gocchin

Reserved

Reserved

Baldo has come a long way.... quite a few years ago when we evaluated their products, workmanship and performance were below par but that was not surprising considering the company was tiny and in its infancy. In recent years they have made huge strides and improvements in design, workmanship and most of all performance. They have grown along with a nice sized enthusiast following here in Japan. I love the look of their new TT Prototype clubs... (I wish brands would stop using the word Prototype!!). Baldo shows how they evolved from design on paper, to 3D CAD to actual molds and then unfinished head to finished heads. Here is an example of that process with the new VT511 driver and FW's We have demos coming soon and I can't wait to try them especially since the tout precision forged maraging CUP faces on all their woods!

Who said there were issues? And what do you expect manufacturers to say "here is our new bag, and by the way its worse than last years"... If you are all about improvement you will appreciate this then. Improvement is why we all change clubs, buy new gear and as consumers expect improvements.

Why do you say it doesn't say much about the quality of the others? Can't manufacturers improve the quality? Can't they use better materials and better workmanship. Nobody ever said the other bags weren't good. Epon is a forging house, not a caddy bag maker, they obviously out source the bags.

Master Sasaya has been mastering the art of sand blasting logos onto his putters. He can now do this with any logo which adds to customization possibilities... just finished a quick photo shoot....

Added some extra pics to the first post. Price is the same as the other bags eveb though this is a better bag than previous ones!

Just added a poll, please vote. Rob, quality wise, Epon has told me its their best bag. I still want to see pics of the front, but based on its weight and opening its the biggest bag they have made.

Last week Epon showed me their all new Tour Bag for 2013. It's their biggest bag yet and also the best quality bag they have made. No more dog on the bag just a modern design with high quality poly urethane and synthetic leather. I am ordering Blue! Which color do you like? Got some extra snaps in:

Just finished a photo shoot here with the driver in my office... I really like the way it looks.

nobmontana likes it, tae likes it, I like it... so far that's 3... nobody else has it yet....

The T388 has design advantages over the Technity 380. Both are created by the same guy, Kobayashi-san. The T388 has a much more advanced plasma welded Hybrid cup face which wraps the sole and crown. The Epon 380 was an insert in the face meaning the sweet spot was quite a bit smaller. The aerodynamics and weighting are more advanced in the T388 as well with the CG placement shorter and higher to create even lower spin than the 380. Finally the materials are different, the T388 uses VL Titanium which is thinner hence more hot yet more durable compared to what I think was 15-3-3-3 in the 380 if I remember correctly. To all those who want to order... email me. I will make arrangements. [email protected] Available as head only, stock Tour AD 388 Shaft (cross between feel and spin of a DI and control of a BB), or a custom shaft built right at Endo. 9.5* 10.5* lofts, stock shaft in SR or S. Custom headweights (though I need to confirm the range) and of course lengths and swingweights.

This putter was one of Kobayashi-san's last designs for Epon before he retired (from Epon that is). I talked to him about it back in Dec, and he is very proud of it. He actually had one in his S-Yard office.

Its definitely smaller but as I said earlier, surprisingly forgiving...

Here are more pics... including address. S-Yard just sent me another demo so I shot some pics today. Lots of people have a Ryoma so I shot the face profile next to a Ryoma... definitely not deep.

Well WD-40 is multi purpose and more "industrial". A lot of people use it, some refuse to, some are against using it. Sword oil is more delicate and obviously the ingredients are very different. It was a recipe from hundreds of years ago made to protect and clean beautiful forged Katana swords... Its more expensive, more rare, but there are those who swear by it. This does not mean of course if you have a raw wedge you should not do basics like wiping it down after each shot and cleaning it after a round. These little things help the wedge go a long way.

You mean shimming a 355 to 370? Not destructive at all. For example so many drivers in the US are 0.350 but the best shafts are all .335", so they all need to be shimmed for 0.350 heads. Its common and there are ways to do it without even using a shim.

I have about 10+ reviews lined up for the blog but have been backed up with so many other things. The ONOFF Forged is one of them. As it has been in previous years, it is a stand out iron in its class, for the mid capper to better player there probably is no iron as balanced when it comes to feel, distance and ease of use with some workability. There is some offset, the head size is not overly large nor is it overly small. People who like compact cavities and muscle backs may be turned off by the ONOFF Forged but then again they would not be looking at this model unless they wanted a very easy to launch iron with very strong distance. For the improving player and anyone wanting ease of use, it s the change to get forgiveness without sacrificing feel. Several aspects of the ONOFF Forged help enhance the feel including the grind which has alot of leading edge relief to help you get under the ball. The large amount of tunsten in the back sole push the CG lower so if players pick the ball and tend to hit lower on the face, this is an advantage as the sweet spot is lower. They counter the weight though by adding that extra triangle on the back face towards the top of the cavity to keep it from being too low on the face. The milled face is awesome, while I cannot confirm the actual spin improvement, I get the strangest sensation, like I did when Yamaha added the milling that it somehow softens the feel. As with the previous years model I would not hesitate to bag this iron and probably will at some point this year. Just does everything well, especially since I don't mind the size or offset. (its not that big, not THAT much offset)

125mph he will need an XXX in the 531 Proto (^_^)

Well at a 30 handicap, he is still very much improving as witnessed by his 125mph swing speed but 280y total distance. As he gets better he should be well over 300. We would need to figure our why he is getting too much spin and why he is slicing. A 3* closed face won't make a difference if he is cutting across the ball from outside to in and has a steep down blow which creates the huge backspin and high launch. As he improves his swing, these numbers will surely improve. At 125mph though I would say the RIP 60 Stiff is way too soft which could cause the head to lag way behind. Crazy 519 75 in X flex is a good start for sure.

I think I will try a set of MCI myself in RF-551's... they are very hot here in Japan so why not?

No problem at all. Reaming a hosel to 0.370 takes seconds for an experienced clubmaker. Done all the time.

Stiff is 7.2-7.4 on the Crazy scale. 6.9 is stiff/Regular. 519 launches lower than the 46. 46 is best at 45.5" or longer but it seems to handle 45" okay too.

I swear I took pics of the head at address with a ball but I need to find where I put them. These shots I took at S-Yard headquarters. Kobayashi-san explained why he went with the matte black finish. Too many heads these days are metallic or pearl like and distract from properly aligning with the ball, and many times due to the way the head reflects light (ie big gradient color spot right in the middle of the head or side or back depending on where the sun is) you can't make out the true shape of the head when setting up. The matte black shows the outlines of the shape of the head far clearer and no glare to distract from focusing on the ball to the head. For this reason the stock shaft which is a prototype from Graphite Design, which Kobayashi-san personally picked because it is a cross between the low spin and feel of a DI PLUS the control of the BB, is also matte black which is very cool. As a matter of a fact the overall size and face shape is similar to the famed and legendary Technity 380 from Epon but with modern design aspects such as newer weighting, different CG placement (very short and shallow - Kobayashi-san says this head is very low spin) and newer aerodynamics plus of course a completely new forged cup face vs the old insert face which is why forgiveness is way up. Not many small heads with a full plasma welded forged hybrid cup face. Once we get official pricing in the next few days we will be adding it to the shop and I have several blogs to do on S-Yard.

I'll be doing a blog post on the MCI very soon, but we have been taking them as special orders ie from Tae and Frank also got a set. The demand has been very high and stock very low that there was initially a 4 week wait but it seems they have caught up now so we can officially add them to the shop.