txgolfjunkie

Prior to the Cobra Connect Challenge, I had one particular grip for my driver, a different one for my 3W & 2H, a different one for my 4U and 5i-PW, and different grips for my wedges. Some clubs required a cord of some sort since I would be swinging at full tilt, others needed more comfort. If you like the align feature but want it on a different grip, I bought some grip reminders from golf works and applied them to every grip. It was quick and easy to apply and did the trick. https://www.golfworks.com/the-golfworks-grip-rib-pack/p/gw0017/

I was fortunate enough to play a quick twilight round yesterday and the world has officially flipped upside down. Driver: Missed one fairway. Tight draws all day. Only had one bad swing that didn't have the distance as the other drives. Finally felt comfortable over the club. Finally could swing the club without trying to guide it. 3 Wood: Total distances of 277, 284 and 279 off the tee. All hit the fairway. My playing partner kept commenting on how it looked like a sledgehammer off the tee...and it sure felt like it. 5 Wood: Really good off the tee. Really good off the fairway. Finally getting some use out of it and a think a little lead tape on the toe would straighten it out. 4U: I turned this to the standard draw setting because it just sat too flat for me. Once I made the adjustment at the turn, it started to straighten out and worked out great off the tee. Irons: They didn't cooperate and didn't want to fly at the target. My misses were right and I'm curious if my takeaway isn't a little outside/in causing the slight pull. Regardless, I still hit a lot of greens despite my misses were right of the target...but I play a right-to-left fade. Whoops. Wedges: Meh. Most of my issues were dealing with long, common bermuda grass where the ball just settles deep into it and I wasn't prepared for that. A couple of short-sided approaches lead to delicate flops that I made sure I had a putt coming back versus leaving it short. I bladed a downhill bunker shot only to then hit a perfect flop to a foot from the cup. That pretty much summed up my round with the wedges. Putter: New putter, same story. I'm about to just give up that part of the game. Or try putting right handed. Or stop watching the pros on TV pour it in from all over the green. Regardless. Good thing putting isn't part of the Cobra Connect Challenge.

I saw the write-up about the Sub 70 milled putters and it looks enticing, especially with the price point and return policy. With that being said, has anyone gamed the Sub 70 line of putters? If so, what are your thoughts on the quality/durability and playability. The 002 Mid-Mallet is calling my name but I can't find much online about it.

Welp, I now know how to fix all those ball marks on the toe on my wedges...strip the black finish and make it less noticeable. Those look really good. Do they rust or is it just taking care of the PVD layer?

I miss those irons...and those stealth wedges. Good on you for still posting on this review thread.

So I had another 'doctor's appt' this afternoon as I was more concerned with the ball flight of the Cobra woods than I was about my TPS reports at work. It was a circus start to finish so hang tight with the story... I work in The Woodlands, TX and it's surrounded by a number of private courses. It's a tease. You think you have all these options but not really for the general public. I can usually find a way to hit balls at one of the courses if a buddy is available and this is where the fun started... First course: driving range closed due to total restructure of hitting deck and targets. Second Course: closed due to charity scramble. Third Course: range closed until 3pm on Wednesdays (I arrived at 1pm). Fourth Course: course closed in July for annual maintenance. Fifth Course...an absolute goat ranch. I won't say the name..but hey, they're open. I pull up into the parking lot and there's a whopping eight cars. Not a good sign given how packed courses are in the Houston area, even in the unbearable heat. Regardless, I grab my sticks and promise myself to enjoy the time out of the office and house. It's just after 1pm and the heat and humidity greet me immediately. I go into the 'pro shop' and two old gals assist me in purchasing two small buckets of the finest range balls I'v ever seen. One range ball actually still has a few dimples on it and another had what looked like a Callaway logo on it. When you're struggling to hit a straight ball with a certain club, 'eggs' are definitely NOT the best balls to straighten out that draw or cut. Here's what I was dealing with: The bermuda grass was sparse and the hitting area was sand based. I warmed up with four balls on the 56* wedge, three balls on the 8 iron (to reduce wear) and then moved to the utility, 5W, 3W and driver. Once again, mother nature sends her finest to interupt my practice session. At first, I thought maybe one of the lovely range balls exploded on contact, but turns out there was a catepillar infestation and one apparently made it's way onto the ball. I think there was so much sweat in my eyes to begin with, I didn't see it...regardless, more bug art on the copper MIMs. Utility iron was great. It sits a tad closed (in my opinion) in the STD setting but it launches great and no draw bias to it. Off the tee, it will be great for the long Par 3s or placement off the short Par 4s. I haven't hit it much on the course, but it does have a nice feel to it. The 3 & 5 woods were acting up but i think it's because I'm starting to stand just a hair away from the ball in a more 'driver' stance and playing for raw distance instead of control. The driver finally came around. I set it to STD (for optimal launch), 16g up front, 8g in the back, and actually setup with my hands a little higher. Ball after ball started down the inteded line and only a handful moved in a draw fashion. Now, this is different than what I'm used to so is this the player adjusting his swing to the equipment instead of the other way around? Well, yes. However, if that's what it takes to tame this driver, then so be it. This was the most consistent I've ever hit this club and that brought me some hope for the competition. Check out the strike pattern during today's range session: Last story...after a couple of drives, I was searching for my tee and noticed a tee in my area with a familiar logo. I picked it up and immediately started laughing...It was a Patrick Reed 'Team Reed' tee. Now, I know anyone could've picked it up at his course (Carlton Woods) and managed to drop it off at the goat ranch but I'm telling my golfing buddies he was out there and I have picture proof. Yeap, Patrick Reed, PGA's 2020 villian of the year, was hitting balls next to me and I grabbed one of his tees as proof. That's my story and I'm stickin to it.

I wish that was the case but the setting is correct... -1* STD lie. I think Cobra sits a little upright compared to other manufacturers so it is in their DNA to have a draw bias.

It's every component right now...you may get shafts in but you'll be out of golf pride grips. Then you'll get grips in and be out of a certain shaft. Or you'll have grips and shafts but the club head is out of stock. Getting everything lined up is extremely difficult right now. As @jlukes will attest, don't waiver on your shaft of choice, but for grips, just have them throw whatever on and you can make do until your grip is in stock somewhere.

I worked on straightening out the Radspeed driver and 3W over the weekend...this was all indoors so I'll need to test these out on the course before deeming it worthy... Driver My biggest concern about opening up the driver face to -1.5* is my launch will get too low and I'll start losing carry distance. I have the 16g weight up front and a 8g weight in the back. This is 10g more weight than the stock weights and I do feel the head better during the swing. The added weight provided a more consistent strike, however, I still saw the hard draw on almost every swing. I added 4g of lead tape to the toe and immediately started to see results. My only issue is that the tape wouldn't stick to the matte paint and would fly off at impact. The hard draws straightened out to a more playable draw but I noticed some wild swings with driver spin. Keep in mind I'm using the Left Dash Pro V1x in all of my tests. I do throw in a Bridgestone Tour BX occasionally if I think the driver head is too low spin and I need something with a little more spin to keep the ball in the air. I'll say I've never seen such wild swings in launch and spin than with this driver. It's a little frustrating and I feel like this is a complex Rubik's cube and I've only got one side complete. Open the face, launch gets too low but spin is perfect. Square the face, launch is perfect but spin is counter-productive and ball moves right. Move weight forward, spin is reduced but I'm seeing ball fly further right. Move weight back, straighter ball flight but with excess spin. I love tinkering with clubs but I'm about out of ideas. Big Tour 3W I added 4g of lead tape to the toe of the BT and it was an instant success. I averaged 23 yards right of target without the tape, and only 6 yards right of target with it in place. The Left Dash paired with the BT is giving me driver-esk launch numbers (161mph ball speed, 12* launch @ 2400rpms - 278y carry). The left dash is a little bit more active (left-right movement) off the tee than the Bridgestone but both balls performed well. Regardless, my confidence in the 3 wood greatly increased and with the carry distance I'm seeing, I see it as a great sub in case the driver isn't behaving.

After reading what Bryson requires of Cobra and his urgency to get him new driver heads, that's probably the reason why there's a delay in getting our product from Cobra (kidding, of course). In my world, I picture a daily dilemma at Cobra : Do we assemble these irons for the guys at MyGolfSpy or cad some new driver heads and ship it out to where ever Bryson is located?

Good (is that the right word to use?) to hear that you notice this as well and it's not a sudden swing change on my end. Crazy arrows, it's never the Indian! It all seriousness, I'm hoping the added weight in the driver head, and some lead tape out on the toe of the 3W will help straighten out the ball flight. You would think the added weight will keep the head from closing down too fast at impact.

I've got all the woods at -1* but I will open them up even more. I do notice during take-away that they do want to close down and then it's difficult to get them back into position. It's the craziest thing but every manufacturer is different. Thanks for the suggestion!

Another round in the books and I'm starting to see some trends with these clubs... Driver and 3W need additional weight in the head. Both are light and I'm losing feeling in the swing. I ordered some weights for the driver and they should arrive Thursday but I'll just use some lead tape for the fairway. Drives are still short low draws (use to hit high fades) and 3 wood is a pull draw instead of a pull fade. The driver is still double digit yards behind my gamer and I'm hoping the weight helps with that. Irons are flying straighter than I'm used to. I usually play a slight fade to hold the greens but I'm just hitting straight ball after straight ball. I hit a good number of greens today but of my 18 approach shots, 15 were right of the pin. No fade. I lived on the right side of the greens all day. Wedges are really great. Really, really great. The greens were soft and grainy with not much run out which allowed me to fly my chips closer to the hole. Great spin control around the greens and on half shots. Overall it's still a learning process and I just need to aim for a straight ball off the irons and aim down the left fairway off the tee box. We're getting there... Slowly but surely.

And the black finish wears pretty good when you hit a ball off the hosel as well? Asking for a friend.

I've only hit off mats or tee/fairway/rough conditions with my Copper MIMs and there are a few light scratches starting to show up. It's to be expected. I'm too nervous to hit these off a sandy range...and the next time I hit into a fairway bunker during a round, I just might take a penalty and drop outside the bunker to save the finish. Sandy range balls will tear up any iron, regardless of finish. I remember taking my new Ping i210 irons and seeing the hydropearl finish get torn up after one session on a sandy hitting area.

Here's my personal belief why the copper MIMs looks fantastic... It's the first week of April, Jim Nantz is doing his thing on the CBS broadcast...it's the freaking Masters. Take away the azaleas and the patrons, and what do you have? The grass is a pure deep green, the sand is bright white, the pine straw is a mix of rust and copper in color. The contrast between the three colors just looks fantastic on TV. Green. White. Copper. It's not a color combination you think would look good, but it's just pleasing the eye. And when you realize where you've seen that color combination before, Jim Nantz starts whispering in your head...'hello friends and welcome to Augusta National...' and then you just relax and hit one amazing iron shot after another. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Well, the Cobra Radspeed head weight is 194g and my current gamer is 204g. That's about a 5 swing weight discrepancy. I'll add some weight, but I'll have to do it strategically. Since the stock setup is 12g in the front and 2g in the back, I'll get a 16g weight for the front and an 8g weight for the back. That would at least get me to a heavier SW.

Wow...that's some weight! How do you have it setup? 16g up front and back?

The demo day I attended had limited Lefty equipment... They had one driver head (XB in 10.5*) and I hit that head really high. I liked the HZRDUS Blue RDX shaft because it's counterbalanced but I never got to hit the regular RadSpeed outdoors. I need to go find a launch monitor and start tinkering with the setup. Honestly, I think I need to add some weight to the head. I've got a counterbalanced shaft but with a lighter head. CB shafts feel better to me when the head weight is on the heavier side so I can feel the head through the swing. Maybe some lead tape will help out on the toe.

Here's my maiden voyage with the Cobra clubs: Driver: Still need to work on this. Strikes are consistently high on the face that produce a pull/draw but strikes in center of face seen to spin pretty high and don't travel as far. I flipped the weights and saw a better ball flight but not nearly the distance I'm getting with my gamer. I'll need to find some time to work with this. Tour 3 Wood: 255y off the deck into a par 5 and 270y average off the tee. Just low bullets off the tee. Great stuff. Tour 5 wood: I don't need to use a tee with this club ever again. I was hitting some high fades with it and then just hit it off the deck in a short par 4 and it flew the way I want it to. Love how easy this club is to hit. Irons: most of my missed greens (hit 13/18) were due to my expectation of the wind moving the ball only to see it fly straight. I struck these beautifully today. Wedges: +1.6 SG in my short game. Enough said. My spin control with the wedges was the most surprising. I play ping glides due to the wet spin control but these were excellent in wet dew conditions today. The versatile sole did really well with the tightly mowed paspalum.

They actually frame the ball really well against green grass. I don't know how they will look against dormant bermuda in the winter, but the color contrast really looks great in the summer(as seen in the photo). This is also my first time gaming black steel shafts. The shafts don't draw your attention like a chrome shaft which means your eyes are drawn to the copper blade against the golf ball. This combo is very pleasing to my eyes. Oh and the feel/sound is really, really good. Like flush an iron and think 'Wow!' Yes, it's that good.

I played early this morning in Galveston, TX and the mosquitos really killed the mood. We were in such a hurry to get through the round I didn't get many good shots of the maiden voyage with my new Cobra sticks. However, one mosquito did land on my ball just before I hit and this was the end result: I'll clean up some video and add some shots/round summary with the arccos. The wedges around the greens were the biggest surprise of the day. Just amazing feel and excellent spin control, even in the wet conditions.

And a few more...

I got another shipment in today... Which means yes, I enjoyed taking photos in the restaurant parking lot...

I gave these clubs a whirl on the GC Quad at a local big box store. I'm not going to give any hard opinions about these clubs until I get them on the course. Here are my initial impressions: Utility: Off the mat, I was getting some great carry numbers with pretty good dispersion. It's a lot more forgiving than my Srixon ZX Utility. Sure, you put a bad swing on it and it won't fly the way you want it, but the club has plenty of forgiveness if you're a groove or two too high/low on the face and a strike out on the toe didn't lose a lot of distance. The shaft is legit as well. A little lighter than what I'm used to but very stable. Tour 5 Wood: You know when you've been golfing for a decades and you just have this notion that you can't hit a particular club...and then one day you hit it and you wonder what could've been?!? This is it. I had about a dozen balls and the carry ranged from 236-244y. Sure, it goes higher and maybe on windy days I swap this out for the Srixon ZX but man, this feels real good. Face is hot and I'm anxious to see what the rails can do off real turf/rough. Big Tour 3 Wood: Absolute. Piss. Missle. I think I might've said WTF a little loud after the second ball carried my driver carry distance. Sure, I was swinging for the fences with it but if this carries over to the course, I don't know when I would hit the driver. Seriously. Driver: This is a bit of a Jeckel and Hyde scenario at this point. I've never hit it well indoors but my outdoor fitting session was great. I was hitting hard pull draws all morning but getting good ball speed numbers. I hope an trip to the course and maybe moving the weight to the rear of the driver will do it some good. I'm playing Sunday morning so I will have some better info to pass along then.