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TaylorMade Kingdom Experience Diary

SuperStroke
TC said:
I love reading this thread.

I have one question for you three: after being through this wonderful experience, would you now consider yourself brand loyal to Taylormade?
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Great question TC. I am going to say without a doubt that yes I am now brand loyal to TaylorMade after this experience. I have multiple reasons for saying this as well.

1. The staff at TaylorMade are all so passionate about their job and about helping golfers play better. This shows in every single person that we have interacted with this weekend. Every single person there had to come in to "work" on a Saturday yet not a single one of them had any issues with it. Their interaction with one another was also a very telling tale to me, they all respect and enjoy being around each other, you could just sense it watching them. We're at dinner last night after spending roughly 10 hours by this time doing this, one of the TMaG staffers was putting some balls on the practice green right next to where we were eating and before you knew it he had a fellow TMaG staff member there giving him a lesson to help him improve his putting stroke. Here it is Saturday night and having already spent a full day with all of us and working his tail off to get us all setup he still took the time to help his co-worker. That is just one example of many that I picked up on this weekend. Now I say the people help me to be brand loyal to TMaG but that isn't the only thing, there are great people working at several top companies in the industry. I'm sure if it were another company we'd be impressed by the people as well, I met several people from many different companies while at the PGA Show in January so there has to be more to it for me than just the people.

2. The equipment. Top to bottom TaylorMade Golf industry leading equipment in every single category. Strike up a conversation with someone about drivers and TaylorMade will be brought up as one of the companies that have one of the best, if not the best driver lineup in the world. Year after year they are the most played driver on the PGA Tour. Looking for more than just a driver, ok...fairway woods. For many the fairway wood is just a chip off the old driver block, meaning that if a company has a good driver out they usually have a good FW to compliment it. That definitely the case with TaylorMade. Their FW and hybrid lineup is top notch. Irons. I don't care if you want to talk about the Burner 2.0 or the new Tour Preferred Forged lineup, TaylorMade irons are flat out the best irons I have ever played. That is coming from someone who used to play Mizunos, Nikes and Wilson Staff irons, none of them can touch the TaylorMade irons that I have used. Period. Putters, by far the most subjective topic of equipment but for me my favorite putter is the KiaMa that I'm currently playing. I haven't had it long and was very close to gaming another putter this year but I have been rolling the KiaMa for a couple of months now and made the decision to bag it and I am so glad I did. Now my 2nd favorite putter is that heal shafted Ghost Tour putter (880) that I just fell in love with this weekend. So FOR ME TaylorMade rocks in the putter category as well. Wedges. Here is the one spot that prior to this weekend I would have said that TM was behind the curve slightly but that was because I had never played an XFT wedge before. I loved it, great spin, great feel, and an interchangeable face. That is great!

I have more to add but for now they are calling me to board my flight so I better go. I'll be back to discuss my other reasons for being brand loyal to TaylorMade.
 
Awesome P4B, with the new Tour Prefered irons i could be all TM, i just love the feel of mizzys and they perform very well but im gonna try out the new TM line and that might be it for me lol, I love the look of all 3 of the new ones and i have heard nothing but GREAT things about them
 
10YardDraw said:
Awesome P4B, with the new Tour Prefered irons i could be all TM, i just love the feel of mizzys and they perform very well but im gonna try out the new TM line and that might be it for me lol, I love the look of all 3 of the new ones and i have heard nothing but GREAT things about them
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Great stuff Jake, I'd say you nailed it. This might not be the right thread to post this, but I'm amazed by several companies support of THP and its members. TaylorMade has just blown the doors off in being there and it's awesome how I almost feel like I know a lot of these guy's.

Thanks TaylorMade and THP!
 
Very awesome thread ! It no doubt was an experience of a lifetime . Great stuff guys and thanks for the first hand pics and writeup. You brought the experience to us. Great job :clapp:
 
Guys, thank you all for the detailed writeups and great pics, and even movies!

I love how each of you were able to dial in the same driver with completely different setups to maximize your game. Dr. Teeth, I have an R11 to be shipped here any day that is coming with that Ahina X shaft you found worked so well for you. The difference for me is that I didn't have an expert helping me to pick it. Here's hoping I can dial that bad boy in like they helped you to do.

I don't think I saw this, but did they suggest to any of you that the Superfast 2.0 driver might be as good or better fit than the R11? Did any of you get to hit that driver on the monitor to compare numbers?
 
Thanks for the insight P4B. I think you make some very good points, and how could you not feel some loyalty when the equipment is flat out performing in every aspect right in front of your eyes and in your own hands. Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts on the company/experience.
 
Great post Jake. I can tell by reading that post that you had an experience of a life time. It couldn't have happened to a better dude either. Thanks again for being honest and sharing those thoughts with me pal.
 
Sweet thread! Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences with us.
 
Wow, that says it all. I am so glad i got to read through this, and live it with you guys. Congratulations, and I am so glad I joined THP it's rediculous. THANKS SO MUCH!
 
This was a really fun read. The guys did a great job laying it all out here for us. The excitement must have been unreal.

Kevin
 
TC said:
I love reading this thread.

I have one question for you three: after being through this wonderful experience, would you now consider yourself brand loyal to Taylormade?
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After reading this thread I almost feel like I should be brand loyal to TM. What a flat out great experience and an excellent job done by all in writing it up. I really almost feel like I was there. Great job guys.
 
golf4life said:
Guys, thank you all for the detailed writeups and great pics, and even movies!

I love how each of you were able to dial in the same driver with completely different setups to maximize your game. Dr. Teeth, I have an R11 to be shipped here any day that is coming with that Ahina X shaft you found worked so well for you. The difference for me is that I didn't have an expert helping me to pick it. Here's hoping I can dial that bad boy in like they helped you to do.

I don't think I saw this, but did they suggest to any of you that the Superfast 2.0 driver might be as good or better fit than the R11? Did any of you get to hit that driver on the monitor to compare numbers?
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G4L I love thus shaft. I said multiple times yesterday that it felt like an extension of me. I was not losing any distance from the Stiff and I was flying it much straighter. I will be interested in seeing what settings you dial into.

As far as the Burner 2.0 there wasn't much talk about it as we were told that we were getting R11s. It is definitely a fine driver but we just didn't focus on it much. A couple of the pros were hitting it and sending out bombs.
 
Perfect end to a perfect trip

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and you even got In N Out - I don't know if I've ever been this jealous of one person before.... hahaa glad you had the experience of a life time!
 
Dr. Teeth said:
G4L I love thus shaft. I said multiple times yesterday that it felt like an extension of me. I was not losing any distance from the Stiff and I was flying it much straighter. I will be interested in seeing what settings you dial into.

As far as the Burner 2.0 there wasn't much talk about it as we were told that we were getting R11s. It is definitely a fine driver but we just didn't focus on it much. A couple of the pros were hitting it and sending out bombs.
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Thanks for the reply. I hope I can dial mine in until it feels like an extension of me... can't wait to try. Will let you know how it goes in the R11 thread.
 
I am just amazed over the whole experience that y'all when through. I don't know if I could handle such a great experience and come back to real life on Monday. I truly am jealous of the Pro Fitting experience that y'all got. It was so great hearing each one of your processes picking out the perfect driver. Each one of your stories were so similar, with such different product outcomes. In the end you all had the same result, a great driver that you could feel confident and play great with. I hope to one day get to the Kingdom in GA for an iron fitting. I think that would be such an awesome experience and I can wait to hear from the guys next weekend.
 
Thanks for taking us along for the trip! It sounds like you all three had an incredible experience.
 
You guys are LUCKY!!!!!! Wow that was a an experience of a life time.
 
Just read through this thread. This sounds like it was an awesome experience and I am very jealous. The pics and descriptions were done very well. The course looked terrific too. Glad you all had a grea time!
 
ghsace said:
and you even got In N Out - I don't know if I've ever been this jealous of one person before.... hahaa glad you had the experience of a life time!
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Yeah In'n'Out is much like an R11, you have get it with the right specifications.:D Mine is a Cheeseburger Animal Style, fries with two packets of spread and a vanilla/ chocolate shake. That's what you call dialed in! :)
 
I just landed and I wanted to post this.

I am sitting on the plane thinking about the different aspects of this weekend and I wanted to take few minutes talking about the lesson that Jim Flick gave to the whole group (the one where he was hitting 175 shots with his driver, while sitting on a chair). The reason I wanted to cover this is twofold. #1 it was flat out AWESOME and he covered so many things that I know the majority of us struggle with. And #2 it was during this lesson that our video camera batteries ran out (I am hoping that between the three of us we got it all).

One aspect I wanted to cover was the aspect of grip pressure. He went around and shook all of our hands, but he did so in order to get us to get a feeling of how we should be holding our club. This is going to be a hard thing to describe in words bit I know that I have this on camera so I will post it later. But it was so much looser than any of us expected. He was making all of us loosen up our grips and relax our wrists. He then told us to go and grab our drivers and 6 irons. He asked which one is heavier (the answer is the 6 iron). He had each of us hold up our 6 irons straight in front of us half way between vertical and horizontal. He then said that he wanted us to relax our grip and wrist to just before the point were the club would drop from this point. He said this is the grip and wrist pressure we should be holding this club. He had us repeat the same exercise with the driver. I urge you all to try this (it works for every club, except maybe the putter). Which do you think required more pressure to hold up? The 6 iron, so his point was that we should be holding our drivers with less pressure than all of our other clubs. But I don't know about you guys but I have a tendency to fall into the grip it 'n' rip it category when it comes to my driver. It is amazing how much we shoot ourselves in the foot in this game.

The next aspect of his lesson I wanted to talk about is weight distribution. I posted earlier a out Jim Flick telling me that I was throwing my hips like a stripper. Well this brought up the question of weight transfer. First off he asked me which was more important to shift my weight or to have the clubhead square at impact? I answered the latter, which resulted in the stripper comment :) He then asked if our weight should be more on our front foot after hitting a driver or a 6 iron? I think someone answered that the weight should be transferred the same no matter the club, which Jim emphatically disagreed with. He said that when we hit a driver at finish our weight should be more evenly distributed with the driver than with 6 iron. So with a 6 iron our weight should be much more on our front foot at finish than a driver at finish. In fact to give a bit of insight into Jim and my personal lesson. He saw that I was shifting my weight too much with my driver (which is legitimately what I thought I was supposed to do), so be had me hitting drives while keeping my back foot on the ground. Try it! It is super difficult, but I'll tell you what it totally works! Now for the reasoning of this. With the driver we tee it up, so we do not want to hit down on it, we want to hit up. In order to do this we must leave more weight on our back foot.

Lastly we came to the tip which had him hitting balls while sitting in a chair. He was demonstrating the idea that if you want to bit the ball further you don't grip the club tighter and you don't swing you hips through faster. He said that for the golf swing 80% of our distance comes from our upper body (which blew my mind because I was always told the opposite). So the way to hit the ball further are to change your club (club up) or bring the club back further (although he is not a fan of reaching way back just to gain a few more yards, he told me that from his experience this only negatively affects a players outcomes). So he sat in the chair and hit a ball 75 yards. He actually directed one of the fitters to grab him a 75 yard ball, which be hit 75 yards. Then he asked for a 100 yard ball and hit that 100 yards. This proceeded to a 125 yard ball, a 150 yard ball, and finally a 175 yard ball. Each ball was hit perfectly at his target although he got mad at the fitter because he gave him a 178 yard ball instead of the 175 yard ball :D. Again the point being that he didn't have to throw he hips at the target, instead with each swing he went back a bit further and generated a bit more clubhead speed. These were all lessons that I needed to hear and lessons that I know will help my game immensely. I hope you all are able to benefit from this as much as I will.

PS sorry if I have a ton of typing errors I have been posting everything for the last few days from my phone.
 
Wow, great thoughts from Jim Flick, Dr Teeth. I'm going to try that exercise gripping my driver and 6 iron next time I have my clubs out... thanks!
 
golf4life said:
Wow, great thoughts from Jim Flick, Dr Teeth. I'm going to try that exercise gripping my driver and 6 iron next time I have my clubs out... thanks!
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The coolest thing is it works for every club
 
Great stuff doc. Im going to try that tomorrow.
 
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