Monty: If you can’t beat ’em, change the rules
Written by: Tony Korologos | Wednesday, February 28th, 2007
Categories: European Tour • Golf Balls • Golf Clubs • Golf Courses • Golf Equipment • Hackers • PGA Tour • Tiger Woods • Web.com Tour
Categories: European Tour • Golf Balls • Golf Clubs • Golf Courses • Golf Equipment • Hackers • PGA Tour • Tiger Woods • Web.com Tour
Colin Montgomerie is lobbying to change the rules of golf to make errant drives more penal. Can’t say I disagree with this point. I’d like to see a premium put on driving accuracy. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and others may not win as many tournaments if they can’t get home from the rough like they do now.
Jack Nicklaus wants to gear back the ball and says doing so would resurrect 17,000 golf courses which are “obsolete to professional golfers.” That’s great, but there are a couple of hundred PGA Tour memebers, Nationwide Tour members etc. So we’re going to gear back the ball for a few hundred “pros” when there are tens of millions of amateurs out there?
I must also point out that the average score of the amateur golfer hasn’t changed for decades despite all this new technology and distance. So do we need to change the equipment for amateurs and pros alike or simply have a set of specs for the pros? Or do we need to do anything at all?
driving4life.org helping fight ALS
ALS is the disease which took the life of Tom Watson’s caddie Bruce Edwards. Driving 4 Life is the premier fund raising campaign for ALS research. I recently met the director of Driving 4 Life, Derek Breau. I told him I’d put a post on my blog to help send some people to their site.
So go to http://www.driving4life.org right now and check out their site. If you have a couple of extra bucks, make a donation.
FedEx Cup time capsule
Below is a table of the top 12 players in the current PGA Tour FedEx Cup standings. I went down to #12 simply because Jim Furyk was #12. Tiger Woods is down the list at #8. There are some surprises so far like Charles Howell, John Rollins, Charley Hoffman and Henrik Stenson.
Let’s fast forward to say, the end of April. By then we’ll have a few more tourneys under our belt including the Byron Nelson and The Masters. (Just mentioning “The Masters” gives me goose bumps). So at the end of April will this list look the same? Will Howell Still be #1? Will there be a surprise, new player at #1? Does Phil win another Masters and take over #1 or will Tiger be sitting atop the list?
| Rank This Week |
Rank Last Week |
Player | Events | Points | Last Week Finish Pos | YTD Victories | Top 10s |
| 1 | 1 | Charles Howell III | 6 | 10,239 | T9 | 1 | 4 |
| 2 | 2 | Phil Mickelson | 6 | 7,599 | T17 | 1 | 2 |
| 3 | 3 | Vijay Singh | 7 | 6,517 | T17 | 1 | 2 |
| 4 | 4 | John Rollins | 7 | 6,295 | T33 | 2 | |
| 5 | 5 | Aaron Baddeley | 6 | 6,027 | T9 | 1 | 2 |
| 6 | 8 | Tiger Woods | 2 | 5,087 | T9 | 1 | 2 |
| 7 | 7 | Paul Goydos | 4 | 4,801 | T33 | 1 | 1 |
| 8 | 6 | Charley Hoffman | 5 | 4,748 | DNP | 1 | 1 |
| 9 | – | Henrik Stenson | 1 | 4,725 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 10 | 9 | Jeff Quinney | 5 | 4,306 | DNP | 4 | |
| 11 | 43 | Geoff Ogilvy | 5 | 3,969 | 2 | 2 | |
| 12 | 10 | Jim Furyk | 5 | 3,759 | T17 | 3 |
Ping G5 Fairway Woods
Written by: Tony Korologos | Saturday, February 24th, 2007
Categories: Golf Clubs • Golf Equipment • Reviews
Categories: Golf Clubs • Golf Equipment • Reviews
I’ve always been a fan of Ping Golf. They’ve been pioneers in golf engineering for decades. I still have a G2 driver and Ping Zing putter in my bag because no other offerings from other golf companies have been able to dethrone them. Any companies which want to submit their products to me in an attempt to dethrone them are welcome to, but no guarantees!
This review primarily is based on my experience with the G5 3-Wood but covers the G5 Fairway Wood line in general.
Ping G5 fairway wood technology
The G5 fairway wood has a stainless steel head and a high-strength 455 steel face. The G5 fairway wood series employs a “rocker sole” design which helps square the face up at impact from various lies. The face of the G5 fairway woods are milled and robotically welded which Ping says gives you more distance and better “feedback.”
The weighting of the G5 fairway woods varies depending on the loft. Ping uses “progressive weight pads” which are positioned for the optimal center of gravity. As the loft of the club increases the pads are moved farther back in the club head. The optimal weight pad position provides better control and spin.
Ping has done a lot of research on visual aids and has determined that a crescent shape helps the player align the club. You see the crescent shape in their CrazE putters and as alignment aids on the tops of their G5 fairway woods.
Specs
| Club | Loft | Length | Lie | Head Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Strong | 13.0° | 43.00″ | 56.5° | 190cc |
| 3 | 15.0° | 43.00″ | 56.5° | 190cc |
| 5 | 18.0° | 42.50″ | 57.0° | 175cc |
| 7 | 21.0° | 42.00″ | 57.5° | 165cc |
| 9 | 24.0° | 41.50″ | 58.0° | 157cc |
| L | 27.0° | 41.00″ | 58.5° | 150cc |
| Grip Color Code | Size | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orange |
+1/16"
|
|||||
| Gold |
+1/32"
|
|||||
| White |
standard
|
|||||
| Aqua |
-1/64"
|
|||||
| Red |
-1/32"
|
|||||
| Blue |
-3/64"
|
|||||
| G5 Fairway Wood Shafts | Material | Flex | Torque | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PING JZ¹ | steel² | Regular | 3.2° | 108g |
| PING JZ¹ | steel² | Stiff | 2.9° | 108g |
| PING JZ¹ | steel² | X-Stiff | 2.5° | 108g |
| PING TFC 909F³ | graphite | Soft R | 4.8° | 69g |
| PING TFC 909F³ | graphite | Regular | 4.0° | 70g |
| PING TFC 909F³ | graphite | Stiff | 4.0° | 72g |
| PING TFC 909F³ | graphite | X-Stiff | 4.0° | 75g |
| PING TFC 100F | graphite | Soft R | 4.4° | 69g |
| PING TFC 100F | graphite | Regular | 4.0° | 71g |
| PING TFC 100F | graphite | Stiff | 4.0° | 73g |
| PING TFC 100F | graphite | X-Stiff | 4.0° | 75g |
| Aldila NV 75 | graphite | Stiff | 2.8° | 78g |
| Aldila NV 75 | graphite | X-Stiff | 2.8° | 78g |
| Aldila NV 75 | graphite | Regular | 2.8° | 79g |
| Grafalloy ProLaunch 75 | graphite | Regular | 2.9° | 76g |
| Grafalloy ProLaunch 75 | graphite | Stiff | 2.9° | 76g |
| Grafalloy ProLaunch 75 | graphite | X-Stiff | 2.9° | 76g |
| Aldila VS Proto 85³ | graphite | Regular | 2.0° | 86g |
| Aldila VS Proto 85³ | graphite | Stiff | 2.0° | 87g |
| Aldila VS Proto 85³ | graphite | X-Stiff | 2.0° | 88g |
Feedback
“Feedback” in golf clubs generally refers to the feel and sound you get at impact. The feedback from the G5 fairway woods is terrific. I love the “pingy” sound they make when you hit the center of the club face. This sound tells you instantly you’ve made solid contact. You also get a great feel of the trampoline effect in the club face when you hit center. When you don’t hit center, the club lets you know with a different sound and feel. On off center shots the club is still very hot and accurate.
On the course
The first thing you notice when you put the G5 fairway wood into play is how confident you feel. The look of the club at address is very pleasing to the eye. The weighting feels like it almost forces you to put a good swing on it. The sound and feel at impact are great.
I found the G5 3-wood to be one of the easiest to hit fairway woods I’ve ever played. It was even easy to hit out of the rough when the ball was sitting down slightly. I found the G5 fairway to be very long compared to many 3-woods I’ve played as well. The only problems I had with the G5 were the occasional miss left. I know that miss and it usually is the result of a closed face on the club, rather than neutral. I can’t find anything on Ping’s site regarding the this however.
Conclusion
The G5 fairway is yet another terrific feat of engineering from Ping. The performance, feedback and aesthetics of this club as as good as any fairway wood I’ve played.
You can find a great deal on the G5 fairway woods at Edwin Watts Golf.
Tiger Woods suffers a bout of “weekend hacker”
Friday at the 2007 Accenture Match Play Championship
Finally “the streak” is over. I’m a big Tiger Woods fan but I was getting so sick of listening to the googling, Tiger slobbering “media” refer to “the streak” I was about to gag. The streak was over long ago in my opinion.
Tiger Woods: 18 Handicapper
Question: Who slices the hell out of his drives, missing 100 yard wide fairways and sending gallery members ducking for cover? Who knocks his ball into the desert, the cacti, shrubs, and bushes? Who tries to extricate himself from said shrubs and bushes, only to get a worse lie?
Answer: Tiger Woods, the 18 ‘capper.
Question: Who overcomes a four down deficit to Nick O’ Hern in 8 holes to bring the match back to square?
Answer: Tiger Woods
Question: Who misses a four foot putt to win the match on the 19th hole because he “failed to notice a fixable ball mark” in his line, then loses the match on the 20th hole?
Answer: Tiger Woods, the 18 ‘capper.
Tiger looked genuinely confused. He was taking dozens of practice swings and as the “never at a loss for words” Nick Faldo pointed out, his club face was laying way open at the top of his swing. Tiger’s driver swing wasn’t the only problem. His short game faltered down the stretch.
Credit to Nick O’Hern
Nick O’Hern moves on and is now the first pro golfer to have defeated Tiger Woods TWO times in match play.
Who is left?
Starting Saturday there are NO #1 seeds left in the Accenture Match play. As a matter of fact, there are no #2 seeds left either. The big names are gone and the TV coverage is sure to take a big viewership hit.
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