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Bulldog

 
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Everything posted by Bulldog

  1. Check out Bulldog's review for the Arias TB-30 Chipper.
  2. There have been a few questions about spin on the arias Chipper. so I made a quick set of videos. The first video is with the Arias Chipper and the second is with a Takomo Pitching wedge. Both are 44° loft. Note the longer swing with the Takomo which resulted in a higher launch. The ball is the Srixon Q-Star Divide. IMG_0668.mov Arias Chipper Takomo Pitching Wedge IMG_0669.mov
  3. People who complain their way around the course - "What's wrong with me? I haven't made a single putt over 25 feet today." "These pin positions today are the worst ever!" "Why does the fairway always have to slope towards the water?"
  4. I our golf group of about twelve regulars, we have one player who is left handed and plays right handed, one who is right handed and plays left handed, the rest are right handed and play right handed. Phil Mickelson is possibly the most notable example of a righty who swings lefty. Jordan Spieth is probably ambidextrous and swings right handed. How about you?
  5. For me it's too soon to tell also. The weather lately here in northern California has really limited my ability to get out on the course (It just started raining again a few minutes ago, and they are forecasting over 100 inches of snow over the next few days in the Sierra Nevada mountains which are not far away). Additionally, the number of chips I make in a round is low, so it will take a while before I can get a good sense of the fit of this club in my game.
  6. Human statues - When players get into their setup to drive, hit, chip, or putt, and then stand over the ball frozen like a statue. Come on! It's a ball and a stick, you're not launching the space shuttle.
  7. The weather finally cleared and I was able to play yesterday. Over the course of 18 holes, I was able to try the chipper 4 times. Two of those were actual conventional, green side chips, and the other two were experiments from places where I would not be likely to try it normally. The first green side chip was just off the green, long, down sloping, and breaking hard left. This would be a putter shot for me normally. I used a putter swing, but came up very short. At least the line was good. Perfect setup for the chipper, but I left it short. The second green side shot was ideal for the chipper from about ten feet off the green, going uphill. The speed was good but I misread the break and ended up about ten feet to the side of the cup. For the experimental shots, one was from the rough, which is moderately long. The club hung up and the ball didn’t go anywhere. The second was from the top of a mound about 40 yards from the pin. Again, the club couldn’t get through the grass and the ball ended up bouncing off the cart path curb. This one didn't work out. The chipper's dilemma is that you might chip a lot in one round and, like this day, have almost no chips.
  8. No, he said it could benefit some but others wouldn't need it. Hit hit about five shots to a pitching net about 30 yards away.
  9. Had a chance to let the local head pro try the chipper this afternoon. He had never heard of Arias. He was intrigued by the chipper and the zero offset. He hit a few shots on the range. He said he really like the weight and feel. We discussed the pros and cons of chippers, and where they are more likely to be used.
  10. 1. The chipper is consistent with distance control. Of course, it's dependent on the skill of the golfer. For me, the difference between having the ball land on the green and roll out, and landing short of the green is massive. 2. No markings on the ball. The swing speeds are typically pretty low. 3. I play MaxFli Tour X exclusively. The only other balls I've used with the chipper are range balls. The local course with the best short game practice facility requires that you use their range balls only in the short game area. One other note - I did try some full swings (80%) on the range. Nice trajectory and very straight. I couldn't judge roll out because the ground is still very soft because of all the rain we've had lately. Honesty, I can't see much reason to use a full swing with the chipper.
  11. I went out to a different course with a dedicated short game practice area. Here are some observations: It looks like there is a sweet spot in the balls' flight to roll ratio. I haven't measured it yet, but I'm going to investigate it further. I tried the "pop stroke" technique where the club head pops the ball than quickly decelerates. I have buddies who use this method both in putting and chipping. I've tried it in putting previously with no real improvement. When I tried it with the chipper my distance control was all over the place - short and long. I think this is a personal preference. Now for the surprise - I tried using the chipper on the green for longer distances. I got the idea from a partner I played with last week who uses a hybrid on the green for long putts. It worked amazingly well for me. I was careful to check to see if there was any damage to the green and there were no marks or scrapes. I will definitely experiment further with this.
  12. Kind of reminds me of Brandt Snedeker’s pop stroke putting technique. I’ll give it a try next time I’m on the practice green.
  13. Arias Chipper test update - An un-fun day, sometimes it's not you, it's the course...
  14. This is almost no change for me. My chipping technique for a few years has been to hold the shaft more upright and hit towards the toe of the wedge. That puts the shaft angle pretty much like the Arias chipper (and my putter). The biggest difference is now I can hit off the center of the club face versus the toe.
  15. Ultimately, the chipper has to consistently get shots closer to the hole than my usual chipping method. The club replacement logic reminds me of a driver fitting I had a couple of months ago. The fitter watched me hit my current driver, and checked the Trackman data. Finally, he said, "I can give you 3 or 4 more yards with a new driver." I said thanks and left feeling good about keeping my driver (and my wife was happy to hear it too...). I struggled a bit with which club to remove from my bag to make room for the chipper. I settled on the 5 hybrid. I normally carry a single length 4, 5, and 6 hybrids. The 5 is used the least, and I think the 4 and 6 can cover for it. Of course, there may be times in the future that I get really frustrated with another club and yank it as punishment.
  16. I like the zero offset. Because my irons are single length, the offset is same for every club - 2mm. For me the visual difference is barely discernible. Because the chipper uses more of a putting style swing, I would think that a larger offset would be distracting. 7 iron on top, Arias chipper on bottom.
  17. I decided to check the bunker shot idea, and went to another course nearby that has a shallow practice bunker. In the picture above, you can see that the sand on the far side of the bunker has almost no lip, especially where the tire tracks are. I was able to get out of the bunker fairly easily with the chipper. There would be a lot of other options to go that way, including using a putter. My next series was to the left of the rake in the picture above. The lip was about two feet high. I was able to get out with the chipper, clearing the lip by a couple of feet. This would be the situation where I would most likely consider using the chipper if there was plenty of green to hit, and roll out on. Finally, I tried a higher lip. It doesn't look that high in the picture, but there is a significant up slope from where the picture was made. I would say from where the balls lay, it was just shy of five feet vertically to clear the lip. At first, the Arias Chipper couldn't get any shots over the lip. Then I opened the face about 30° and started clearing the lip by about a foot for multiple shots. The balls had a shallow landing angle and rolled at least twice the distance they flew. Fun to try for practice, but I wouldn't try it when scores count. I can see using the chipper for the sand in a very specific scenarios.
  18. For me the feel is very good. It is much heavier than my regular clubs with the most solid feel at impact of any club in my bag, sort of like hitting a nail with a hammer. It produces a satisfying "click" at impact. I suppose if you hit your putter hard enough it would feel similar (don't do it). I'm eager to try it from a bunker. I think you might be on track with the idea of low lipped bunkers 'cause it wants to hit low running shots. That will be a very specific scenario. I'll try to test that also. The course I'm playing tomorrow has a few shallow green-side bunkers. Maybe I'll aim for them .
  19. A couple had been dating a while and were getting serious with thoughts of marriage. The girl asked the guy, "Do you think you'd like to have children one day?" He replied, "Yes, a day seems about right."
  20. I used the Arias TB-30 Chipper at Pebble Beach this week (kind of)... how's that for clickbait? Check the brief update here.
  21. I like the putting stroke idea, but I don't have much follow through with the putting stroke. So far, I've has best success with the feeling to tossing the club with the trailing hand. I've also tried playing the ball well back and delofting the club for very short shots. That has worked, but only from the fringe, and I could just putt from there. My testing, so far, has been just from the practice green. We've been slammed by high winds and rain here, so I haven't been able to try the chipper out in real combat. Here's my home course last Sunday. Multiple trees down across the course -
  22. I try to feel like I'm throwing the club with my right hand (playing right handed). I avoid breaking my wrists. I keep my weight forward. I make sure I follow through with the club head pointing toward the target, at least waist-high to avoid decelerating. For short fringe chips, I'm experimenting with using a left hand low putting stroke (that's how I putt). The ball seems to pop up higher, but it's too early to tell if that will pan out. Fun to try though. Like all of my short game, dialing in distance will be the main task.
  23. I took the Arias Chipper out to the practice green this afternoon. Here are a couple of samples (I used the iPhone Measurement app to get the distances. Very cool app): From 6 feet off the green, at the back of the fringe, with a total of 26 feet to the cup (looking in the direction of the roll). From 13 feet off the green, in the green side rough, with 64 feet to the cup (looking in the direction of the roll). Yes, that's one in the cup from 64 feet. I had similar results from 47 feet out of the rough. I did no comparison to chipping with other clubs. It's early in the testing, with a tiny sample size, so no conclusions yet, but these surprised me. More to come...
  24. The Arias Chipper showed up yesterday afternoon. It has a few surprises. Check out my first impressions here.
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