Speed – that’s the new name of the game in golf. Don’t laugh. It’s not a joke, because while golf’s pace of play can sometimes be glacially, painstakingly slow, speed doesn’t necessarily concern how quickly a player gets from the first tee to the eighteenth green. We’re talking club speed and ball speed. Specifically: How fast and far can a club make a little white ball sizzle down a fairway? That’s the question designers evidently sought to tackle this offseason, particularly so off the tee. The newest crop of drivers, from Callaway’s Great Big Bertha to the Cobra King F6 to the Nike Vapor Fly/Pro, have

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The best, quickest way to shave strokes by throwing down a few bucks used to mean getting the right ball or being fitted for a driver. Now, though, it might just be getting some technological gadgetry on your side. Consumer electronics have become a big part of the game of golf and just about every aspect of the game is supported in one way or the other by these devices. Today, they run the gamut of possibilities from helping to analyze a golf swing to giving a golfer the right distance to the pin. There are even a few smartphone apps available to help you

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The new lines of irons by some of the best known club manufacturers seem to offer the best of both worlds – playability for the average golfers and a look and feel the pleases the better players. Some of the clubs take new directions in materials while others have refined earlier designs in hopes of adding precision to every shot. We take a look at five sets of these new irons. The new Mizuno MP-15 irons take a little something from their predecessors – the MP-59 and the MP-64. The clubs have the peripheral weighting of the Ti insert from the MP-59 and the profile, trajectory

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Fairway woods might not touch the soul and stir the passions like drivers do, but as more and more innovation and technology comes to the category, perhaps a little more passion is there than you might think. Remember last year’s Phrankenwood – Phil Mickelson’s beefed up 3-wood? He used it off the tee and won at least one tournament with it in the bag. This year’s crop of 3-woods feature a lot of new features too. They might not be Phrankenwoods, but they pack a lot of punch, tons of forgiveness, and a lot of versatility – give these a look.

Callaway Big Bertha Fairway

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Grip it and rip it is outdated.  In this age of adjustability and drivers with more settings than your old VCR, perhaps the new terminology ought to be Set it, Grip it, and then Rip it.  Its been ten years since TaylorMade brought us the R7 with its changeable weights, and just five years since Nike debuted a driver with an adjustable hosel to change lie and face angle. Today, it seems almost all drivers feature some degree of adjustability, although those that don't still pack in plenty of technology and features.  What follows is a review of some of the top drivers in terms of

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The putter is the most used club in any golfer’s bag and the art and practice of putting is a critical part of the golf game. It stands to reason, then, that a golfer’s putter is such a critical tool and one that most either love or hate (and sometimes both). Like all golf equipment, putters continue to use new technology and new materials. While a putter can only be as good as the golfer wielding it, some of the new offerings from the major manufacturers are worth a look if you have to be falling out of love with your flat

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Innovations in the world of golf equipment is perhaps not as easy to detect in the irons as they are in drivers, putters, and other equipment. But they are still there. Drivers have such cool features as adjustability, multiple materials, and ever-lengthening shafts. Putters have face inserts, grooves, yes, ever-lengthening shafts (although with the recent USGA and R&A proposed rule, long shafts might quit being so common in putters). But don’t sell the 2013 lineup of new irons short when it comes to innovation. Throughout this review of some of the major manufacturers’ top offerings, you can find a lot

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The driver stands tall and proud over any golfer’s bag. It is often the most expensive stick in the bunch and everyone loves to hit it. There has also been more innovation in driver design, materials, and manufacturing than among all other clubs. Some of those innovations later find themselves in other clubs. Multi-material construction used to be confined to drivers with stainless steel faces and composite crowns, but now you see multiple materials being used in irons with a stainless body, a polymer insert, and tungsten toe and heel weights in some models. The biggest trend in driver innovation

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As hybrid clubs continue to get easier to hit, provide more distance, and launch the ball higher, there are a couple of important things to look for when you need a club to replace a long iron or fill a distance gap between your fairway woods and irons. The first is obviously how far you hit the club. But don’t be fooled by anything labeled a 2, 3, or 4 hybrid. Often, those markings merely indicate that the club has similar loft to a 2-, 3-, or 4-iron. Based on the springlike effect of a hybrid with a hollow cavity and

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Wedges are the most versatile of all clubs in any golfer’s bag, and versatility is what continues to be targeted by major club manufacturers with some interesting new changes on the market. The ultimate goal of wedge play is to have a set – perhaps two, three or four, depending on your game – of wedges that provide accuracy and green-holding spin from 100 yards and in; control from around the green; solid performance from all lies whether sand, fairway, rough or (if you are Bill Haas in last year’s Tour Championship) water; and options like flop shots or bump-and-runs when situations call for

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