bellairemi

Winter finally arrived here. About 8" inches here in the last 24 hours with the wind chills starting to dip under zero. With everything closed due to Covid, we have had to transform the overnight homeless shelter I manage into a 24 hour a day shelter - nowhere for our people to go during the day.

I wish they made the 16th into an interesting hole at least - really an insipid hole to surround with stands.

I have been demoing all the new drivers in the Trackman 4 simulator so I can a little better replicate how the driver might play on the course. While I can get better numbers just hitting balls, none of the new ones show a Strokes Gained advantage over my old one once I take them out on the "course". I'm pretty happy I decided to go this route as just from the standard hit balls down the range testing I would have purchased a new driver. This route saves both money and disappointment.

Yep, I am in the hate camp but have some playing partners who love them.

My experience was that Sterlings gapping was better and they were equally forgiving with the F7s. My brother has the set of Sterlings I built and will no doubt play them until they fall apart.

I've been testing the new drivers in the launch monitor/simulator against my 7-8 year old model. While I can see some small and consistent improvements in some measures (ball speed and launch/spin) on the launch monitor, I do not see any advantage when I actually take them to the simulator and play them on the course. My strokes gained driving have shown minimal gains at best (.3 strokes a round) and actually had a few end up in negative numbers against mine.

Maybe you could send some of that snow up north? You now have more on the ground than we do in TC.

I don't think that would be the case for Ping as their manufacturing standards for their shaft partners are tight (as is their overall QC), I did have instances where stock graphites were disappointing versus what I hit at the fitting. For me it was Steelfibers that allowed me to ultimately make the shift because they reacted in my hands just like a steel shaft.

Big fan of the OnCore as it feels softer without giving much, if any, distance up to the harder balls. Spin is good, holds its line pretty well in the wind. I never finish a round wishing my ball performed differently (most definitely cannot say that for my clubs).

I understand that Callaway's aggressive marketing appeals to some but I will not have any of their products in my bag because of it.

I just wanted to thank all the testers for their work on these reviews. Unfortunately I found some of the same issues that you all did. Because I had a good experience with the VKTR hybrid (except that it launched a little low but it was definitely anti-left and felt nice), I called Ben Hogan about the new version. They assured me that it would launch higher than the original while still retaining the attributes I liked. Sold! While talking to them, I mentioned that I was looking to replace my 5 wood which is 13-14 years old. My concern with many of the newer ones is that, while long

Will be interesting to see as I would not classify the D7 as having a low COG - they were measured at .862 (the center of the golf ball is .840 in comparison). Most of the newer GI and SGI have substantially higher COGs than their predecessors - counter to what they advertise.

I'm set with a 2007 Burner 5 & 7 wood and a Callaway 04 Big Bertha 9 wood which I rotate depending on course and wind. They go the distance I expect so I don't see much advantage in changing.

They do look great and the proactive thought put into blending is admirable. That said, I cannot fathom the pricing - $185 a club seems a bit excessive.

Yes, mid-release. I grew up in the persimmon era and my driver was 42.5" for all my seminal golf years. I suspect that has affected my golf DNA to some degree.