Stories written by John Steinbreder
With its new Idea Black CB3s, Adams Golf is offering irons that are crafted from forged, 8620 carbon steel, designed to be as forgiving as they are playable and geared as much for the better golfer as they are for the higher handicapper.
According to Tim Reed, vice president of research and development at Adams, the CB3s use a triple-milled construction technique to enhance perimeter weighting and create an extremely thin face with precision grooves to deliver a high level of feel, performance and consistency.
The irons also feature a new multi-material badge in the back cavity to improve sound and dampen vibration, and they are engineered with progressive sole widths that are intended to make it easier to hit longer irons and be more accurate with the shorter ones. In addition, the scoring irons come with improved bounce and camber to reduce turf interaction for more workability and control.
Reed also asserts that the Idea Black CB3s look as good as they play, coming with a black PVD finish and a glass-beaded face for a better visual at address.
Available in standard set make-ups of 4-GW, with 3-irons obtainable through custom order, the irons come with KBS Tour 90 steel and Matrik Ozik Program 8.1 graphite shafts stock, with additional shaft options offered – such as True Temper Dynamic Gold, Project X and KBS Tour Smoke – at no additional price.
Authorized Adams Golf fitters also have CB3 fitting kits, which enables them to change lie angle, length, shaft flex and shaft type as need be. The sets can also be integrated into Adams’ HITfit application, which uses data from an individual’s 6-iron launch characteristics to recommend proper set make-up, including fairway woods, hybrids, irons and wedges.
Wilson officials say they know how to make high-performance golf balls as well as golf clubs, and they point to the introduction of the Duo as the latest example of that.
The Wilson Staff Duo is a two-piece, surlyn-covered distance ball that boasts a compression of less than 40 that makes it what Michael Vrska, the company’s global director of research and development, describes as “crazy soft.”
“The Duo is geared primarily for mid- to high-handicap golfers and designed to be easier for those with slower swing speeds to compress,” he says. “We promote it as having a performance double-take, because it is like a rocket ship off the tee as well as soft and playable around the green.”
According to Vrska, the below-40 compression is about half the compression of the average of the leading competitive golf balls, while it also boasts an industry average COR.
“That ensures that it has the length golfers expect in a distance ball but the playability of a tour performance ball around the green,” he says. “It sounds like a tour ball when you hit it, and feels like one, too. But it is very, very long.
“It’s the softest distance ball out there,” says Vrska, adding that it is also one of the best values in that realm, given its $20 price point in the U.S.
TaylorMade turned once again to putting guru Dave Stockton when it came time to develop a new model in the Ghost series line, and the result is the Manta, a one-piece neo-mallet.
Alignment is a big part of Ghost Manta story, beginning with its flat matte white head, which is designed not only to eliminate the distractions of glare and “hot spots” caused by reflective sunlight but also to help golfers line up their putts better due to the contrast of that color to the green of the turf. Another factor is the use of two black rails on top of the putter head, so players may frame their golf balls with greater ease.
TaylorMade engineers say that another performance attribute is the Manta’s high Moment of Inertia (MOI), which they say is enhanced through the employment of two, 50-gram weights on the heel and toe of the putter sole. Those are intended to stabilize the head and produce more consistent speed on off-center hits. There is also a third, user-adjustable weight in the back-center of the sole.
Then, there is the Pure Roll Surlyn insert, which has been used in other Ghost products and is designed to promote forward spin and encourage a smooth, accurate roll as well as precise speed control.
“The Manta takes a very clean and classic tour-proven look, along with an advanced and modern technology that often comes in a quirky head shape, and combines them into one comprehensive putter,” says Michael Fox, global product manager for putters and wedges at TaylorMade Golf. “The result is a putter that is powerful for players of all levels, while also providing confidence on the green.”
In addition to standard size, TaylorMade also offers the Ghost Manta in belly and long models.
Nike Golf borrowed heavily from its parent company’s basketball past with the development and recent introduction of its Dunk NG. This product fits neatly in the athletic golf shoe category and is modeled after the Nike Dunk basketball shoe that first came out in 1985.
The Dunk NG features a rubber cup sole with seven Scorpion Stinger spikes designed to optimize traction as well as full-grain leather upper along with a waterproof membrane to ensure that golfers’ feet stay dry during their rounds. A full-length, contoured sock liner is utilized to enhance fit and comfort.
The original Dunk shoes were known as much for their splashy colors as they were for their performance, and they quickly became all the rage of the basketball world. Nike Golf is looking to make a similar statement with these. Men’s models of the Dunk NG come in five colors – White/Black-Soar, White/Black-Granite, White/Cargo Khaki-Safety Orange, Midnight Fog/Prism Blue-Black and White/ Court Green –Black. Women’s offerings are available in White/Mint Candy-Granite, White/Black-Spark, Black/White-Check and Orange Glow/White. All Dunk NGs come with two sets of shoelaces, so golfers may take the concept of color coordination to the max. And Nike has made these shoes to be mixed and matched with its golf apparel.
Anthony Kim first began wearing Nike Dunk NGs on the PGA Tour late last summer, and Michelle Wie started lacing them up for LPGA events shortly thereafter. The shoe first became available to the general golfing public in some colors January 1st, with other versions of the Dunk NG being added to the line at the start of March.
When Randal “Randy” Lewis played in the finals of the 1996 U.S. Mid-Amateur, against John “Spider” Miller at the Hartford Golf Club near the Connecticut capital, he couldn’t stop thinking about the invitation to play in The Masters traditionally offered to the winner. And he thinks that hurt him as he lost that day to Miller 3 and 2. So when Lewis made it back to the Mid-Am finals, at the Shadow Hawk Golf Club outside Houston last September, he kept his mind focused on other things.
“I only thought about winning a USGA championship,” says Lewis, who works as a financial adviser in Alma, Mich. “I concentrated on that because that was the task at hand, and because there is nothing so important to an amateur golfer as winning a national amateur championship. Being invited to The Masters was something I could think about later.”
That strategy appeared to work, and it was only after the 54-year-old Lewis dispatched Kenny Cook at Shadow Hawk to become the oldest Mid-Am champ in history that he turned his thoughts to Augusta National.
“All I could think of was, what an unbelievable reward,” Lewis says.
And it is a reward that he is now collecting with great glee. “I love the golf course at Augusta,” he says. “I love the strategies and the angles you have to employ, and the greens are so much fun. I love the history of the golf course and the tournament, and I am looking forward to the experience. I know every day will be fun. I know every day will be unique. I know I am really going to enjoy myself.”
Playing in the year’s first professional major, and competing on such hallowed golfing ground, is simply the latest stop on what has been a remarkable golfing journey for Lewis. Born and raised in Michigan, he took up the game as a 16-year-old, when his father, who was a maintenance manager at the Total Petroleum Refinery in Alma, bought himself a set of clubs.
“I went outside to hit a few balls in our yard with his new clubs and was quickly hitting them better than he was,” Lewis recalls. “We played together a few weeks later, and I remember liking the game right away. I could not play enough. That summer, I worked at a meat market on weekends. So I played golf all week on the nine-hole public course. With those same clubs my father had brought home.”
Lewis started playing with better clubs as he started playing better, through high school and then at Central Michigan, where he majored in business as he also played on the golf team. He decided to turn pro after graduating and entered four events on the J.C. Goosie mini-tour. But he soon headed back home.
“Professional golf was a little tougher than it appeared to be on television,” he says.
Lewis ended up working at the same Total Petroleum Refinery where his father had toiled. And once he got his amateur status back, he started playing competitively again. “Right away, I qualified for the U.S. Amateur, in 1983,” Lewis says. “And that was the first time I thought I could be someone competitively.”
He has certainly been that, even though he could only play a few tournaments a year because he couldn’t get that much time off at Total, where he worked in the credit and marketing departments before the refinery closed in 1999. But he found it easier to make time for competitive golf when he became a financial adviser for Raymond James & Associates. And over the years, he established himself as one of the best players in the Wolverine State, winning a pair of Michigan Amateur titles, in 1992 and 1999, as well as the Michigan Mid-Am championship in 1998. In 2009, he was inducted into the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame.
Lewis has also enjoyed success on the national level, advancing to the semifinals of the 1999 U.S. Mid-Am just three years after losing in the finals of that championship to Miller. Winning last’s year’s Mid-Am is the obvious career highlight.
Lewis has made three trips to Augusta National for practice rounds, and one thing he has learned is how hard the course plays from the Masters tees. “I am going to have to hit hybrids into six or seven greens during each round,” he says. “And I am not counting on getting home on any of the par 5s in two.”
Lewis will be coming to town with his wife, Melanie, and their two sons, Christopher and Nicklaus, the last one spelled exactly as the Golden Bear spells his last name. Lewis is renting a house in Augusta, which will have as many as 20 family members and friends on any given night, and will not be sleeping in the Crow’s Nest, in large part because he has sleep apnea and uses a breathing machine at night. “I don’t want to disturb any of the other amateur players, and at my age, my priority is to get as good a night’s sleep as possible.”
His other goal, of course, is to enjoy The Masters. Especially now that he can allow himself to do that.
According to Brad Schweigert, PING’s director of engineering, the Phoenix-based equipment maker has created something special with its i20 irons line, which was released Jan. 1 and offers multi-metal technology in a progressive set design.
The long irons are slightly larger and launch higher, he says, thanks to a vertical Custom Tuning Port that allowed PING to position the Center of Gravity a bit farther back in this model as opposed to its predecessor, the i15. “But we worked to make sure that as we transitioned to the short irons, which have a thinner top line and a shorter toe-to-heel length, we kept shots at the right trajectory,” he says.
A tungsten toe weighting system in the 17-4 stainless steel heads of the i20s enhances forgiveness throughout the set and makes it easier for players to shape and control shots, Schweigert adds, while stabilizing bars work with a slightly thicker clubface to bolster distance control and feel. “The idea was to take weight where we didn’t need it in the club head and put it elsewhere, to elevate stability and control performance,” he explains.
Each of the i20 irons comes with what Schweigert calls “foggy chrome” finish and ferrule for a cleaner, more high-performance look. While they will sit in the PING line between the S56 and G20 models, he adds, they are designed to appeal to golfers of all abilities.
The i20s are available from 3- to 9-iron, and also in PW, UW, SW and LW. The stock steel shaft is the PING CFS, in four flexes, and the one in graphite is the TFC 169i, also available in four flexes.
Callaway Golf rolled out a new platform of products after this year’s PGA Merchandise Show, dubbed RAZR Black, and perhaps its most compelling component is the driver bearing that name.
The RAZR Black driver features a lightweight crown made of the Forged Composite material that it developed in partnership with the luxury Italian carmaker Automobili Lamborghini. According to Callaway engineers, it allowed the company to precisely design a club head that produces optimal launch and spin characteristics for greater distance off the tee.
The new driver also boasts Callaway’s proprietary SpeedFrame Face technology, which melds the equipment maker’s Variable Face Thickness and Hyperbolic Face technologies to create a larger sweet spot and increased ball speeds across more parts of the titanium face.
Company technicians were also able to move weight in the clubhead to promote a higher launch and lower spinning flight as they reshaped it to improve aerodynamics – and reduce energy loss from head drag during the downswing by 17 percent when compared to RAZR Black’s predecessor, the Diablo Octane. That is intended to increase impact speeds and add distance on drives.
“The RAZR Black driver represents the best of what we’ve learned about making drivers along with several completely new areas of improvement, all of which combined into one very fast-looking club head,” says Luke Williams, senior director of global woods and irons at Callaway. “We’ve utilized our patented Forged Composite construction in combination with advances in aerodynamics and face technology to create a driver that delivers amazing ball speed in a design that suits a huge cross-section of golfers.”
Callaway’s RAZR Black driver comes by its name naturally, as it has a black PVD finish. And it is available in four lofts, 9.5, 10.5, 11.5 and 13.5.
As the rollout of new products at the 2012 PGA Merchandise Show demonstrated, this is very much the “Year of the Fairway Metal’
At the same time, the release of several new hybrid models at that Orlando, Fla., gathering created a fair amount of buzz of its own. And among those clubs attracting the most attention in both those categories were new offerings from Nike Golf’s VR_S line.
Let’s start with the VR_S fairways. Available in four lofts, from 3W (15 degrees) to 7W (21 degrees) and with a Nike Fubuki K FW stock shaft, they are designed to utilize enhanced aerodynamics, and the company’s NexCOR variable face thickness technology to create greater speed at impact for greater distance.
A face insert made from a lightweight, stainless steel alloy and shaped in an L is geared to enhance length as well, and Nike engineers positioned the weld on the sole of this club to allow for an expanded maximum COR (Coefficient of Restitution) zone from the middle to lower on the face, where the majority of fairway shots are struck. That means the VR_S is supposed to be hotter where players are most apt to hit their golf balls.
As for the VR_S hybrids, they feature that same NexCOR technology and improved aerodynamics as the VR_S fairways, and the weld on the sole is also positioned to produce that expanded COR zone of the clubface, which is made of a high-strength steel alloy. This product is also available in four lofts – 2H (18 degrees), 3H (21 degrees), 4H (24 degrees) and 5H (27 degrees) – and comes with a Nike Fubuki K HY stock shaft.
“By taking a holistic approach to how we’ve designed every club in the VR_S line, we’ve been able to deliver more speed and more distance,” says Tom Stites, director of club creation for Nike Golf. “The new fairways and hybrids are ultra fast, and they are designed to get you to the green more quickly – and in fewer strokes.”
NAPLES, FLORIDA I John Baldwin was a baseball player as a young boy, and a good one at that. But then, he took a high, hard pitch to the head in a Pony League game.
“I ended up spending the night in the hospital with a concussion,” the 67-year-old New York native says. “I was fine physically. But when I tried to play again, I bailed out on every pitch.”
So Baldwin had to give up baseball. That saddened him initially, but then he took up golf. And that turned out to be a great move, for Baldwin and for the game.
For one thing, Baldwin developed into an elite amateur player with a record that includes a pair of Met Amateur championships, two Met Player of the Year awards and a British Senior Amateur title. And for another, he became a tireless advocate of the game, serving in a number of volunteer positions at the Metropolitan Golf Association, which he eventually ran as president, and at other Met Area golf organizations.
In other words, Baldwin became the consummate golf guy, both player and promoter. And while he has long been benefitted from his deep and passionate commitment to the game, so has golf, for having someone who cares so much about the sport being so deeply involved.
It was at the Plansome Country Club on Long Island where Baldwin first nurtured his golf game, as a caddie and as a player who was soon good enough to win the club’s junior title. Later, he competed on the University of North Carolina golf team as he earned a degree in Business Administration.
“There were no golf scholarships in those days, so everyone was just a walk-on,” Baldwin recalls. “I played all four years in college, and even won the ACC Championship as a junior. I loved competing, and I loved being so close to Pinehurst. It was only an hour or so away, and in those days we could play No. 2 with a university pass for $10 a day.”
Baldwin headed to the University of Miami after leaving Chapel Hill to get his MBA. And once he did that, in the spring of 1969, he managed to qualify for the PGA Tour, surely becoming in the process the only golfer ever to get his Tour card and his MBA the very same year. At the start of the 1970 season, he went out on Tour.
“Those were the days of Monday qualifiers, and I managed to play my way into 20 tournaments,” Baldwin recalls. “But I only made eight cuts, and it soon became clear I was going to have to do something else.”
That something else turned out to be financial services, and Baldwin went to work for First Boston, in their municipal bond department, after 15 months on Tour. Once he regained his amateur status, he also began competing again, in major regional events like the Met Am as well as in prominent invitationals like the Travis, and the Richardson, the Hochster and the Anderson.
“The golf was great fun, and a great escape,” says Baldwin, who lived for more than two decades in New York City and now splits time between a house in West Palm Beach, Fla., and a flat in London. “And I enjoyed it so much more as an amateur because I wasn’t doing it as work. I especially loved the courses I was able to play in the Met Area, and the amateur calendar is terrific there as well.”
Certainly, part of what made it fun for Baldwin was how well he played, even as he rose to national sales manager for municipal securities at First Boston. A longtime member of the Meadow Brook Club on Long Island’s North Shore, he not only won the Met Amateur but also the Ike, the Travis and both the New York and Long Island Ams. He continued to excel even as he got older, adding the New York Mid and Senior Am championships to his collection. Baldwin showed pretty good game when he traveled overseas, too, winning the Irish and Welsh Senior Amateurs twice each, and the British Senior Am. In fact, he received his two Player of the Year awards when he was in his mid-40s. And he continues to compete even as he pushes 70, in senior events around the U.S. in the winter and then in the United Kingdom in the summer.
But it is his work as a volunteer that has truly distinguished Baldwin, who won the MGA’s Distinguished Service Award in 2004. As president of the MGA. As one of the founders of the MGA Foundation. As a member of the boards of the Long Island Caddie Scholarship Fund and the Long Island Golf Association, and of the USGA’s Mid-Amateur Committee.
“My friend Joe Donahue asked me to get involved when he was president of the MGA back in the early 1980s,” says Baldwin, who is now a member of Sunningdale Golf Club outside London. “I joined the Junior Committee, and it just took off from there. My wife, Nancy, and I do not have children, so I could find the time to play and to volunteer. I really enjoyed being involved, and being able to give back.”
And he has given back so much.
The folks at Wilson Golf say they will be focusing more and more in coming years on the driver category, and the company’s latest entry in that arena is the DXi Superlight.
Released this past winter, it tips the scales at a positively dainty 269 grams, which is roughly 50 grams lighter than most traditional drivers. And its primary performance story is an increasingly familiar one in golf equipment today: a lighter driver allows golfers to increase their clubhead speeds in hopes of increasing their distance on tee shots.
According to Michael Vrska, global director of golf research and development for the Chicago-based equipment maker, Wilson achieved that “lightness” in part by employing lightweight shafts (Matrix Ozik) and grips (WinnLite Firm) stock in the DXi.
“We also thinned out non-structural areas of the titanium crown through a chemical etching process as well as parts of the sole,” he adds. “That reduced its overall weight by six grams, and we made sure that whatever weight we had left was concentrated in the heel and toe of the club head to maintain optimum CG (Center of Gravity).”
As important as developing those features were, Vrska is quick to point out that there was much more to making the DXi Superlight work.
“We also used a five-zone, modified cup-face design to expand the sweet spot on the face into the heel and toe for greater forgiveness as we pushed the CT (Characteristic Time, a way of measuring spring-like effect) to the limit to enhance distance even more,” he says.
“In addition, we gave this driver the lowest measured club MOI (Moment of Inertia) on the market, which means it delivers explosive power even as it is very easy to swing.”
