gocchin

Here's the new ViQ Driver showing it's dual fin face....

Here you guys go... a lot more red on top than I expected...

Ask Chris about getting an Epon in the 204-205g range.... I think it's doable.

Most Japanese driver heads are between 190-200g (most on the lighter end) I was lucky enough to get a few heads over 200g, including an Epon at 201g and two G-Field drivers at around 204g. This really helped as I play a driver between 44 and 44.5" depending on the head.

Lung-chia, I'd have to agree with you that TM is probably being a little conservative in their descriptions, I would call the R7 forged as having minimal or less offset, definitely not medium. No live R7 TP Forged pics yet but the R7 pics we have definitely don't look like medium offset:

Duffer19 has one he got from Chris... he absolutely loves it.

Considering the MD is actually a 3 year old model (original Td utility in japan), I would hope so.... The Td+ is still amazing... I bet you would do well with that B along with your X-UT.

Taylormade Japan, based on it's very popular R7 Forged iron of 2007 us releasing it's R7 TP Forged iron at the end of November. This Tour Preferred iron is forged from soft S25C and is a compact, minimal offset head made for lower handicap players. The R7 TP Forged features a low to mid launch trajectory for maximum workability and a thin topline with very little offset for superb setup at address. The head shape was designed based on feedback from Japan tour professionals, looking for a thin sole and muscle back like control. The R7 TP Forged is available as 5-PW standard and with either NSP Pro 950 GH R or S steel or Dynamic Gold S200 or X100 steel. 3 and 4 irons are also available.

Here are some pics (not by me) that give you an idea of how they look, type S and D...

Ajay has the MP Craft 425, X-Drive and Epon all in his stable right now and has made a few posts on them a while back I think.

I also heard that, it will be interesting to see considering Sonartec has been so heavily dependent on RC design these last what 5-6 years???

Also placing a tungsten weight towards the toe helps eliminate hooks and pulls. It's meant to keep it toe weighted and face open for more workability and fade bias...

Some live pics of the new TS stuff which is starting to get coverage in Japan... looks pretty awesome! Though the driver is not quite black... it's more like gunmetal....

The JPX looks very interesting... I'm wanting to try one very soon.... Reminds me of the hibore scoop out crown... (though I've never tried that either)... and the V sole is like the RC's and ONOFF's These live pics are from the web

The problem was that the xxio head was very light, coupled with a heavier grip and heavier shaft the swing weight went down to like B something! the xxio stock shaft is 53g versus 58g for the GD and the stock grip was like 40g versus the 48g No1 grip.

Yes I have a 10.5 as part of my collection. Pretty easy to hit with a similar design to the FW and UT as you know. It does setup very nice at address. It's not the longest of drivers but as Chris put it, it's a fairway finder. Mine has a more muted feel and sound as some of them were foamed.

Played 9 holes today, and I am very happy with the AF-701's. Paired with the Graphite Design Tour AD, they are winners. Smooth and far more forgiving than I expected. I hadn't been out to the course in a couple of weeks so my swing was a bit off and I only birdied 1 of 9 holes but the irons were a pleasure to play and were very forgiving for me. I actually like the feel of the irons, yes there is a click but it's softer than what I expected from the AsRoll face. I really like them, the stronger lofts surprised me as I over hit a few, further than I expected by 10 yards or so, however they were very straight. So far so good.

Besides the steel option only on the TC-550 the are geared towards the mid handicapper. But i would agree that there area a load of other irons that would be far easier to hit including the AF-701, XXIO, NV-NX, R7 XR, New ViQ, ONOFF Gravity Control, JPX E500 etc... but those TC-550 Forged just look sooooo good. ^^

Yes this is indeed a shot of the smallest plant from Endo... Stork and Eagle plants as they call it, are where the big action and majority of the manufacturing takes place.

But none of the leaves glow like that Kasco.... it was like a light in the gound it was so easy to find. A white ball was totally lost in the leaves. By the way, thanks for brining be back some balls.

Using graphite shafts with my utilities I play them around 0.5" longer than the club they are replacing. I also try to get close to the overall weight and swingweight of the club they are replacing to try and keep my set in balance. I used to play stock JDM utilities out of the box but they are excessively light. My XXIO hybrid is like 320g I changed the shaft to a Tour AD UT-55 and weight the head so that total clubweight got to 343g and swingweight closer to C9/D0.

I went out this morning to play 9 holes. I decided to bring only two of my balls with me. One Callaway Hyper ERC and one Kasco Dual Mode Tour (glowing yellow ball that looks radioactive). Played like crap, and only birdied 1 hole out of 9 but had a chance to see how my balls would stand up to various conditions. Of the tee both are long and straight with the driver. The Kasco had more spin, the ERC was slightly straighter. Both had soft feel. Around the greens both balls possessed adequate spin, not crazy spin (then again I did not play my sky dream jump wedge which spins the heck out of any ball but also shreds them to hell). Stuck the Kasco 1 foot from the hole off the tee with a 7 iron on the 4th hole (my only birdie). Chipping felt good and responsive with both balls, nice feel. Putting was also not bad, but they almost seemed too hot of my putter... maybe it was just me. I'm happy with the way both balls carried, spinned and felt. I will play them again but next up will be the Tourstage X-01 S3 and Mizuno 352S Tour. Oh yeah the ERC was pearl in color but the advantage went to the Kasco for being easy to find. It's fall here and leaves are everywhere but that thing glows like the sun. I had trouble finding my ERC in the rough on one hole, but never lost sight of the Kasco. Both my balls came home safely.

Most of the stuff there is pretty secret. Even Chris has toured the Epon factory but was not allowed to post any of the pictures. If you can get in that would be awesome. Even their showroom is quite a site with all the history of epon (those pics are okay). Anyone who's interested can see chris's original post here: http://forum.tourspecgolf.com/index.php?showtopic=23880 Here's a shot of the Endo plant in Japan as you know they have a few including in Thailand as well:

There are so many amazing utilities out there right now. It's funny you posted this as Golf Classic Magazine just did a shootout called your 200 yard club including a host of FW's and utilities. The best ranking hybrids in Japan have long been: Royal Collection Td+ Tourstage X-UT Srixon AD Hybrids But as many people here have said, and what I agree with is how the club matches your personal preference for shape and setup. there are those like the Td+ and X-UT that are more iron like hybrids and then the G-Field and ViQ and ONOFF that are more wood like profile. My personal favs are the G-field GFT UT, XXIO Utility and I'm very curious to try the new JPX utility.

Always good to see what the pros play. One great thing about japanese publications is the never ending coverage of what every oro plays. True to Katayama Shingo's word he is playing the Nike Ignite Hybrid Irons! He has always said "I will play whatever is the most forgiving in the Nike lineup" He's still playing a 10.5* loft driver which is not that common for pros I think. He's got the proto Black G graphite going as well in his irons! This is just a small sampling as this report was on irons and I only scanned a few pages out of many but still looks like a lot of blades in there... It's definitely a big battle overall between Tourstage and Srixon irons.... 5 irons specs are listed and in some cases shaft specs too...