Live Minnesota THP Driver Testing - Reviews As They Happen

[greggdrews]

Im trying to catch up on this after an amazing Ohio get together, seems like everyone had an amazing time and I find it funny that me and fairband wore the same shirt today...seems like team tradition might be spying on me for the legacy...

 

[fairband]

Im trying to catch up on this after an amazing Ohio get together, seems like everyone had an amazing time and I find it funny that me and fairband wore the same shirt today...seems like team tradition might be spying on me for the legacy...

I polled the forum, I wore it best.

 

[SHIFTY]

I'm counting on it! Really tried to make it work, but the new job and having to move soon put the final kibosh on it.
Anyway, The upside is the new job will provide a lot more time and funds for all things golf.

What kind of an excuse is that? Perkis got married yesterday and he made it, lol. That's dedication!
Also a great woman!

 

[greggdrews]

I polled the forum, I wore it best.

I don't disagree, especially if you factor in my ugly swing, needed to apologize to guys I was playing with for having to put up with looking at it.

 

[fupresti]

I remember my first game of golf cart polo, too...


(Nice drive)

August can't come soon enough Savannah87

 

[SHIFTY]

Sorry I never posted earlier, but I was only able to go on roam for data, but for a guy who is a high handicapper here is my ranking of the drivers I tried;
1. Cobra fly z +
2. Cobra fly z xl- ugly offset but it works!
3. Callaway Xr
4. Ping g30 L's
5. Nike Vapor pro
6. BB double black diamond
7. Bridgestone J715

They are all great drivers. But I have to buy the cobra fly z+. I don't
have a choice!

 

[The Papa]

Looks like another fabulous THP event. It was fun reading the whole thing!

 

[drp3434]

Made it home. Great weekend, but now it's time for some zzzz's. Safe travels today/tomorrow everyone.

 

[JB]

Thank you MSP for a fun day.

 

[Howzat]

What a perfect day. Tapatalk and the glare made it difficult to get as many flightscope data pix as I had hoped. I am sure as the guys have time to decompress they can talk about the numbers they were seeing with different drivers. Seems my Alpha 815 will stay in the bag as nothing could come close to matching the combination of distance and forgiveness for me.

 

[O'Carroll]

August can't come soon enough Savannah87

I'd be happy is the temperature is "only 87" in Savannah in August.

 

[IceyShanks]

For some reason I woke up early this morning and decided to drive home. With the fam at dunkin donuts so I'll update later. But holy cow what an amazing weekend.

 

[IceyShanks]

Sorry I never posted earlier, but I was only able to go on roam for data, but for a guy who is a high handicapper here is my ranking of the drivers I tried;
1. Cobra fly z +
2. Cobra fly z xl- ugly offset but it works!
3. Callaway Xr
4. Ping g30 L's
5. Nike Vapor pro
6. BB double black diamond
7. Bridgestone J715

They are all great drivers. But I have to buy the cobra fly z+. I don't
have a choice!

You were killing that flyz

 

[IceyShanks]

Various photos from today.

First Group Teeing off.

Schnergun

Short Par 4. I watched Hox30 drive it up onto the flat area to the left of the green

Jucy Lucy's

The prizes for eating the most. Going to make a bold claim here. Any future eating challenges are pointless because I will win them all. I talked the talk before dinner and easily backed it up.

Best SWAG ever.

 

[ATLGolfer]

August can't come soon enough Savannah87

You can just call me 3/2.


CAN'T WAIT

 

[Bubbles]

Congrats to snoprojoe and hox30 on the win! Great playing with you all again and meeting some new faces!

Some more pictures of widespot, badgers86, and golfever on the 18th tee in the first round. Widespot was swinging the fly z +, badgers86 as a lefty continued to crush his amp cell pro, and golfever was crushing the vapor on this hole.

Widespot:

Badgers86:

Golfever:

 

[weeicemon]

18 is a great closing hole!

 

[Rambler]

Can't believe I spent so much time with various drivers. After participating in the #LiveDriverTesting, I won't be able to look at demo days the same, ever again. Having the opportunity to put these in play, over the course of 36 holes, is the best "proving ground" I have seen for finding a club.

Several stood out to me, though I won't rank them...

Overall performance/preference: Taylormade R15, Ping G30 LSTec, Nike Vapor Pro, and Cobra Fly-Z+. All of these gave me my preferred flight, and were plenty long and had enough forgiveness for my swing.

#THPLegacy prep: Hit the D200 several times. Initially, was hitting it very high, with a lot of spin (stock Chrome Elements shaft). Found better results after cranking the loft down to 8, and thinking "deliberate" as a swing thought. Much improved. Definitely helped me with the setup I'll go with for Legacy.

Knuth High Heat? Everyone talked about the sound this makes - you could hear someone hitting it from the parking lot. Took a few swings with this as well. Hitting it downwind was truly fun. It got up in the air and just seemed to hang there, ending up with a very respectable distance. Hitting it into the wind didn't work quite as well, for me. Nonetheless, it was fun to try and talk about. Hawk was not going out for the 2nd round without it in his bag.

Just a quick thought on the clubs, in general... Most of the clubs I spent time with seemed to have a very good match between the head and the stock shaft. I can over think shafts with the best of them, but this did show me that I can get a pretty good fit for my swing without constant shaft pondering/doubts.

 

[Thechosen1]

Looks like this event was a success fellas, way to put on a show!

 

[zeroputt]

Got home safe from my date with Jucy Lucy.

I had a great time with all the THP'ers, especially playing with drp3434, fupresti, and Sweethebs in the first round and with braddman19, Hawk, and IceyShanks in the second round.

Special thanks to Howzat and fairband for setting up the golf and... my date with Jucy Lucy, and to JB for hauling all that gear out here for us to play with.

P.S. The driver for me: Ping G30 SF Tec, 12 degrees, SR shaft. We were thinking that SR meant senior flex, but I think it means soft regular flex.

P.P.S. We lucked out on the weather. It was raining when I split out of Minneapolis Sunday morning, and when I got home my wife told me it was raining the whole time I was away.

 

[perkis]

Thank you guys for an awesome day yesterday! Had a great time hitting a few different drivers I hadn't hit before and since tapatalk wasn't working the greatest yesterday, I'll sum up my day today.

Non-competitive round was with Bjosh, Shifty, & Bryceraisanen. Those guys were great to golf with and enjoyed alot of laughs.
I was able to hit 3 different drivers during the first round.
Ping G30 - Was a very solid driver and the ball just seemed to jump off the face. Hit only 2 or 3 drives with it but the distance for sure was there. Not a big fan of the head shape and to me it looked like it was set up closed. BryceRaisanen hit the G30 substantially better than I did.
Nike Vapor Flex - Unlike alot of others, I thought this driver was pretty damn good. Hit it 4 times and all showed nice distance and forgiveness was also good across the face. I was pleasantly surprised at this driver.
Cally 815 DBD - This is the one that I had my eyes on and am glad that I got to spend some time with it. Alot of guys say this driver is demanding but I found it to be just as forgiving as my Alpha, IMO. I will definitely be looking to hit this driver more and possibly upgrade from the Alpha.

2nd round was played with Golfever, Bubbles, & Bryceraisanen again.
I couldn't score to save my life on the 2nd round. Sorry Ray, I let ya down buddy! If i had a few more pars we would have had a chance at some new sticks!

We had good weather and a very nice golf course. Thanks to Howzat for setting this up and JB for bringing the drivers for everyone to test out. I had an awesome time and look forward to heading up to MSP next year. I'm sick of the other Sioux Falls guys bringing home the goods, it's my turn next year!

 

[drp3434]

So this was my first real THP get together, and it did not disappoint. Tons of great people, and tons of great equipment. I've been to demo days, but nothing compares to demoing equipment on the course where it really counts. Unfortunately I didn't jump up quick enough and missed the chance to get on the FlightScope. By the time I got loosened up, met some THPers, and watched a few hit on FlightScope, it was too late and we were off.

The drivers
I got to hit the J715, BB Alpha 815 DBD, XR, G30, G30 SF Tec, Vapor Flex, and Fly Z+ (range only).

I will say that I was putting some bad swings on the ball, but one driver was the clear winner for me because it felt the best, flight was the best, and never really got me in trouble, even with my bad swing. That was the J715 12°. The first hole was a little bit of a tough driver hole; water at the end of the main section of the fairway, and bunkers protecting the little bit of fairway before the green. But this was driver testing, so you gotta give it a go! This was my best drive of the day. Smoked it dead straight and carried the bunkers to be set up quite well coming into the green. Ball flight was perfect. I also distinctly remember catching one off the heel (feedback was good, knew heal right when I hit it), and I was surprised at how well I still ended up. If there was one that would challenge my gamer, it's the J715.

The BB Alpha 815 DBD. Ooof. This one does not suit my game. First shot was a bad swing that I lost OB right. I re-teed and actually put a decent swing on it. It was low, but it did run a little bit. I hit it again on 8 and caught it towards the toe. I swear that club laughed at me as my ball went short right with an ugly flight. The forgiveness is not there for me. Even with well struck shots I'm not sure I could get the carry distance I would want with this one. Perhaps total distance after runout, but I would prefer carry.

The XR. I hit this twice and unfortunately both times it was way high on the face, which resulted in pop ups that I can't really give any feedback on. I was bummed because everything I've seen and heard about the XR makes me think I could get along with it well.

The G30. I only hit this once because it was the only one we had that I had hit a couple times before. It did feel a little better than I remember, and took off decent, but there's just something that doesn't work with me. Even though it felt better, I think that's really it.

The G30 SF Tec. I also only hit this once. I hit it pretty well and it ballooned on me. If I remember correctly it was 12.5° and a senior flex shaft.

The Vapor Flex. I will start by saying I love the look of the Nike drivers in person. The feel of this one was quite interesting to say the least. I posted while testing that it feels like it's packed with Styrofoam, and I definitely still feel that way. I don't think I have the game for this one because I think I need more forgiveness. I think the weight was set with more weight towards the front, so I don't think that helped. I wish I got a chance to hit the other two. I think I might have liked one or both.

The Fly Z+. I hit this a few times on the range, and I really like the feel and flight. I also loved the look, but I like the look of basically all Cobra woods, they just suit my eye. I actually searched this one out on the range to take on the course as we were heading out, but it was already gone. I think SHIFTY had a kung fu grip on that thing. I ended up grabbing the J715 instead though, so that worked out ok

Have to give a shout out to everyone I played with; Fupresti, Sweethebs, Zeroputt, Badgers86, snopro, and Hox. It was a blast playing with you guys! I owe Badgers a beer for all the times he had an incredible scramble for par to save us. We had a respectable score because of that. And if you need to put your internet golfer ego in check, just play a round with Hox. Yeeeesh he can hit the ball.

If you have any other questions on the clubs I hit just post it up. I'll do my best to answer if I can. Really wish my swing was in a better place so I could provide more detailed feedback. Next time I will make it a point to get on the FlightScope right away as well.

 

[Hawk]

Back in IL. Whirlwind trip.

Good times people. Thanks for that. Had a mediocre round and a rotten one. That's about what I expected, so it's all good.

Great meeting all the new folks and seeing some old friends.

 

[Cjgolf25]

What shaft was the Bridgestone J815 paired with?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[fairband]

What shaft was the Bridgestone J815 paired with?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It wasn't there was only one Bridgestone shaft when JB unpacked so it went in the J715. It was the RIP phenom.