russtopherb

I'm in that gray area of no/don't care. The televised golf as it is right now has zero appeal to me. I'll tune in for things like the Phoenix Open or The Masters, and even then it's in drips and drabs. The most pro golf I watched all of 2023 was Rose Zhang's LPGA debut. I love watching them in person when they're at TPC Boston - it's incredible to watch them make shots from just a few feet away. But TV? Nah I'd rather be on the course or the range.

After seeing some stuff floating around online, I am 100% jazzed to see the new Cleveland irons!!!

Happy Friday all! It's my last day in the office until Jan 2, so I'm wrapping up some year-end reports and info, checking in with my staff to address any last-minute issues, and just getting ready for some time off. Hope everyone has a great end to their week!

Congrats to @GolfSpy_BEN! Great job all around everyone.

I've almost always had stand bags, however I'm looking to replace my current bag with something that'll work on my push cart way better than my current bag. I'm not a fan of the stand mechanism at all, which causes the bag to rotate on my push cart or even if I'm on a riding cart. It's annoying as heck. I do go to the range a lot, which is why I'd still prefer to be in a stand bag.

Not picking mine so as not to be biased, the Titleist and Cobra tests were really great this year. Those two threads are ones that I made sure to track down and read whenever I was on the site.

Congrats all! And a VERY cool opportunity for a few more lucky spies.

Yep these are 100% going in my son’s bag. He hit the 7i 175 with a push draw. They’re perfect for him. He did struggle a bit with the 4i and 5i but everything else he just mashed. An early Christmas present in his bag!

I still say the absolute best reviews are ones that are brutally honest and based more on real world use vs filled with launch monitor stats. If someone has issues with what they are reviewing out on the course, I want to hear about it. Fawning, glowing reviews don’t always ring true to me for some reason. That every piece of gear is perfect. I want to hear about what viewers don’t like about things, I find that far more insightful time after time. Especially if it’s user submitted reviews, I really like to see comparisons to the clubs that are being replaced, or tested against. Pros and cons. Likes and dislikes.

My Caley 01CBs finally arrived from Club Champion CA after winning them in their contest, and I have to agree on all the comments about how sharp they look. They are CLEAN! Like a lot of the others experienced with delivery, packing was minimal at best. Some of the iron heads are wrapped, some are not. The 7i back is already showing some dings as a result, which you can see in the first pic. Here's everything that came with the packing. Not well protected at all, but thankfully everything's OK. The one major downside to these: stiff shafts. And stiff shafts that I've tried before and know for a fact I won't get along with. Major bummer. However, these may be perfect for my 18 yo who's in R flex now and feels like he has to hold back in order to hit the ball straight. Looks like the weather may potentially be in the 50's Sunday so we'll see if he can give them a shot. If they work for him, he just got himself some absolutely gorgeous clubs for Christmas!

Congrats Bryan!

I always approach the range with something I want to specifically work on, and I do that for no more than half the bucket, sometimes a lot less. Once I'm done working on whatever it is (better takeaway with driver, downswing feels practiced with a 7i, etc) I play a practice round going through the first 5-6 holes of the course I play the most, and I'll pick a club that would match the result from the previous shot I hit with no do-overs.

It's absolutely worth it. I'm a mid-handicap that doesn't pound the ball, when I was fit for my Mizuno driver as part of the testing here it was eye opening just seeing the differences between stock shafts and different degree heads. If I picked one of the stock shafts that I could have grabbed off the shelf, my dispersion and distance would have been much worse than the other stock shaft I ended up with.

I don't know what's been done so far on the back end aside from the current theme refresh, but things are loading and responding noticeably fast for me on multiple devices.

Another solid move, love to see this!

Work has been so busy that it's difficult to be fully involved with the calls, but it was great to hear the background on the FlightScope testing opportunity and how that came about.

Love to see testing opportunities like this paid forward. Well done! I'm sure whoever gets these clubs to test will really enjoy them. I have those shafts in the Mizunos I tested and they work incredibly well (I do have R flex in the driver, for the record).

That's how I feel about the 4h. It went from a "well it's nice to have it to test but not sure how much I'll use it" to a "let's see how many times I can pull this thing out of the bag this round" club. Definitely the sleeper of this testing for me. I hit a couple of amazing shots with it the other day after not having played in over a month, and I'm STILL not used to how straight that club is. Longer clubs off the turf for me always have a slight fade, but not that one.

Great idea for an article. I've been re-gripping on my own for years, and for a "mechanically challenged" goof like myself, it's surprisingly easy.

I got out on Saturday in slightly overcast conditions, the temp was around 50 and I was able to use the yellow Tour S for most of the round. I brought a sleeve with me, and all 3 were lost by hole 14 - 2 lost in massive leaf piles (typical for courses up here, you need to be WAY offline to find one of those piles, and, well.... I was WAY offline with those two shots!). I will say that I found them clickier off the putter than I like, but feel-wise they weren't too bad. I didn't mind the ball flight at all, and I had no trouble keeping the ball in sight while it was in the air or on the ground. I'm definitely looking forward to getting some more experience with them in the spring time.

Fantastic recap!! Concise and well written, perfect pics.

Shot an even 100 today at Country Club of New Bedford. I can’t complain - I got to play golf in December. After having not touched a club in a month and a half, just being out there was a blast. Left the face open too much, forgot how to hit bunker shots, and had 39 putts (those greens are no joke, it’s like putting on tilted glass half the time). Doesn’t matter - had a great time with my bud and some of his family. It’s like a bonus round at this point in the year.

Very cool!!! Nice gesture all around.

Both drive me nuts but it's the pitch marks on the greens that are worse. Seems like I always end up fixing 2-3 marks per green when I get up there. It's maddening.

Higher/Lower/Draw/Fade, just like the chart further up the page.