Did you have a go at counting the number of bunkers at Brocton Hall from the quiz question in last week's newsletter? Quite a few of you emailed in with your numbers but none of you had it right! The correct answer was there are 63 bunkers at the club. That's 62 on the course and 1 practice bunker in the walled garden. I didn't ask how many were on the course did I!!!
The Eurasia Cup took place in Kuala Lumpur last week with Darren Clarke's European side winning 18 1/2 - 5 1/2. You could be forgiven for missing it as it didn't receive much coverage but it must be a great warm up for some of our future Ryder Cup rookies like Andy Sullivan.
I like the way they have taken some of the team photographs for this event. Last year the result was a draw and both teams appeared at the same time with the trophy. This time the players had the caddies lining up with them in the same team outfit - very much more part of the teams these days than they ever used to be. I was at the Ryder Cup at The Belfry in 2002 and as we walked back after the closing ceremony the caddies were walking back with us to a separate part of the clubhouse to the players.
Here's a video of Shingo Katayama warming up for it with some left handed drivers. Not sure about the wedge technique or the extreme practice aids just before playing!
The golf aspect for the Captain's Swansong couldn't go ahead on Saturday as we still had some snow on the ground but the evening dinner went ahead to give him a rousing send off - and to celebrate David's 70th birthday! That was well engineered to have them both occurring on the same day. Here is a picture of a cake that Alison made for him.
I was at Moor Allerton golf club in Leeds on Tuesday as I'd been lucky enough to be invited by Mizuno to a custom fitting day to meet up with Bill Price - Mizuno's Custom Fit Manager from the US for the past two decades. It's always good to stay ahead of the curve and re-familiarise myself with product knowledge and I've been very impressed with Mizuno's quality and tolerance levels over the past 2 years. I mainly use Japanese manufacturers for this reason including Miura, Srixon and VEGA and Mizuno have certainly upped their game with woods, hybrids and now golf balls - none of which they've ever been renowned for.
I've been using the JPX850 driver for the past 3 months - considering that I've had four of the Tom Wishon drivers for the past 8 years (and sometimes two of them in my bag at the same time), that reflects quite a change for me.
Bill certainly knew his stuff but it's always gratifying to know that we do everything that the best fitters do, and then some more. As a club builder as well as club fitter I bend the lie individually with each club, MOI match (moment of inertia) irons to each other and spine align the shafts which are all aspects not covered by conventional fitters.
Last year Mizuno launched a range of golf balls in the UK and have been proving very popular. I picked up some balls to test out and I also have some from Wilson golf balls to try out and here's where I need your help. I'd like to test all the newest golf balls out on the SkyTrak simulator in the loft with different golfers and different swing speeds. If you'd like to become one of my product testers, please click here and I'll get in touch. Weekdays are the best days for me and it would be useful if you could tell me which days are good usually for you. If the course is closed for snow and I'm not fully booked we could even arrange some testing pretty quickly.
When it comes to testing golf equipment, the more times you see results, the more patterns you tend to see appearing. This has been true also with our Yardage Gapping Sessions - it's easy to get a good idea of what numbers I'd expect to see from different swing speeds by witnessing more and more shots. This week I had more golfers measuring their yardages and one of the things that shows up is that every Tour Pro, whether on the men's or ladies tours, hit's their drivers and 3 woods much harder than club golfers do, in comparison to their other clubs.
For example, some golfers may be 80% as quick as a tour pro with most of their irons but then only 70% as quick with a driver. I think this is because club golfers need to play an accuracy game and tour pro's primarily need to play a long distance game off the tee.
Similarly lots of tour pros' hit their wedges as soft as or softer than a club golfer - showing that tour pros are not often hitting full out wedges - preferring a precise impact instead.
Remember, Yardage Gapping Sessions are just £25 until the end of February (and I'm away in Arizona for 10 days in February), so click here to book yours in.
Here's a couple of pictures from the Pro Shop. I've been getting my clubs MOT'd for the pro-am at TPC Scottsdale including re-grinding this sole of my gap wedge. It was originally a wide, level sole and I ground the front edge off to stop it ever digging into the ground, then removed the back edge also to allow me to open the face up without it sitting too high off the surface. That was 2 years ago and I reckon this will be the last time I can re-grind it before it needs replacing.
Here's a photo of some of the FootJoy shoes which have arrived in store - some pretty cool and functional models again this year!
Finally, PING's new G series of woods launch next month. We'll have some demos in to test out but before then I have an ex-demo Left hand 12 degree regular flex G30 driver on sale. It has literally only been out once and is selling for £189 instead of £249. If you'd like it click here or call the shop on 01785 661485.