ” Zoeller said, ” It’s going to be a lot of fun to see that orange bag on the Tour fairways again sitting under my signature Duck head cover. I had great success with PowerBilt. Heck, ten of the twelve professional tournaments I won, including the Masters and U.S. Open, were with PowerBilt. We’re going to work hard to resurrect that success. ”

Zoeller will play a new line of PowerBilt Citation forged irons which he’ll help design with PowerBilt’s research & development team lead by Mark Wilson. Fuzzy and PowerBilt R&D will also design high quality utility woods, fairway woods, and drivers for Tour play.

” Fuzzy will help PowerBilt make inroads with golf professionals, ” said Larry Edlin, President of PowerBilt Golf. ” He’s highly regarded for his knowledge of the game and, of course, his personality is second to none on Tour. We’re thrilled to have Fuzzy back with PowerBilt, one of the great heritage brands in the game, and we expect to see PowerBilt clubs in the hands of more professionals as well as amateur players everywhere with Fuzzy’s help. ”

The three-time Ryder Cup team member and 12-time Tour winner, including the 1979 Masters, 1984 U.S. Open and 2002 Senior PGA, will also work with PowerBilt R&D to develop many other Fuzzy Zoeller designed and named clubs. That equipment will be available in pro shops, golf specialty stores, and other locations in the 24 countries where PowerBilt is distributed.

” PowerBilt knows golf. They’ve been making clubs since 1916, ” Zoeller said. ” I’m impressed with PowerBilt’s commitment to returning to their roots and making premium products that will put PowerBilt back at the top of the game. I want to tell you, we’re going to have state-of-the-art technology, great design and terrific looking clubs. I’m back with PowerBilt and PowerBilt is back in premium golf equipment. ”

Congrats to Fuzzy and Powerbilt !