Golf Equipment

Has anybody else seen this new tool for keeping your greens smooth and healthy ? The Divotmaster looks like it could be pretty useful and easy to use.

For a little history of the Divotmaster, let’s read some of what John Luna says about it :

” One summer morning, I stopped at one of our local golfcourses to practice chipping before going to work. I was appalled at all the ballmarks that had been left unrepaired on the chipping green.

It occurred to me, ” There ought to be an easy way to repair ballmarks quickly and properly, so all golfers would repair them ! ”

I took this thought to my shop where I started doing some experimenting with different ideas. After making an initial prototype and improving it several times, I finally came up with this tool.

The Divotmaster is an eight-pronged tool with an angle on the inside edge of the prongs. The patented radial design of the prongs along with the inside angle, make it possible to bring the turf up and towards the center everytime you “jab” in the area of the ballmark. “

For more history, pricing and to see the Divotmaster in action, click thru to their website.

Wow ! That’s about all I can say after buying this golf ball crusher ! This dude is hot ! This dude is Long ! This dude is straight !

I traded in a MacGregor MacTec 3-wood that I didn’t like and bought this driver to match my F-Speed 3-wood. I got the 10.5 degree, with the Aldila NV-F stiff shaft and I am crushing the ball !

We’ve had an enormous amount of rain for the last 2 days, so I can really judge overall distance well as of yet, BUT, I’m hitting it straight and with a shade over medium trajectory and the carry is really, really long.

I’ll let you know more over the next several days as we dry out, but it’s longer than my Nike, which wasn’t the newest model and it’s longer than my Callaway, which wasn’t the newest model.

Both of those are for sale, too, so if you’d like a Nike or Callaway driver for a good price, email me and we’ll work out a deal.

I recently bought a new Cobra F-Speed 3 Wood with the Aldila NV-F stiff shaft. I’m not prone to embellishment, but I will exaggerate a little, but this dude is a rocket with a graphite booster engine ! I love the ease at which it goes thru the hitting zone. I love the draw bias. I love the way the ball screams as it leaves the face of this masher.

I can hit a straight ball with it. I can hit a draw with it and I can hit a hook, if I try real hard. But I cannot slice this dude, even when I try. I’m still trying to find a little, bitty cut in it, but I’m not sure it’s there.

There’s no way you can be scared of a tight fairway with this club in your hand.

I’m now on the lookout for a matching driver and when I find one, I’ll be a force to be feared at my local muni…that is, until I get an iron in my mitts !

Need help taming your slice and/or cut ? Try Cobra’s F-Speed 3 Wood and see if it will work the same wonders for you.

Just bought myself a new putter for Father’s Day. It’s a Ray Cook Extreme Aim 3 and I love it.

I just had time for 9 holes tonite, and after I hit 6 putts on the practice putting green, I headed for the first tee and a quick round with my nemesis, Bill Knapp.

First hole, 360 yard dogleg right and I’m about 55 yards short of the green and chunk my 56 degree Eidolon sand wedge. I pitch it to 5 feet and make the putt. My first real putt with the new baby and I drill a 5 footer for par…. and fall a stroke behind to his birdie.

Second hole, 515 yard uphill Par 5 and I hit a hybrid 4 iron pin high, but it rolls off the left and I chip it to about 10 feet and lip the birdie for a tap in par. Two putts, two good ones.

The fourth hole I’m 2 feet short of the front of the green, about 30 feet out and I putt it to about a foot for another easy par.

Fifth green gives me an 8-9 footer for birdie and I drill it dead center.

Seventh hole I hit a pitching wedge to 3 feet and make the EAGLE putt.

Eighth hole I 2 putt from about 30 feet and the ninth was a misread from 12 feet for an easy par and a smooth 35 …. 1 under for the nine.

Oh, by the way I lost $3 to Bill’s 33. What a miserable sucker he is. I finally putt well and he throws a 33 at me.

As for the putter, I love it. Easy to aim, feels solid, no hot spots, rolls the ball end over end.

I will be a better putter the rest of the year due to this fine putting jewel and my Line-M-Up alignment tool.

Since Father’s Day is a few days off, I guess I’d better give you a few ideas as to what I’d like, er…. I mean, what you might get for ‘ol Dad for his big day.

First up, I’ve got one, but maybe you don’t. The Line-M-Up Pro. I always wondered if putting a line on your ball was helpful or distracting. My take - helpful.

Putting’s about confidence and I’m confident that I’m aligned toward my target, now that I’m using this little jewel.

It doesn’t seem to bother me on full shots from the fairway, when the line is off to the side or at a funny angle. It’s also easy to identify your ball in the rough, if you get there on occasion, like me.

My putting’s about 3 strokes a round better since I started marking my ball, so I’ll keep doing it.

Here’s a link to their website, where they also offer Diamond Back golf spikes, a hand drying agent, a ballmark repair tool and a couple of other cool golf items.

In case you’ve never read it, The Travelling Golfer ( that’s me ) plays a Titleist 975J 9.5 degree driver, a Titleist 975F 13.5 degree 3-wood and nothing but Titleist golf balls.

Now, I’ve found a way to keep up with all of the Titleist news that is news when it makes the news.

Today I found that Titleist, Golf’s Symbol of Excellence, has unveiled its new, content-rich News site and RSS Feeds that deliver Titleist information daily and directly to the desktops of subscribers.

” The titleist.com RSS News Feed is an extension of our commitment to provide the content and information golfers seek and expect from the Titleist brand, ” said Joe Gomes, Director of Communications, Acushnet Company. ” The redesign of the News section on our web site, in combination with the opportunity for consumers to subscribe to the RSS Feeds, is an important factor in delivering timely and accurate updates on Titleist products, tour player information, educational initiatives and breaking news when it happens. ”

For more information on RSS Feeds and to subscribe to the titleist.com RSS News Feeds, please visit this page.

I played another round today at Lafayette Golf Club, once ranked #2 here in the great state of Kentucky, and I’d have really gotten a whipping by this monster, if not for my wedges saving me several times.

I have the 52, 56 and 60 degree models in my bag and would not trade them. The shafts are a big part of the feel factor and here’s some info I dug up about them.

Further establishing itself as the industry leader in short game innovation, Eidolon Golf announced the introduction of the exclusively marketed Rifle Graphite Spinner shaft, a proprietary shaft design which is now offered as an exclusive option for premium V-SOLE™ wedges.

With the addition of the new Rifle Graphite Spinner shaft as an upgrade option, Eidolon Golf has further separated its premium line of V-SOLE wedges from those offered by general golf club manufacturers. The Rifle Graphite Spinner is designed and manufactured by Royal Precision in conjunction with Eidolon Golf, and Eidolon Golf is the only golf equipment company to offer the premium Rifle Graphite Spinner shaft as standard equipment.

” The new Rifle Spinner Graphite shaft mirrors the performance characteristics of the Rifle steel shafts exactly,” says Terry Koehler, President of Eidolon Golf and former Ben Hogan Golf executive. ” The higher flex point and slightly softer overall flex ensures an optimum feel and shot-making sensitivity at the wide variety of clubhead speeds common to wedge play. We’re very proud to have worked with the engineers at Royal Precision to bring this new graphite shaft to our line of V-SOLE wedges. The combination of these premium products provides a level of short game performance that is truly unmatched. ”

The Rifle Graphite Spinner weighs 95 grams — 20 grams lighter than Rifle Spinner steel shafts — and Eidolon Golf will apply its proprietary tipping procedures to offer the Rifle Graphite Spinner in both Regular and Firm flexes, with the former recommended for players whose normal 9-iron distance is 120 yards or less.

Equipped with either steel or graphite shafts, Eidolon Golf’s premium wedges offer more spin and more control by combining precise CNC groove and face milling with its own patented V-SOLE™ technology. Unlike most mass-produced wedges, Eidolon painstakingly CNC-mills each wedge face and then CNC-mills individual grooves in every wedge to achieve nearly 100 percent of the groove specifications allowed by the U.S. Golf Association. In addition, Eidolon’s patented V-Sole design features a very aggressive bounce on the leading portion wedges - about one-quarter of an inch - of the sole. This pronounced bounce (18 degrees on the 52-degree lofted wedge, 30 degrees on the 56 wedge, and 25 degrees on the 60-degree wedge) ensures that the leading edge never digs into the turf. The primary rear portion of the sole features minimal bounce — three degrees on the 52 gap wedge, seven degrees on the 56 mid- wedge and six degrees on the 60 lob wedge, so they play exceptionally well from the fairway and tight lies.

Eidolon Golf designs and manufactures premium golf wedges about which the Golf Club Review reports as having “enormous stopping power.” Headquartered in Port O’Connor, Texas, with manufacturing facilities in Houston, Eidolon Golf produces the only wedges in golf that feature the patented V-Sole™ Technology. For more information about Eidolon Golf, please visit their website.

Saturday afternoon I was waiting for my nemesis, er, I mean good friend Bill Knapp, from Madisonville ( KY ) to show up at our stomping grounds. 3 other guys wanted me to play a quick 9 with them and I figured I had time to get warmed up.

I wasn’t really into it, just hacking it around and getting loose, but I noticed that one of the guys was using a new Cobra Speed Tuned driver. He’s 65 years old and was really striping the ball, so I asked him to let me have a whack with it.

It was a 10.5 degree, F-Speed with a Regular flex shaft. Not as stiff as I need, but if I tone ‘er down a few, er, make that several notches, I figured I could swing it.

I let it rip and flew it about 290 - 310, dead straight, very high and man was it beautiful.

I’m going to start looking on eBay for one with the F-Speed head, Stiff shaft and 10.5 degrees of loft and see how it compares to my Titleist 975J, 9.5 degree, with a Fujikura Vista Tour Stiff shaft.

It’s worth a try.

Let me know if you’ve tried one.

Has anyone tried the new XG putter from Odyssey ? I just saw an ad for it in Golf Magazine and went to their site and the technology looks great. My putting is not as good as it should be, but I’m not sure I could buy a game.

Via their website :

” The White Hot XG is the next generation of White Hot Technology. Inspired by proven, high-performance, multi-layer golf ball technology, the White Hot XG is Odyssey’s latest advancement that utilizes a multi-layer insert for phenomenal performance on the green. It combines two materials with different properties to take the level of feedback, feel and distance control to an all-new, extreme level.

* Elastomer Core Material - Soft for great feel, and highly resilient to get the ball rolling quickly.

* Thin, outer striking surface - Firm for fine-tuned responsiveness.

* Textured Impact Zone - Enhances feel and clearly defines the sweet spot.

All together, it allows weight to be shifted to the perimeter of the putter head for a high MOI, creating even better forgiveness and truer roll than previous models. It’s the softest, most responsive insert we have ever created. “

Let me know if you’ve tried it or what you think.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it right now, my 3 Eidolon Golf wedges are the finest wedges I’ve ever played. They are scoring machines.

Need to stop it on a dime, downwind, fluffy lie, hard green ? Use an Eidolon wedge.

Need to chip it close, down grain, downhill, no way to hit it hard enough to create spin ? Use an Eidolon wedge.

Want to spin it back, like your friends do ? Use an Eidolon wedge.

Want to bring it in high ? Use an Eidolon wedge.

Want a graphite Rifle Spinner shaft ? You can only get it when you play Eidolon Golf wedges.

Here’s a link to a SPECIAL web page. You can get a discount that you can only get when you get an email from the owner of the company…like I did. I’m passing it on to you guys, because I have a 3 wedge set and would not trade them for less than $500. That way I could buy another set and have a little travelling money left over.

Seriously, that link has no affiliation for me. I get nothing if you buy, except the sheer satisfaction of knowing that you now own the finest wedges you’ll ever play, the last wedges you’ll ever buy.