Nike Vapor Launch - Europe

[furu]

Media launch at beautiful Archerfield in Scotland. Pretty good area for golf - Muirfield, Gullane, Berwick I was told that membership at Archerfield is £45.000. Not as expensive as their neighbour Renaissance, rumour says £65.000.

 

Anyway. Archerfield has a Nike Performance Fitting Center. Extremely cool place. Tom Harper from Nike shared is knowledge and presented all the new clubs. Lots of cool stories, like Tiger playing a tungsten weighted iron for 12 years. They put the tungsten cylinder in the head and gave it a new finish. Not many people knew about this.

 

We were supposed to meet Francesco Molinari and Thorbjørn Olesen. The Dane decided to go to Australia and win a tournament there. I'll forgive him. Molinari is a nice guy that I also managed to bother at Edinburgh Airport while he was eating sushi.......

 

All the new clubs were there. I'm especially impressed by the Vapor Pro Combo. In driver, fw and hybrids there's not a lot to gain. Or nothing at all. On your very good strikes. On bad strikes - that's where there's a difference. 

 

Surprised that the hollow Speed irons didn't feel, well, hollow. Not as long as expected though.

 

To put this into perspective for those who get free trips, and those of you who think that all journalists get free stuff. Yes - I stayed for free one night at the amazing Archerfield House. Pure luxury. Put I paid my plane ticket personally. $1000. For 28 hours in Scotland. Just to meet people behind the products and get some good stories for the magazine I work for. 

[furu]

Vapor Launch in 12 seconds. No - not me hitting balls.

 

http://youtu.be/ayhU1NkDf3s

[GolfSpy Barbajo]

They showed a video of Archerfield at the Oven event -- looks like an awesome facility.  Agree on the Vapor Pro Combo - very slick irons. So far, the Vapor Pro driver is working for me.  

 

Any other interesting tidbits to share?  What kind of difference did you see on bad strikes?  

[furu]

I don't have enough numbers at the moment, but there's definitely and improvement on low, heel and toe hits on all woods. Ballspeed is better than expected, but flight is what surprised me. There are hits when you really can't tell where the strike was. You can't feel it on the face and the ball flights doesn't tell anything. Pros teaching by just looking at your swing and ball flight must hate these new clubs

 

It's always fun to hear the pros talking about forgiveness. They want it too! Brett Rumford at the 915 launch. Molinari at the Vapor.And everyone else I've talked to - they don't mind getting a little help. Mishits happen

[GolfSpy Barbajo]

Mishits happen

 

Tru Dat!  Have noticed acceptable distance with the Vapor Pro on heel/toe hits -- and they tend to stay playable.  They said at the Fort Worth event that you should be able to "feel" the springboard affect on heel and toe hits.  Don't know whether it's true for simply the power of suggestion, but I've been able to feel it...

[furu]

It's all about that spring effect now. In all the clubs, and especially irons. RSi. Big Bertha. Vapor. D200. 

 

I'm not sure how much I'm feeling the effect. For me it's more a case of what you don't feel. I don't feel the twisting and loss of distance. In older irons you hit a bad shot and you know what's going to happen. You could close your eyes after hitting the ball and say exactly what happened. Can't do that with Vapor Speed and the others I mentioned. 

 

Pro Combo still has a lot of feel, but I think that feel in the future will be described as a soft feeling on all shots. Older irons had many types of feel, these modern irons only have one. Hard to explain what I mean  

[GolfSpy Barbajo]

 

Pro Combo still has a lot of feel, but I think that feel in the future will be described as a soft feeling on all shots. Older irons had many types of feel, these modern irons only have one. Hard to explain what I mean

 

I think I get you -- although I've played 3 rounds with the Pro Combos now and have found that if you mishit, they'll let you know.  Results are still playable, but you do get some feedback