Equipment

With the rules definitively limiting how fast driver faces can flex (and therefore how much distance they can generate), it isn’t enough anymore for manufacturers to contemplate new shapes or thicknesses or constructions. Sometimes, you have to find a way to try something completely different. Sometimes, it seems, you just have to go to Mars.

Tyrrell Hatton just won the biggest event of his career at the flagship event on the European Tour, but he did it with a Ping driver you might only see if you happen to be shopping in New Zealand. Hatton’s four-shot victory last week at the BMW Championship came with the brand new Ping G425

How easy to use can you make an iron? The two new irons—plus a game improvement wedge—in Tour Edge’s Hot Launch 521 family offer two approaches: “a little bit easier” and “as far as we could go without looking too crazy.” Following the dual path in game improvement established by the company’s drivers and metalwoods

Because the idea of “game improvement” covers a broad range from “help me get better” to “help me not suck,” the two-track approach to game improvement in Tour Edge’s new Hot Launch 521 series continues in its fairway wood and hybrid offerings. Following the lead of its E521 and C521 drivers, the former will concentrate

At Stix Golf, which is trying to establish a place in the business by selling complete 12-piece sets of clubs direct to consumers for little more than the price of some high-end drivers, it’s not that they don’t believe in golf’s latest technological advancements. It’s just that, as co-founder and CEO Gabe Coyne bluntly explains,

Tour Edge’s Hot Launch lineup historically has been focused on affordable game-improvement. But the idea of “game improvement” will take on a broader definition with the new Hot Launch 521 series, which will feature two drivers aimed at different player types. What won’t change is the emphasis on affordability, thanks to their sub-$250 price. It

On Joseph Bramlett’s PGA Tour profile page it lists his special interests as basketball and music. So when Bramlett asked Bettinardi Golf to produce a backup of his Studio Stock 28 Armlock putter, he asked the company if they could produce one that paid homage to one of his favorite players—the late Kobe Bryant. Bettinardi

Not long ago (2017 and 2018), in a land far, far away (One World Trade Center, New York City), the Golf Digest office had a putting green smack in the middle of the 27th floor of the Freedom Tower. The green, designed by Jack Nicklaus, was home to countless 4 p.m. money games, none of

When a single iron—not the entire set—costs as much as a driver, it better be made of something special. And we’re not talking gold bullion. The three irons from Titleist in its CNCPT series all feature that something special, a so-called “super metal” face that’s constructed of an alloy used on helicopter rotors and missile

Usually the hardest thing to overcome is a bad reputation. For Honma and its latest lineup of TR21 irons and woods, the challenge is to overcome its good reputation. Honma’s stature is based on over a half-century’s worth of craftsmanship at its headquarters in Sakata, Japan. Even the workers, including the highest level “takumi,” are

Golfers like options, especially when it comes to their wedges. Cleveland Golf recognizes the desire for that and has introduced two new finishes for its RTX ZipCore wedges, Black Satin and Tour Rack. The Tour Rack is a raw finish favored by a majority of the company’s tour players for its glare-reducing finish and soft

As personally significant as Bryson DeChambeau’s win in Sunday’s DAP Championship in the Web.com Tour Finals was for his status as a card-carrying member of the PGA Tour for the 2016-17 season, it might also have greater implications for his theories on equipment and how they might change the game: The 22-year-old’s win is believed

The numerous iterations of Callaway Golf’s Mack Daddy wedge line has lifted the company into the upper echelon of wedges makers. Now the company is seeking to expand its wedge offerings beyond the needs of those who play at a high level to a specific player type that needs certainty and forgiveness more than a

If the U.S. Open is the most complete examination in golf, then a requirement to passing that test is a particularly proficient week on the greens. That will be especially true at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. Eliminating careless three-putts and holing clutch makes for par will set up a chance at a historic

In the summer of 2016 Justin Thomas was frustrated with his putting and went to Scotty Cameron’s putting studio seeking a solution. The result was a prototype Futura X5 putter with a welded neck that allowed the larger head to behave more like the blade Thomas had been using. That design now goes from the

Titleist is giving two new drivers a test run on the PGA Tour and European Tour this week, and images are cropping up in the usual places, including the USGA’s list of conforming clubs. On the list are two new models, the TSi2 and TSi3, seemingly the followups to the TS drivers introduced on tour

As fitting has become more the standard way of buying golf equipment, the one category that still remains something of an afterthought is the ball, the one item you use on every shot. That obviously makes no sense (like buying a whole new wardrobe but not any shoes), and it’s why ball companies are continuing

Over the past few years TaylorMade has assembled one of the most impressive tour staffs seen in golf, with Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm (each of whom have reached No. 1 in the world during their time with the company) as well as Jason Day, Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff and Rickie Fowler (golf

The new Srixon Soft Feel, the 12th generation of the company’s two-piece ball whose primary attribute has long been thought to be evidenced by its name, is staking a fresh claim toward distance now, too. Long about the relatively soft compression of its core, the new Soft Feel employs the latest update to the chemistry

The G425 was put on the conforming list this week, and a Ping spokesman said the driver would be available for some LPGA of Japan players at this week’s Nitori Ladies tournament. The club is expected to be introduced to the Asian market in the coming weeks, but there is no official word on when

Just five days before the start of the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields C.C., Dave Billings, president of Dogleg Right Golf, received a startling piece of news from the USGA: The backweighted Superline putter his company made—and Jim Furyk used—had been ruled nonconforming by the USGA. That sent Furyk scrambling to Bettinardi Golf’s headquarters

For those who think the counterfeit business in golf clubs has dried up and gone dark, guess again. A raid in China just turned up 120,000 phony golf products, the largest counterfeit golf equipment seizure in history. The raid was the result of the joint efforts of the U.S. Golf Manufacturers Anti-Counterfeiting Working Group and

When Phil Mickelson, a user of classic blade putters his whole career, started putting with an oversize mallet late last year, it was an indication that even for the most ardent blade proponent, the mallet’s benefits are too real to ignore. Luke Williams, Odyssey’s senior director of product, says Mickelson’s switch to a modern mallet

“Strokes gained’ statistics have become foundational on the PGA Tour for assessing player performance and improvement, yet for most average golfers it remains a mystery. Not merely is it hard for average golfers to understand it without memorizing Every Shot Counts, the 250-page seminal work on the subject by Columbia business professor Mark Broadie, it

It may not be well understood by the average struggling golfer, but designing golf clubs to combat bad swings, off-center hits, and wildly slicing sidespin is no casual pursuit. In fact, in many cases, says Callaway’s senior vice president of research and development Alan Hocknell, it’s much more challenging to help average golfers gain an

Titleist has a long heritage of taking a proven product and tweaking it to appeal to a wider base of players. The company continues that path with the release of its T100•S and T200 players irons in a murdered-out all-black configuration that’s sure to appeal to the Titleist aficionado seeking to add some additional cool

With that box more than sufficiently checked, the company’s follow-up to those irons—the P•7MB, P•7MC and P•770 irons take those designs a step further. The new P•770 iron might shout tour-pro ability in looks, but features characteristics that allow better players who don’t play for pay to use them effectively. The construction is a forged

Face it—you can’t hit a 3-iron. You probably can’t hit a 4- or a 5-iron very well, either. But you’re loathe to carry bagful of headcovers, too. If that sounds like you then TaylorMade’s new SIM UDI and SIM DHY might be worth a look. The company’s SIM Max rescue clubs have gotten the attention

There are not many companies, if any, that can introduce five sets of irons at one time—throw in a specialty set of long-iron replacement hybrids to boot—and still make you believe that each has its place. But that’s precisely what Mizuno has done with its next iteration of its modern JPX lineup. The five branches

While all the technological enhancements to mallet putters today have made the oversized putter more acceptable to a wider audience, TaylorMade is taking the next step toward merging the blade and mallet communities: A mallet that’s only skin deep. The new TaylorMade Spider FCG may occupy the same space as the company’s familiar extreme perimeter-weighted