ant

yeah you can get them in 355 or 370, in fact i just ordered 355 set from Tario. cant comment on them as i havent got them yet but all the reviews and feedback i've seen on them was absolutely terrific. they are not tour prototypes BigBen is talking about but i think he was going to post a review/report on WRX about Matrix Program 130 when he builds a set with them so i'm watching that topic over there.

af tours gonna be more chunky comparing to miura blades and they also have progressive offset tho i dont recall it looked shocking or anything tho. sole and grind looked friendlier on af tours. i heard they are more forgiving than miuras which makes sense. havent actually hit them so cant comment on feel etc.

exactly! Vegaman got into the argument over at WRX which basically turned into "yes they do / no they dont" crap as that usually happens but that argument aside who cares ?! most people dont even understand the manufacturing process start to finish with enough depth to make buying decisions based on that so what difference does it make. they all do some of that, Kenmochi line is swordsmiths tradition. hows that relevant to golf clubs ?! does he fold driver faces with a hammer or hand polishes his wedges with super expensive polishing stones used for nihonto polishing and wraps hand made grips out of rayskin and silk ? anybody who wanna be 100% sure go walk the walk and sue them for false advertisement but what good would it do to anybody i honestly dunno. they have a word for it, its called "marketing" and marketing is full of bs per definition.

would be great to have such announcements posted to "TSG DEMO Club Testing and Evaluation" Topic since i thought thats what its for based on your message there. this way people can subscribe and get notified promptly if they are interested and dont wanna miss out.

why would RC involve themselves with that anyways ?! i mean majority of people dont know them, they have no Tour presence or staff over there to ride big name equipment contact and something tells me have no dough to get one in the first place. if they start making off the shelf crap whos gonna buy it ? i'm sure they got some marketing story figured out if they are doing it but doesnt make much sense to put their name on that.

wow, didnt realize that, kinda not so obvious from those pictures even tho descriptions says compact. if you did hit them how did they feel to you comparing to Miura ?

there is a video from Golf Digest Japan TSG posted on the blog http://www.golfdigest.co.jp/golftv/gear/itouryoudan/driver/101006_01.asp folks who interested can hear the sound there but its obviously not as loud and pronounced as in person so kinda hard to convey i guess. i agree its subjective tho and the other thing is i never hit any Epons, Yamahas, Ryomas etc and my experience is limited to off the shelf clubs, odd component heads and occasional tour van heads but not JDM stuff so keep that in mind. this one i like alot. feel is great too. probably the only negatives i can think of is hitting it off the deck just wont work, probably due to its deep face construction and the other thing is they ship it with this pos Iomic X grip or whatever its called which is like soap, kinda works ok with gloves but totally useless bare handed and it wears faster than tyres on gymkhana with very similar end results but its a minor annoyance really. other than that simply great product.

btw, them blades looks great but looks like iteration of their previous blade. their VS Tour CBs are probably the best looking CBs out there tho.

i thought they already did with http://www.royalcollectionusa.com there was a thread at WRX people saying they sell thru clubfitters in US. looks like the same product across the line except they added some JP series that RC Japan doesnt have but i honestly dunno what those are and if the rest is the same as their JDM versions or not. i bought from you guys, thanx again Tario!, so not worried but would be interested to hear whats the word regarding their US versions anyways.

i wouldnt worry so much about swing speed but instead how well and consistent you can hit it on the sweetspot. VS Tour is not exactly a very forgiving driver and any mis**ts would be severely punished, mostly by severe distance loss and also by direction if its bad enough mis**t. slight mis**ts tend to stay where supposed with slight deviation and distance loss, not critical, you'd still be in the fairway just shorter. its definitely low spin, low launch i dont think so would probably depend alot on the shaft you go with. you can hit stingers, risers, big high balls with very little roll, snap hook it or whatever, very workable head.

the sound of VS Tour driver is fantastic, you just have to hit it on the screws to get that sound. catching it even slightly off center totally different story. i had folks coming over at the range and asking what kinda driver i was hitting impressed by the sound it makes, it just sounds so solid. even my wife who doest really care about golf equipment and plays off the shelf clubs commented on how nice the sound was comparing to anything else i had. of course fantastic/nice/etc are all subjective. the sound it makes is nothing like all those high pitching ear tearing tin cans you hear that makes you want to take that driver and smack the guy on the head with it after he hits a few standing close to you. its kinda more similar to old school tour level driver sound with hotmelt or something like that. anyways, to me aint nothing to fix there with its sound, its perfect. never tried their previous driver models so cant comment on them.

thats not necessarily true, especially for you guys here who buy high end shafts. in many cases they are the same shafts. the only differences would be tour van folks being very picky ie discarding everything from the batch that is off specs etc or prototypes that are not in production yet and might never even make it to production or make it with tweaks based on feedback and feedback is the reason engineers do it. there is this belief out there that tour equipment has some magical qualities beyond anything available to mere mortals while all it really is are prototypes for staff players and stock hand picked stuff for everybody else tweaked and pimped to their needs. there is even this whole market for tour van stuff but show me anybody who started to play tour level game after getting any of that.

graphite aint gonna help you with any of those anyway. those problems are not from impact but rather from forcing your body into positions its not supposed to be in, at high speed. same for knee injuries etc. you will get no help from graphite or any other possible shaft technology for that sort of stuff and changing your swing is the only way forward like you found out and we all find it out the hard way it seems. graphite helps with vibration dampening on and most importantly past impact with irons and its not a panacea for any swing flaws.

to be honest i dont wanna make swing changes to accommodate that in addition to working hard on something as it is and i dont care about digging because once the ball is gone how much it digs is irrelevant and if it digs before the impact well, thats completely different problem then. love my range practice despite mats and all, range rat i guess so if anything i would rather have more of it not less. in any case i dont have that much of angle anyway, cant recall exactly but its in -4-5 range for 6 iron i think, going shallower would be pretty much swiping it and while 100% agree that it would sure be great for preventing strain when hitting tons of balls it just not something i wanna do.

thats good to know, thanx Tario! Iomic UK doesnt even list ribbed/round options for them.

like i said vibration dampening, thats all i personally want from them given their specs match or better steel in terms of dispersion and trajectory. right now i'm constrained to range mats over concrete and while that sux it aint gonna change for me in the near future and i do hit alot of balls and majority of them with irons. since those hits are essentially hit downs ie negative attack angle, there is no escaping it, wrists, elbows and shoulder blades take hits so what i wanna do is to stop some of that strain at the shaft so my body does not have to take as much. if i have to sacrifice some feel for it so be it, feel with rock hard range balls aint that great to begin with anyway. hitting real ones off the turf when playing shouldnt be that bad with high end graphite, people report that Matrix Ozik Program for example feels pretty good past impact actually. that was another one i was looking at but it seems its designed for high launch. if i could hit real balls off turf for practice i wouldnt bother with looking into high end graphite, especially at its current prices.

yeah feel is very subjective! i actually like how 1150 feel. my only, minor, issue with them is that they launch it a bit high, not by much but still. then again i dont like mushy kinda feel from anything so thats subjective as well. i think i'm gonna cross to the dark side and convert to graphite tho because of its vibration dampening and if it doesnt feel as good and smooth, well, screw it.

understood, thanx! i figured as much since they weight almost the same as light steel and you need alot of graphite to do that with it being so much lighter compared to steel. i know some manufacturers mix additional materials to just add weight without making them boardy but sounds like its not the case here. wouldnt mind trying them anyways tho not for that kinda coin. again, thanx for all the info, appreciated.

looks great, grind, shape, finish. how big are they ? looks like smaller head to me.

ah, i see, thanx! not looking for a new set of irons right now. simply interested to try graphite mostly because its vibration dampening compared to steel since i'm hitting alot off mats now :( and was thinking that repairing my body could potentially get more costly long term than a set of graphite shafts.

thanx Tario! it says that they are only available ribbed version. round version coming later or not at all ?

how so ? super boardy ?

hmm TSG price for 8 shafts works out at about 144 per shaft so i'm confused. i realize talking prices here might not be appropriate and if thats the case i would appreciate pm explaining what the real deal is.

found Graphite Design Tour AD PRO in the pro shop here which is the most interesting, to me, spec i have seen so far. they are stupidly expensive tho, comparing to say equivalent spec Nippon steel, which is of course as expected. anybody here have tried them so far and if so what are your impressions ?

same here, very interested to try graphite in irons after reading TourSpecGolfer posts about them but with current prices for high end there its just too expensive for me to experiment with.