gocchin

Bettinardi is distributed through Crew's Golf in Japan and they recently posted up a gallery featuring Mr. Bettinardi's wonderful setup. The main foyer of Bettinardi golf: Mr. Bettinardi's first floor office with Mr. Bob Bettinardi himself: Mr. Bettinardi talks to one of his CAD designers while holding the PX-Blade. Mr. Bettinardi goes over the milling process with some of his guys: A pic of the putter making process: One piece steel block taking the shape of the PX Blade. Fine handiwork... milled bag tags for Japan. Close up inspection of honeycomb face and engraving: Second floor entrance to Studio B: Inside Studio B, gotta love the putting green floors! Studio B's visual putting System, 4 cameras with closeup focus on stroke and impact: Results from a putting session reviewed: Proper adjustments made to optimize putter and player stroke: Thanks to Crew's Golf and Bettinardi for the look inside Bettinardi Golf!

Hi guys, I've posted up GDO's video previews on the new Yamaha Inpres X Drivers and Irons over at Inpakuto. As Chris and sarintr have told me, Yamaha is made and forged at Endo! http://www.inpakuto.com Great reviews on all the gear. Here are Kanetani Pro's key points for each club: Yamaha Inpres X 4.6V Tour Model Driver with Rombax 6Y08: 460cc driver with a very deep face. Slightly open face made for more advanced players. A great shaft for the hard hitter. This driver is perfect for for the athlete/ pro golfer. Yamaha Inpres X 4.6D Driver with Stock Inpres DX-408D Type II: 7% Larger sweet spot than the previous generation best selling 460D. 1.0* closed face and tungsten weights produce an easy to hit gentle draw. Great for slicers or higher handicap players or anyone looking for an easy driver to hit long. Yamaha Inpres X 4.6D Type S Driver with Stock Inpres DX-408D Type I: 7% Larger sweet spot here as well. Square face and weighted neutrally. This driver is also very easy to hit straight or fade. Great for players who have problems with the left side. Yamaha Inpres X V Forged Tour Model: A very unique gem. Compact head with wonderful feel. Pinpoint accuracy coupled with spin control. Every shot is like dynamite. Even good from difficult lies. Truly a tour level iron. Yamaha Inpres X V Forged: A little larger all around than the Tour Model to inspire confidence. More forgiving and easy to produce straight shots. Similar soft feel to the tour model. Great for the low handicappers. Yamaha Inpres X D-Steel: Maraging face with an undercut cavity and semi goose neck. Easy to hit and forgiving A very hot face. Those looking for a balance between distance and direction control will like this iron. Yamaha Inpres X D-Black: Super easy iron to hit. Brings back the fun in golf for higher handicappers. Smooth graphite helps increase head speed. For people looking for more carry and higher trajectory. Larger iron is actually very easy to hit in most lies.

Two of the softest underrated wedges are the Royal Collection 6150TG and the Yamaha Inpres X Wedge. I just added the Yamaha to the pro shop... it is SOFT and has amazing spin. It uses very pure S10C steel and I'm pretty sure it's forged by Endo. The RC is just one of the best compact wedges ever made... Bat will back me up on this... amazing feel and spin with it's milled face.

Yes a little more MOI I think in this one with CG further back. Shallower face as well. The previous v-steel which was the second generation was sold with a steel NS Pro FW shaft as stock for around $300 and with M.A.S.2 55 PLUS graphite shafts for around 350 (those are suggested retail prices) My guess is that they will be offered with some sort of REAX FW shaft and will be in a similar price range. We won't know for sure until TM tells us as they set all retail pricing.

Pretty much four models in circulation now... JPX E500, MP Craft 425 and 460 and the MP 600. As with all Mizuno drivers in Japan it is full customizable directly from Mizuno including custom lengths from 44.5" to 45.75" in 0.25" increments. And get this.... Available with 107 different shaft options. Yes i wrote that correctly. ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN. Besides their Quad line of shafts, all Fujikura's including every Speeder model and Rombax model (even the prototype) as well as EVERY shaft from Graphite Design and Diamana (except ali'iseli) can be ordered directly from Mizuno. You even have your choice from 20 different grips. Custom swingweight from C9-D8 is available as well. So besides all the customizations, yeah it's the same driver as the US model. As for what they are saying, I have a lot of reading to catch up on but I will find out. (^_^)

I should know this as I had this head... I'm inclined to say 0.335" but it could be 0.350" I had one back in the summer but I cannot remember for the life of me if I had to shim it or not! Master has the head now, and probably shafted it up. Perhaps he can chime in if he sees this or you can PM him.

According to Diamana the ali'islei is all new technology while the black board prototype has actually been around a while. The diamana in the X-Drive is really more around the black board hard hitting design... the ali'islei is using different manufacturing processes and slightly different materials from the "board" models As is with all shafts from Diamana, they never do provide much explanation do they!!?? (^_^)

Every one is a custom piece specifically designed by a customer.... prices range from 365 to 2500 depending on options and design...

No there are two version of the PS2, the standard one is forged carbon steel, the recently released one is SS303. The one in the pro shop starting at 365 is the carbon steel one, the stainless one is 1575.00 including tungsten and stampings, plus a premium zone insert, well over 2k.

Pretty much a thumbs up from the pros... as was the previous Japan only V-Steel the number one strength is feel, amazing feel and very workable.

Definitely close to the white, it will have the stiffer tip like the white and more feel with the softer butt.

M-46 is rated for 103mph driver swing.... Here are the specs:

As always, Graphite Design, the leading shaft manufacturer on the Japanese for 6 straight years by a large margin, listens carefully to its pros which number in the many, on what they like and don't like. The two most popular shafts in 2006 and 2007 have been the Tour AD PT series and the Quattro Tech series. May pros took to the Quattro Tech this year but a few had a hard time adjusting to the lower kick point and higher launch and what we saw was more QT's going into Fairways than drivers. So pros voiced their concerns with GD and they created the new Tour AD Quattro Tech MD series. The MD is a four axis four ply shaft made for stability and a more piercing strong mid trajectory. It brings the technology of the Quattro Tech meshed with the profile and characteristics of the PT series to for a balanced stable shaft that minimizes twisting with todays larger driver heads. The MD has the stiffer tip and mid kick like the PT series to take the left side out of play coupled with the smooth stable feel of the QT. The MD will be available in 50, 60, 70 and 80g weights. Look for it in the pro shop soon and as an addtional upgrade for the Epon EMB.

Specs are all here under the X-Drive Black listing... http://www.tourspecgolf.com/proshop/p1447/...oduct_info.html SR S and X flex 2.9 2.8 and 2.7 torque made for the hard hitter faster swinger... mid trajectory lower spin shaft.

As I said above the Black is retail in the X-Drive only and nothing else has been officially announced yet.... (^_^)

If you check the threads below you'll see that they've already released both the Diamana Black as the stock shaft for the X-Drive Black and the new limited edition Diamana ali'islei both as 2008 models... nothing else has been announced yet.

Some new stuff from Sasaya-san... including quite a few putters for members here!

Really tough call as many of those shafts are awesome.... these days I've been sticking to Graphite Design... there is a reason why they have been number 1 in Japan 6 years running...

Endo forged but a 2006 model... there are better irons out there now even from PRGR who has released 4 or 5 new models of irons since. Earlier this year they were PRGR's best and still a very good looking iron. They are also not that compact. They feature a face height of 52.9mm, while the 500BL is 42.9mm, 501 is 43mm and the 502's are 45.9mm tall. I wouldn't say CG is quite centered... it's still on the low side at 20mm up and 35.5mm from the bottom of the hosel (centered heel to toe). There is minor offset. The 500BL with it's 42.9mm face height and 20mm CG is almost right in the middle. Here are some 900MD specs but no bounce numbers.

It's a hard call as this is an all new shaft from ONOFF and they are touting it as a very high quality quadaxial multi ply shaft what is supposedly very stable and possesses minimal energy loss. As it hasn't even come out yet, its going to be a little hard to judge, but I don't see anything wrong with trying it first then upgrading after if it's not to your liking... stock shafts are getting better and better.

xxio is right S25C is technically the same as 1025 Steel.

I have graphite in 6 of the wedges I own right now. All 75g Graphite Design Tour AD and Axiv 758M, I love the it because I think the graphite certainly enhances the feel and especially since they are a progression of the graphite in my irons. It wouldn't have made sense for me to go from 65g iron shafts to 100g wedges shafts which would have made my wedges 60g heavier than my short irons... I am a digger as well and I feel if my shafts were heavier I'd come down even more because of the weight.

So many amazing wedges out there.... I am still wanting to try the MTI wedges Here are my best of for this year Best Easy Wedge to use: Fourteen MT-28 J-Spec - larger than most, still a good feel and still good looking at address, does everything well Epon Copper X Mode - No frills grind but very versatile and also great at address Most forgiving grind (for me - I'm a digger): Tour Seida: Just gets under the ball while minimizing digging XXIO 45 Wedge: This wedge does not dig... just slides along the any lie Best Compact Wedge: Sky Dream Jump D-Tour/Royal Collection 6150TG: Even as a mid handicapper this tour level wedge with micro milled face and compact size with an M grind is virtually unbeatable Best Spinning Wedge: Sky Dream Jump D-Tour/Royal Collection 6150TG: Half swing to full swing, even after a seasons use, it destroys balls but stops then dead on the greens Epon Technity Wedge - Crazy Spin Yururi Raw - Another Ball destroyer Epon AF Wedge - Near right angle grooves just spin the ball like mad Best Looks: Epon Copper X Grind Studio Prototype Sky Dream Jump D-Tour/Royal Collection 6150TG All of the above have great shape, setup wondefully and just look plain rocking!! Best all around: Epon Copper X Model Grind Studio Prototype Sky Dream Jump D-Tour/Royal Collection 6150TG The above do everything well and are very very versatile, chipping, approach, sand.... you name it! I'm really wanting to put the MTI wedges through it's paces... I may have to get some now that Chris has been raving about them.

Not only that but almost ALL japanese brands golf or not are use the english alphabet. Japanese katakana too is essentially their attempt at sounding out the english alphabet. Very common indeed! (^_^)

Oh sorry Ed when you said old and new I automatically assumed the EMB (^_^). Yes the new and old as AJ said are exactly the same except for graphics. It was rebranded for the global market. If you do want feel the the Epon 460 is tops. However you said you miss towards the heel, interesting enough, that usually calls for a more shallow, longer heel to toe MOI type driver which minimizes distance loss and spin on off center hits towards the heel and toe as CG is spread out deeper and flatter.