GB13

A live look at Nunfa0 who finds my burns insufficient :

As it turns out, your predictions about my golf game were just as bad as you played last year. Yes, it’s only one round, and yes, I played pretty poorly. But your predicting ability is still lackluster. After my first round with Arccos, I’m very impressed by the accuracy of its shot tracking. I must say, I can’t wait to see my putting stat when my putter isn’t ice cold like it was today.

The fact that your swing hasn’t changed since 1987 is really quite impressive. I think most of these different fitting results come from swing changes, either intentional or unintentional. Swing dynamics change when you gain/lose flexibility, recover from an injury/surgery, gain/lose strength, make an intentional swing change, etc. All of these factors can influence one’s swing and therefore change fitting results greatly.

I’m the ghost of Golfers Past!

It’s fascinating that it works for people of all heights too. I’m 6’2” with slightly longer arms, but I just felt way more comfortable in shorter clubs. I was getting much more consistent strikes with the Tour Length and wasn’t losing any distance. One interesting note is, at the regular length, my 3W swing speed and driver swing speed was exactly the same. Once we cut down the driver, my swing speed actually went up a bit. The long shaft felt so unstable that I couldn’t even make a “full” swing. That’s great!! I’m really hoping that’s how it turns out for me. Hybrids in the past have been very hooky for me too. It’s going to very much be a boom or bust club, but I went with the hybrid only because I knew, IF I can get it working right, it’ll be the most versatile club in my bag. You’d be correct in that assessment. To be fair though, I probably wouldn’t know a lot about movies that came out when I was alive...

I’m sorry I’m didn’t post about my fitting and resulting setup sooner, I started to write it at 2 a.m. last night, and it turned into a word salad. That said, my fitting was probably the 3 most rewarding hours I’ve ever spent hitting golf balls. My fitter was extremely knowledgeable and I have complete confidence in his recommendations, which is an extremely important quality in a fitter. I made it clear up front that my number 1 priority was reducing dispersion, and he was very receptive to that. The importance of a fitting cannot be over-stressed, the difference between what I thought I needed, and what I actually needed was quite vast. I’ll break down the fitting process and final results by club type below. If you have any questions for me at all, please ask: Irons: This was my first time seeing the Forged Tecs in person, and I was stunned. These irons are beautiful. @Golfspy_CG2 was not exaggerating about how nice these look. And, not to give too much away, they feel just as good as they look. Anyway, we started with the $Tapers, a shaft which I had predicted would be a good fit. I was very, very wrong. They felt so “dead” to me and made me wildly overswing. We quickly realized that 120g was too heavy for my swing and that 105g-110g was going to be the sweet spot. We tried several shafts in that weight range, and after a few swings with a shaft that I was absolutely stunned to later learn was the Nippon Modus 105, my fitter and I knew we had found the magic combination. Dispersion was amazing, contact was the most consistent we’d seen, and launch and spin was pretty darn perfect. We did have a pretty extended discussion about length, and debated back and forth between standard, and 0.5” long. At the end of the day, standard was by far the most comfortable, and again, produced the most consistent contact. The lie angle was very simple, after a few shots, it was quite clear that standard was going the be the best option there too. It was fascinating, I NEVER expected that I would be fit into a Standard length, standard lie set. For comparison, my (un)educated guess at my current setup has me playing clubs that are 1” too long, and 3° too upright. That is........ not ideal. Final result - Forged Tec 4-PW Standard Length and Lie Nippon Modus 105 Stiff Wedges: After all the iron analysis, we felt very comfortable keeping the same shaft specs especially since the Modus 105 have a softer tip/lower kickpoint for good feel around the greens. The main discussion was focused around gapping after we ultimately decided against the Forged Tec gap wedge. The Forged Tec PW is 44° and I really wanted to keep a 58° as my highest lofted wedge and maintain proper gapping. We ultimately decided to go with a 50° bent 1° strong to 49°, a 54°, and then the 58°. The Versatile grind was an easy call on every wedge, and while we did briefly consider the Widelow 58°, we decided that it would limit some options around the green. Final Result - King MIM 50° (bent to 49°), 54°, and 58° Standard Length and Lie. All with the Versatile Grind. Nippon Modus 105 Stiff Woods: While my iron swing was rather good all day, my ability to hit the woods was at times, questionable. All-in-all, I’m okay with that, I want clubs that provide good dispersion on days that I don’t have my A game. (Or even B- game) After a few swings, we decided that with the goal of dispersion in mind, Tour Length was gonna be the way to go. After figuring out that having the driver set at 10° draw was producing the best numbers, the shaft choice became quite obvious. The HZRDUS Smoke Yellow 60 was producing crazy good numbers. The fairway wood, which gapping analysis determined to be a 3 wood, followed very much in the footsteps of the driver. Lofted up 1°, with the HZRDUS Smoke Yellow 70. Picking out my 13th club was a challenge, we waffled between a 3 iron built more as a driving iron, or a 3 hybrid for more versatility. I don’t usually get along with hybrids, but I felt that I hit this hybrid well enough that the versatility upside was worth the risk of it being a bust. I’m really looking forward to see how it works on the course. Final Result - Tour Length SpeedZone Driver 9° lofted up to 10° in the draw setting. HZRDUS Yellow Smoke 60 Stiff SpeedZone 3W lofted up 1° -0.5” Short HZRDUS Yellow Smoke 70 Stiff SpeedZone 3H Standard length Recoil ESX 480 Stiff

Nah, this will be the only apology I’ll have to issue for the entire competition. Considering your reference went right over my head, I probably don’t want you on my team anyway.

....That is super sweet I’d be all over that!

I had my fitting today and it went really well!! I’ll type up a full report on it later tonight, but here’s a spoiler... I owe a full blown apology to Nippon after my (harsh) words about the Modus 105s. (Read teeny-tiny dispersion circle with consistent contact)

Dress 60s, Think 70s, Shoot 80s

I agree with you about the Modus 105s. I had those shafts (possibly an older version, not sure) in a Titleist AP1 set a few years back, and I hated them vehemently. As mentioned earlier, the tip was so soft that I had no confidence I could strike the ball solidly. They still suck, can’t play golf, and smell like boiled cabbage, but they sure can talk about golf as if they knew how to play it.

I’m happy to hear your fitting went so well!!! Seems like one hell of a setup you got there. I expect I’ll be debating between the CTL and $Taper tomorrow. Although I’ve never actually been fitted for irons before (which I’m super excited about doing) so I really have no idea what to expect, those just kinda “seem” like they’d fit my game well. I dunno, if his Haka is “high, dirty, and sexy”, I’m not sure I want to see it anymore. If I don’t wanna see your sexy calves, I sure as hell don’t want to see your dirty, sexy thighs.

I hope that it is an easy transition for @daviddvm as well. He certainly is the bravest of the testers! Frankly, if I were starting the game from scratch, I’d go OL, and I’d recommend them to anyone just starting out.

Thank you!! I’ll be testing the conventional length Forged Tec irons with the MIM wedges. I don’t really except Cobra to abandon the OL concept. In fact, I’d lean toward thinking other manufacturers might add an OL option. I think it is gaining popularity, both with people who just want to consistently groove one swing, and people who don’t have as much time to practice as they want to. Those two categories make up a very large segment of the golfing population. Not only does the theory behind the OL make sense to most people, Cobra markets it really, really well. When you do pull the trigger, keep us updated here as to the results. I’d be very interested in how they work out for you. Couldn’t agree more. The Forged Tec irons are certainly a bit of a change from my I200s, but it wouldn’t be anything like going OL!!

I play whatever the group is playing. It keeps me on my toes and having to hit different shots. When playing alone, I play as far back as I can where the longest Par 3 is under 210 (4 iron).

Cowardice mainly... I’m very intrigued by the OL, the entire concept makes sense to me. BUT, I just can’t commit to it, it seems like too big of a risk. I’m pretty happy with my iron game with variable length clubs, and I just don’t want to jeopardize it.

AWESOME!!! Congrats man!! That must’ve been one beautiful shot. ...and if your waiting for a hole-in-one from us, you’ll be waiting a lonnnnnng time... I hope not, none of us will even come close to the numbers Foz put up! If that was a challenge, I’d certainly not be winning.

That’s certainly a good idea. I’ll have to try a driver free round in the future. The course I play is relatively short, (I’ll post a quick hole- by- hole in the coming days.) and driver certainly isn’t required off any tee. Oh yeah, I can’t wait to see what actually happens. I think the stat tracking will be an eye-opening experience. If I put on 30 pounds, I’d still look like 2017 Bryson. Thanks! I’m really intrigued by the idea of perception VS reality. It’s great to have something that isn’t emotionally invested in the game to tell me how I’m really doing. I know, for me, if I have two identical drives, one after a 30’ birdie putt, and one after a 3-putt double, I’m inclined to be much more critical after the double, which obviously skews my perception. Having an objective view of my game will be really important.

Just like my fellow competitor, @edingc, my Arccos sensors arrived today. So far, setting up the sensors and pairing the sensors has been a breeze. (Honestly, it took me less time to pair the sensors, than it did for me to figure out how to open the box... ) So, seeing as these are my last few days before being up to my ears in data, I thought it would be interesting to see how I perceive my game VS what the data shows my game to actually be. In golf, we are always told that feel isn’t real, and I’m curious if that “fake feel” carries over to our mental image of our game as opposed to just applying our swings. So without further delay, here is what I think of my game, for comparison to what Arccos says later. (Note: this has nothing to do with out baselines for the actual challenge, I just thought it might be interesting.) Driving - Estimated handicap: 7 Estimated Smart distance: DR - 265, 3W- 230, 2 iron - 215 Overall, I think I hit the ball far enough, but am far too inaccurate. I don’t think my distance makes up for the lack in fairways hit and (too frequent) penalties. Approach - Estimated handicap: 4 Estimated Smart Distances: 4i- 200, 5i- 185, 6i- 170, 7i- 160, 8i- 150, 9i- 140, PW- 125, GW- 110, LW- 80 Overall, I think I’m pretty average when it comes to approach shots, I’m definitely think I’m better from 150yds than 100yds. I think I hit plenty of GIRs, although my proximity isn’t ever as close as I’d like. Chipping - Estimated handicap: 9 I’m not really sure what I think about my chipping... which I’m taking as a bad sign. I have really good chips and I have really bad chips, I’d just say I’m inconsistent overall. Sand - Estimated handicap: 4 I’m fine with my sand play. It isn’t spectacular, but it works when I need it. Putting - Estimated Handicap: +2 Not to brag, but I think I’m a really good putter. I’m confident in my lag putting and making short putts that count. In my opinion, my putting allows me to score as well as I do. Is this confidence justified? We’ll find out.

Trust me, I have a better team name for us.

Oh, you’ll be doing the Haka by week 5. But sure, go ahead and think that I don’t control your every move. Let’s see where that gets you... I’m really planning on keeping an open mind during the fitting for length. I do need the extra consistency because currently I’m *very* inconsistent with the driver, but again, I’m going to keep an open mind. Yes, I’m very excited about these wedges. My original PING Glides have enjoyed the longest tenure in my bag of any club, and these wedges have quite the battle in front of them. Frankly, if I were buying new wedges, I might look for the exact same ones, just with fresher grooves. Currently I only have a 2 wedge set-up, 52° and 58°, which creates some strange gaps, so I’m planning on a 50° 54° 58° (or 60°) setup.

Yes, you will. I agree with you about liking the carbon fiber top line, I think it’s a cool visual. And even if it isn’t your thing, I can’t imagine you’d notice it after a few swings. I can’t wait to get my hands on the SZ, I think Cobra really broke through into the driver scene with the F9, and they made one of the best drivers of last year even better.... I predict some BOMBS!!

Oh, he WILL Haka, two years of encouragement (threats) will wear him down.

Are you trying to torture me?!? This is cruel!! As if the wait wasn’t excruciating enough already! Those are absolutely some of the nicest looking irons out there. I love matte and chrome metal contrast. If they play half as nice as they look, we’re in for a treat! Oh, and I should have known that you already would have a set...

If you want the honor of supporting me, I’m gonna need you to do a Haka.