PGA Merchandise Show Day 3

[ualtim]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen of shottalk. Today was day 3 and the final day of the show. I have one more installment of the daily news from the show, but have no fear I will have some more reviews and information from what intelligence I gathered for you over the coming days and weeks.

Taylor Made: As soon as the show floor opened for business, I made my way down to the Taylor Made hitting stations to get a first hand experience with the new Burner and Superquad drivers. The first driver I put in my hands was the new Burner TP edition. There have been some questions regarding this driver so I found the nearest TM rep so that we could discuss their latest product. The Burner is one of the new high MOI designs (much like the Nike SQ and similar stretched out tear drop style heads) designed for maximum forgiveness. Coupled with the added forgiveness, TM put a 46 inch, 50 gram shaft into it designed to increase your swing speed and get you about another 10 yards over the Superquad. I believe the remarks that TM did not care about accuracy with this driver were aimed at the super long shaft. I had to grip down on the club in order to become consistent with my impact closer to the center of the club. Like most TM drivers, it is a really nice driver to hit. Long, boring trajectories off the face with a slight draw from my natural swing. I like the club, and TM is setting the price at $299 for the regular Burner and $399 for the Burner TP. The next club I hit was the R7 Superquad standard edition. I could not hit this straight as every ball was going left, but it felt better than the Burner when it came to feel transmitted up the shaft. This is a solid club and the new graphics are rather pleasing to my eye. Once the rep switched out the standard edition for the TP edition, the Superquad TP definitely became my driver of choice out of the TM line up. Long and hot with a slight draw. The Superquad is retaining the now industry standard of a 45 inch shaft, 65g weight, and is going to be retailed out at $399 for the standard edition and $699 for the TP edition.





Srixon WG-504 Forged Wedges: I went over to the Srixon hitting bay for 2 reasons. One, to hit a Srixon product and, two, to give the new Top Flight D2 a try with the wedges to check its short game feel. Both products were awesome. The Srixon WG-504 wedge is right on par with Vokey's and Cleveland wedges if not better. I hit both the 52* and 60* models and was hitting beautiful wedge shots right into the target greens at the Equipment Test Center. Every hit (even the miss hit I very nearly shanked) had a very pleasing feel to it. You knew right away whether or not you hit it dead center on the face or out towards to toe or heel. Visually, they are beautiful. Some black wedges do not suit my eye, but the Srixon's were quite stunning. As far as the D2 performance goes, it felt better than my 3-piece balls I have been hitting! I do not know if it was the wedge, the ball, or both but I hit some pretty good wedge shots with the combination and I was once again tempted to run right out and buy both products.





Private Golf Connections Inc.: I think these guys were a bit disappointed to find out after 10 minutes or so that I did not belong at Bay Hill, but the product they just introduced may help those shottalkers that do belong to a private club. PGCI provides a hook up service with over 4000 private clubs around the world for members of private golf clubs. If you join PGCI, they will hook you up with members from courses where you want to play so that when you travel or are looking to play a different exclusive private club they can match you up with a member at that club to play with. www.privategolfconnections.com is their web site, and if you use the promotion code 'PGC-PGASHOW-2007' before Feb 3rd, the first year of membership is free. After February 3rd, the only way to get a free year is to be the first member of your club to sign up.

Heavy Putter: There is no false advertising here, those putters were HEAVY. I thought my putters were heavy until I picked one of these clubs. Both the head and shaft have significant increases in weight that allows the balance point to stay put in the correct position rather than moving too close to the head or butt of the putter. Most amazingly, they had a 32 inch putter built to spec so I gave it a few rolls on the carpet. It performed well in doing what its concept set out to do. It keeps your hands and wrist quiet, so if your fighting a handsy/wristy putting stroke this may be your cure. The only downside to the putter is if you happen to walk more than you ride and carry your bag rather than use a pull cart or trolley. Its that heavy.

Simpac: I always end up getting back to these guys because they were my favorite clubs at the show. Today I went back to their hitting bay to really give their fairway woods another look after hitting the TEE CB2 (must be short for Canadian Buyers version 2 .....Rock, you were right so they named it after you.) As much as I loved the TEE CB2, the Simpac's have me really astonished at their performance, easy to hit and very forgiving. The Simpac rep kept on handing me the different fairway woods and the last one he put in my hand had me hitting this long penetrating ball flight. When I asked what it was he said it was a 1 wood at 11 degrees. Now mind you, its not any bigger than the 3-wood. It looks just like the rest of the fairway woods. Since their bay was at the end, he had me turn toward the center of the bay and hit it down the hitting line. Even with the longer run to the net, the ball kept increasing in height along the slowly climbing boring trajectory. A fairway driver! Gentlemen, I struggle with a 15* 3W off the deck, but I was launching this fairway driver like no body's business. I can not wait to see what these clubs go for when they hit the market. You can compare the size of the 1 fairway wood with their driver in the photo below.


Well, thats it for the daily updates as the show closed 50 minutes ago. I hope you all enjoyed a quick glimpse into the 2007 PGA Merchandise show and that I answered all of your questions to your satisfaction. I will have some more reviews in the days to come as I sort through the ton of information I have in my hands, but this will be the last of the daily updates.

Enjoy,

ualtim

[Adam Pettman]

You've done an amazing job Ualtim, thanks for all your good work.

[chemboy2]

Brilliant job this week!

On more than one occasion I found myself reading about the products here before I saw them on the Golf Channel.

Many thanks to you and Sling for putting this together!!

[IrishGolfer]

Well done Tim. Now tell us...what freebies did you snag at the show?

[ualtim]

Originally Posted by IrishGolfer

Well done Tim. Now tell us...what freebies did you snag at the show?

Mostly brochures and media kits. I grabbed an Odyssey visor, A Speed Stick visor autographed by Bri Vega, and a Golf for Women mazgazine for my wife. My treasures consisted of a few two packs of golf balls, some small accesory items which I will be reviewing once I get a chance to use them (Grip Dry, Divix club cleaner, etc,) some lanyards from Graphite Design and UST, some pens, and a Tour Edge hat. My major scores from business card drops were a pair of Bolle sunglasses (sounds great, but considereing that there were only 5 cards in the drop and the top two prizes were Bushnell 1500 laser range finders and the 3rd guy did not want the sunglasses so the other loser and I flipped for them, I was a bit disappointed) and a Tour Edge Bazooka Geo Max driver.

The greatest freebie of all was the experience. I got to hit some great clubs, try out the new Top Flite D2, meet some club, shaft, and golf ball designers/patent holders, meet and thank Alex Moore in person for the free Boomerangs he sent out to us, and talk golf equipment with a bunch of people as addicted to it as I am. I almost literally ran into Dave Pelz, and had a chance to thank him for his Short Game Bible which is starting to help my short game. Took an inside look at how other big time media folks do their job and attended a few press conferences along with a Srixon presentation with their golf ball guru and Jim Furyk.

It was a fun weekend and I did my best to get the latest information out to all my fellow shottalkers. I hope that you all enjoyed the coverage.

[mont86]

My hat is of to you Tim, you did a great job reporting on the show.

[FKA19]

i like those srixon wedges.

[ualtim]

Originally Posted by 19handicap

i like those srixon wedges.

They play even better than they look. I am a confirmed component guy, but the WG 504's may make me take a chance on some OEM clubs. They felt/sounded abosolutely awesome and I was able to step up and hit them right away without taking a few transition swings.

Just don't outbid me on E-bay

[Mr Shaft Skinz]

Hi all,

I attended the show for the first time - making the trip all the way from Northern Ireland. For most of day 1 I was like a rabbit in the headlights! That thing is massive (the show I mean).

It was a great experience and I got to talk to lots of equally enthusiastic golfers about my new invention. I couldn't help but fall back into keen golfer mode and spent loads of time checking out (and drooling over) lots of new gear.

Hope to come back next year but plan to get into training before hand for the 10 miles per day (plus) that I had to walk to see it all!

[sandwedge]

Great job on the coverage. It sounds like you had a great time and got to learn a lot.