• WITB
  • Eddie’s WITB. Let’s see how long this stays this way.

So I’ve been working on changing my path with driver so speed is not there yet but from inside and positive attack angle with a low tee height is happening so I’m happy.

the initial spin and launch numbers with the Hzrdus blue are pretty solid, pretty consistent too.

maybe because I’m still in the middle of swing changes but damn the shaft feels boardy, and this is coming from someone who has traditionally loved the Hzrdus smoke line.

I’m still going to tinker with it, but feel wise I’m not too hot about it.

Definitely feels boardy which shouldn’t be a surprise but from everything I’ve read I anticipated softer.

ckay right? I think the regular smoke rdx black feels smoother...

Eddie

I would have to guess that is because of the soft/stiff/stiff of the black vs the stiff/soft/stiff of the blue. Softer handles always feel smoother to me.

KentonQ I would have to guess that is because of the soft/stiff/stiff of the black vs the stiff/soft/stiff of the blue. Softer handles always feel smoother to me.

I’m happy to report that I played yesterday with actual speed in my swing again, and the shaft was fantastic. It helps that it was 50 degrees and I wasn’t wearing 400 layers.

KentonQ I hit about 20 balls with it between warm up, 9 hole league, and a few extra holes following.

The feels:
Waggle test makes it seem boardy. Put a swing on it, and the shaft loses the boardy feel. It is smooth and loads well. TZ6 for me was a bit more work to get that feeling.

I will come back with 10 shot comparison towards the end of my winter league. I haven't swung a club since October and not practicing so I think it is premature for me to compare numbers right now. I did have case of the lefts, which is stark contrast to push rights last week with the TZ6. Probably face control, hopefully.

3 months later

I finally found the right shaft that I wanted for the 770s.

went with the c taper lites, that on paper are only 4g lighter than the modus120, but with swingweighting to get to d2/3, ended up dropping total weight of each club by 14 grams.

my trusty ping stealth 2.0 gap wedge that has served me well for so long has been replaced by a t100s black gap wedge.

weird I know, but for me gap wedge is mostly full swings or 3/4 knockdowns, so I’d rather that club on paper be a cavity back type iron with some semblance of forgiveness.

it’s funny, at address it has a very similar profile and shape to the p770 so at address it blends well.

Eddie I’m right there with you on the more forgiving gap wedge. I did the same thing with my incoming set.

a month later

So as my irons have been pretty set for a while, I've been feverishly hunting for the top of the bag setup.

Driver:

I played most of the beginning of the year with a tsi3 9.0, set to a4, with a tour ad vr.

On paper it made the most sense.

On days when I played well, I hit some of the best drives I've hit in a long time with it.

Then I started to tinker with shafts.

Tour ad xc. Great feel, but too low with the 9 degree head.

At the a4 setting, which is technically 1.5 degrees of extra loft, I tried to emulate as much of a SIM type launch setup as I could. I'm a believer that while adapters can change loft conditions, a lower lofted head will always spin less than a higher lofted head.

On my best days, the combination was great.

With the XC and the TP, my apex outdoors was a little too low. Granted I love a flat ballflight because my home course is so windy, but I would get the odd ball where I would tee it down and hit it high on the face to fight the wind, but there wasn't enough spin on those drives to stay truly reap its benefit.

And then there is the directional miss. With a 9 degree head, what I noticed is that on the course, there would be times where I would try to get the ball in the air, and when my swing was off, the high right miss would creep back in.

On the range, the height of the 9 degree vr combo was great, but the balls at the range I goto fly higher than the prov1 I play on course.

I demoed a 10 degree head on a whim, put the TP in it, and saw a drastic difference in height. It's not as low spinning as my sim 10.5 head, but much easier to turn over. For distance, I would probably play a 9 degree TSi3 or a SIM, but the 10 degree head seems to be the "smarter" play.

I tried a DI, a Ventus blue, VR, XC, what did I end up with?

Fairway Wood:

Last year, my sim vr7 combo was the best 3 wood I hit in my life. I don't play a lot, but from the deck or off the tee I hit some of the purest shots I could've ever imagined.

Some body pains have forced me to change how I swing, and some adjustments in my setup have me now playing a stock draw instead of a fade.

For whatever reason, I can no longer hit a three wood to save my life. My last three rounds, every time I've tried to hit a safe 3 wood off a tee or go for a par 5, that swing has cost me a penalty stroke. Tops, high flare rights are the main culprits. I don't trust it anymore. Two years ago, three wood was my strongest asset, could hit it on command, now I'm really close to not even carrying one.

Because I've enjoyed so much success with the TSi3 line, I tried the fairway woods.

The TSi3 was terrible, but to be fair, so was my swing. I hit four balls with it, two were low tops, two were dead pushes. That's out.

The TSi2 on paper is what I'm supposed to play, easy to launch forgiving, MOI blablabalbalbala. I couldn't hit that to save my life either with the tensei white. I hate how it sets up at address though. Absolutely hate it.

My last ditch effort was a TSi2 15 with a hzrdus smoke shaft, the closest setup to the m6 hzrdus I played with great success until it caved.

It's not great, but my mishits stay in play. Painfully short, but stay in play.

Hybrid:

Along with the sim 3 wood, my pxg hybrid was my goto club. Could hit any shot I want with it. But I've lost confidence with this as well, maybe because I don't play a -3 out to in pull cut, the hybrid just wants to hang right for me outside.

It was a 20 degree hybrid, and what I was noticing on the course is that on shots where I would typically grab hybrid, my lack of confidence in it would have me trying to hit a 3/4 cut three wood (which was a shot I used to have but now can't hit to save my life), so I thought about trying to squeeze a little more yardage out of my hybrid to use for shots where I used to hit 3 wood.

Sim 2 rescue 17 degree. In a bit of desperation, even using the stock tensei blue shaft.

What I love about it is that it likes to turn over. It doesn't hook, but isn't super right biased with the stock shaft and set at a one click closed. This will be my club when driver is no good off the tee, and on par 5 second shots. The misses are a little skinnier, but stay close to my target line, which is more than I can ask for.


Every year, I debate whether to go for optimal distance in my driver and three wood, or for consistency.

I play maybe twice a month, with 2-3 range sessions a month, compared to a year and a half ago, where I would be at the range at least 4 times a week, and play twice a week at least.

So back then, it was easy to convince myself to go for max distance, because I had the reps to swing at full speed and muscle memory to hit the shots that I want.

The golf I've played this year has been a rude awakening that that is no longer the case.

So my top of bag setup this year is as "consistency" and less distance focused as my stomach will allow.

TSi3 10 degree with Tour AD TP6 shaft. I'm easily 10 yards shorter than the 9 degree VR combo, but I'm going to see this year if sacrificing a few yards for more fairways will truly benefit my score, especially since I don't play as much.

TSi2 15 degree with stock hzrdus rdx black. We'll see how long this lasts, my 3 wood confidence is still shot.

SIM2 Rescue 17 degree with stock tensei blue. This will be my goto club for a lot of shots, I may tinker with shafts later.

YUCK.

But If this setup can prevent the three blowup holes I average off the tee every round, I'll play plenty of respectable golf this year.

My iron ball striking is getting better as I adjust to a draw aim line instead of a pull fade.

And the spider X chalk has been absolutely lights out for me in terms of putting. After all the my spiders and tour experiments, an off the rack chalk has been the magic ticket. I've had a stability shaft sitting here to put in, but I can't touch the current setup because I've been so good with it. On my home greens, the number of mid range putts I hole has increased significantly.

The other spec change is adding a little length to the putter. I've always putted 34 but always felt a little hunched over. A brief experiment at 35" was bad, but now at 34 3/8, I grip a little further down the grip which was helped my face control a lot.

My bag is set for the year. HA. I'm going to try to stick to it though for real.







4 days later

Eddie Total sicko move. I love it and can't wait for the next round of club tests and writeups because I live vicariously through you and the other guys who never gave up the search for the holy grail.

Here we go with experiment #1.

425 hybrid at 17 degrees. Supposed to be easy to hit and can sit flat.

stock shaft a tensei orange pro? Hell yes.

you know what’s a resounding hell no? The fact that the butt cap of the grip is loose as hell because of the arcos sensor, which I have to rip off before I even get to try.

2 months later

My Iron and Wedge Shaft setup is a Mess, and I'm Contemplating Making it Even Worse.

4i: u500 hzrdus smoke
5-p: c taper lite
gw: dg120
55,59: modus 115.

I used to go modus 120 then 115 in the wedges, but switched this year to c taper lite because I was seeing better dispersion in the long and mid irons.

The c taper lite shafts in the 5-7 are great, but the 8-pw feel like dogshit to me. I've tried adding lead tape to the heads to counteract the 5g I lost from 120 to c taper lite, but now they just feel head heavy.

I absolutely love the dg120 in the gap wedge, so I'm contemplating putting dg120s in the 8-pw to line up with the feel that I have in the gap wedge.

So I would have

4: hzrdus smoke
5-7: c taper lite
8-G: dg120
55,59: modus 115.

God damnit this would be a hot mess.

Someone tell me not to do it.

Or should I go normal c taper in 8-pw so they at least look the same....................

Trottie once told me that the reason I may love my gap wedge more than my irons is because more of the mass on a wedge like that is in the hosel, which is drastically different than most modern irons that have the mass distributed throughout the head.

Maybe I should just go p7 MBs in the 8-pw????

Damnit.

I love the 300 mini by the way, 13.5 with an old trusted shaft, teed down real low, has me looking like a halfway decent golfer on any par 4 less than 425.

10 days later

I’m going to tinker with the multi iron shaft setup in the off season, but my top of the bag setup is set.

club championship qualifying is this month, with the setup to qualify on being about 7200 yards.

I’ve put a lot of thought in terms of how to setup the top five clubs in the bag.

Driver remains TSi3 at 10 degree, h2 weight at b2. While I’ve had bad swing days, this season the driver has been remarkably playable. Playing it at 10 over 9 degree really helps keep the ball in play, as I’m definitely leaving yards on the table but also content with hitting more fairways. It’s funny, when I have a 9 degree in my hand I always try to hit up on it which brings in some ugly misses, but with the 10 degree I’m focused on being neutral through impact which has dramatically helped consistency. While I love the xc shaft and Ventus (both are longer than the TP), the TP is just soft enough for me to feel I have full control to turn the ball over when I really need it.

3 wood: This has been a well documented journey, but on my home course, I have 6 holes which play long but require pin point accuracy off the tee. With a normal three wood, I would hit terribly tee shots with my 3 wood at least twice, up to 4 times a round, costing me a ton of strokes. It stems from me hating the prospect of roofing a fairway metal, so I always teed the ball low and often caught it a touch thin, leaving to disastrous results because half of those par4s aren’t short.

the mini driver in 13.5 has been a godsend. On pure strikes, it’s not any longer than my sim2 3 wood was, but because it’s such a deep face, I tee it with the equator at the middle of the face, and have zero fears of drop kicking it. On three quarter swings I get low playable bullets, on full swings I get a really high flight (definitely not “optimal” in terms of distance), but dead straight. I could probably be a lot longer with a 11.5 but on the off change I need to really get the ball moving off the deck, with the 13.5 I can give it a go, whereas with the 11.5, zero chance.

I really like the fact that I have a second goto club off the tee. I don’t like placing so much pressure on the driver to hit every fairway, so being able to mix it up is really helpful course management wise.

I have it set to one click higher with an old faithful Fuji pro 73 shaft. The VR7 is longer distance wise but I’m more comfortable with the higher flight of the pro73.

Hybrid: this has been a pain as well. I’m asking for a lot from this club. Serve as utility 3 iron type on the long par 3s (3 of my par 3s will be 200+ and wind), but also serve as a fairway metal on three of the par 5s that are getting in two. So I went with a sim2 rescue 17 degree. The hosel setting was key for me, have it in the upright side and two clicks higher, which essentially has it at 18 degrees and 58.5 lie angle. When I initially played it, I had it flat and could not turn the club over. Playing it 3/8"shorter than stock to be able to really feel like I need to stay on top of the ball for control.

im going to use the stock shaft because if I need to take some off this club, I feel like with the stock shaft being soft, I can comfortably swing it at 3/4 speed.

the u500 stays firmly in the bag, the u505 definitely has my interest as basically my utility and 4i replacement have to cover three clubs, and basically 210 to 240 carry. But that will have to wait until after club champ.

putter wise, I’m still going timeless. On my greens, the spiderX simply puts too much pace on the ball, no matter how slight jab stroke I try to roll it. While I would love the added peace of mind of using the spider, my pace with the timeless remains better.

Eddie Love that setup! When is the qualifer? we talked about it before and you said you are near reston. What course is the qualifer at? I still plan on coming down Late August into sept. How fast do the greans get down there?