September 2011: Hot List 365: Golf Digest

Results for September 2011 Back to Hot List 365 Index

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Thursday, September 15, 2011

The equipment closet at Golf Digest Hot List Central is starting to fill up as the candidates start rolling in for the 2012 Hot List. While we can't reveal most of the new products we're seeing, we can talk about a few of the current arrivals. There are several hundred entries already (Example: 90 putters in the house, even some belly lengths), but here's a sampling of some clubs to be in stores before the end of this season:

Bridgestone J40 Forged Dual Pocket Cavity irons:

The updated forged iron design from the J38 Dual Pocket Cavity is aimed at low to mid-handicap players and utilizes milled out pockets in the cavity that are angled toward the perimeter for increased stability on off-center hits compared to the J38. The J40 line also includes more traditional blade irons, a hybrid, a forged wedge and a four-piece titanium driver that comes in 445- and 430-cubic centimeter sizes.

Callaway XF irons: The multiple-piece super game improvement iron includes a forged 1025 carbon steel frame and a high-strength Carpenter 455 steel face designed to enhance ballspeed and stability for hits across a large area of the face. According to the company, it marks the highest moment of inertia for any iron in Callaway history. The set includes two hybrids and the steel shafts are the lightweight True Temper GS95.

Cobra Long Tom driver:

The longest-shafted driver from a major manufacturer in history, Cobra's new entry features a 48-inch shaft (1 1/2 inches longer than TaylorMade's Burner SuperFast 2.0, for example), a sub-270-gram total weight and a weight-saving grip just barely big enough for two hands. The Grafalloy Blackbird shaft features a special textured coating designed to improve the shaft's aerodynamics.

More updates as they come available...

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Websites buzzing over Callaway adjustable driver

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Adjustable drivers with movable weights and/or rotating hosels have been introduced by nearly every major manufacturer in golf. One of the biggest still standing on the sidelines appears to be about to get in the game.

Callaway Golf, more than a decade removed from being the brand behind the No. 1-selling driver in golf, seems to be the topic of conversation on equipment websites over a driver that will feature both an adjustable hosel and movable weights. A photograph of a Callaway-logoed club with sole weights appears in an equipment forum on the website golfwrx.com. In addition, the site shows what one poster calls catalog pages from a Callaway brochure, which also reveals an adjustable fairway wood. Both the driver and the fairway wood are under the name RAZR FIT.

Earlier this summer, Callaway staff player Stuart Appleby tweeted about his experience with a new Callaway driver, posting several items on August 2, including, "It's a Razar [sic] and is designed to fit your game, it's getting/is being presented to USGA for compliance, so I'm waiting for one later in Oct."

Callaway's only previous attempt at a club with movable parts came in 2008 with the I-MIX platform, in which drivers like the FT-9 and the FT-iQ were sold also as component heads and shafts, allowing a player to easily switch shafts depending on the conditions. I-MIX was not successful in the marketplace.

Callaway's Tim Buckman, senior director of global communications, declined comment on the web chatter.

--Mike Stachura

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How much longer? A lot and a little, I guess

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Geoff Shackelford, the H.L Mencken of golf bloggers and long the champion of those lamenting the distance creep in golf that has been an undercurrent since at least the days of Horace Hutchinson, raises a concern that the drivable par-4 4th at the TPC of Boston for this week's Deutsche Bank Championship is no longer an appropriate risk-reward challenge today "with modern distances surging in the five years since Gil Hanse and Brad Faxon unveiled this replacement hole."

So have they? Here's a breakdown of a few meaningful statistics since 2006.

STAT	2006	2011	Pct. Change
Driving Distance Avg.	288.6	291.1	+.087
No. of 300-yard hitters	20	24	+20.00
320+yard drives, pct.	8.61	9.56	+11.03
375-yard drives	274	117	-57.30
Driving Distance (All drives)	280.8	281.5	+0.25
Club Head Speed (2007)	112.18	112.55	+0.33
Ballspeed (2007)	165.09	166.39	+0.79
300+ yard drives, pct.	29.11	32.99	+13.33
No. of players below 285 avg.	60	42	-30.00
No. of players above 290 avg.	87	105	+20.69

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Acushnet's Uihlein says argument can be made on both sides of bifurcation

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Golf's infamous b-word was raised again Wednesday by another equipment manufacturer. It's not surprising that bifurcation, the idea of separate rules for elite players and recreational players, is again being talked about by someone in the golf business. What might have been more than a little surprising was that the idea was raised by Acushnet CEO Wally Uihlein, a long-time critic of the idea.

Uihlein was responding to a question about the state of relations between golf's manufacturers and its rulemakers, the U.S. Golf Association and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, at a press conference introducing Gene Yoon, head of Fila Korea and the leader of the investor group that acquired Acushnet from Fortune Brands earlier this year. While he clearly did not openly endorse the idea, he did not dismiss it entirely.

"Obviously, there are issues about the growth of the game and people who think the rules are either too restraining or need to be bifurcated," he said. "That's a fairly open-ended question depending upon your viewpoint, and I can make an argument for or against bifurcating the rules."

A decade ago, while golf's manufacturers and golf's rulemakers waged war over spring-like effect in drivers, Uihlein made no such equivocation, telling the British magazine Golf Monthly:

"We have never supported the position of bifurcation. ...Bifurcation is only seriously advanced by those who think that the game is on some edge of ruination and thus as a result of their narrow and biased thinking feel some form of radical surgery is required."

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More on Mickelson's new long putter

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Since Phil Mickelson's use of a belly putter has generated so much conversation today, it's only natural to seek out the backstory on the club.

According to Odyssey, Mickelson's belly putter is an Odyssey Sabertooth with a White Hot XG insert. The club is 45.5 inches long with a lie of 70 degrees. The putter also was custom weighted to put more weight behind the face. Lefty worked with Austie Rollinson, Odyssey's principal designer, on the putter.

Here's a close-up photo of Phil's flat stick courtesy of Odyssey:

Rollinson initially consulted Odyssey PGA Tour rep Johnny Thompson, who was responsible for developing the putter spec used successfully by Keegan Bradley. Mickelson has played with Bradley recently and during practice rounds this year, allowing him to see Bradley's putter up close. After Rollinson and Mickelson spent time in the Odyssey Putting Lab in Carlsbad this week, Rollinson made a couple of slight changes to the putter. The version Mickelson is using in today's pro-am at the Deutsche Bank Championship is a half-inch shorter and 2 degrees more upright than what Bradley used in winning the PGA Championship.

-- E. Michael Johnson

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