I flew over the par-5 first with an 8-iron, par. Flew over the par-5 5th with an 8-iron, par. Flew over the par-5 13th into a hazard with a pitching wedge, bogey. Drove the #14 par-4 with a 3-wood and two putted for birdie.

It was a 69 that could have been a 64 easily. I even bogeyed the last hole.

Unfortunately, my match play opponent wasn’t there to lose today. He rescheduled…

Titleist has released new versions of the NXT Tour golf ball, the NXT Extreme and NXT Tour. I’ve been playing both flavors for a while now. In this article I’ll be reviewing the new NXT Tour. My NXT Extreme review will be coming up in the next week or so.

Titleist NXT Tour Golf Ball

The NXT Tour golf ball is aimed at the average to high level golfer. The ball provides a combination of distance off the driver and control with the shorter clubs, and a price point ($40.00) which is more affordable.

Technology

Multi Layer Construction
Layer One - The Core

The solid yet soft inner core is made of Polybutadiene. Don’t worry, I had no idea what Polybutadiene was either until I researched for this article.

From WikiPedia: Polybutadiene is a synthetic rubber that has a high resistance to wear and is used especially in the manufacture of tires. It has also been used to coat or encapsulate electronic assemblies, offering extremely high electrical resistivity. It exhibits a recovery of 80% after stress is applied, a value only exceeded by elastin and resilin. Polybutadiene is a polymer formed from the polymerization of the monomer 1,3-butadiene.

Layer Two - The Outer Core

The outer core, at 1.58″ in diameter, is also made of Polybutadiene. The extra layer helps provide distance and a softer feel at impact.

Layer Three - The Cover

The NXT Tour cover is made of Fusablend. Fusablend is a proprietary material Titleist uses which provides the player with a great combination of durability yet soft feel and spin around the greens. Durability AND spin are tough to employ in the same ball.

The Fusablend cover comes in the new “Pro White” color, which is very vibrant and easy to spot anywhere on the course.

Dimples

Titleist has long employed a 392 dimple aerodynamic design. Their research has concluded that the 392 dimple pattern provides more carry and distance.

Staggered Wave Parting Design

New for this year Titleist has introduced the “staggered wave parting design.” Titleist balls, including the ProV1 and ProV1x series have all had a visible seam. What they’re doing now is staggering the dimples where the seam is to gain that real estate on the ball. This has allowed more dimple coverage and even better results in carry, distance and spin.

AIM System

No longer do you need to draw an aiming line on your ball with Titleist’s new A.I.M. system. A.I.M. is short for alignment integrated marking. They call it a system but come on. It’s just a line, right? Perhaps not. The arrows and lines give you conscious and subconscious influence on aim and club path.

On The Course

I expected the NXT Tour ball to be a bit harder in feel than the ball I normally play, the ProV1 (regular flavor, not the ProV1x). I’ve had golfer’s elbow for several years and hard (a.k.a. “distance”) balls really kill my elbow, but soft ones don’t. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my “princess and the pea” golfer’s elbow didn’t hurt when hitting drivers with the NXT Tour.

I found the distance off the driver and long irons to be wonderful. I hit the NXT Tour as far as any other ball I’ve tried with my driver. I found I was able to work the ball to a nice fade or draw at will, or at least as much as my swing allows on any given day.

The most profound difference between the NXT series (not just the Tour version mind you) and other balls I’ve played, was the distance I had with my irons. The first shot I hit an iron with was on my home course, #2 hole. My 170 club is my 7-iron. My 2nd shot on this 468 yard par 4 was right on 170 (yes you math majors, that was a 298 yard drive with the NXT Tour). I pulled my 7-iron and took dead aim at the middle flag. I put a perfect swing (for me at least) and the ball launched right at the flag. I was expecting it to land pin high and release a few feet long but no. The NXT Tour flew over the pin, over the green, over the hill behind the green. That 170 yard shot CARRIED at least 190. Woa.

I thought that was just a fluke but the rest of the round I discovered that it wasn’t. My iron play has ended up 10-20 yards longer with the new NXT’s. It almost became a joke when I was hitting my gap wedge 145 and my buddies thought I was a candidate for the new PGA Tour steroid testing…

Around the greens I found the NXT Tour to be quite good. Mind you I’m used to the precise spin you get with a ProV1. I’d say the NXT Tour is about 90% as “spinny” of a ball for me as the ProV1. I found that just about any shot I tried around the greens like flops, runners, two-hop-stoppers all performed well.

Durability

One area the NXT Tour outperforms the ProV1, ProV1x and many other balls is durability. Of course the cover is a little harder and that’s why. I can chew up balls with my great wedges but the NXT doesn’t get bet up by them. The only time I’ve had to take an NXT Tour out of play is when it had a cart path issue.

Conclusion

Ian McAllister is right. His wreched NXT golf ball has added fun to my game, and distance.

If you want a performance golf ball, but don’t want to spend the dough that companies are charging for their highest end balls, the NXT is the ball for you.

Click here for the Hooked On Golf Blog Titleist Photo Gallery.

I hit the range yesterday to try and figure out what is wrong with my irons. My driver and woods are all good, but my GIR’s and ball striking with the irons has stunk.

After hitting five shanks, 10 fats, 10 thins, 10 hooks, 10 slices… I busted out my video camera. I don’t have the best swing in the world. I may make Jim Furyk look on plane. But after recording about 10 five irons and watching the video back I was able to see some stuff to fix.

Chicken Wing

The most obvious problem I saw was what I call the chicken wing. It’s a flying right elbow, kind of like a baseball swing. That chicken wing was causing my usual over the top granny move to be way past parallel and even more over the top and across the line. In other words my club at the top of the swing was almost like John Daly’s, pointing right of the target.

After sucking in the chicken wing and tucking it into my side a bit I started to hit some good shots. I brought the “anti- chicken wing super granny over the top past parallel unfolding lawn chair epileptic on speed” swing onto the course and hit much more solid irons. I did hit a few pulls but that’s just a result of the swing changes and not being used to them.

Mr. 62

I’m feeling better today than I did yesterday about my swing, my game… and my chances in my semifinal match tomorrow. I’m playing against an older player who is pretty amazing. I played with him on this very course when he shot a 29 on the back en route to a 62.

Mr. 62 is human, therefore he’s beatable. It should be fun tomorrow. If I manage to beat him I’ll be in the finals of my club champ for the 2nd time in the last three years. And yes, I did win it last time I was in the finals!

I did a post a few days ago about HOG friend The Glove Grabber being featured on Fore Inventors Only on The Golf Channel. I hadn’t had a chance to really write up the product yet because I was just getting it into play. Now I’ve had a chance to use my Golf Grabber for a while so here it is.

The Glove Grabber Concept

The Glove Grabber concept is simple. It gives you a place to hang your golf (or other sport) gloves for them to dry. Wet gloves don’t work as well. Wet gloves wear out many times faster than dry ones. If you are in a really sweaty situation you can rotate two or even three gloves on your Glove Grabber to ensure you always have a dry glove for that crucial shot in the club championship.

On The Course

I’ll admit I don’t wear a glove, but today was a good day to wear one. It’s about 100 degrees here and though there usually isn’t a lot of humidity here, there was today. I was on the range practicing for my big match coming up in a couple of days. I was sweating so bad the brim of my hat was dripping.

I used two gloves and when one got wet I hung it on my Glove Grabber and then used the dry one. I rotated gloves for a good two hours. By the end, both gloves were dry.

Other Uses

I have another idea for the Glove Grabber. Some of my golf towels have Velcro for mounting the towel on the golf bag. In rainy conditions when you are using an umbrella you could use a Velcro towel and hang the Glove Grabber from the inside of your umbrella. That way you don’t have to hang your towel on the support arms of the umbrella and go through all that hassle of getting them hung and taking them down.

Conclusion

It’s hard to write a 1500 word review on a Velcro strap. That being said, the Glove Grabber is a great implementation of a simple and great idea which will preserve your gloves and help save you strokes.

Corporate entities could use the Glove Grabber for promotion and giveaways by screening their information on the flat side.

Have you ever thought there might be a better way to test the wind than throwing grass in the air or licking your finger and sticking it up in the air? If so, the Windage golf wind tester may be your answer.

The Windage essentially a small squeezable golf ball shaped device which shoots dust into the air. The dust looks like baby powder and I’m guessing that is what you’d refill it with.

On The Course

I tried it. It seemed to work OK. You can squeeze it too hard and shoot out a thick stream of the powder. You need to do a quick short squeeze for it to work best.

It’s a lot of work to go through, grabbing the Windage off your golf bag or out of a pocket of your bag when all you need to do is reach down and grab some grass to test the wind.

Conclusion

The Windage works and it’s kind of fun playing with it. Just don’t do it when your face is down wind! I don’t think it is going to replace throwing grass in the air for me though.

The Windage wind tester would be a good father’s day gift or corporate goody bag gift.

To watch a video of the Windage in action, click here.

The Windage is only $5.99 at Edwin Watts Golf.

Congrats to Natalie Gulbis.

I think it’s cool that Natalie has a win now since winning the Evian Masters in a playoff over Jang Jeong. She birdied the first playoff hole for the win.

Hey you gotta market yourself and make money however you see fit, but now she’s no longer just a bikini model who plays on the LPGA Tour.

Wie

Oh, and “prodigy” Michelle Wie, after making the cut went 84-76 on the weekend to finish. She finished tied for 69th place at 16-over. I have some amazing stats on her which I’ll be posting soon. Yes I love Wie bashing.

Would you believe that a 17 year old golfer who hasn’t broken par in roughly a year, gets to play on the LPGA Tour AND the PGA Tour? It amazes me. That “prodigy” (at least that’s what Fox Sports calls her) just broke par for the first time in her last 24 rounds at the Evian Masters.

“I’m very happy. That’s my first round under par this year. It’s a bit of a breakthrough.”

Pardon me, but breaking par is a breakthrough for hacks like me who shoot in the mid to low 70’s and fire an occasional 71. Breaking par for the “female version of Tiger Woods,” or “prodigy,” or “phenom” should be old hat.

Can we stop with the idiotic descriptions like this until said prodigy wins something? A game of tic-tac-toe perhaps?

I’m constantly amazed at the quality of equipment coming out these days from relatively smaller companies than the Titleists and TaylorMades of the world. GEL is no different. GEL is short for “Groove Equipment Limited” and they’re makers of a current offering of six different putter models. This review is of the GEL “Emerald” model putter.

GEL Emerald

The Emerald is a face-balanced putter. It is essentially a blade putter with a heavy, centered back weight section. It really looks like a cross between a blade and a mallet due to the back weight section.

Technology

The Emerald is a little heavier than standard putters at 400g. The extra weight and balancing help you produce a smooth stroke. It’s hard to jerk the putter back too fast and start the down-stroke too fast. These are places where you can really get off line. The weight and balance improves the MOI (moment of inertia), helping keep the putter on line as well, preventing pulls and pushes.

Like all of the GEL putters, The Emerald has an aluminum face insert with milled grooves. The grooves of the insert impart a spin on the putts which help the ball start rolling better, much better than a putter which doesn’t have them. Putters without these grooves often start the ball out more airborne and the ball skids along the ground for a while before starting to roll. Skidding like this can make it harder to get your putt distances dialed in and can even cause issues with line as the ball is skidding and not rolling on the line of the break.

Looks & Feel

The first time I stroked the Emerald (as I do with most putters), I wanted to see if the putter “wanted” to travel on the target line and stay square to the line. The Emerald really does.

The nice, soft Winn grip allows me to grip the club light yet firm and I get a very good feel of the stroke and the contact.

The contact you make with a ball feels extremely soft. The aluminum insert produces a feel like no other. I feel like I can sense how long the ball is on the putter face and I swear I can feel the ball “mushing” into the face. It sort of feels like putting an old balata ball and a soft insert. This feel is the same no matter if you’re hitting a two-piece rock distance ball, or a performance ball with a soft cover.

The black nickel finish of the Emerald is very aesthetically pleasing. There’s no glare from the Sun when putting. The back weight section gives me a great visual of the line and the stroke path. The arrows give a subconscious influence on the stroke line as well.

If you’re a golf apparel yuppie like some these days, you can have a matching hat with the same color scheme as the putter, head cover and grip!

Head Cover

The head cover is magnetic seal. I prefer magnetic head covers over Velcro because Velcro wears out and gets shabby looking over time.

The head cover doesn’t quite cover the putter enough for my taste. The corners of the blade are still exposed, which could result in dinging of the putter when putting it in your bag. With a putter this nice, I want it (and my other clubs for that matter) protected.

On The Course

The first putt I had was about a 50 foot eagle putt on my first hole. Though I didn’t drain that bomb, I left myself with a tap-in one-footer uphill. I hadn’t made one putt on the course or the practice green with the Emerald, I just put it in play (baptism by fire) and had a great feel for the distance immediately. On the next hole I needed to drain a dainty downhill right-to-left breaking 12 footer to save par. Draino.

The Emerald loves to stay on line and I’m deadly with this thing, especially on 10-20 foot putts. Just yesterday my pal Dave said “I wish I could do that” when I drained about a 15 footer for a sand save.

After each putt I still can’t believe the soft feel the aluminum insert produces. I really like that feel.

Critiques

My main critique of the Emerald is the head cover. It needs to cover the corners of the blade better.

Conclusion

I think I can make anything under 25 feet with the GEL Emerald putter. All my putts look like they’re going to go in. It’s great to have that kind of confidence in the flat stick.

The wonderful feel and roll the aluminum insert produces gives you great feedback and results.

For more images, click here for the Hooked On Golf Blog GEL Photo Gallery.