Joey's Golf Bag

I’ve spent the last two days trying to get the hook out of my swing, and really, it comes down to two things:

• I’m releasing the club too early, resulting in a closed clubface at impact.
• My swing is too inside-to-outside, and I’m tending to hit the toe of the club instead of the sweet spot, as the club lengths get longer.

Hooking the ball has gotten so bad that even the short irons are affected. I never thought I could hook a 9-iron 30 degrees, but, yes, I can.

To combat these problems, I’m standing a bit closer to the ball and setting the ball a little back in my stance. We’ll see how it goes this week. I’ve also put the Big Bertha 2004 irons back in my bag until straighten out my hooking problem.

I had planned on Saturday to determine my distances for all my clubs, but due to my extreme issues of hooking the ball and striking the toe of the clubface on the longer clubs, didn’t get time to determine my distances. I had earlier determined that I’d been striking the toe of the longer clubs, but still hadn’t quite figured out how to fix it. Alan saw me hitting balls and stopped by, and we worked on my swing quite a bit. He had me adjust my stance, open and closed, and the ball back a bit. Only closing my stance really helped at all, so I need to figure out how to get my swing inside-to-square again and to hit the sweet spot on the face of the clubs.

P.S. Earlier this week, I’d received my NEC 500g rangefinder. One evening this past week, I ventured out onto the Coyote Ridge Golf Course and took many distance measurements and compared them to markers on the course. The device works extremely well and is very quick with a measurement. I’m pleased with my purchase.

I’ve constructed a new set of irons using Toski Target T58 iron heads, True Temper Custom Lite shafts, and Golf Pride New Decade MultiCompound midsize grips. I swing-weighted the clubs to D-7 and bent them upright 2°.

My goal was to build a set of irons that go farther and don’t fly as high as my current Big Bertha 2004 irons. On Sunday, I tried them out for the first time, and my goal of longer and lower was achieved. The clubs are somewhat more unforgiving than my BB 2004 irons.

I built a new hybrid around the Snake Eyes 653T-H Hybrid, 21 degree loft, using a Aldila Gamer Fairway graphite shaft, and a Golf Pride Dual Duromatic midsize grip. The club has a length of 40-3/4″. The hybrid head features screw weights, which allows optimization of the ball flight with my swing. I want to replace the 3-iron with this club.

I’ll try out the club tomorrow, and do some testing with various weight combinations.

I’ve build yet another club, this one a Snake Eyes Viper Ti-4 club from Golfsmith, which features a titanium face and adjustable screw weights. I built this club with a 6-iron head, 38.5″ long, with a mid-trajectory graphite Grafalloy Prolite iron shaft, and a Golf Pride Dual Durometer midsize grip. I want to experiment with the weights and see what combination of weights will give me the best performance.

My main issue with my Callaway Big Bertha 2004 irons is that I hit the ball very high, and I would like to have a set of clubs that I hit a little lower and with a bit more distance.

I will try out the club today when I practice and play at Hank Haney Golf Ranch.

I build two practice clubs, a 3-iron and a 6-iron, using Snake Eyes 600B forged heads, True Temper Dynamic Gold R300 shafts and Golf Pride Dual Durometer grips. I made the 3-iron 40″ long to match my Big Bertha 3-iron, and the 6-iron 38.5″ long to match may Big Bertha 6-iron. Other than a slightly higher swing weight, the clubs are otherwise identical. I made these clubs so I could train myself to hit the sweet spot on the clubs. With the Big Bertha irons, there is little difference in feel when the sweet spot is hit vs. when it is not.

I will try these clubs out today at the North Texas Golf Center.

A month or so back, I was at the Golden Bear Golf Center one Sunday morning when I was approached by a Nike rep and asked if I would like to hit a prototype Nike fairway wood, a 3-metal. “Sure, always in the mood to hit a new club.” I had to sign an NDA, so that’s why you haven’t seen anything in this blog. Well, the SasQuatch driver showed up in this month’s Golf Magazine, so… on with the review.

Interestingly enough, it hasn’t shown up on Nike Golf’s website yet. It has shown up at The Golf Warehouse, though, showing Nov. 1 delivery.

The rep lined up three 3-metals , a Taylormade R5, a Callaway Big Bertha Fusion, and the SasQuatch prototype (didn’t know at the time that was the name). I hit the Callaway first, and I hit a mix of draws and fades (I meant to hit it straight, but I’m not really good enough at this point to choose exactly what shot I hit). This is the same pattern I usually hit with my Ping G2 3-metal, spraying shots all over the fairway (but mostly in it). Next, I hit the Taylormade R5. I couldn’t get the ball in the air with this club, just hit low worm burners about 20 ft off the ground. Finally, I picked up the Nike club and hit several shots, every one with no side spin at all, just a slight push or pull. “No way, that’s just luck”, I’m thinking to myself. So, I pick up the Callaway club again, and hit the same mix of fades and draws all over the fairway, very typical for me. Back to the Nike, again, every shot straight down the fairway.

“Can I keep this?” I ask the rep.

“No, but you can get one on November 1st.”

Now, I can’t wait for November 1st!

Update: I found it on Nike’s website (google knows all); the driver was announced August 29. I guess I wasn’t paying attention.

I finished the construction of my new hybrid clubs today. Specs:

• Snake Eyes Quick Strike II, 23 degree loft, 39.5″ TX-90 Steel Shaft, Golf Pride Dual Duometer Grip
• Snake Eyes Quick Strike II, 27 degree loft, 39″ TX-90 Steel Shaft, Golf Pride Dual Duometer Grip

I plan to try them out tomorrow.

Today I epoxied the shafts to the club heads. I also inserted some 2.5g weights into the clubheads to get the swing weight up a little. The assembly went off without a hitch. Tomorrow I will install the grips.

Sunday morning, I will try them out on the range and see how they work. Another report at that time.

I’m learning how to build golf clubs. Last week, I had a custom hybrid club made, specs were:

• Snake Eyes Quick Strike II Hybrid, 19 degree loft
• True Temper TX-90 Steel Shaft, overall length 40″
• Golf Pride Dual Duometer Midsize Grip

I hit shots with this club 5 yards farther and with better accuracy than my 3-iron, so I decided to learn to build clubs by building two more hybrids, same specs as above, with 23 and 27 degree loft Quick Strike II Hybrid club heads, same shaft but each one 1/2″ shorter than the less lofted club.

I bought a clubmaking kit from Golfsmith and ordered all the parts. Tonight, I cut the shafts to size and abraded the tips. Tomorrow, I will attach the club heads, after I set the right swing weight. The first club swing weight was about C5, I’ll make these about D1.