OITW
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Well here I am reflecting on this amazing experience that was afforded to me by THP and Bridgestone Golf. I am in disbelief how generous, kind, engaging, all around awesome people that I got to meet on this trip. Everyone I talk to in golf league/friends/family/people on the plane are astonished by what I got to do and what I received. Completely mind blowing! So let’s get started and walk you through #FitLikeAPro..
The night before the trip I get a message from GolferGal saying my flight has been delayed and to keep an eye on it if things change. Great, I’m excited for this trip which is already going to influence my sleep and now I’m worried I’ll get delayed cancelled. I’m a planner, I don’t like road bumps lol. So, I wake up at 1:45 am to get ready for the day before driving the hour to O’Hare airport and I have notifications that my flight has been delayed even further, now expecting to get in at 2:40 pm! Luckily, I got the option to switch to another flight at no cost, re-book for 7am flight that gets in at 10am to Atlanta. I could go back to sleep for an hour but screw it, I shower and then I’m off to the airport.
JB is there to pick me up and off we go to Covington, GA and Bridgestone Golf HQ chatting everything golf and how awesome and how excited I am to get there. I am welcomed by their wonderful Marketing Team (Elliott, Heather, Adam, Zack and a couple others that I can’t remember their names…). We sit and chat about golf, my game, what I’m looking for, etc. Currently in my bag you can see below in my signature and then what I was looking for in a ball. As a mid-handicapper I was looking for consistent distance, tighter dispersion with a mid ball flight. I would prefer for the ball to go where I aim it with decent check on the greens. My typical ball flight is a draw, but Zack will straighten that out with the club fitting. Bridgestone catered in some sandwiches and salads for lunch and then I was whisked away to see the golf balls manufactured. Oh and at lunch the CEO, Dan Murphy, casually comes in, sits down and has lunch with us….talk about access!
Plant Tour
Elliott along with the plant manager (I forgot his name too) take me through the manufacturing process. Sorry, no pictures! All the golf balls sold here in the states and I believe north America are made at this plant. I got to see how the gradient core was made and molded, then how they put the different layers around and finishing each ball. The super tight tolerances and quality control that each step of the process has and how when an amateur plays a Bridgestone ball it’s the same ball that the pros play. They don’t get any special treatment, other than custom numbers (Tiger only plays with a 1 on it). Plus, their recycling of the balls that don’t make the cut is impressive. They produce very little waste and their standards are so high they were currently at a 0.3% rejection rate. One thing I found amazing through the quality control is every ball, let me say that again, EVERY BALL is visually checked at the final stage by a person before it goes to packaging. The manager said each quality test compounds at each stage of the process so if stage 1 has 5 QC tests, stage 2 will have to repeat those 5 tests and then add 5 more, etc etc. A good example of how consistent their golfs balls are is Bryson DeChambeau’s Epsom salt test. Also, with their cover, it’s not painted, that white is truly the white of the Urethane that comes over from Japan. The cover they do is more of that slip-res clear coat and the urethane is also their patented seamless cover. No equator with this urethane cover.
R&D
So, after the plant tour I get to go and meet the two guys who are involved with R&D. They get to use the testing facility everyday for new products and also for quality control from their 4 plants across the world. These guys are Bryson’s guys. Mad scientists and they love every minute of it! Here I got to see more quality control as they test balls and then also testing the prototypes that may be out. They have multiple trackmans set up along with cameras down range to get all kinds of crazy info on how the balls perform. Currently they are working on a sound test for golf balls. Attached to the robot is an eye, Bridgestone makes that eye and the USGA and R&A both use it for the testing and tolerances of the golf ball rules. Bridgestone also manufactures the “control ball” that is used across the board by OEMs to test their golf balls and make sure they conform to the rules.
Ball Fitting
After R&D I stepped outside to the beautiful testing facility at Bridgestone. Yes, I asked the question of if they did fittings there for people and yes the answer is only if you are a VIP or Pro. So, I’m definitely in a very special place! As you can see from the shots posted I had a set of warm up JGR clubs to get loose in the wonderful 86 degree heat and sun. After coming from Chicago this was a welcome change! So now I work with Adam Rehberg (who happens to work with Tiger on all his ball fitting needs). So, with multiple cameras running and a good number of people we start working on the ball. He started me out with the Tour B RXS (mainly because I had been playing it this past week and was similar to the Z Star I’ve used the past few years). I will have numbers information once R&D gets finished analyzing and preparing it. I was looking for a straighter ball flight that would check well around the greens. After getting a good baseline with a 6-iron we went through the process of hitting 6-iron, 8-iron and driver with both the RXS and the RX. The big number as posted already was on the driver my spin rate dropped with the RX by 400-500 rpm and gained me some extra yards off the driver. The other irons were similar in numbers, so we moved over to the short game area. Here I hit shots just off the green with a 58 deg wedge to see how I liked their performance. Both balls performed similar for the way I chip so no gains between the two. Because of this and then the drop in driver spin he recommended the Tour B RX as my ball. I am very happy with that assessment. We didn’t get into hitting the Tour B X or Tour B XS and I was looking for a straighter ball flight and these are designed for lower handicap players who can control their trajectory and work the ball, which I can’t do yet.
Club Fitting
After the ball fitting, we head back to the range portion and I begin the club fitting process. I have done 2 “box store” fittings before and right off the bat Zack knew I was in the wrong shafts. With my swings speed I needed something that was heavier. We tried a few different shaft combos from KBS Tour 105, C-Taper, Nippon 105/120/130, and I think a couple others before settling in on the good dispersion and spin numbers from the Nippon Modus 3 120’s. These felt great to me and still gave a good mid-high ball flight. I was fit using a JGR HF2 8 iron. So, we moved onto the woods. I started out with the JGR driver at 10.5 deg and quickly moved down to a 9.5 deg as I was launching it super high. We realized even at the 9.5 I was still launching high, so we moved to the XD-5 head to lower my launch and reduce spin. This combined with the HZRDUS Black ended up being the combo. The wood was a beast for me. I started out with the V2 shaft paired with the 15 deg JGR 3 wood. The comment was made maybe I didn’t need a driver this worked so well. No need to do much else, that club is a bomber. Instead of a 5 wood I decided to move to the hybrids. I started with a 3 hybrid with a V2 shaft. I was starting to launch these again way to high. Amazing how the V2 worked so well with the 3 wood but not the driver or hybrids. After I think one other shaft that I don’t remember, Zack put me into the Graphite Design AD DI shaft. All of a sudden this became the combo and started putting them down range 220 ish and straight. This is the shaft Adam Rehberg says he uses also, and it is a great combo. So, 3 and 4 hybrids are JGR with the AD DI shaft. I don’t think I mentioned but all the shafts I was fit into were stiff flex. I didn’t hit the wedges in the fitting, but we matched the specs of the irons which were +1/2” long and 1 deg upright as I had a lot of toe drag when fitting. I went with a 52/56/60 wedge setup where I can swap out the 52 and AW if needed. Zack recommended this setup instead of the 54/58 since I was already used to playing those lofts.
Interviews
After the ball fitting, we headed back into air conditioning where we discussed all the numbers and the clubs and did some interviews. Hopefully I didn’t suck it up. I won’t go into detail as I’m sure JB will have some videos coming to the forums in the future.
Golf & Dinner
After finishing up and getting a bunch of SWAG, which I don’t have pictures yet because it was soo much that they are going to ship it to me with my clubs Adam and I headed out to play 9 holes at his home course. If you want some short clips head on over to Twitter and check me out and all the Bridgestone people. @MellowGolf @rehbirdie @HArnold22 @zkupper_bsg . Those getting to attend the Bridgestone Championship better start practicing, they have some pretty good golfers in their marketing department….. So, after golf we got checked into the hotel and heading out to dinner. Talk about amazing company. CEO Dan Murphy joined us for dinner along with Adam Rehberg, JB and me. We had some awesome conversations about golf, how Bridgestone’s exposure is finally making its way back to the forefront and how I as a consumer really like the direction they are going. Unfortunately for me there aren’t any golf stores close, so I have to do much of my ordering online. It’s great that a company would spend this kind of time and give this kind of access to a THPer. I am so incredibly grateful to Bridgestone and their team and can’t wait to receive the clubs and get to the course.
Final Thoughts
I truly felt like a pro and a VIP. Heather was over cleaning the clubs after shots, making sure I was completely taken care of with needing a glove, water, etc. It felt a bit weird to me honestly having that done. I kept saying I’ll take the towel and can do it. Nope, full service with Bridgestone! Also, a cool thing, I felt like a pro when I was hitting balls. Where you hit your shot, turn around and they toss you another ball to hit. That was the coolest feeling in the world and felt like I was on the range at a pro event. Bridgetone does it right!
Some Questions I received
What is their timetable for getting back to #2?
The are just now a year back with Dan Murphy as CEO and are expanding each month. Ball fitting is the way to go and they have a limited number of teams doing fittings currently but are going to be constantly expanding that. Needless to say, a Tiger win at the masters definitely helped.
What is the two-person team for Bridgestone Championship in July?
Four people will be attending, Elliott, Adam, Heather and Zack will be playing and rotating through playing with teams.
How much does the Parent Company influence R&D?
Well they have access to their engineers but really a lot of it is the players driving R&D, especially with Bryson on board. He comes up with ideas along with the guys in R&D and they test them. The parent company will just assist with the engineers and materials.
Who is the best golfer on the marketing staff?
Well a lot will say Heather is but according to her she doesn’t play enough. Adam shot par when we played 9 so there’s that. Good luck to those attending the event is all I have to say. Definitely focus on having fun with this group, they are all great people!
A bit about the heavier ball…
The weights of the balls definitely differ from each model, but they still have specs they have to fit into (see R&D section on control ball). So yes, Brooks probably does play a heavier ball, but it still has to be in the guidelines of the rules.
If anyone has more questions, please post them up and I’ll do my best to answer. I’m still trying to remember everything as it was such a whirlwind trip. Thanks again to JB, GolferGal, THP, Bridgestone Golf and their marketing staff. It was an awesome day! Now to save up so I can do an event next year!
That is one helluva a recap - trmpt - looks like quite an amazing time - Adam is legit, hope to meet him one day - really jealous of the Bridgestone hookup you got - intrigued about you fit into the RX
Well, my SWAG package arrived today...
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Whooooaaaa that is some freaking SWAG!!! Well done Bridgestone
