Berg Ryman

No joke, I am looking at polo companies right now to refresh up some wardrobe options, that and maybe some Virginia flag sun sleeves... IYKYK

Interesting results here with mid-speed testing. As to my initial thoughts as to where I might see gains, Max is first for accuracy and 4th for forgiveness, but middle of the pack on distance, that's where I come in I guess! https://mygolfspy.com/buyers-guides/drivers/best-drivers-for-mid-swing-speed-golfers/

So yeah, the move to a 12* degree head. As I mentioned in my intro and in my post on bias I said I was almost fit into the old FT-3 Fusion, what I didn't tip you guys off to was that I was almost fit into the HT head, which was 13.5 degrees, or 16 degrees in the draw head. Plus there was real consideration with the Nike SQ460 I went with to get the Lucky 13 head. Sorry to keep that slice of info secret, but the higher lofted head has always been a real consideration and I'm very interested to see what I can do with something I almost ended up with when my swing was at it's most powerful and strongest. I think it was that there wasn't really a shaft that was able to keep the spin down without paying through the wazoo, and eventually just natural swing changes lead me into the 10 to 10.5 realm. However, I think the Superspeed test last year and me swinging a bit more like the old days when I was younger has brought me back into this world, and I'm ok with that. Just have to marry the equipment in the right way.

Well, I promised you guys a fitting post, and since I've got a bit of time in front of a keyboard today, I figured now is the time. As an aside, here's a link to my thread from the wood fit in the fall of 2022, to give you an idea of where my swing usually sits. Now, the first thing I will say is that when we were selected for this the first question I asked our intrepid mod team was how crazy we were going to be allowed to get with the shaft selection. The report back, anything that's no-upcharge is fair game. Luckily there's a good amount of shafts in the Callaway shaft market that would be a solid fit and if you're wondering more any any specific ones, you can check out the custom catalog right here. Took me a couple of searches to find it but it gives a lot of excellent information, like Callaway's new fitting ideas and matrix to help find shafts which exist in the right space for the right flights. The next step was finding a place for the fitting and instead of my usual trip to Victor and my guy at Club Champion, I thought to keep this one close to home. Our Golf Galaxy in Dewitt has some decently knowledgeable staff and is outfitted with 4 trackman bays but more importantly, have a lot of the non-upcharge options right there for testing. Plus, even at 70 bucks for the driver fitting, they'll fit you using your ball of choice and you get to really talk through thinks with your guy. My fitter was a younger guy named Nick, and he was really easy to talk to and discuss what I was feeling. Also, I think it's a good test of the type of stuff that my fancy fitting at Club Champion got me compared against a Big Box fitting, with similar eqipment. So, for those of you who have never used Trackman for a fitting, you do get a private report of your fitting and information sent to you after the fact. I'd say this is valuable in this case for a few reasons. One, it shows and confirms tendencies and two, it gives you enough information to make the right choices for your game. It's a worthwhile investment if you can get onto one for a fitting and a skilled aid can really make that information make sense. For my fitting we started with the baseline of my TSR 2. It's set at 10 degrees of loft, in the natural A1 position, so nothing different. Now, the Fujikura NX Blue shaft is categorized in the Callaway Matrix as a Mid-High launch, High spin shaft, and while that may be what the shaft is, it wasn't the way it was being delivered. Here's the photo of the best shot with the TSR and while the distance isn't bad, you'll see something that had me troubled. So yeah, you see that launch angle there? 6.7 degrees. Now, I've always been a primarily negative AOA guy, I always have and I always will. I refuse to learn and will swing the swing I have until I can't swing it anymore. Call it stubborn, call it complacency, call it unwilling, it's who I am. But even I know that with a shaft like this, you can't be launching that low. Now, I will admit that the tee heigh you see in this picture is also a little low for me, so these are primarily bottom-ish strikes, but that's no bueno. So then it became time to crack open the cases and get to work. Luckily with only one head to test this fit became about two things. Finding the right loft, and then pairing the proper shaft. It seems straight forward, but that does make the work quite a bit easier. Also as anaside, pretty cool way to display everything instead of the old bag based model I was used to. So, we started in with the Max Smoke turned up from the base 10.5 up to 11.5 with the help of the Callaway optifit cog. I'll spare you guys the details. The launch went up about a degree, but I was still prone to the absolute smother top that had killed my support of my TSR. So we then looked at the 12 degree head. Now, once I get to the range this week I'll get a profile shot for you guys, but as a visual person, having and seeing that much loft isn't something that concerns or scares me. I know some people want to see less or see a face maybe more closed or open, for me a lot of loft and seeing some toe isn't a deal breaker, in fact I almost prefer it. Sometimes not having a visual delineation between crown and face makes it harder on me, which is probably why I like my Stealth 3 wood so much. Also, as a brief aside, the visual of this driver looking at the sole is so cool and awesome. The testing heads were super smoky, here's the head I was working with. Ok, now that we had the head basically bolted on, the question became which shaft pairs best with it and we eventually found our way down to two. The first, the Tensei AV Blue in 55 grams and stiff, the second the Hzrdus Smoke Red RDX, 50 grams and regular for purposes of the fit as they didn't have the stiff. I'd say both shafts, listed as mid launch and mid spin in that Callaway guide I listed earlier feel pretty similar, I feel in swinging them both I could feel the head in space more in the Smoke Red than the Blue, which has always been the one thing that's kept me away from Tensei Blue in the past. It just feels too generic for me and never gets along with my swing. It was a contender for the Mizuno way back when, it was in play for the TSR, and now here. It's undoubtedly a good shaft, but I just don't get along with it. The red on the other hand felt like I could really feel in the swing, the one major disappointment was that they didn't have the stiff, so you're operating a bit on blind faith. After some drives I settled on Smoke RDX Red. It felt the best to me, with my aggressive swinging nature of being more of a hitter than a swinger probably carrying the day, especially considering the bend profile isn't too dissimilar from Smoke RDX Black, except in the tip, which would never work for me, in Red though, it looks to be a winner. We also decided to through in the early season, the head into the draw setting while the swing kinks get worked out and I've also moved the sliding weight in between the standard spot and the draw setting. Lastly about the fitting, remember how I said they fit you with your current ball of choice. Well, they fit me with the Bridgestone B-XS and I have to say, this might not only be a driver test, but a ball test as well. The B-XS is spinny, and with a downward attack angle and 12* of loft it get up over 3,500 pretty easy. Therefore, we're looking at some different balls. I want to see if it was the fact that all shots were more off the bottom of the face that was keeping that spin over high. However, much like Thanos, it appears the finding the Pro V1X back in my back may just be inevitable, but I also want to try the second best ball from my Ballnamic fitting, the Chrome Tour as well. As a final treat before some hopefully in hand pics this week at the range, here's my fitting card from the unboxing, full specs listed, even the grip! Let's get it!

Dan, thanks for the heads up but I've got my rounds planned on the way down already or else I would! I might be making my base camp in and around Gettysburg on he way back, any must do stuff while I'm in town?

Well these came yesterday. Gonna be fun to give them a huck

Intro is now live, and my fellow friend on the I-90 corridor isn't the only one getting that long brown box today

well then, I'm your huckleberry I guess through this process! Also, I'm not going to say I have a shipment coming from Mexico set to be delivered today... but I'm also not not saying it.

Ok, so first experience with Callaway woods was in the summer of 2005, when in a fitting for a new driver I was between the Nike SQ460 and the Callaway FT3 Fusion. I remember hitting the Fusion well, but just thought Sasquatch looked cooler and the numbers were so close, so that's what we went with at the time. Fast forward to my law school days and I started working at Dick's Sporting Goods in Dewitt, NY with a gentleman by the name of Alan Savage as our PGA Pro. He had a deal with the guys at Callaway and due to that, we were part of Callaway VIP. I was always a bit concerned about ordering a ton of stuff at discount because I didn't want them checking to make sure I was utilizing things correctly. This was the Big Bertha Relaunch era in the mid 2010's, so I had fitting experience with the BB Alpha, which I liked (Gravity Core forever!) original XHot and X2Hot, all the way through to my leaving Dick's around the time of GBB Epic I believe, maybe I was there with Rogue, it's a bit of a blur. So during that time I did the educational courses year on year to keep my fitting certificate status good and my discount active. The only club I ever ordered through the program was actually a fairway wood, the X2Hot in a strong 3 wood. I got it with the Aldila Tour Blue shaft an inch longer than standard to play it like a fairway finder driver alternative and until the shaft broke on me, I loved that club for that purpose. Eventually I got the shaft replaced when I sent it back to Callaway but it was never the same. So I traded it along with some other clubs for the only other Callaway wood to make my bag, another fairway wood, the Epic Flash Sub Zero 3 wood. Up until my most recent fitting that was the club in the bag occupying the 3 wood spot. Again, an awesome fairway finder when needed and a solid part of the bag. So Steve, I guess to answer your questions as to any thoughts and biases, I'd say this. I believe the marketing team does a great job of explaining to the consumer and the salespeople what the new tech is, how the new tech is better than what came before, and how to utilize it to help sell the product. I think from a performance standpoint Callaway is always at the bleeding edge of what is possible, but until more recently with Paradym and seemingly AI Smoke, the proof wasn't in the pudding as much as say Taylormade, Titleist, or Ping. I think you just have go back to the perception surveys to see that across the board. So I am coming into this with the potential to be wowed, but also to know that at the end of the day, there just might not be a ton out there that doesn't come down to me and not the club. I expect a solid club, one that looks awesome, performs solid, and might be able to surprise. I expect to have a fun time learned about the tech more and experimenting with the widest part of the bell curve head and hopefully am able to really help those of us in the middle to find real truths about AI Smoke Max.

So, there apparently is a coding issue on the back end delaying some intros from going up, so we do apologize for that. In the meantime, what other questions or thoughts do you guys have? If you don't give us something, prepare to be bored by a random pop culture post with a reference that ties into the modernization of AI tech from Callaway.

Trust me, you'll learn quickly about that from a fitting post... I guarantee that

Intro by the weekend, fitting post over the weekend, maybe the world will slow down while we wait. Can't wait to tell you what I think I learned.

Hi... it's me. Ready to have some fun

AI SMOKE MAX... BECAUSE WE WANT ALL THE SMOKE So, it's your boy back again with another driver based review. For those who don't know, the name is Ryan. now senior family law attorney, although as I sit here all my cases are being moved to different jurists as my primary judge is making off to head back downstate to NYC to be closer to home. Can't begrudge her, but it's really jacked up my schedule something fierce. Beside this, I'm working on an journey of self-improvement, you can read about it here. I'm trying to recapture the joy and passion I had for golf when I was younger, as it is one of my happiest activities, but also the bringer of great stress when I don't want it. In all it's an interesting time of transition in both the personal and professional, so why not take a new driver into an area of the bag I thought I was set with two years on board? Yeah, so as detailed here, I was fit at the end of 2022 for new woods, chief among them was a new driver to replace my Mizuno ST180, the first club I ever reviewed for this forum. I had been fit into a TSR2, 10 degree with a Fujikura NX Blue 50 gram stiff shaft. During the 2023 season I had a crisis of confidence. There were days I couldn't get the ball of the ground, launching it in the 5 or 6 degree range, total top balls and just no faith it would do anything. Ergo, when the opportunity to try something different came up, I said let's give it a shot. Now, I'll be honest, outside of a period of time when due to working at Dick's Sporting Goods back when they staffed PGA guys who could got us deals through Callaway VIP, I was never a big Callaway woods guy, save for my first fitting, but that's a post for a different time... like say this weekend in the thread. I've always been intrigued by the tech the use and the way they seem to be on the forefront of the next breakthroughs, so I've very excited to see what comes of the AI Smoke. But how will we measure success? Well, I think being honest here we should look at the differences between the two drivers from the Most Wanted 2024 test. TSR2: 143 Ball Speed, launching at 13.23 with 2300 spin, Carry 237, total 253, straight shot percentage 49% AI Smoke Max: 142 Ball Speed, launching at 13.75 with 2400 spin, Cary 237, Total 251, straight shot percentage 52% So yeah, looking at them there isn't a lot of difference there, save for the straight shot percentage. Now, accuracy is always good so that may be the deciding factor here, as well as launch and consistency across the face. That's what the AI face is supposed to help with and I plan on putting a lot of spots through a lot of paces. So I'm not expecting it to be longer on a 1 to 1 basis, but I am expecting it to be more consistent across the course of a round with no real drop offs. I don't want to say this is a 'vibes' based test in a way, but I can tell you just from the fitting there is just more confidence standing over the AI Smoke than my TSR, and it isn't just because it's new and different. How does it make the cut? Perform with more consistency, achieve a solid and repeatable launch and shot shape, and maybe creep a bit of distance, if possible. Do that and I'll be like everyone's second favorite Stanley after those big cups Get ready folks, it's gonna be fun!

SO the all-timer is the old Aldila NV 65 in Green green green. Current weapon is the Fujikura Speeder NX Blue... for now. Always searaching.

Naturally my finish position is very similar to Colin Montgomerie, so that's always my go to.

So this right here is thing is the biggest crux of what I think I need to work on. Obviously I have a very analytical brain, I need it to be a lawyer and as someone who enjoys order and simplicity I'm always trying to take rational thoughts and response. The problem is when I can't regulate my emotional response because I know the way I should react, but it doesn't correspond to the way I feel, and that resulting confusion makes me chose a less rational outcome at times, hence the thoughts I have as in relation to poor performance. Admittedly, and I don't do this in a way to self diagnose or trivialize, it could be something like a chemical imbalance in my brain chemistry, which considering my family history wouldn't be a shock, but it's something I've never allowed myself to question or explore. Perhaps another step on the path of betterment once/if we can get counseling started soon may be a further exploration of the medicinal side of the brain and if there's an answer there for me as well. Thanks for sharing @cksurfdude, hope your prep is going well for VA. See you in 7 weeks

So my clubs are still in the basement, but this weekend I think I'm setting up my car rental to drive down with and hotels for the midway stays on Wednesday and Sunday respectfully. Somewhere near the national harbor in Maryland and then maybe southern PA

Cut shows up at +2 Low Am: Let's go with Santiago de la Fuente

Thanks boss. I was like 10th on the list, but they did say that sports psych cases get pushed up the ladder a bit. Tried a different tact at Pickleball, kinda worked a bit. Played more to enjoy myself.l and bring myself some joy Might even be making a club change soon to do it as well.

So, we've committed to the waitlist at the counseling office for the sports psych guy as well as am generally looking for other counseling options in the meantime to treat the larger issues. Also my copy of Extraordinary Golf has arrived already from the big Bezos in the sky, read the intro and the first little exercise. I like the deal and what it's promoting, so that's a positive. I

Just so you guys know, I have read every one of these comments to this post and feel quite appreciated that people are getting something out of this general conversation, so at least we're helping talk about some of this stuff. Admittedly, this is something that I first kind of touched on with my Superspeed Review and thoughts there, including my thought process there into my mental health and how that impacted how I approached the test as a whole. I guess this is just a natural growth out of that. So, I have taken some of the feedback and thoughts given by everyone here and I'll admit, I have tried some of this stuff in the past. The reset, the refocus, I even have a hard reset swing I take after some bad shots. To be fair, as a reminder of this I had my wife get my some ball markers from Full Metal Markers and the one I use is the classic Ted Lasso quote, 'be a goldfish'. Some of this has helped from time to time, but it never really sticks. I do think though you guys have hit on the two bigger issues here. First, caring too much about what others think. This comes down to I think a larger issue i have personally with a overdependence on validation from others. As I mentioned from the OG MGS trip thread, I'm pretty introverted, I don't have hobbies and likes that match with my age group and it has made it hard so I do perhaps place more concern as to how I'm perceived by others in my field and passions. That and the fact that I was bullied and singled out as a child due to my weight and that has been pretty much one of the things I still feel with that extreme chip on my shoulder in my work life as an attorney and in my other passions. Second, the need to remove the correlation between results and actual success and enjoyment. I think I didn't do a great job of explaining this in my initial post and how I feel about things. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy the MGS breakout and that playing well is my only focus, just that I would be getting more enjoyment from having a good time and playing well, especially considering I don't get much time away from work. I'm going to have a good time, to be a good teammate/partner and have fun regardless, I just know that I could be in my own head about it afterwards. And I think this is where making this delineation between results and enjoyment needs to be broke, but admittedly it's a difficult one. We look at our handicaps, we look at our results and it becomes a badge of honor or a goal to chase. It's the same thing in pickleball, there's an app there called DUPR, where your rating is based on recent results and performance. Weirdly because of the sports I choose to play, performance is a sole point as to perceived skill level with this DUPR rating and the handicap system. However, again I think this comes again from a deep seeded need to for validation through perception from others, which again is it's own problem that can be worked through with others. As such, I've reached out to a counseling service here in Syracuse that has a sports psych guy on staff to get on the waiting list for him, while also exploring general counseling as well. I do also think I'm grabbing a copy of that book @downlowkey mentioned earlier. I'll keep everyone posted and am happy that this dialog has come off the way it has.

Ok, so I've been thinking about how best to write this thread and I guess it's best that I just throw it out there online and see. So I'm noticing something about myself in all forms of competitive activities, and if it's when I don't perform I get straight up depressed and despondent over this. Part of this comes from having very few activities and they are things I enjoy doing very much. They are also things that I'm normally very good at. One such activity is Golf, obviously. A history, I was an all-league player in high school, tried to walk on in college at a D3 school, shot 100. I didn't touch a club or think about playing golf for almost 2 years. Then I got back into it, played well, won a net club championship, and a league title. However, I'm still paralyzed by fear of failure some times, like for example, the upcoming MGS golf trip. On the first trip, I played like garbage on day 1 and got my lunch eaten and it was pretty embarrassing, I played a little bit better on the Sunday round, and while it was awesome meeting everyone and having those interactions I was seeking, in the back of my mind it wasn't everything it could be because I didn't play up to what I considered my standard. Sure, I deflected at times with humor and self-deprecation as mechanisms, but it just felt like I was just harming other's enjoyment because of how I was playing. I try to be a good partner in that circumstance because I can at least help make you comfortable, but that's not how I always want to be. This was put forth even further this last weekend in my Pickleball League, I acted very immature and just basically quit playing the game I enjoy playing because I was making error after error and just getting hammered by players who I knew I was better than. I left despondent and had a nice talk with my wife about this, where she said maybe if I got my thoughts out about this it could help, I mentioned posting the forum and she said I should, so again, my wife is the smarter one emotionally in our relationship. So, I guess then how do I overcome this? Obviously a lot of it lays with me, but it isn't as simple as as saying 'it's just a game' or 'you're only competition is yourself'. That makes me feel like I'm minimizing my passions and love of these activities because they are the things I'm good at, they're the things I love to do for fun and destress. I know I can do better because I've done better before and can do it again. More importantly I'm so concerned that these actions and these thoughts are robbing one of the few things I actually enjoy of the fun and enjoyment I find in them. I don't have kids or a group of friends to really kind of take me more in a fun space with golf either, so it's rough. My group of guys play for handicaps and skins, and sometimes I play in league sub spots, so it isn't as simple as shifting the place and style of play I do, because that's all I do, and even playing by myself if things are going south I can't just chock it up to practice or a rough day, it becomes a waste of money and time to just suffer through a crap round of golf, emotionally and mentally. Just for transparency, I'm currently seeking professional help with my mental health, as I believe that it will be very helpful, but I'm just wondering for people who have had to shift that priority window from competing to just for fun, what did you do to do it? Thanks for reading I guess, this did help in me getting it out so a positive will be taken regardless.

The only thing I will say about these is that it'll take you now to a blank Twitter page after I deleted that app out of my life. Happier now for it sometimes. It's all about growing the brand and having some fun!

@GolfSpy AFG here I was thinking you a braver man than I. I've got 5 dozen of these bad boys and would love to share them with y'all and the great people of Virginia and Maryland and possibly Pennsylvania. I'm bringing all my boxes so anyone who wants one can have one