Hot List 365

Results for July 2011 Back to Hot List 365 Index

Acushnet announces sale complete

Friday, July 29, 2011
As expected, the sale of Acushnet Company from Fortune Brands to a consortium led by Fila Korea and Mirae Asset Private Equity was completed today, according to an announcement from Acushnet. 

The deal originally was announced May 20 and was reported to be for $1.2 billion. According to the Acushnet press release, under the terms of the sale, Acushnet "will remain as a standalone company through separate operation from Fila Korea, with its worldwide headquarters remaining in Fairhaven, Mass."

According to the release, Acushnet's new owners will include Fila Korea, which also owns the worldwide Fila brand; Mirae Asset Private Equity, Korea's largest private equity firm; and the National Pension Service of Korea, the fourth largest pension fund in the world. The release also notes that the Korea Development Bank, Korea's largest government-owned bank, is providing financing for the acquisition.
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It's Christmas in July--New products are coming

Wednesday, July 27, 2011
It's starting to be our favorite time of year: The run-up to the next Hot List. And the entries are flowing through our doors. 

Most of these products are only prototypes at this stage, but a few already are being introduced to sales forces at the leading companies in meetings over the next few weeks, most notably yesterday's Twitter-friendly announcements by Ping for a host of new products, including its new G20 drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and irons. 

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We've previously discussed the weight saving of seven grams in the new G20 driver, but the G20 hybrid (left) also has been retooled to feature a flatter lie angle to smooth the transition between this club and your irons. 

The G20 irons (below) offer a 10 percent thinner face that is designed for enhanced ballspeed and saves four grams that can be used to improve perimeter weighting and help lower the center of gravity.
EDIG01.01.pingiron.jpg

Designers also tweaked the hosel transition on these irons to keep the forgiving blade length but make them feel a tad more compact.  

The company also introduced a new line of Anser putters and its second foray into forging, the Anser wedge. The milled putters, made of 303 stainless steel, come in seven versions of the popular Anser shape with each designed to fit a particular stroke type from straight to strong arc. The designs fit in neatly with Ping's iPing putter fitting and training app. The Ping Anser wedges include a tungsten toe weight to improve CG location and enhance clubhead stability.

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Another company with a slew of new entries being shown to its sales force is Mizuno. Its line will feature three new sets of irons, a unique hybrid family and two new wedges. 

The iron additions include the MP-59 (left), the next iteration of Mizuno's titanium infused classically shaped forgings (Charles Howell III is looking at using the new irons as early as this week). Like its predecessor, the MP-58, the MP-59 utilizes titanium forged directly into the head, this time in the form of a 12-gram wedge behind the face that features a special finishing technique designed to improve feel. There's also a new true muscle-back forged blade, the MP-69. 

Also being launched is the JPX-800 HD (below), a super-game-improvement, multiple-piece cast design that will include the option of JPX Fli-Hi hybrids, which are designed to directly replace long irons in loft, shaft flex, shaft type and lie angle to ease the transition between middle irons and hybrids. 
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The two new wedges include a JPX cavity back model and a new rounder-shaped extension of the MP line, the R12. 

Of course, many of the other introductions are restricted by embargo dates before they can be discussed and revealed by the media, but we can certainly provide you with a little head's up. For instance, expect unveilings of some new club offerings as early as next week from Bridgestone and TaylorMade, including a new set of irons from the latter next week. Also, as we've mentioned before and you've certainly seen on tour, the new Titleist line of irons (AP1, AP2, CB and MB) are making news months before they'll be in stores. The unseen, "under the hood" use of tungsten in the AP irons is worth noting. 

Also, in addition to unveiling its line of a12 Idea Pro irons and hybrids, Adams Golf is already unveiling its next generation of woods to feature slots in the crown and sole designed to improve face flexion and increase ballspeed. The Speedline LP is a low profile style head that comes in lofts ranging from 13.5 degrees to that increasingly rare but still quite useful option: the 23-degree 9-wood.

More to come as we go along. Stay tuned. 

--Mike Stachura

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Groove odyssey: A player's diary, Chapter 4

Monday, July 25, 2011
Max Adler, accomplished competitive player and Golf Digest Staff Writer is embarking on his first year of golf with the new grooves. Periodically, we'll let you in on what he's learning and how the change impacts his game. Last month, Max qualified for and competed in the Connecticut State Amateur Championship, using irons and wedges that featured the new groove and presumably were less effective in certain situations than those used by most of the other competitors. As he readies to compete in qualifying for the U.S. Amateur next week, here's another of the lessons he's learned about competing with the new grooves:
 
Never try to hit a wedge farther than you can, even the new ones. 

It's tempting if the yardage is only a few yards more than your stock distance, but it's not worth it. After a weather delay during the Connecticut Amateur, I momentarily forgot my own wisdom and selected my 50-degree wedge after my laser-device eyed the flagstick at 122 yards (my 50-degree normally flies 120 yards).  With a fresh coating of moisture on the greens, I proceeded to hit the shot I thought would be dead now that I'm playing the new-groove wedges. My shot pitched six feet short of the hole, then ripped back some 25 feet before catching the false-front apron and trickling back another 20 yards into the fairway. So yes, even with the new groove wedges it's possible to swing too hard and steep and experience that most distasteful sight of a GIR that reconsidered.

However, the tragicomedy of the shot did at least break the silent atmosphere. My opponent in the round of 16, Matt Smith, who would ultimately defeat me 3&2, commiserated and offered that he was also playing the newly conforming wedges even though they were not required for the event. Smith, a First-Team All New-England rising senior at the University of Hartford, said, "Yeah, Jerry Kelly is an alum and so we get hooked up with equipment from Cleveland and Srixon. We got the new wedges this spring, and I figure I might as well learn to play with them now because we're all going to have to switch later."

Smith isn't going to wait to learn his lessons. Of course, I had just learned one myself: Next time, choke down on the pitching wedge.
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USGA, R&A publish equipment document

Monday, July 18, 2011
It may not be the most important letter in the history of international diplomacy, but a 12-page communique sent July 8 from golf's ruling bodies to equipment manufacturers seems to be another meaningful step toward a more open and even collaborative rulemaking process when it comes to equipment. 

The letter, obtained by Golf Digest, provides a formal review of the landmark Vancouver Equipment Forum held last November to discuss equipment rules and testing procedures. The forum was framed by nine topics, ranging from further publicizing the ongoing equipment rules research conducted by the ruling bodies to adjusting the timing of concurrent rule changes. 

The July 8 letter provides both a summary of the discussions in Vancouver, as well as detailed proposals for procedural changes. Throughout the document, the USGA seems to be emphasizing a tone of enhanced transparency in its procedures.That sense of cooperation was initially voiced in April by Steve McCracken, chief administrative office and senior vice president at Callaway Golf, as well as the chairman of the U.S. Golf Manufacturers Association. The industry trade group spoke at the Vancouver forum, a meeting McCracken called then "substantive," "constructive" and "collegial."

Typical in the July 8 memorandum is the language found under Topic 9, which deals with the rulemakers' currently broad but vague authority to change equipment rules or deem developed or existing equipment non-conforming because they are "contrary to the purpose and intent of the rules." (Currently, there is no expressed procedure for the way this clause is applied.) The July 8 letter proposes seven guidelines to clarify the decision-making process to manufacturers, yet maintains the rulemakers' authority to "continue to apply the above clauses when necessary."

Golf Digest contacted several manufacturers, but most did not offer comments. Two who did: John Solheim, CEO and Chairman of Ping, and Benoit Vincent, chief technical officer at TaylorMade-adidas Golf. A more detailed and deliberate

Solheim: "It is an important step forward, and I am thankful the rule making bodies listened. The recommended changes not only shine more light on the process, but most importantly recognize a need to clearly define the perceived problem, and the goal, when suggesting an equipment rule change.   We are headed in the right direction." 

Vincent: "The additional steps in each process discussed will improve the legal procedure and, like any addition, will slow down the overall process," Vincent said in an e-mail. "Heavier procedures may slow down some ruling processes like we just experienced (as it took more than seven months to get the USGA and R&A to just publish the new procedures discussed last November). On the other side, the definition of clear reasons, goals and the evaluation of a new rule should reduce an emotional approach of ruling and prioritize scientific estimates of problems, solutions and benefits."

While it has taken more than half a year to produce some definitive action plan based on the  Vancouver forum, the July 8 letter is only a beginning, said Dick Rugge, USGA senior technical director. Again, though, it appears to be a collaborative future.

"There is no specific timetable for decisions on these topics," he told Golf DIgest. "Timing somewhat depends on the responses that we receive to the proposal that we sent to more than 700 submitters of equipment."

--Mike Stachura

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A little lesson in projectile motion, from the R&A's Dawson

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
A lot of insiders were wondering what new math R&A Chief Executive Peter Dawson was using when he spoke up about changes to Royal St. George's for this year's British Open, which starts Thursday. It was confusing, but as it turns out, it is right.

Dawson is quoted in a piece by John Huggan on CBSSports.com, suggesting the difficult contours on some of Royal St. George's fairways lead to bounces that take the ball careening somewhat unfairly off line. He says, in part, "We were aware that a very low percentage of the field were able to hit those three fairways eight years ago. That was because of the severe contours on all three. And, I also think, because players tend to hit the ball so much higher these days. It's coming down more steeply, so it is more likely to go sideways on landing."

While I'm not sure that the best players best drives are designed to land "steeply," it is true that the trajectories are higher than in the days of persimmon drivers and wound balls. Generally speaking, the best drives land at an angle of less than 40 degrees, which should help produce more roll (although a much lower shot will yield an even flatter landing angle and will produce the most roll, provided there's not something to stop that roll, like a bunker or burn or sheep). Here's how I explained the concept of "angle of descent" back in 2006.  

But here's the bit that justifies Dawson's explanation of projectile motion. Basically, a projectile like a golf ball has two velocity components, a horizontal one and a vertical one, as Martin Brouillette, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Sherbrooke and a member of the Golf Digest Technical Panel explains: "Assuming two cases with the same landing velocity but with different landing angles, the case with the steeper landing angle has a smaller horizontal velocity component, therefore a greater vertical velocity component. This greater vertical velocity component, upon interacting with a tilted landing surface, is more likely to produce a greater sideways velocity component."

For those whose last science class was in high school, here's a translation: When the ball bounds off the the fairway from a steep landing angle, more of its energy (velocity) is given toward going up, not forward. Since the ball has more energy going up when it hits a wildly tilted fairway like some of those at Royal St. George's, it's going to direct more of its energy toward whatever direction the tilt is sending it. A low shot (remember Tiger Woods' infamous stinger, used so effectively in his 2006 British Open victory that he went the entire championship using the driver only once?) yields a landing angle with more energy going forward and thus could (theoretically) reduce the negative effect of an awkward landing angle in the fairway. Of course, a ball that's rolling over those awkward angles is going to be dramatically affected; one that's flying by those humps and bumps won't be bothered by them at all.

A lot to think about if you're a competitor heading to the first tee tomorrow at Sandwich, no?

--Mike Stachura
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Clubfitting isn't just about 10 more yards with the driver

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
A reader recently sent a note suggesting that he wasn't all that impressed with a fitting because he wasn't getting that much more yardage with his tee shots. I know it might be sacrilege to suggest this, but such a scenario might be possible. It also might be a little short-sighted, if you know what I mean.

Here's what I'm getting at: Let's just say you've been fit for a driver in the last few years, dialed it in perfectly with one of our top 100 club fitters. Not unlike, say, the winner of this year's (and last year's and the year before that's) John Deere Classic. Steve Stricker won on Sunday with a Titleist 909D3 driver, a club we first saw nearly three years ago. My sense is it works just fine for him, and I don't imagine there's much argument to that ($7.5 in the last year and a half, you do the math).

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Maybe you're one of the lucky ones who's got the perfect fitting driver like Stricker and never misses the sweet spot, like Stricker. But real clubfitting is about more than the driver. And it's more than just another 10 yards.

Instead, if you get a qualified fitter to look at your whole bag, what he or she is likely to find are several opportunities for some secret gains that go beyond yardage. Here are three to consider:


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Equipment Q&A with Nike's Tom Stites: How the club goes through the dirt

Friday, July 8, 2011
The concept of game-improvement in irons now extends quite dramatically even into the area that we refer to as Players Irons in the Golf Digest Hot List. Few current designers have been involved with the development of the concept of game-improvement irons as long as Tom Stites, director of golf club creation for Nike Golf. Indeed, one of the first projects Stites worked on when he started with the Ben Hogan Company in the 1980s was the legendary Hogan Edge iron, the first truly game-improvement iron made by the company. It was launched with a memorable commercial that featured the 74-year-old, cardigan-wearing company namesake striping shots on the range at Riviera Country Club. The club was a hit and not just because of the commercial. It ushered in the idea that even the greatest ball-striker ever might one day seek a little assistance from his equipment. Stites believes that's true for every golfer today, and probably more than ever. 


For this week's Equipment Q&A, we asked Stites to give us a better understanding of what "game improvement" means in irons for various types of players. Here, from our research for the NBC/Golf Digest Equipment Special, is some of his insight.  

Golf Digest: Can you make "players irons" with "game improvement features? 
Tom Stites: For an elite player, someone that's really highly skilled, game improvement is a different thing, it's more about the trajectory of the golf ball, being able to control spin, being able to control the knock-downs, being able to score, and how the club goes through the dirt. That's one of the things Mr. Hogan talked about a lot, you know, how it engages the dirt. These players are usually at a little steeper angle than most of the amateur or less-skilled players and so those characteristics and specifications need to be understood. Like the centers of gravity are usually considerably higher in the blades themselves, so game improvement to these players is being able to make a specific kind of shot with the skill that they've been blessed with or trained themselves into.


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Nineteen players in Titleist's new 712 irons at AT&T National

Friday, July 1, 2011
After a busy pre-tournament seeding and testing effort, Titleist's new 712 irons found their way into 19 of 40 bags among players using Titleist irons this week at the AT&T National at Aronimimk GC. Below are the players using the new irons, their position after the first round (including co-leader Hunter Haas with the new AP2 model), and the head-shaft combination they used. Each player made the switch from the 710 generation of the same model except Troy Matteson, who had been playing an older generation cavity back (ZB/ZM).  None of the players changed shafts this week. 

T1 - Hunter Haas - AP2 712 with True Temper Dynalite Gold 
T7 - Troy Matteson - CB 712 with True Temper Dynamic Gold 
T7 - Bill Haas - CB 712  with True Temper Dynamic Gold 
T17 - Scott Stallings - AP2 712 with True Temper Project X 
T29 - Kris Blanks - CB 712 with True Temper Dynamic Gold 
T29 - Chris Kirk - CB 712 with True Temper Dynamic Gold 
T29 - Brendan deJonge - AP2 712 with Nippon NS Pro Prototype 
T29 - Nick Watney - AP2 712 with  True Temper Dynamic Gold 
T47 - Brian Davis - CB 712 with True Temper Rifle 
T47 - Geoff Ogilvy - MB 712 with FST KB Tour 
T62 - Jason Dufner - AP2 712 with True Temper Project X 
T62 - Ryuji Imada - CB 712 with True Temper Dynamic Gold 
T77 - Bobby Gates - CB/MB 712 with True Temper Project X 
T77 - Michael Sim - AP2 712 with True Temper Project X 
T92 - Michael Connell - CB/MB 712 with True Temper Dynamic Gold 
T92 - Ben Curtis - AP1 712 with True Temper Dynamic Gold 
T104 - Greg Chalmers - CB 712 with True Temper Dynamic Gold 
T109 - Jimmy Walker - MB 712 with True Temper Dynamic Gold 
118 - Marc Leishman - MB 712 with True Temper Dynamic Gold   

-- E. Michael Johnson
Follow on Twitter @EMichaelGW

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