There is a golf ball out there for you – Find out which one!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
With all the golf ball choices out there in the marketplace right now, how do you know which golf ball is right for you?
Today GOLF has taken all the guesswork out of the equation for you. After testing hundreds of golf balls with almost every brand on the market, they have come up with the longest ball in three different price ranges and three different swing speeds. If this data doesn’t help you choose a ball for your swing, I don’t know what will!
Thanks for watching – There is a golf ball out there for you – Find out which one! This should make your choice easy. I know which one I’ll be playing in the future.
August 29 1996 – 10 Interesting facts about that day!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Tiger Woods’ first-ever press conference as a professional.
The start of an amazing career!
Twenty years ago today, Aug. 29, 1996, Tiger Woods, 20 at the time, made his professional debut at the Greater Milwaukee Open. It was a memorable week, notwithstanding his tying for 60th, and occasionally an amusing week. Here are 10 reasons why:
1. En route via a commercial airline from home in Orange County, Calif., to Portland, Ore., for his final amateur event, Woods turned to his father and said, “I’m never flying coach again.” Indeed, the day after his U.S. Amateur victory, he had a corporate jet standing by to take him to Milwaukee. Suffice it to say, he was right.
2. In Milwaukee, Woods paid for dinner one night with a gift certificate he had received upon his arrival. A day later, when Woods and his instructor Butch Harmon were driving to Brown Deer Park Golf Course in the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale, Butch asked him whether he had his checkbook, so he could pay the $100 entry fee. “Butch, I don’t have one-hundred dollars,” he said, despite having already signed a $40 million contract with Nike. Harmon floated him a loan. Later, Woods said, “I haven’t seen a penny yet. I haven’t seen any check in the mail yet. I’m still broke.”
A 10 year old in a Toy’s R Us store.
3. Nike sent Woods several bags stuffed with shirts and pants. At his locker at Brown Deer Park, he found four new Titleist golf gloves and three dozen Titleist Tour balata balls. He was giddy. “He was like a 10-year-old dropped into the middle of Toys ‘R’ Us,” Harmon said.
4. Woods’ agency, IMG, initially had a plan for Tiger to announce he was turning pro at Niketown in Chicago. Instead, he released a statement on that Tuesday that he was turning pro, then held his “Hello World” news conference on Wednesday. Among the media outlets on hand were People and Newsweek magazines and the television show “Extra,” a strong indication that a new higher-profile era in golf had begun.
5. The Woods family — Tiger, father Earl and mother Kultida — were sporting 27 Nike swooshes on its clothing and shoes on Wednesday. Although Kultida vowed not to give up the Reeboks that she had worn the week before. “They pay Tiger, they don’t pay me,” she said.
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
I must admit it was a huge shock to me when I heard that Nike discontinued their golf equipment line. The millions they spent on Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy alone should have put them on top of the golf equipment pile! But, did Tiger’s demise have anything to do with Nike’s equipment demise? Pure speculation. The GolfWRX Staff takes us for a time-lapse tour of Nike’s equipment over the years.
Nike’s golf equipment never appealed to the masses in the same way as the company’s golf shoes and apparel, leading to the company’s decision to discontinue its production of clubs, balls and bags and focus on soft goods. Its lack of retail success, however, does not mean that Nike didn’t produce excellent golf equipment.
Nike launched its first golf balls, the Precision line, in 1998. Its first line of golf clubs came in 2002. Our staff took a trip down memory lane to remember all the Nike golf equipment produced between then and now. Here’s our list of the best golf equipment Nike ever made.
Nike’s SQ Sumo2 was one of the most polarizing clubs in company history. Released in 2006 — the height of the industry’s obsession with high-MOI drivers — the SQ Sumo2 used a composite crown and a square head shape to push weight to the back corners of the driver head for added forgiveness on off-center hits.
The SQ Sumo2 was best known for its loud, high-pitched sound, which rang like an aluminum baseball bat at impact. A later version, Nike SQ Sumo2 5900, increased MOI to 5900, while improving sound and feel.
All wedges pretty much look the same, right? Not Nike’s Toe Sweep wedge, the brainchild of legendary Nike club maker Mike Taylor that was released in 2014.
The VR X3X attempted to solve the age-old problem of the heel of the wedge getting “stuck” on shots from long grass. Taylor’s solution was to create wedge soles with hardly any mass on the heel side, which also made open-face shots easier. Both Rory McIlroy and Johnny Vegas used the Toe Sweep grind to win on tour.
These irons were in play by several of Nike’s tour players and carried a special significance to us. Our founder easily scored a set of Trevor Immelman prototypes back in 2005, the year GolfWRX was founded, and hasn’t stopped talking about the Miura-forged prototypes since.
At the time, the Split Cavities were the standard to meet for all forged cavity-back irons. They were clean in shape, butter soft at impact and great through the ground. Several notable forged cavity-back irons followed, including our recent Nike favorites, theVR Forged Pro Combos.
For gear heads, the worst part about Nike’s decision to fold its golf equipment division could be the promise it showed with its latest driver, the Vapor Flex 440.
Ever since Nike’s switch to its Covert design platform for metal woods, the company struggled to compete in the realm of low-spin drivers. The Vapor Flex 440 (released in 2016) was different. Sixty percent of the club head was made from Nike’s proprietary, carbon fiber- RZN material, a weight-saving scheme to boost performance.
Our sources tell us that Nike’s line of 2017 drivers relied heavily on a RZN construction, and were by far the best-performing drivers in company history. If true, it’s a case of too little, too late.
Nike decided to release the VR_S Forged in the U.S. after enjoying incredible success in Japan. The intent was for mid-to-high handicappers, the irons caught on with low handicappers, as well as many PGA Tour players (including Tiger Woods), who used them as long-iron replacements.
Key to the success of the VR_S Forged is in their two-piece construction. This merges a 1025 carbon steel framework by welding a thin club face to the body to improve ball speed and forgiveness. Despite their bulk, the irons appear and feel premium, and adds value to their $999 sticker price, with Nippon’s aftermarket 950GH shaft as the stock option. They became one of the best game-improvement irons in 2012.
The Latest and Best in Golf Balls to Improve Your Game!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
“Which is the correct golf ball for me? “
This is a question I get asked fairly often by my students. The best answer is to take a “golf ball fitting” at your local golf store or with a golf professional if they have a launch monitor like Trackman or Flightscope. These monitors can measure your clubhead speed, ball speed, launch angle, spin, carry, and total distance. By hitting several top brands, you will get a good idea pretty quickly of which ball is perfect for you.
If you do not have access to a launch monitor, buy a sleeve of 5 or 6 top brands and hit the course to do a simple “playoff” analysis. Hit two balls from brand A off the tee and Two balls from brand B. See which ball goes further. That ball advances to the semi-final. Do the same with brands B, C, and D. Then take the final two balls and hit two shots with those to pick a winner! A little less scientific, but you get the idea.
Check out some of the best golf balls. From new dimple patterns to more layers, learn which ball may be best for your game, or go see your local PGA Professional for advice on which of these balls you should be teeing up!
New Nike Lunar Control 4 Shoes hit Stores December 1st!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
If you are a golfer with high swing speed then this is the shoe for you!
Rory McIlroy was an integral part of the design and I must admit it is a pretty cool looking shoe. So even those of you that don’t have high swings speeds but like a little fashion, select stores will have them in stock on December 1, 2015. They will debut on nike.com on November 27th. Thanks to golfunfiltered.com for letting us know in time for the release!
Rory McIlroy’s golf swing is a thing of violent beauty. With swing speeds reaching over 120 MPH, Rors must establish a solid foundation in his lower body to handle the force he exerts on his golf club.
Nike Golf built the new Nike Lunar Control 4 golf shoes for this purpose, which Rory will be wearing at his upcoming tournament in Dubai.
Early sketches of the Nike Lunar Control 4 look like something out of a NASA rocket build:
What resulted from all that chicken-scratch was a golf shoe engineered to support the fastest golf swings in the world.
To check out the rest of the info on these great looking shoes, go here!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Once you become a Millionaire, one definite requirement is to find a cool pad.
When you have a golf professional’s busy and stressful life, you also need a place to “chill out.”
I’m sure all of us at one time or another have felt, “Stop the World, I want to get off!” Rory’s home sweet home certainly provides a sanctuary!
Everyone wants his time and attention!
Golf has been very good to Rory McIlroy.
He has a net worth of around $30 million, but that number will rise significantly with the HUGE endorsement deal he recently signed with Nike.
The two features I really liked in Rory’s house is the gym and the pool table. Both things help him take his mind away from golf! Just what a Home sweet Home should be!
So it’s not exactly shocking that the dude’s got a sweet crib:
