gocchin

T, The CBA710 Bag is not bad quality for it's price. It's nylon so you can't expect it to be like poly urethane but the bag still looks good! Lung-chia, I've actually had many yard sales this season as I've gone through this season 14 drivers, 12 sets of irons, 20 putters and 20 or so wedges.... it's been quite a year. The pics above are my bag at a given time... right now the G-Field Driver is a place holder really as I'm in between drivers even though I do have a MacTec NV-NX, HiBore XL and Burner here right now... The C&L is nice... check my blog for more pics... (^_^)

The top 3 long drivers in Japan currently are part of the Works golf team and they hit the Works Distance Rod. The lowest loft available though is only 9.5. All three drive over 400+ yards. The great thing about the ZR600 and why so many Srixon staffers used it too was that the true loft was in fact also lower than the stated loft like the Yamaha 425V.

While it's not listed in the Pro shop TSG is still an authorized Zodia dealer including all Japanese models like the Chiba, and Premium Versions as well as KM Tours. Just give Chris a PM.

I was totally thinking of Works actually, the long drivers from Team Japan and Korea all use works drivers. Let me find that article

will certainly provide as much info as I can... most shafts that are coming out these days are built with larger driver CC's in mind to preven twisting, this one should excel with large heads.

Hi Breal, larger number is less offset. ie the face progression of an AF-301 iron is 3.75 and for the AF-701 5 iron which has more offset it is 1.75

Lots of great stuff. I'll be adding the entire lineup to the shop including irons, FW's, utilities and putters. Best of all... their price is amazing!

I've gone through a lot of clubs this season, mostly for fun and testing but a few did make it in my bag during the course of the year. Here are my bags starting with the most recent season ending bag, followed by mid season and beginning of the season. No doubt this bag will change this off season. (^_^) The bag I ended the season with: G-field 10.5* Prototype GFT Driver with Graphite Design Tour AD W-50 Royal Collection FD Star 3 Wood 14* with Mamiya Axiv 5052L Srixon XXIO UT5 17* with Graphite Design Tour AD UT-55 G-Field GFT-UT 21* with Graphite Design Tour AD UT-55 Epon Forged AF-701 5-PW with Graphite Design Tour AD AD-65 Grind Studio Prototype Wedge 50* Srixon XXIO 45 Wedge 54* Sky Dream Jump D-Tour Wedge 58* C&L Putter - Inpakuto Edition Nowon No.1 Grips on All Mizuno Cross Eight Tour 352S balls Bridgestone Paradiso Shigeki Maruyama Tour Bag The bag I had back in August: Epon Forged Technity 460 10.5* with Roddio W5BA Epon Technity 3 Wood 15* with Mamiya Axiv 5052L Srixon XXIO UT5 17* with Graphite Design Tour AD UT-55 G-Field GFT-UT 21* with Graphite Design Tour AD UT-55 G-Field CCB-1 5-PW with Mamiya Axiv 758M Scratch Custom Inpakuto PW Epon Model X Copper Wedge 52* Sky Dream Jump D-Tour Wedge 58* Gauge Design Japan Type0-SP Iomic Grips on all Wilson Fifty balls Bridgestone Paradiso CBA710 Bag The bag I started the season with: Epon Forged Technity 460 10.5* with Mamiya Axiv 5052L G-Field GFT 4 Wood 16* with Diamana Ion Redboard Tourstage ViQ 21* Hybrid G-Field GFT-UT 24* with Graphite Design Tour AD UT-55 Tourstage Z-101 5-PW with Nippon NS Pro 850GH Fourteen MT-28 V2 Wedge 52* Fourteen MT-28 V2 Wedge 58* G-Field Premium Zone #1 Tourstage X-01S balls Tourstage Stand Carry Bag

The Yamaha's are square faced. And the amazing thing is, the 425V which won that D-1 distance shootout has a real loft LOWER than the stated loft. The 9* was measured as 8.6* real loft! The 460D 10* was measured as 10.8* real loft.

Hi Rob, The biggest challenge for us is finding you the right loft! There are a lot of hot drivers off the tee with great ball speeds but finding one under 9* is a tough! I'm going to poke around and see what I can find for you... there were some recent Japanese magazine articles featuring the long drivers of Japan and the drivers they are using... let me dig it up. (^_^)

Good points all around, most OEM shafts are probably okay for the mid to high handicapper/recreational player and not all stock shafts are created equal. Many equipment brands have learned that putting in a good shaft is just as important as making a good head and it has shown recently as even OEM's are offering better stock shafts and more options.

You can take mine when I'm done testing with it. (^_^)

My wife plays golf but she still doesn't understand half the "golf talk" in the Japanese magazines. I usually do get her help for difficult kanji, the rest I try and go at it myself which is why I can be wrong sometimes! (^_^)

No probs, K, i didn't realize you were leaving Japan so soon! Trip goes by far too quickly!

Now that they are officially out live pics are everywhere! (^_^) Here are more for your viewing pleasure!

That's what I said a few posts above (^_^) It's not exactly square as we initially guessed months ago... It's just considered high MOI now.

The bottom pic is just the lighting... we're using the same top pic in the pro shop... borrowed, from Yahoo! (^_^)

I saw the same pic in Golf Style, it's a special edition only. The pink ones are actually released!

After talking to Junpei this morning it doesn't sould like it will. They are intent on keeping it high end and top quality and will not change any of their design or manufacturing methods. It's merely their move to spread the epon name globally.

Yeah that's been discussed on the site in a few threads already. The new EMB driver should be out Mid December. It's in my sig. (^_^)

Love the pictures man! Looks like time well spent in Japan my friend! Don't you just love the driving ranges in Japan? Setup looks amazing! I'm jealous! (^_^) Glad to see you have at least a couple of Callaway clubs in there!

I spoke to Junpei over at Epon Forged this morning and he said he's getting inquiries already. He mentioned he got a question about shafts and he noted he forgot to Mention Mamiya Axiv, so add that to the list of upgrades.

Congrats on your new irons and first post! (^_^) Besides distance and trajectory, one thing you should test which should be the stronger suit of the R7 forged would be workability/control. Try and work some shots and check the feel. The two shafts you're using are also very different, the 950's should give a slightly higher trajectory, and distance will depend a lot on the lofts between the two. Give it some time, one range session may give you initial impressions but playing them more will allow you to learn more about their strong and weak points. The R7 Forged definitely does look better though (^_^).

One thing this article did not get into is the stock shafts of each driver, it would have been far too much to cover. That said, it's obvious today that shafts do make a big difference and they probably did as well in this shootout. The conforming Yamaha driver is shafted with a stock Yamaha DX-507D shaft which is known to be a very good stock shaft perhaps just a notch below big upgrade names (there was a Golf Gear test earlier this year that pit this shaft against Diamana, Graphite Design and Fujikura, I should find that). The yardages were also about right for the testers' swing speeds and level of skill. Remember the guy in the middle with the 43 m/s speed is not a professional like Yokota and Kaneko the lady pro (who outhit the faster speed guy with a few of the drivers). Yokota was killing a few of them though on the last few tests!

I agree the Japanese Srixon irons always look better than the US models...