5 Boutique Putters Actually Worth Considering
Golfers have an irrational obsession with their drivers, especially now as PGA Tour television broadcasts and equipment manufacturers are emphasizing ball speeds above any other metric. Tour players can do that, since they’re all capable putters. Even the 200th ranked putter on tour—by Strokes Gained standards—averages slightly less than 30 putts per round. The average […]
Top New Drivers in 2021
The PGA Merchandise Show was an online affair this year, but club manufacturers still divulged plenty of share-worthy information about their latest offerings. And if there’s one thing that characterizes 2021’s crop of drivers, it’s variety. The days of one-size-fits-all drivers ended years ago, but club makers have gone to even greater lengths this year […]
Rick Shiels: Golf Equipment’s YouTube Guru
It’s hard to pinpoint Rick Shiels’s English accent. Predominantly Lancastrian, there’s a lot of Mancunian in there too, and just a trace of Yorkshire perhaps. Fortunately, despite the mix, he has no problem communicating with an audience, be it online or fans of Golf Channel’s Driver v. Driver 2 on which he was a judge. […]
Q&A with Mark King on Honma Golf, TaylorMade’s Shortcomings, and More
Through relentless innovation and unrelenting product launches, Mark King guided TaylorMade-adidasGolf to more than 50 percent market share in the metalwoods category and $1.7 billion in annual sales in 2013. It was a remarkable run, but one that ultimately couldn’t last as customers grew confused by the rapid driver launches and left the market flooded […]
Testing Bridgestone’s TOUR B JGR Woods
By Graylyn Loomis A few months ago, a box of clubs arrived at the LINKS office. Not an unusual occurrence, but this package contained a driver, 3-wood, and 5-wood from Bridgestone’s new line, the TOUR B JGR Series. Right now, if you’re like most golfers, you’re thinking, “Bridgestone makes woods? I thought they only made […]
PXG Golf Clubs – What’s the Big Deal?
By Erik Matuszewski Bob Parsons is a larger-than-life character in commercials for PXG’s high-end golf clubs. In real life, well, he’s the same way… only without saying, “Ka-boom, baby!” Sitting across a table in one of the luxurious villas at his Scottsdale National Golf Club, Parsons fixes his gaze on me and, in his […]
A Look at Lamb Crafted – The Hottest Putters on the Market
By Erik Matuszewski Wayne Gretzky had to wait about six months to get his hands on a Lamb Crafted putter—more than twice as long as it took him to get elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame following his NHL playing career. “The Great One” was a lucky one. Fellow Hall-of-Famer Mike Modano is still […]
Bringing Back the Classics: FootJoy 1857 Collection
Since metal woods, game-improvement irons, and space-age materials have become the norm, it’s difficult to find a golf company that can trace its roots back 50 years let alone three times that. But FootJoy can draw a timeline back to 1857, when one Frederick Packard left his father’s boot-making business to start crafting shoes of […]
6 DIY Golf Club Modifications
I rarely see a service or repair that doesn’t make me think, “I could do that myself!” Car trouble? I can fix it. Need a frame for that picture? I’ll make one. This attitude applies to golf, as well, where I often wonder if my clubs need to go to a pro or back to […]
Profile: Stitch Golf
I heard about Stitch Golf while at Pinehurst. I was paired with a guy carrying a classic-looking, forest-green stand bag with a small white Pinehurst logo. Looking closer, I realized it was made of a vinyl-like material unlike anything I’d seen on a golf bag. When I asked about it, he raved: “This is a […]