Golf Updates - December 2010
Technology advancement is fascinating. It changes our lives and the way we do things. Like travel or transportation. They keep making the ships, planes and cars bigger. They did the same things to golf clubs especially the drivers. Sometimes to detrimental effects as they make us lazy. Like golfing on a more treacherous and difficult course makes us more careful. If they gave you wider fairways you might get complacent and careless.
I'm not going to tell you the obvious like how Tiger despite playing so well lost in a play off to Graeme McDowell to cap a miserable year. I'll rather tell you what to expect in some interesting development of late or early next year in driver and iron technology. You always have to begin with TaylorMade which seems to continue unabated in releasing a slew of new products endlessly it is now like a soap opera serial.
TaylorMade
If you have not been following you won't know the story so you will have to ask me to relate to you since you may have stop at chapter 5 or 7 and now the R9 may be considered old episode. I am sure many are still doing with the r5 or r7 and some may have upgraded to R9 and very soon there have been rumours that TaylorMade will release the R11 beginning next year. What's special? Well, I may not be right but it will be a ghostly white driver! Like it's putter. I think this is the first white driver. Taylormade is really good at finding new ways to do things and this time you could probably simply adjust to open or close your club face. It's a ghost!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sp6S0S5ucM
TaylorMade Burner 2.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNCdzLdQlH4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w-J7CZ-tNg
Adams
Everybody is jumping onto the band wagon of adjustable drivers these days. It's like a car with adjustable sun roof. Adam's latest adjustable drive the Speedline 9064 LS lets you tweak its face angle close or open by one degree, switch loft by one degree weaker or stronger and adjust lie angle to one degree upright. From a preset length of 45.5 inches, it allows you to change it to 45 inches or 46 inches as you please. Isn't it amazing?! How cool is that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0JdYouTa9k
Callaway
Callway entered into an interesting alliance with Lamborghini to develop their latest driver the Callaway "Diablo Octane" made from "Forged Composite" a first. What does this means? Specific parts of the club head can now be made thicker or thinner as desired to enable more precise power. If you get to watch the video where Stuart Appleby used it to tee off against a racing 550-horsepower Lamborghini Gallardo and the end result was the ball reaching the target line just a split second earlier than the car you will feel amazed! I already feel like getting one just watching. Phew!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqtUtwIZ0Wg
Ping
Ping recently released this Maximum Game Improvement driver. I'll call it an idiot-proofed driver. It does not mean that if you buy and use it you are an idiot. I suppose if you still can't handle it you are a real idiot. This could deter a few people from finding out thew truth about themselves. Haha. Ping drivers are known to promote faster ball speed across the face of the club. The K15 is meant to replace the Rapture as it has higher MOI and a larger face. This club is built to help golfer rotate correctly and square on impact. You can see it it the meaty external weight heel pad trailing along at the back of the sole. Ping called it SFT or Straight Flight Technology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kydFEG2D4M
Cleveland
Cleveland makes wonderful drivers, wedges and hybrids. Their Launcher DST is 25g lighter than most standard drivers. At Sub 300g, it is the lightest driver at the PGA Tour.
Mizuno
Mizuno has a following for their famous clubs. Their latest offer comes in the form of the JPX800 irons, a serious looking iron with balanced performance that comes with exotic technology. Their focus is on key criteria of feel, control, forgiveness and distance without comprising one another. Mizuno claimed that the JPX800's look at address and the solidity at impact will have single figure players their choice of irons. A new manufacturing process for a more uniform and thinner face allows maximum limits for energy transfer far exceeding previous Mizuno irons giving it the highest level of forgiveness achieved in a Mizuno iron to date. For this project, they seemed to have looked at all major brands and bench marked all the qualities of control, feel, distance and forgiveness and matched or exceeded them. Hmmm....worth looking at.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7FfhbDOns
I envisage a day where you need to carry only just one golf club which look like a driver. You can then easily switch the head into wood, hybrid, irons or putter and then you can also lengthen or shorten the shaft and if you like you can open it to reveal a cutter where you can cut the grass around the rough before you hit. If nobody has done it by then, I will. Look at this Big Daddy.
Better still invent one that hits all by itself and all you have to do is to bring it there.
Golf as in life, play as it lies.
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