ctg44

I too tried the GT2 / 3 / 4....Every shaft combo I tried with the 3 and 4 each still stunk, but as soon as I got the +2 gram weight in the GT2 and a Graphite Design Tour AD-VF 6 S (stiff) shaft...now THAT was money. 290 carry easily and some where over that. 320 wasn't out of the question for rollout either...it can't arrive soon enough! Shipping 09-06 or so I hear...

It's not a defect and not an issue. We have many side-hill lies on our course and I am a master at finding them when I walk. I've never had an issue with my Nitron moving around on me. My old Big Max 360, now that's another story...into the (fortunately shallow) creek it went...

I have worked so much more the last few months than in the past 2-3 years since I really got back into golf that I think that has more to do with it than anything else, because my routine of getting out of the office once or twice a week by 3:30 or 4:00 PM and going and hitting balls for a while and then walking 9 holes has been totally shot this year, first by the monsoon-like spring, followed by the crematorium-hot summer, followed by insanity-level busy back to school period. Doing emergency management for a large school district is never short on work, but being in one where we have had a couple of high-profile incidents in the past 2 years just adds to the pressure to get everything done perfectly right...and you know what the odds of being perfect are... So, yeah...stress from work doesn't really bug me so much as the grind of not being able to get out of here as often as I'd like when I'm approaching 80 hours for the two-week period by noon on a Wednesday or the soreness in my back and legs from sitting at a desk all day while wearing body armor does. Golf is kind of my therapy, and man does it suck when my therapy is not as fun as I know it could be...so yeah, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!

Same for me with the GT2...and regarding your earlier comment regarding spin increases, once I got that heavier rear weight and the 8° head versus the 9° head they'd started with, the spin, launch, and carry numbers all hit their optimal points...and I didn't have any hard left misses either.

I can attest to this, but in the opposite direction for preference. I hated the feeling of the forward weight, as the GT3 just felt like I was using rebar to propel a block of cement at a small brick, even with good ProV1s being used at the Titleist fitting. When I swapped into the GT2 at the 3rd and final fitting, it was like a light bulb going off and I immediately appreciated the feeling, especially when he took out the stock weight and put in the one that was 2 grams heavier (I think 8 grams instead of 6?) into the back center weight cavity. I could not believe how good the GD Tour AD VF 6S shaft felt in that combo...and the flight and spin numbers were perfect. 12-14° launch angles, 1700-2100 RPM, no shots more than 1-2° left of center, and nothing more than 10° right of center....and the shortest carry was 265 with nothing over 155 ball speed....I wasn't even going 100% and still getting 300 yards easily with good contact and 152-155 mph speeds. I did try really ramping up the speeds and could get it out to 310-315 if I needed to, and while it was still relatively under control, and very much more under control than it would have been with the same swing with my current driver, I didn't feel like I would ever really need to pull that out of the bag very often unless I was trying to drive a couple of the shorter par 4s we have with forced carries instead of laying up.

I am just too much of a perfectionist and self-abusing a-hole to allow that level of kindness to myself! What really separates me from being a good golfer is work, which is actually why I'm more frustrated than anything right now because work is taking up like 15 extra hours a week and is stupid levels of busy all day long most days, so that I don't normally even have time to let my ADD brain take a breather and check the new posts on MGS. That just adds to the frustration of being in the office so late I can't get out in time to get in some practice or walk a few holes (you know, when it isn't hotter than the inside of the sun here in Dallas) after work...all combining to make me a grumpy butthead these days when I do get to play because I'm therefore playing like trash compared to this time last year when my GHIN was around 3 and falling instead of 6.9 and climbing...

They're insisting they're 2-3 weeks max right now, even with the Graphite Design shaft (VF 6-S) I picked. Given normal UPS ship times to Dallas from most of the country, I should have it in hand to practice a couple of times before playing the weekend of the 13-15th.

Yes...Did a fitting at PGASS that Friday.

I have to admit, I did a Callaway iron fitting this weekend because I was so frustrated with my approach game even after doing so much work on the simulator to really dial in my swing and iron distances...like, how can these irons feel so good and with a swing I'm confident was very consistent from 1 day to the next, be producing such different results day to day. I even made sure I did the simulator work using the same balls, had the PC with the Foresight GC Hawk launch monitor set to current DFW atmospheric conditions / altitude, etc...I hit from different points on the mat to account for different lies since the mat is sort of old and has a bit of a dip in it and the edges of the mat are raised to give the impression of ball above the feet or below the feet depending on placement....in other words, I controlled for everything I could control. I still had ball striking issues on Sunday that were not at all present Saturday, even when I was really careful with my pre-shot routine, setup, and everything I could control. So, onto the fitting I did Sunday afternoon...here I am after hitting a bajillion balls Saturday, playing Sunday morning, and having reffed 2 hockey games each Friday and Saturday nights...figuring I'd be tired and if I hit anything at all decent, it would be the Callaway Ai200s or TiFusion irons... Nope, I hit those like crap. Inconsistently long and longer and lots of hooks and pulls. Too much offset on the 200 and the Ti, while better, was still too "hot" across the face and hard for me to feel like I had any distance control. So, what DID I hit well? Funny you should ask? No, not the Apex, Apex Pro, or the even Apex CB...yeah, I was STRIPING the Apex MB. I could not believe it. I was shockingly forgiving, was flying farther than the Toura by a full club (10-12 yards), and my mishits were going the same distance as a clean strike from the Toura. More importantly, it FELT like an MB should. It was a VERY odd feeling for someone struggling with good iron contact to be handed a stock MB iron and start striping them down the start line and farther than I was something like the Toura, which is a fairly forgiving iron with all the mass below the center of gravity and being a CB iron. As an aside, the 7 iron data on the Trackman Pro in that bay was showing almost the same data for the @Toura Golf CB for me on Sunday as it was on Saturday on the GC Hawk, which was 155 carry / 162 total / 5800 RPM backspin. My average proximity to the pin on Saturday was 23'3", which is at or around the PGA Tour average from 2022, which was 27'8". The problem is replicating that on green grass, which has been an issue all year for me due to the turf interaction of the leading edge of the Touras which is a bit sharper than my previous 2 sets of irons, Mizuno Pro 223s and TaylorMade P7MC (2020). So now I'm at a crossroads. I think it's time to get back in front of a good pro w/ a Trackman / GC Quad with the @Toura Golf CBs and get them fully adjusted to a really good spec for me. I think they're too upright and the fitter at PGASS mailed it in on me in giving me the data when I did that the 1st time and ended up having them bent upright. I'm hitting some beautiful shots with the Touras, but also some really odd shots, like a PW to an easy pin location 125 out with water at about 110 yards dying mid-air and falling right, hitting the bank of the pond, and bouncing in. That pin should have been VERY reachable for me since I normally carry 122 ON AVERAGE, with the lowest of my shots carrying 115, especially with a little wind behind me out of the south. There's no reason a PW should have pulled up short at 105 yards like it hit a brick wall, especially when I felt like I hit it well. Basically, I am just VERY frustrated with my approach game right now, which sucks big time and isn't helping relieve much pressure off of my slowly improving putting and short game, especially when my driver is still a giant spin monster that won't keep a ball under 3200 RPM. Needless to say, my new GT2 can't get here fast enough (come on September 6th!), so I can start getting a little closer to the green in better lies so I can start having a more consistent approach game that isn't always fighting to scramble from weird lies or the rough.

Looks like a ship date of 09-06 for me. Sooooooo impatient!!!!!!!!!!!

That said, I DID shoot an 83 with 3 triple bogeys yesterday, so it wasn't all bad. Unfortunately for the @Toura Golf CBs, they were the cause of all 3 triples, with a 6 iron disappearing into the sun and being lost forever even though it seemed well struck on #3, a random PW falling short into the water on #10, and a combo of a drive long OB followed by the next shot short into the water w/ a decently struck 5 iron (which should have been almost 1 1/2 clubs TOO much for the pin distance, rather than 2 clubs short of the green which is where the water was). Then again, that 5 iron has been an enigma off and on since I started testing these, occasionally being my favorite feeling club in the bag and then sending the worst shots EVER down range...

After playing the shortened clubs yesterday, I definitely need to have these bent flatter to match how I want to swing them. I'm trying to reduce the impact of the heavy heads and the still fairly high D5+ swing weights, and in combination with the fact that I have a bit of an ongoing love / hate relationship (ok...yeah, it's 100% pure hate) with arthritis in my left elbow, I needed to adjust my swing plane a touch to make swinging any clubs more comfortable. It's even more necessary with heavy-shafted steel clubs.

I had 3 total fittings for the GT series. After the 1st 2, both with fitters employed by Titleist, I was put into what I felt were AT BEST a compromise club in a GT3 with heavier weighting and a 75X or TX (1 even suggested I try the 85 TX) Tensei Black shaft. The 3rd fitting was initially booked for my son to use, but he spent 10 minutes hitting the 10° GT3 and a stock Tensei Black 75TX on the range with the 2nd fitter and was hitting it 330, so he didn't need to look further. Thus, I went in thinking I'd just check the box, get annoyed as usual with an overpriced Titleist club, and go buy the Callaway AiSmoke Triple Diamond (8° / non-Velocore / stock Ventus Blue 6S) for under $550 from my club after the discount we get from buying after a fitting. Well, PGA Superstore had a guy who immediately saw that the Tensei was a bad option for me, handed me the Graphite Design Tour AD-VF 6-S, and off I went. I insisted on trying the 8° head with the heavier weight in the back, and with the VF 6-S shaft, I was striping everything, and the only misses were an occasional bullet cut that still went 265 and would have almost always have stayed in the fairway. Now, if they could just hurry up and deliver that thing, I'd be really happy...seeing the parts available for purchase on the shelf at PGASS yesterday was not easy to resist...

@bardezart Here are a couple of pictures each of the 4 iron (1st 2 pics) and 9 (2nd 2 pics) iron from as dead straight down the iron as possible. Note, my clubs are bent about 1.5° upright on average, so that accentuates the appearance of offset.

I will say this...if there was ACTUALLY much offset, with the little bit of upright status I have on my irons, I'd have a constant left pull with them, and I don't. I'm not terribly consistent with the @Toura Golf CBs right now, which is why I shortened them and added some tungsten tape to the top as a counterbalance the other day, but I was NEVER pulling the ball hard left, so their offset amount is not as bad as my old Mizuno Pro 223s were. I have a practice session booked tomorrow to avoid having to practice outside on mats where it's hotter than the inside of a crematorium here in Dallas. On that note, I hope @azstu324 has air-conditioned underwear for playing in AZ right now...I heard Rocco Mediate on his show say it was 102° at freaking 03:45 AM (yes, IN THE MORNING) when he left for Michigan the other day. WTAF?!?!?! (yes, that temperature is going to force swearing from me every time, sorry folks). I'm pretty tough, but man, 102° at 03:45? No thanks! I'd go back to playing ice hockey instead of just reffing it and playing golf. Coincidentally, there's a decent amount of ice hockey to be played in Phoenix if you're into that, and the climate, heat notwithstanding, isn't terrible for ice, because humidity is far worse at creating bad ice for skating on that is heat. It's much easier to cool a building down no matter the ambient temperature than it is to get rid of swamp-like humidity AND heat, because you're never going to do both.