Fairway Woods Dilemma

[warrenhk]

my 2 cents, I play with Ryoma F3, F5, F7 and F9, light and super easy, hollow feeling and twing sounding. Epon 202HT and 202 5W, heavier head and you can feel the head, nice high ball flight, less forgiving than Ryoma. Crazy CRZ 3 and 5 FW, best feeling and sounding of the three, but less forgiving than Ryoma and Epon. Egg V2, just couldn't get use the swish sound... my go to club is the Ryoma 5w with FE.

[JayDM]

Still use the Epon Technity 3 wood, its the only club in my bag that doesn't change day to day, its shafted with a Stinger 70X which has been by far the best 3 wood shaft I've tried so far.... I haven't tried too may JDM FW's so I can't say that this is the "best", but I can say that its very good at just about everything, the setup is very attractive, very clean looking head, sets up dead square, face is mid depth, more towards deep than shallow, but not overly so and definitely not deep enough to make it less effective off the fairway. The feel is sublime, that wonderfully buttery feel common to almost all Epon woods, and it gives you a very powerful dense feeling through the ball, the sound complements the head very well, a solid thwack through the ball but with a bit of a tink as well that makes it seem like the ball comes hot off the face. Not sure about head weight, but its heavy enough for me to feel the head throughout the swing. Ball flight is dead neutral, mid-ish with no real draw or fade bias and very easy to manipulate up or down, left or right, especially off the tee. It's a fairly forgiving head, slightly off the middle in any direction turns out totally fine and when I'm not swinging well it does great giving me a straight ball from a nice easy swing with excellent dispersion, but if you really miss the ball there is punishment in feel and flight, more so in towards the heel than out towards the toe, its not the type of head that fixes or straightens out all mistakes. Tough to comment distance wise as I haven't hit any of the real JDM FW distance champs(EGG, Ryoma), but for a more traditional type of FW I believe it holds its own distance wise, I wouldn't say it gives ALOT of easy distance, as I don't think this would perform as well as some others for players who don't generate much speed or power, but if you have some power through the ball then this can definitely get you out there and it'll do it very consistently. I guess that's where this head really shines for me, its neutral, consistent, and lets me do what I want with the ball without having to fight the head, but it offers just enough forgiveness and distance to inspire confidence and make it enjoyable to game. I'm planning on trying some other FW's, namely the new EGG 15* to see if something can kick the Epon out of the bag, or give me something to rotate with depending on courses or conditions.... Whatever I try, I'll probably try with either a Stinger, Diamana B, GD SF, or GD P9003/9003, the GD SF has been a favorite in FW's for a while but recently the Stinger has taken the top spot, just had my first experiences with the Diamana B and both the 9003 and P9003 and both are looking like serious contenders for top shelf FW shafts, the Diamana for all around performance and the GD's for something a bit lower launch that still feels lovely and holds its line in any conditions wonderfully. The Waccine 77 or 88 might give all others a run for there money if they're as good as I've heard.

[supo]

HOLD THE FORT.......................................................!

im going to have to revisit my earlier comment about the s-yard XV quadra fex 75xs and distance.

last night . i played "nighta" first time in 10 yrs here.

the best night conditions u cud ever imagine 29* not a breath of wind, it was magnificent.

anyway i just hit balls ,4-5 balls per hole drives, irons, fwds. wedges for 9 holes was pure pleasure , no putting just ball stiriking on course. doesnt get any better , only 1 other group out , for 2 and a bit hours of ball striking on course. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the pleasure..!

so..,

i took the crazy 13.5* f14 with roddio tour 70x which ive not used in months..... THAT has all changed from last night i assure you !

callway erc3 fusion big bertha bore thru with bi-matrix X 15*

s-yard XV.. 15* qaudra fex 75xs

on the 18th which was 563 dead flat huuuuuuuuuuuge wide fairway. like 30-40 yards wide .

i hit 10 drives with the callaway and s-yard fairway woods

and then into the green with the crazy f14.

results.

the 5 callways i hit ended up all about 10 yards form each other pretty much dead centre of fairway

this callaway thing , (my all time fav fwd btw....) is the deadliest straight fw ive ever hit with this shaft set up

its unmoving , its unrelenting in its accuracy. and its NOT short . its just overly long.

its plain old BORING in its consistancy !

its great to rely on from a tee.

.

for this experiment. i purposly tried to really rip them as hard as i cud. and get them to turn over, to go as long as i cud get them to go.

from a tee the callaway is just unbeleiveably accurate. or rather the bimatrix prob is!

(off the deck,meeeeeeeeeeeeeh thats another thing completely ...!)

put it like this.. ive def found a fwd driver repalcement for pete dye courses!

while not overly long i will say it was at a distance that didnt really make it that impossible to get onto a par 4. with more than a 6 iron. so its got a place , esp on short tracks. high and stright didnt want to move 1 iota and iwas trying to make it do so.

that shaft needs to be spoken about more!!!!!!!

anyway. onto the s-yard.....................................................,

i literally took the long handle to this . and wailed on them. the whole point of the excersice was to see what out and out distance

i cud muster from this thing without the pressure of a match, and on course, these oportunities dont come up very often !

well as i discoverd this thing CAN indeed go loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong. really really really long.

im not going to say defintively how long it went .but rest assured the next shot into the green with the crazy f14 was green high in a bunker

one of these drives was a career shot.

disperison,

as i said the point wasnt to get these in a bunch , (well it wasnt with the callway either but thats what happened.) it was to see maximum distance i cud get so i wasnt concerend with where they ended up i was trying to clobber them , and well i got the perfect result with 2 of 5 . 1 in particular was all time. the fairway was like a landing strip for the A-380!.

. the syards drives were scattered around a bit more than the callways were ,

but the best syard was on 20 yards past the best callaway shot . and the 3 best s-yards were all over the callaways

the best callway was absolutley dead centre the best s-yard was left edge .

on 20 yards is a lot right???

this thing is foooooooo keeeeeeeeeeen good....!!!!!

[ndrews55]

@supo67 : Thanks for your review and comparison with the s-yard fw.

Anyway I am a bit confused now since TSG couldn't ship s-yard to my country due to territorial issue.

So that means that I had to look for another option.

Has anyone had any experience with Jbeam fairway woods?

Edited August 29, 2013 by ndrews55

[RLL33]

Stew -- yup, the XV is like a mini-t388 off the ground for me. On Tuesday, I overshot the green in 2 on my course's longest uphill Par-5 -- something I've never done before. Ball was sitting up in the fwy, and I caught it just right. Still... (My mates have gotten used to hearing me say, "Kobayashiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii..." after shots like this.

[supo]

hahahaah im really surprised how good this is it ahs a distinct feel to it differnt from typical traditional shaped FWD.

and it suits the .388 driver style as well.

a lot of similarities there.

with this set up its still a bit of an ask off the dec kfor me beci slice balls mainly. and the fex kills me a lot.

imthinking a nice diamanaB in this wud be superb

[+TourSpecGolfer]

hahahaah im really surprised how good this is it ahs a distinct feel to it differnt from typical traditional shaped FWD.

and it suits the .388 driver style as well.

a lot of similarities there.

with this set up its still a bit of an ask off the dec kfor me beci slice balls mainly. and the fex kills me a lot.

imthinking a nice diamanaB in this wud be superb

They should have named it after the 388 how similar it is.

[supo]

exactly.. its bears no resmeblance to the XV at all.

this has grown on me big time . its killed my desire for a ryoma f2 now although the extra height of the ryoma is def a good thing

[RLL33]

Agree with you both. I call it my T3. And it keeps growing on me too -- just like the t388 did at the start. Love how the two of them look sitting next to each other.