mikes919

Fair enough. I’m not good enough to consistently play any of them, probably why they all feel the same to me 😐

Agreed with the last few comments. Driver should be the priority. Besides the zero torque craze, putter tech has not really changed. But once you start questioning the old one, its days are numbered. 😆 Hybrids haven't changed all that much, there are definitely more forgiving options available today. But there are also smaller "player-oriented" hybrids that will be really similar to your existing ones. For irons, blades are blades. But there are a ton of great CB options that are blade-ish with a little help built in. I think the best move is to buy a previous-season driver, the prices are way more reasonable for a TSR, Qi10, G430, etc. I played that same Nike driver back in the day; you probably won't gain 20 yards on your best strikes. But your overall average and dispersion will increase significantly. New drivers are much more forgiving. One thing to watch out for is shaft length on drivers, woods, and hybrids. Everything is longer now as "standard." I end up cutting driver and fairway lengths down quite a bit to make them playable.

This is really well said. For me, I feel like driver determines whether it's going to be a good day or not. Once it's a good day, irons decide whether it's going to be a great one. Wedge and putter stats end up reflecting how much I have screwed myself on the drive and approach. All of my statistically great wedge and putter days have been ones where I didn't have to dig myself out of really bad situations all day. I gave myself good/easy opportunities to use my scoring clubs. I tend to think from an equipment standpoint, I could swap in a new putter or irons and adjust pretty quickly. And as long as the driver shaft is a reasonable fit, that's another one that I can adapt to. At least enough to avoid disaster. Fairway woods and hybrids take a lot more range time to dial in. Wedges are probably the hardest to adjust to. I need a few practice sessions and rounds to really get a feel for how much to open the face in different lies, how they react in sand, whether they need a little more lead tape, etc. I'm traveling and renting clubs next week, and I'll spend most my warm-up time hitting chips and pitches to figure out how the wedges react.

I demoed this a few weeks ago and found the same thing. Loved how it felt. Was easy to hit high and straight. Didn't carry as far as I expected. 97ish driver swing speed, I was getting about 195-200 carry from the 7 wood. I expected maybe 10 yards more. It's about the same, maybe a bit less carry than my 3H at 20.5*. But with a much steeper landing angle. So the 7W would definitely hold greens better.

Played Chevy Chase today, decided to walk. Tough walking in the humidity! Conditions were better than usual there, greens pretty slow but otherwise in great shape. $57 on a Friday feels like a steal anywhere at this point. On the other hand, pace was brutal. Front 9 in 2:10, back 9 in 2:25. Felt like we were waiting on every shot. Just slow players in general.

Just checking in with a mid-season update. After shooting a couple hot rounds early in the season, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I convinced myself that more distance was the answer to keep shooting lower scores. This basically screwed up my driver swing for a month. I bumped up my swing speed, but started losing a ton of drives to the right. Really lost confidence off the tee for a few rounds, and started leaning more heavily on my fairway and hybrid. Luckily, when my driver swing disappeared, my fairway and hybrid swings showed up to fill in the gaps. TSR2 4wood with the TPT Power 18 has been completely automatic for me all season. 220-225 yards with a slight fade pretty much every time. And while I struggled with hybrid earlier in the year, it has really been strong for me over the summer. The main issue is that I've occasionally hit it TOO well; in both of the last two rounds I smoked a hybrid tee shot 230+ when I was expecting 200-210. Fortunately in both cases I was playing for position to a decent-sized landing area, and the extra distance just put me a bit closer to the hole. After a few recent simulator and video sessions to work through my swing issues, I seem to have come out the other side swinging better than ever. I'm not hitting up on the ball as much as I did early in the season; I've gone from 5-6* up to more like 2-3* up. I'm back to swinging mid 90's on average, launch around 14*, and spin in the mid 2000's. Hitting drives in the 240-250 range on firm summer fairways, so no huge improvement since the beginning of the playtest. But more importantly: my control is significantly better across the board, and I'm seeing straighter ball flights than ever. My handicap is down to 9.6, from 12.2 at the start of the playtest. My fairway percentage is still hovering in the 40-45% range, which definitely needs to improve. But the vast majority of my misses are just going into the first cut of rough, in very playable position. GIR's have gone from low 20% range, to mid 30% range. I attribute most of that to being in better position after my tee shots. Overall still very happy with all three shafts, no plans to even demo anything else. I really feel like these shafts are about as optimized for my swing as they could possibly be.

I have played a mix of SM5 and SM10 all of this year and there's no noticeable difference in size, feel, playability. The biggest differences are the satin finish and the fresh grooves.

Yea it was a big difference from last year. It used to pretty much force a layup off the tee; hybrid or fairway just playing for a good approach angle. Today I fired directly at the fairway bunker with driver, didn’t hit a great drive, and still had an easy 100yd wedge in from the rough. Of course I pulled it straight into the greenside bunker, but that’s not the course’s fault.

It's possible that the shaft change is a bigger factor than the head, when it comes to distance control on fuller swings. I guess your MG4's had the DG 115's in them, and the RTZ's have the spinners? I have never felt comfortable with longer pitches using the DG spinner shafts.

Played White Deer Run this morning. My second time playing the course; I enjoyed it a lot more the second time. Conditions were fantastic. Pins were all in tough spots, I had a bad putting day but still shot OK. I really like the looks off the tee, there are several holes that play tricks on you visually. Really have to trust the GPS. Some construction on a couple holes on the back 9, but nothing that interferes with play.

Upgraded my lob wedge today, from my old SM5 K-grind to a shiny new SM10 M-grind. I really needed something lower bounce. I have been struggling a bit on tight lies, and all the bunkers I’ve played on lately have been really packed and firm. I think this will help a lot. Also added a wedge back in for tighter full swing gaps. Now I’m running with: 46F SM10 50F SM5 54D SM10 58M SM10 Just one old SM5 hanging on, lol. It’s been in and out of the bag so much that it’s still pretty clean.