Alright guys, I'm buying a Callaway I-mix 8.5 ft-9 tour pretty soon. I am adding 2 inches to the length so I can bomb it. But the question is what shaft? I was advised to get hte Mitsubishi Fubuki 63 tour, since it apparently has a tremendously low spinrate. Problem is, I can't afford to buy a $600 driver. So I need something around $150 or so instead. Which shaft will produce the lowest spin rate? How is the Z-com 65 tour?

link for reference:

http://shop.callawaygolf.com/Drivers..._I-MIX_Shafts/

Warren Schutte sure liked it. He probably doesn't get a Christmas card from Phil though.

BO

Has anyone here hit the Wilson Staff Smooth yet? Any thoughts?

I think a video would be best. Tough to tell from just this.

My guess though would be that in your normal backswing you get pretty flat with no width. The backswing drill is to get your hands higher and further away from your head at the top of your swing.

From there the club has room to "drop" and flatten out with your body rotation driving most of the action.

Again, this is all just a guess from what you wrote, post a video and lets see whats going on.

Just wait until you CAN afford it and buy it with all the bells and whistles you want! Why settle for anything less than you want when you're spending that much f money on it!?!?

question for everyone. how many strokes do you think you would need to beat tiger on your home course?

i play regularly on 2 tracks, one is a par 70 6050 yard course, and another par 71 6700 yards. both distances are from the tips. i would estimate that i'd need at least 35 shots on either because i basically expect tiger to always shoot 60, but i would guess i need fewer strokes on the longer course. that course is more streamlined, and i happen to play to my strengths a lot more.

Stroke or match play?

take your pick

Stroke play- 13 shots. I would think shooting 76 (for net 63) would be good enough to beat Tiger. I would estimate that at that number of shots we would split 50/50. I would think we both shoot 2+ shots higher/lower then those numbers 50% of the time though too.

Match play- 9 shots. If I could play those holes 3 up I think it would be a close match otherwise. Maybe 10 shots is closer to right.

I play off 22 at my home course. If i play at my best I will need about 16-18 strokes on Tiger, as he will be ****** off about the layout of the course.

If he had played the course many times, it will be more like 24-26 strokes.

lol...that is not nearly enough strokes.

knowing the layout or not, tiger knows his exact distances for ever shot, and given an exact distance in, slow greens and easy non professional layouts, he's going to beat your ass bad.

I have a lesson tomorrow during which I will focus on hitting a 3w and testing three different ones with my pro. I would like input/suggestions. (CLIFFS NOTES at the bottom) I am biased towards Nike, because I am a homer, so please bear with me during my analysis.

I signed out the Cleveland Launcher 3w, TaylorMade Burner, and Nike SQ Dymo2 at a local store. All of them have stock S-flex shafts (with cleveland that means Fujikura). not sure about kick. the nike one is 70g, the other ones are 60-65g, i think. I hit the Nike one on a vector at the store today, off the mat, but wasn't hitting it very well there. The computer spat out 198 carry and 207 total, with a 5-7 yard draw. I thought it was pretty good, but the Ping tech told me that I should probably opt for a 4w instead, trying to get a little more launch angle. I kind of discounted those numbers because I hadn't warmed up, didn't make the best contact.

I took them all to for a quick range session today. Once I eliminated thin shots, I was hitting them higher and as long as most of my driver shots. seriously. like 230-250. it's a bit of a realization for me that I've been mis-hitting my driver. The Nike club went straightest. I sometimes pulled it, but it had almost no side spin (is that the SQ technology?). I put a tiny draw on it twice.

The Burner and Launcher were easier to hit off the deck for some reason. they were launching high almost immediately, where as with the Nike I had to adjust more. but all of them had a somewhat exaggerated draw I thought. Launcher went furthest, then probably Nike (disregarding the mis-hits), then Burner, but still all within 15 yards of each other.

anyways, i am going to show all of this off to my pro tomorrow and hopefully clean up some more mechanical stuff. is there anything i should mention/expect? which club should I buy? any experiences comparing the three models i picked out?

sorry this is long.

CLIFFS NOTES: testing out three demo clubs. SQ Dymo2, Burner, Launcher. All 3w, 15 degrees, with stock S-shaft. hitting them high and long at the range. Nike went straightest, but harder to hit off the deck. Launcher was longest, easy to hit. Burner was a tiny bit shorter, easy to hit, had the biggest draw. i have a lesson with my pro tomorrow, he's going to help me choose and work on my fairway woods swing. what should i ask him? what other clubs should I try?

PS come to think of it. the nike was also covered in clear tape because it was not a demo, but a slightly used club. the other two were not taped, and were actual demos. not sure if that makes it go straighter, a la grease on the club face.

Idk, maybe get the Nike 15* and hit it off the tee. And get a Cleveland 4w or 5w that's easy to hit off the fairway?

not to mention he'll read the greens 800 times better than you, even if you played them a thousand times.

well obviously he is probably going to beat anyone's ass bad, but non professional layouts aren't necessarily that much easier to these guys. Remember the Steve Marino plays a muni article? he thought he was going to shoot in the 50s but the conditions sucked so much that he shot like -1.

yeah, i'll probably be buying a new driver + 5w at some point, so that could be a possibility.

i already carry a 5/r and 4/r hybrids. not sure what kind of distance they are (well, i have some estimates 190 and 205), but it's possible that i'll need to switch out one for a 5w

Put Tiger or most other PGA Tour players on slow greens and they'll look very mortal. As per my story about DiMarco, Toms and a couple other Tour players a few years back playing a money game with mini-tour players on a goat track in East Texas with slow bermuda greens. The Tour guys got their lunches handed to them.

Also, it's very easy to control your golf ball on a PGA Tour layout where every blade of short grass is perfect. Not so easy from crappy fairways where you can get a flier from dead center.

Regardless of the course, any top player still has to do his homework from tee to green. And the first time on a new track, he's going to have issues especially trying to figure out the greens. There's a reason why veteran tour players have a big advantage over rookies on Tour, they've seen all the courses before and know all the nuances.

All that being said, I'd gladly play Tiger straight up at my home course which is short and very tight with some odd greens. I know every blade of grass and every break in the greens much better than Tiger would. Chad Campbell has played it several times in the last couple of years and I don't think he's shot any better than 4 or 5 under.

BO

why is this? seems like whenever i'm watching a tournament and the greens are soft for whatever reason there are always a bunch of guys scoring in the low or mid 60s...putting on fast greens is easier but hitting into them is a lot more difficult right, or am i way off?

Looks gorgeous

I don't wanna answer for bo, but I think the tour guys like them fast to a certain point. Not that it's easier to putt on fast greens, but that's what they're used to. Their stroke is grooved for around 11-12 on the stimp(just a guess) and their rhythm gets all out of whack when the greens slow up.

They take dead aim when in soft conditions and the greens still roll how they like.

So you're going to play it at 47"?

The UST axiv core's seem to be popular. The black is a mid-high launch/low spin shaft.

NV proto
V2

This is pretty accurate. The greens on Tour are the exact same speed week after week. And on top of that they are nearly perfect. Therefore speed is rarely a problem, and if you know the green speed, you also know exactly how much it will break. Conversely, if you don't know the speed, you can't gauge the exact amount of break.

Also, speed and softness of greens are not necessarily related. You can have soft fast greens, you can have hard slow greens, you can have soft slow greens, etc. The softer the greens, the easier the scoring conditions.

And most of the time, the faster the greens are, the thinner the blade of grass, meaning everything is much more consistent because the grass affects the ball very little. On the flip side, slow greens usually have lots of thicker blades of grass, causing more inconsistencies in the roll of the ball off the putter.

Look at it this way, if every golf course you went to had the exact same speed of greens, wouldn't that make putting much easier? Even if that speed was 13 on the stimp?

BO

thanks a bunch, i very well may get one of these. Yeah, I'm going to try the 47". Can't be that hard right?

As a high spin player who is currently hitting it like 265 in calm flat normal conditions, how much distance do you think I will add? I'm hoping 25-30 yards. We'll see.

so are pros so used to ridiculously fast greens that playing on something slower would give them the yips so to speak? slow greens do not show the flaws in your stroke like the fast ones do...ex: i push a 3 footer on a 12 its not going in, i hit the same poor stroke on a 6 it has a chance.

(not arguing, just really curious, i know you were a pro and well someday i'd like to be at least scratch so pretty good info for me.)