ChitownM2

Somehow I missed the December announcement that they were scrapping the model local rule proposal from March and just rolling back the ball entirely, that makes pretty much everything I said above incorrect. Oops

Worn these G/fore drive shoes about 2 dozen times mostly just casually but they've seen maybe a half dozen 9 hole rounds. They are still basically like new, but I'm outside G/fore's ridiculous 90 day warranty period so they won't fix or replace them. They gave me a one time good will store credit of $125 which is half the price of a replacement. Needless to say I will be sticking with adidas and other brands that use genuine boa components in their laceless systems since they provide a lifetime warranty. I'm a big fan of boa and my code chaos shoes are still going strong but I'll consider this a lessons learned to avoid all the copy cats out there.

Yes but there is a huge difference between being named non-conforming and being not eligible for high level play where a model local rule is in play. I don't see those being the same at all. The fact that left dot and left dash existed in the first place without being on retail shelves kind of proves the point that they weren't playing the same ball right? They were making small runs of these balls just for those half dozen or so pros and now they make small batches just for custom orders since left dot still isn't in retail stores. No reason to think they don't have the ability to continue producing a small run of balls for the pros and others competing in these events where the model local rule is in effect. I definitely agree that this isn't going to matter to most golfers out there, but that isn't the way advertising works. One of these manufacturers is going to decide it's worth it to distinguish themselves by selling balls that don't meet the requirements of the model local rule and they are going to test that at the swing speed limits of the test and show the maximum possible distance advantage. My point was that once one company decides to do that, the rest are going to be forced to follow suit because as you point out, most golfers don't care or dig deep enough to understand the nuance / trick the mfr is playing. After seeing that TP5 is 20 yds longer than ProV1 plastered in front of their face for 12-18 months and it will start to stick with them when they are picking up a new box of balls at the store.

I still don't understand why people are getting so upset about this still. Why do people think that the balls that most amateurs are playing is going to disappear from the market just because the pros can't use them? A lot of the pros are already not playing the same balls that we can buy on the retail shelf and this would just be a continuation of that. The balls they play will continue to be the small batch "prototype" balls that manufacturers make for them and the balls rolling off the big assembly lines and ship to PGATSS will be the same. I suppose one could argue that there will be less innovation/updates for the mass market balls but I'm not sure that will really matter for most golf balls since we were already talking about very minor improvements to begin with and I'm sure some of the things they develop for tour balls will find their way into retail products. It's kind of like auto racing, car manufacturers develop new tech and it gets put on race cars and eventually some version of that ends up in production cars a decade later. When it comes down to it, I don't believe for a second that golf ball manufacturers are going to stop producing and developing balls for recreational play. How long do you think Titleist is going to let Callaway run ads in every PGA tour event and magazine that shows their ball being 25 yards longer than ProV1 with some barely legible fine print in the corner saying it can't be used in tournament event? No brand is going to be able to let that happen because retail sales make up 99.999% of the revenue for the manufacturers.

Anything abrasive should get the job done. I would start with the least abrasive option and then work your way up as needed. Simichrome paste works well on very light oxidation and other small blemishes in the finish

From my experience, second guessing what the SW scale was telling me was the driving factor in me upgrading from an old golfsmith SW scale. I would say you should get the best scale your budget allows or you might end up in a similar boat where you don't trust the numbers you are seeing

I think there is far too much correlation between results and driver skill comparisons in here. You can really only compare drivers within the same team for a given race / season since the performance levels of the car are just wildly different. Merc has had a terrible car for all of the ground effects "era" so it's probably a reach to say that Hamilton is washed up. I think it is safe to say that Russell is better at driving trash cars than Hamilton is, whatever that is worth I don't know. He certainly extracted the most of anyone recently out of what Williams had to offer and rolled right into Merc which turned out to be more of the same, albeit at a higher level. I'm really looking forward to seeing how Hamilton compares to LeClerc next season and also how Russel fares against Lewis' replacement, whomever that may be. Ideally though it would be nice to see two top teams produce cars that are similar performance so we can have a real competition. As of right now, Red Bull's car is so dominant the only real questions are A) will Max have a reliability issue and give someone else a chance or B) will Max lap cars that are in the points.

It's possible that they were both built correctly since each manufacturer measures length differently. I believe Srixon measures their clubs using the raw shaft so that the built length of the club is not affected by the butt thickness of whatever grip you choose. I believe Ping builds their clubs such that the length is measured to the line on the butt cap if you go with their standard grip, regardless of what grip you actually choose.

I think it definitely matters. For Alonso / AM in '23, AM developed the car in the wrong direction. They started out well and when they brought upgrades they made the car worse and they didn't understand why. Spent the entire rest of the season trying to figure it out. McLaren did the opposite, every upgrade they brought basically made the car better and better, by large chunks in some cases. As for LeClerc in '22, my opinion is that he just isn't that great of a driver. He's good, but he just can't perform under the most intense pressure moments, he seems to always find a way to screw it up by spinning, crashing or just making poor decisions on when to try and overtake. It will be very interesting next year when he is alongside Hamilton in the same car

Responded. Will be curious to see what others think

great to see more people getting the opportunity to test and review....too bad the season is over here in Chicago. Played yesterday and it was way too cold and sloppy so I'm officially done for 2023, only simulator golf now until the temps start creeping towards 50 now

Not a fan of the rollback. I don't care how much it will affect me personally, losing distance even if it's just a few yards is dumb for 99% of golfers. I also could care less about the pro game and whatever perceived distance problem they have as it pertains to sustainability. The entire idea of golf being sustainable is completely ridiculous. Golf courses are inherently not sustainable and the idea that lengthening a few dozen private or outrageously priced public courses 700 yards is going to have any negative impact is laughable. If golf wants to be sustainable then it should ban irrigation and watering of courses. I'm curious as to how far the manufacturer's and pros really want to take this. I don't think it's totally out of the question that the major brands get together and just say, "we're not going to make conforming balls". Pros don't want them and neither do amateurs. the PGA tour and/or the PGA can just create their own identical rules sans the ball roll back and that can be adopted by all amateur/junior/etc tours and organizations. The only real net effect would be the US open and "The Open" would have to figure out what they wanted to do, either find someone to make balls for use in their tournament or relent

Reporting back, overall things went fairly well. After 2 sessions my dad is going with a mixed set of Cleveland Launchers a new Callaway CB sand wedge and staying with his current hybrids, fairways and his Rogue driver as nothing else really beat them out. They did not have all the shafts for all the brands but we did find something that did work and he was able to place an order for clubs that they will build for the same price as retail. Should take a few weeks to get everything and then can verify gapping and make any adjustments necessary.

Club length varies from brand to brand as the way they all measure differs so that is likely the discrepancy. I think Mizuno and srixon measure length to the end of the actual shaft before putting a grip on. Ping measures to the line at the end of the butt cap on their standard grip which results in a different shaft cut length and means that the measured length in a shop would vary based on the grip you choose. Callaway, Titleist, TM all have their way of measure as well....

I've got a couple other options my father can go to if need be but the fitting is more expensive and they're ~ 1 hr away instead of 5 min so that was the real driver in him choosing CC, plus his unfamiliarity with all of the above pitfalls. Honestly though there aren't as many options as your would think even in a major city. True spec and cool clubs have a similar business model to CC and then after that you're looking at PGATSS where you risk getting a guy who watched a 1 hr video being your fitter. Most of the courses that have pros who offer fittings only have affiliations with one or two brands so you can't get a full brand agnostic fitting. And even then I haven't gotten great responses as to who the good ones are when I've inquired before. At this point I'm hoping this goes well today. I spent a lot of time this weekend going through each mfr site and making a list of the shaft options that each offers in the budget of what my father is willing to spend. I don't expect the fitter to have memorized the list of stock options for each mfr so that's why I am going so I can help with that info if necessary. He's playing a senior flex now and even in his prime only ever played regular so that helped narrow the lists substantially.