David LD

The e9's aren't supposed to be out until the 18th - they are 75 compression - I haven't hit them outside yet, but the have a somewhat flight correcting dimple pattern which is supposed to promote as more straight ball flight. Not sure how much it does this... They do give faster ball speed, but they lack a bit of feel in my opinion - they have a rock hard, but also very thick outer shell and then a soft core - I can at least say they might be a very good simulator ball if you don't care about feel and crack a lot of balls. I fee yet to crack one in several weeks of hitting the exact same 2 balls over and over I was previously cracking about 1 per day... They should be selling for $29.99 - what did you pay for them?

If you thought they'd never be significant, it's because you DON'T know anything about the company... First and foremost they bought Matrix Ozik when they went under, they own ALL of their patents such as their revolutionary HD shaft design - matrix was one of the biggest players in the world for shafts - the putter for $2500 is a bit obscene, but so is the same price for a custom out tour issue scotty. The biggest difference most ppl don't quite grasp is instead of the hand rolled junk shafts your getting machine rolled tour quality shafts and most of them are actually selling at retail for about $150-$300 not $500 - so you san find one for cheaper than a project x small batch and they are all 100% made in the US down to the custom graphite blends - they make their own it's not made in a slave labor camp in India or China... Probably 50% of the price are the LA taxes. I have a driver shaft with over 50,000 swings - still like brand new, several other brands are just done after 5000 ish swings. There have been many great shaft improvements over the past few years, lots of good stuff, but LA golf by far is the most reliable / consistent - you could pick up someone else's driver with the and shaft and the specs are going to be virtually identical - vs hitting a shaft at a fitting a then getting a totally different shaft when you get yours or something that's mislabeled... Another major brand accidentally misprinted am their reg flexs as stiff flex last year. Many other shafts are wildly inconsistent with a few great ones here and there. Go hit a few shafts at 2 different stores, you'll see what I mean.

You can't really make a solid comparison between to separate shafts, I bet your dispersion tightens up a lot if you also used a trono shaft. Faster ball speeds are probably slightly due to the lighter shaft - I don't think they made a trpno under 70 grams (could be wrong on the weight though) I felt like the tensi was a bit all over the place with several heads, dispersion was for sure much better with the trono for me so might not just be the head. The biggest thing I noticed with it was very low spin numbers, at least until I cracked it - I think the back blew out on me - you by chance see any warping or moving on the backside cabon fiber pieces on yours? I thought the head was going to be a tank, the face for sure is way more durable, but seems like the back is taking a beating on mine. I'm get super high soon numbers and higher launch with it now (only with that head) for example my back spin went from about 900 to 4500. I think it either blew out or maybe I bent the hosel on an errant shot?

I am not comparing a small niche to the pro golf tours - I'm saying EVERY tour player has on off custom clubs and you flipped what I was asking in a previous post - where I said name one who does NOT have custom clubs. There is no debate of weather or not a pro can use and be effective with off the rack stuff, it's more of why on earth would any pro leave it to chance when they are playing for a several million dollar prize pool? It would be insane to not use custom fit clubs - there are thousands of articles and videos which show what different players are playing, you can clearly see they are not custom off the rack clubs - this goes back years as well... There is a pretty well know photo from Arnold Palmer where he's showing his club collection of over 10,000 golf clubs - they were all variations of he was trying out and those were just the ones he kept over the years... https://www.golfdigest.com/story/the-king-and-his-clubs-like-a-kid-in-a-candy-store All the pro's are playing very unique custom stuff as well as they have access to the latest newest tech as it comes out.

Good to know!

Idk about the hot metal ones specifically, but the newest ones on their pro line all say "grain flow forged" which I'm assuming is sometype of metal mold injection https://mizunogolf.com/us/mizuno-pro-series/

Look man your wrong on both points first off the USGA rules state a maximum of 48" in length for a driver - the USGA simply added a local rule where the maximum length could be limited down to 46" but it is up to the tournament to state that rule - so unless it is specifically stated for a specific tournament the max length is the standard 48" - so the legal limit did not change - as far as I know there has only be maybe one tournament which implemented the rule - I could be wrong on that, but a lot of players were pissed about the ruling. Phil Michelson's driver length is such common knowledge all you have to do is punch it into google and it's the first thing which pops up: https://www.google.com/search?q=phil+mickelson+driver+lenght You clearly did not even look before you made your post - I don't know where you are getting your assumptions or info from but the USGA rules are crystal clear as well as Phil's driver - they are both common knowledge which any one can find in seconds. Maybe go re-read the USGA rules, I'm sure you can easily find a copy of the USGA rules. I don't me to blast you here, but the 46" in rule myth really bothers me because it keeps going around and around, but it's not what the rule is. There are a lot of guys who use longer shafts and it substantially effects the club weight, torque, ball flight, etc. The vast majority of players will hit the ball shorter with a 48" shaft because they are simply way harder to hit unless you are over 6" tall then you should be fit for one based on your height, but other than the really tall person exception, most players don't have the gas to use the extra length of the shaft and the can't make the shafts ultra light because they break easily at 48" length. To be really crystal clear all Long Drive events all 100% USGA conforming both the driver heads and the shafts/shaft length. There is also a minimum driver length as well as they specifically state "no player should reasonably be able to hit a golf ball farther than 270 yards"

You have no clue what you are talking about - it was one of the core points of why he left the PGA and went to LIV... Phil doesn't play on the PGA tour... Here you go right from his own mouth https://golficity.com/phil-mickelson-rips-pga-tour-after-announcing-new-club-length-rule/

Anyone with a sponsor deal can get whatever they want - with in reason - sometimes you get off the racks stuff and take it to a golf smith to get adjusted or make the adjustments yourself - I'd say the very biggest differece are the weight and quality of the club. I can only speak to drivers, but a certain driver brand dropped their weight from the previous years model - they made the face insert thinner to drop the weight, one of those exploded on me after 30 swings the previous model last me 6 months - the 2021 model I went through 3 of them in a couple days - the 2022 model they reinforced and it's the best driver head I've ever hit. I'm playing the stock off the rack head of that one.

He did it for one single event because they were not allowed to have a tour van on the course so he went and bought a new set - it didn't say specifically why - but his set could've been damage or lost in travel... It's not what he is using all of the time. I can say from my own personal experience there were several guys who competed in the world long drive championships who shipped their clubs and they didn't get there in time for the world championships, another several who had connecting flights and their clubs were lost or put on the wrong plane - who also did not get their clubs in time for the world championships, and for myself the TSA broke two of my driver shafts and stole a bunch of things out of my bag... Traveling for golf tournaments is the absolute worst if you have to fly... so I'm guessing he had clubs which were lost or broken or for whatever reason was in-between sponsors - even though the stuff he got was off the rack it was still custom swing weighted and I'm sure they had the loft and lie setup just how he wanted. https://www.golfwrx.com/100880/choi-buys-new-irons-at-golf-galaxy-for-the-memorial/ I'm not saying the off the rack stuff is bad, I'm saying the custom stuff or tour only stuff is much better - at the very least typically more durable and more customizable. I can't go into hardly any golf shop in the country and buy a 5 degree driver head - a lot of stores you'd be lucky to find anything with a loft lower than 7 degrees - but that's simply because it's not economical for any of those places to carry it, they wouldn't sell them because there is no demand for lofts that low in the consumer market. Stores carry what sells, it's how they make money. Phil uses at 47.5" driver shaft - go to any golf shop and try to buy one of those... You won't find anything over 46" inches. I can give you one specific player who shows you exactly what is in his bag and it's not stock stuff you can buy - you can't get the wedges, the 3 wood, or the driver heads, and the irons are next years model - which are also custom to him - as well as he adjusts them before every round on a loft lie machine and said so in one of his other videos. I'm just going to stop here because this is way off the original topic at this point

I don't know where you are getting your info from - Kj has been using total custom clubs at least the past 15 years all you have to do is do a quick google search you can look up what's in (players name) bag and you can literally see they are all playing custom clubs - you will often see lead tape and different heads - at lot of them will look very similar but if you take a close look there are distinct differences. It would be insane to be playing tour level golf without high quality custom equipment - if really think is what the guys on tour are doing I don't know what to say. You can even buy some of KJ's old tour shafts from Matrix Ozik on ebay right now there are 6 or 7 of the custom MFS tour issue shafts with different weights and cpms because they all work different with different heads... https://www.ebay.com/itm/192855595198?hash=item2ce716d8be:g:~aAAAOSw3CdciEmN&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoI3fNgso8Z8WzbnqYMR3VqHV%2BEoPjK6M%2FW4Bw8Og8Hq5Tj3PZpdieWfC2WXS%2BIbPuM7yE4%2Bdqco0k8nbQw5JCTePBA6qTHz%2FCH7X%2BjLgWe%2FksLIZ0PHyMYb0EyeQT9tLk%2FTYZd%2FSZX%2BuoAyo74ZGqOS9IftTSfwKjITGu1cnDOB8xrDoyFWVRWz9muzIvsJOXILsGVRHhUhOBel%2Br8cDjSg%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR4yVj7WTYQ

Some of them are honest about it - but there is one huge factor here - because of the newer technology of the past few years the average player is swining signifcantly faster. I know for myself it's one of those things I tend to forget about until I'm hitting an errant shot - it's often not visible to the naked eye - you've gotta put it on a gauge. Sometimes it's your swing too, but earlier this year I was having really odd shots with my 8 iron and after it happened 3x in a row I took the head off and sure enough the shaft was bent. ^^ Just to be clear the lie will be what moves, but if something bents it's normally the shaft and then you need to replace it - I havent tried the graphite ones yet, but from what I've heard they just aren't that much better than the steel and I'm afraid I will crack them.

If they aren't playing custom clubs then I wouldn't consider them "pros" once you get to a certain level of playing it's mandatory - I can tell you this - to a very large extent non forged or metal injection heads - as in cast heads - are typically too weak too hold up to a loft lie adjustment when put into a loft lie machine, the cast heads crack very easily and no one worth their salt playing is going to leave that up to chance when then need to hit a shot which really counts. If you have a fast enough swing speed - anything over about 100mph on a driver - you are going to be constantly warping your clubs - at a least little by little - every swing you take. So cast heads without question do not hold up to multiple loft lie adjustments - which could need to be made weekly or even daily for some tour players - granted I suppose it's possible for a few of the top guys to have say 50 or more 7 iorn heads on their tour cart and swap them out for new clubs every week so in the case if there is no expense spared it could be possible, but probably unlikely. I say unlikely because even if they are all different - for my self, I wouldn't want to switch my clubs every week or every other week, I want to play the same head - each individual one has a unique feel - they are never all identical. I'm a professional long driver - there's all kinds of stuff available to me which is not available to the general public - a lot of it is purposely kept a "secret" to a large extent it wouldn't help or improve play for the average golfer. I mean any decent club builder could tell you this... Not only that but it changes from year to year - to not specifically speak badly about any brands there was one driver head this year which the consumer model didn't turn out correctly, but the low run long drive heads did - consumers couldn't buy them - they were tour issue only heads, but the consumer models were all defective. This kind of stuff happens all of the time with irons as well - it's going to happen more since the global supply chain was completely blown up the past two years.

The current generation of them are all forged... but the feel has more to do with the metal blend, the shaft, and the grip vs being forged or cast - I played a set of cobra MB's the past 10 years I can feel the exact spot the ball hits on every shot. In general the more thin the face is the more you are going to feel it - the thicker cavity back irons have a lot less feel by design. Personally I think Muzino makes a far superior product to Callaway - the tend to be a bit more bespoke - though the wear could really just be the tungsten metal vs nickle chrome - though if your buddy has a much faster swing speed or plays a lot more that could also by why. If I'm not mistaken tungsten is a bit more brittle and corrodes faster than chrome, which is a bit softer - so you get a lot more feel from the softer metal. The problem is there is a lot more marketing BS than physics facts when it comes to these, but you've gotta play with what feels best to you and will help you score better. There are tons of options - a lot of them a great options, but you'll play best with the one that's fit specifically to you.

It boils down to the laws of physics and feel... I can tell you without question none of the pros are playing with the off the shelf stuff you can buy at the store There is a huge difference in the new metal mold injection "cast" heads which are technically "cast" but are really molded. Grooves wear out faster on softer metal - so it depends on which metal blends they use for the head - typically forged are significantly more durable. I mean think of it this way - you wouldn't want a cast samurai sword because it would break hitting against a forged one - the forged one might bend but you can always resharpen it. If someone is playing cast iron heads for years without any wear, they must have a very slow swing speed - all irons will wear after 20+ years of play if they are hit fast enough. As for some tour pro's playing cast irons - can you name a few - that you really know exactly what is in there bag? A lot of them play fully custom stuff that you can't buy or get anywhere and it's a secret as well - but they might be stamped or look a lot like their cast counterpart. I can say I've cracked several cast iron heads, granted there are very few people swinging as fast as me. I can say with 100% certainty it's that way with shafts as well - for example one of my best shafts I have - only 15 total were made I was one of 6 guys to get one. No one really knows what is in the pro's bag except for themself, their sponsor, caddy or their tour cart manager - companies don't pay them thousands or millions of dollars to promote their custom bag... The bottom line is - if you get fit, by someone who knows what they are doing, you will find what works best for you - aside from that it's really personal opinion. Generally speaking - cast irons have a weaker bond and less feel than forged irons and the metal mold injection casting is the strongest, but also uses the softest metal. You've gotta have a strong understand of metallurgy and physics to really understand the difference between the different grades of metal and process of how they are made. It's something which can be learned in a few minutes. Since you mentioned Ping - I mean just read their own marketing for their new i525 irons - they are literally directly saying the forged irons are better and allow for more forgivness and a hotter face. https://ping.com/en-us/clubs/irons/i525 "A powerful new design engineered with a forged, maraging-steel face significantly increases speed and distance while providing a pleasing feel and sound. All packaged in a compact, players-style model perimeter weighted to elevate forgiveness and deliver long, towering shots that hit and hold the green." ^^ these are an example of "Metal Mold Injection" heads - the back is molded or "cast" but the face is forged and the clubs are listed as "forged" clubs.