Golf Golf Clubs/Equipment Discussion.

[Vincent Chase]

ITT: We talk about whats in our bag, and what we'd like to add/upgrade.

Currently using a Taylormade Burner Driver off the tee, but looking to upgrade to either a Taylormade r11, or a Cleveland sl290.

Anyone used either of these, and if so, opinions?

 

[11sjw]

ITT: We talk about whats in our bag, and what we'd like to add/upgrade.

Currently using a Taylormade Burner Driver off the tee, but looking to upgrade to either a Taylormade r11, or a Cleveland sl290.

Anyone used either of these, and if so, opinions?

R11, Stiff, 10.5, was an upgrade from a 5 yr old King Cobra 10.5 My playing partners believe I've got 10-20m longer. However I went after it as it was credited with being very forgiving and it seems to be. Being a mid to high teen handicapper I need all the forgiveness I can get.

 

[Vincent Chase]

R11, Stiff, 10.5, was an upgrade from a 5 yr old King Cobra 10.5 My playing partners believe I've got 10-20m longer. However I went after it as it was credited with being very forgiving and it seems to be. Being a mid to high teen handicapper I need all the forgiveness I can get.

Yeah I've heard they add some distance onto your drives. Don't know if i like the white head though.

I have a stiff shaft in my burner, but i'm thinking of dropping back to regular, as for some reason a stiff shaft makes me hit roping hooks. I'm off 8 so I'm looking for something with playability, but also a little bit of forgiveness.

 

[funk44]

In my bag at the moment

Taylor Made R9 9.5 Stiff (Stock)
Titlist 906f2 15 Degrees A&D YS-6fw+ Stiff
Mizuno MP57 3-PW Project X 5.5
Cleveland CG12 Oil Can 52 Degrees
Cleveland Tour Action 588 56 and 60 Degree Wedges
Ping Karsten Anser 2 Putter '10 Model (Black Dot)
Mizuno Twister III Stand Bag (I hate carts and buggies)

Going to be upgrading my 56 and 60 wedges to CG15's this or next week, also thinking about a 2 iron

 

[thoselionslads]

Recently purchased the new Titleist 910d driver. Can't speak highly enough of it.

Does anybody here buy equipment/apparell/balls etc off the internet? Any particular sites that are cheaper than others?

 

[Vincent Chase]

Recently purchased the new Titleist 910d driver. Can't speak highly enough of it.

Does anybody here buy equipment/apparell/balls etc off the internet? Any particular sites that are cheaper than others?

I've only bought a couple of things off eBay, and when i do i always make sure it's from "power seller" or someone with an online store.

A couple of mates have bought some things off these websites on the cheap:

http://www.rockbottomgolf.com/
http://www.squizzysgolf.com.au/default.php

 

[funk44]

ive used 3balls in the past which were great and the iseekgolf classified section is well worth a look

 

[Vincent Chase]

In my bag at the moment

Taylor Made R9 9.5 Stiff (Stock)
Titlist 906f2 15 Degrees A&D YS-6fw+ Stiff
Mizuno MP57 3-PW Project X 5.5
Cleveland CG12 Oil Can 52 Degrees
Cleveland Tour Action 588 56 and 60 Degree Wedges
Ping Karsten Anser 2 Putter '10 Model (Black Dot)
Mizuno Twister III Stand Bag (I hate carts and buggies)

Going to be upgrading my 56 and 60 wedges to CG15's this or next week, also thinking about a 2 iron

Love Mizuno irons, got the MP52's myself. They're expensive, but well worth it.

Good to see someone else not going the hybrid route, determined not to buy into them until I'm 50+.

 

[11sjw]

Recently purchased the new Titleist 910d driver. Can't speak highly enough of it.

Does anybody here buy equipment/apparell/balls etc off the internet? Any particular sites that are cheaper than others?

Used Golf Clearance Outlet site plenty of times. Good prices on Z-URS's and now Z-Stars. Also purchased a Taylor Made 5 Hybrid from them 4 years ago, no problem.

http://www.golfclearanceoutlet.com.au/

 

[11sjw]

Yeah I've heard they add some distance onto your drives. Don't know if i like the white head though.

I have a stiff shaft in my burner, but i'm thinking of dropping back to regular, as for some reason a stiff shaft makes me hit roping hooks. I'm off 8 so I'm looking for something with playability, but also a little bit of forgiveness.

I would suggest that your 8 and my 15 mean we're looking for vastly different properties in our clubs. You know what you're doing I know what to buy!

 

[funk44]

in relation to the OP go pick yourself up whatever variant of the 910 that suits you, titleist make the best drivers in the business and the 910 is a real beauty that'll last you for many years

 

[aussierulesrules]

Recently purchased the new Titleist 910d driver. Can't speak highly enough of it.

Does anybody here buy equipment/apparell/balls etc off the internet? Any particular sites that are cheaper than others?

I'll go you one better, I've been selling them on there for over 4 years now (on the 'bay) and have sold 600+ clubs, or well over $100,000 worth, in that time.
Once I discovered eBay, it was bye-bye retail golf stores, hello party-time and bargain clubs!
I went from having a bag full of cheapo, crappy clubs to high-end clubs (that I'd gotten at bargain prices) in no time and they were so much better to play with it wasn't funny. It actually made me want to really play all the time again, which hadn't been the case for about 10 years. Then I started selling them.
I think I've bought about one club from a retail store in the past 5 or so years since. Pretty much the one and only reason I'd pay retail for a golf club now is if I needed to get specifically fitted for a club, because the ones on places like eBay are usually standard length and lie angle and stock shaft, which certainly don't suit everyone. I'm actually planning on doing that for my next set of irons, as I need them about one-inch longer than standard and I get to pick my shaft and grips (which I need thicker than standard) that way as well.

Those who work for the big retail stores and those who get paid lots of money by the big manufacturers for advertising in their magazines will try to tell you that eBay, for instance, is full of fake stuff, but I would take what they're saying with a grain of salt. If you believe all they have to say you probably believe all you read in the newspapers as well, and that everyone who is selling used cars tells the truth the whole time!

It's certainly true that there is fake stuff out there and you do need to be careful and smart about what and where you buy, but they greatly exaggerate how much fake stuff is out there, either through ignorance, or straight out lying, to get you to keep buying from them, or those who are advertising with them. I used to to go to golf demo days all the time (where they let you try all the models by the likes of Callaway Ping, etc, at a driving range/practise fairway) and was once talking to the rep from one of the MAJOR manufacturers and somehow we got to talking about fake clubs and eBay and he told me (not being aware that I sold them myself) that "half of the clubs by (his company, who get a big tick) on eBay were fake". I just sort of nodded and said "oh yeah", as I didn't want to let the cat out of the bag, but knew it was total BS, as I hadn't seen a single one of their clubs on there that I genuinely thought was suspicious. Callaway? Definitely. His company? No. They obviously thought that because they were so cheap they had to be fake, but it simply wasn't the case. I bought heaps of their stuff myself, as they were so bloody cheap and I would get rave reviews about them from those I sold them to (plenty of whom came back for more) and I used plenty of them myself. They were great and genuine and relatively very cheap (and available within a couple of weeks of their release- never found out why, just damn happy they were!)

You just need to be smart and stick with those who sell lots of golf clubs all the time on eBay and have 100%, or extremely close to it, feedback and plenty of it and allow returns (I guarantee the authenticity of my clubs 150% or 200%. ie, if a club I sold was ever proved to be dodgy, I'd refund their money, plus 50 or 100% extra. It's never been needed and I doubt it ever will. I've also never had anyone contact me to tell me that a club I sold them has broken, snapped, or anything like that). If those selling have their own store, or Powerseller status, that's even better, but not essential. If those selling clubs all the time were selling any fake stuff they would have been found out long ago and everyone would avoid them like the plague. That's the beauty of feedback. If we stuff up they will scream blue murder and everyone will know about it.

In my bag at the moment is

Driver: Tour Edge Exotics XCG 3
3 wood: Tour Edge Exotics XLD
5 wood: Tour Edge Exotics XCG
4 hybrid: Nike Sasquatch Sumo
5 hybrid: Adams Idea Pro Gold/Mizuno CLK Fli-Hi
6 Iron: Tour Edge Exotics EX-3
7, 8, 9 iron: Tour Edge Exotics XCG
PW: Mizuno MPT 47°
GW, SW: Ping Tour-W
LW: Ping Tour-W 60°/Titleist Vokey Spin Mllled '09 64°
Putter: Odyssey Marxman

If I'd paid retail for these clubs, when they were first released (excluding the 6 iron, which was an ex-demo that I got from a major golf store- for $20, down from $200 odd), I'd have been up for around $3500, but actually paid approx $1500 for them (when most, if not all were still current models and most were either new, or near-new) and that includes $300 for the full set of XCG irons (which retailed for around $1300), of which I only currently use 3. Bargainsville.

Many are still not very familiar with Tour Edge, and neither was I, but when I started researching the different models and brands and reading what the likes of Golf Digest and those who had bought them, had to say about them, I got very interested. Their Exotics line was outrageously expensive in the shops here at the time (their fairway woods, which they were most renowned for, got up to as much as $659 each (as they were one of the few that had titanium faces), while the likes of Callaway and Ping's FW's could be bought for around $300-$350 at the time) but I could get them for much less, so I did, just to see if they lived up to the hype. They did (especially distance wise, due mostly to the titanium face) and soon enough I had a few of them in my bag, as the fairway woods were clearly the best I had tried (and I'd tested, or used, the best of the best, by basically all the leading brands) and I then got a used set of Exotics irons for a dirt cheap price as well (at the time they were about $180 per iron in the shops) and they went fantastically well for me too (and I'd tested or played about 50 different current/very recent sets of irons by that stage).

The Exotics range are also some of the very best for those who don't have really low handicaps, but who, like me, still tend to hook or draw the ball (as opposed to fade or slice), as they are generally built with no draw bias (their face angles are usually square to the target and the heads are neutrally weighted, with minimal offset). Because such a huge percentage of those who play golf tend to fade or slice the ball, the majority of the clubs on the market these days are draw biased (which is the last thing you want if you already draw or hook the ball, as it just makes it worse) and generally the only ones that aren't are the ones made for those on tour, or those who have very low handicaps and the Exotics are about the only ones on the market that are generally neutral, but are still able to be easily used by those with mid to higher handicaps, or who don't play often enough to be able to hit "players" clubs consistently well. Thankfully too, the prices of the Exotics line have come down a heap in the shops, too, for those who want to buy retail.

They are very well worth considering, as are some of the other top of the line clubs that aren't as well known as some of the very "biggest" brands models. The best known brands spend a heap of their money on advertising and on paying those on Tour to play their clubs, but there are some brands out there that are pretty much just as good, but basically spend most of their money on R&D and making the best clubs they can, so they're less well known, but not necessarily inferior in quality. Their clubs are generally available for considerably less money than the ones by the "biggest" brands (because some of your money doesn't have to go in the pocket of a Tiger, or Phil, to pay for their latest beach house), especially if you buy them second hand, or once they're no longer their current model. Their prices can come down a ridiculous amount in a very short period of time and they are generally by far the best value clubs on places like eBay. If you know what they are, you can clean up, big-time.

PS- If you want to test if a driver you've bought second-hand or online is ridgy-didge or not, then the magnet test is probably the best and easiest way to test it. Magnets don't stick to titanium and basically every modern driver (last 6+ years) has a titanium face, so if you put a magnet on the face, it will slip straight off. Titanium is apparently much more expensive than steel, so the fake ones apparently all have cheapo steel faces, (as there's no need for them to use the more expensive titanium, as they only need to look the part, not play the part), and the magnet will stick to those faces. So if a magnet sticks to the face of your driver, it's most likely fake. Very few fairway woods or hybrids have ti faces (if they do it will generally say so, somewhere on the head) so they're harder to test, but drivers apparently dominate the fake clubs, as they're the most expensive and have big mark-ups on fakes, due to the cost difference between making a fake one (with a steel face) and a genuine one (with a titanium face).

PPS- Just for anyone that is amazed at how much the club prices in the shops have come down in recent years (although that is clearly also helped by the rise in the Aussie $), it just goes to show how much they were pretty much ripping us off for so long, before eBay came along to make them "honest". Not long after I started selling clubs myself, I went to one of the two major golf retail stores with a driver I had bought on eBay (which was new), to see if they would buy it from me (for more than I could get for it if I re-sold it on eBay- which I of course didn't tell them). They surprisingly agreed to it, with very little convincing, but said they would only give me credit, or cash for their cost price for that model, which they said was $300 (give or take $5). At the time, that driver in their store was selling for a minimum of $499 and may have been as high as $599, which is what it had earlier been (it was about 4 years ago, so I don't remember exactly what they were at the time I spoke to them, but it was at least $499 and I'm pretty sure it was more like $529-$549, and I clearly remember thinking at the time how huge their mark-up was.) So if that model is anything to go by, the mark-ups on their clubs were enormous and probably still would be, had buying on eBay not gone through the roof since then, giving them more competition and need to drop their prices to compete.
I ended up keeping that club and selling it on eBay, as I got more than the $300 they offered me there, but did take another club there a little while later, which I swapped for a new, slightly less expensive club they had (going by store prices, but I had paid a lot less for the one I gave them), that I wanted for myself (that I didn't have access to), and they then put the one I gave them "on the rack" with their others. Again, it took very little convincing for them to agree to the swap and I don't think they even asked me where I got it, which also goes to show that not all the clubs in those stores necessarily come from the usual sources, even if they're unused and not in their second hand section.

 

[ROSEMVP]

used Global Golf to buy my new driver and 3 wood. Shipping is expensive.

 

[_Wang_]

I have a Taylor made super fast 10.5 degree TP white driver, x flex
It goes at least 10 meters further than the previous model

 

[Plogs]

Callaway pre-owned is a good site. Have made 2 purchases from there (irons then driver & 3w) and they arrived in UNDER 4 days from Texas. The near new (and they are nigh on immaculate) for less than half the price i would have paid new in Aust.

 

[Effes]

Recently purchased the new Titleist 910d driver. Can't speak highly enough of it.

Does anybody here buy equipment/apparell/balls etc off the internet? Any particular sites that are cheaper than others?

edwinwatts.com

 

[members section]

got an old cheap proline set i got when i was 18, have been playing once a month max around footy for years & lately really got into it been playing 45 holes a week. Some really hard courses & some public ones & the last 4 rounds i have shot under 100 for the 1st time ever

i have a cobra hybrid that i use instead of a driver (just cant hit my driver straight at all) but would love a good 2nd hand set of irons. so if any of you blokes who play off single figures who update your irons every couple if years i would be happy to buy them off you

my fav brands are bridgestone, wilson staff & cobra

 

[funk44]

you'll actually find that low markers don't change their clubs often, re-shafts and slight adjustments are common but rarely they change their core clubs (irons and driver), it's the 12-20 handicappers who frequently change their clubs thinking that a new set is miraculously going to correct all of their swing errors etc.

try http://www.iseekgolf.com classified section or http://www.3balls.com

I would suggest as you are getting serious though is to go and get yourself fitted, spend some coin and get a properly fitted set of sticks which will last you years. If you would like to know some good fitters in Melbourne drop me a message

 

[d0gs]

Didn't want to start a new thread so thought I would ask in here.

I'm after a set of clubs which will last me a long time into the future. Because I have played very little compared to others I obviously won't know the difference between good and bad clubs, so if someone could point me in the right direction of a good set that would be great.
Budget is up to $600, not really bothered with brands just want a good set which needs to be suited for left handers.

Thanks guys!

 

[Wallaby]

I have a set of Spalding Symmetrics - excellent quality, long-lasting and absolutely cutting-edge, latest technology.

My dad gave them to me, after his dad gave them to him. They were the first steel-shafted clubs ever sold in Australia - 1936 I believe. They still work, and they get me around the course.

Obviously they are not as good modern clubs (every time I borrow a sand-iron from my mates - I don't have one - I am amazed at how easy it is to get out of bunkers).

A good set of clubs should last pretty much forever - you only replace them when you get caught up in the 'Gee Whiz, gotta have, latest Nanotech, Microfibre, climate-controlled Carbon etc'. I'm far too smart to fall for that (I fall for it with my pushbikes instead).

 

[Vincent Chase]

Didn't want to start a new thread so thought I would ask in here.

I'm after a set of clubs which will last me a long time into the future. Because I have played very little compared to others I obviously won't know the difference between good and bad clubs, so if someone could point me in the right direction of a good set that would be great.
Budget is up to $600, not really bothered with brands just want a good set which needs to be suited for left handers.

Thanks guys!

Are you after a complete set? i.e Driver to putter?, or just irons (PW to 3 iron)?

You could pick up a very solid set of new irons off Ebay (from a power seller preferably) for around $300-$400.

Then with the Driver and putter, maybe pick up some Demo's (pretty much the same as 2nd hand).

irons: http://www.ebay.com/itm/LEFT-HANDED...60429830362?pt=Golf_Clubs&hash=item53eb4ac0da

Driver: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Callaway-Go...70570771609?pt=Golf_Clubs&hash=item5647bd3c99http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cleveland-L...40688515173?pt=Golf_Clubs&hash=item20c1b06065

Putter: http://www.ebay.com/itm/LH-GUERIN-R...40695509410?pt=Golf_Clubs&hash=item20c21b19a2

All that adds up to roughly $600.00

Or you could go a complete new set for a bit cheaper, but a lower quality brand.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Adams-G...10374667204?pt=Golf_Clubs&hash=item4843c593c4

Anyway hope that helps.

 

[ROSEMVP]

Global golf seems to get good reviews. I've have a problem with the driver i got from them but it wasn't their fault. Shipping was quick


Driver - http://www.globalgolf.com/product/golfclub.aspx?pid=1016616&dxt=1&gd=3&cdt=6

3 wood - http://www.globalgolf.com/product/g...airway-wood/nike/sq-machspeed.aspx?gd=3&cdt=6

Irons - http://www.globalgolf.com/product/g...ron-set/nike/slingshot-hybrid.aspx?gd=3&cdt=6

Sand Wedge - http://www.globalgolf.com/product/g...dge/nike/vr-vrev-satin-chrome.aspx?gd=3&cdt=6

Putter - http://www.globalgolf.com/product/g...t-hand/putter/odyssey/white-steel-1.aspx?gd=3

Can get for under 500 if you find the right coupons.

Their mints club are like new. The 2 clubs i got 1 was mint - which was came with plastic and was brand new imo. The other club i got was in excellent nick and looked new.

Only problem buying online is you don't get test your the gear out. another place to look could be the local pro shop.

 

[d0gs]

Cheers for the help Vincent Chase and ROSEMVP, appreciated!

I need everything there is really (All clubs plus bag and buggy), besides from Balls and Tee's.

Have you guys used the ebay site? I generally don't really like to use ebay but if others havent had troubles with it, hopefully I wont either. What is the shipping costs and duration usually like?

Might go with a mixture, purchase a few things off ebay, and a few from online stores.

cheers lads.

 

[JD11]

anyone used this site:

http://www.callawaygolfpreowned.com/

some great bargains, if anyones bought off there what is the quality of clubs like?

 

[ROSEMVP]

i hardly buy any golf gear off ebay.

Rockbottom Golf and Global golf is great for shipping times imo. Usually get my stuff from either of them within 4 working days.

Bags are a terrible thing to get from the states. Shipping is way to expensive. A aussie site worth looking at is Golf Clearence Outlet. They got some good gear. Going to get this from their this week
http://www.golfclearanceoutlet.com....24&product_id=5214&pageID=7568&sectionID=7566