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Tour vs. Retail NO BULL


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For this topic I want straight up, no BS answers as I am sick of the total BS on that BS site (wink wink, you know who) Also, don’t link me to another trend. This topic will never go away, it has to be talked about…

What is the difference between tour and retail besides the square/open face?

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It depends on the company. Titleist tour is as close to retail as you can get. Heads are probably picked for loft, weight and face angle accuracy. Taylor made sometimes has other heads it uses for tour use. The 300 tour was never available retail and the XD tour issue has a completely different sole design. The "mid" 510 is a different head than retail. The R500 was never available retail. Callaway tour is no different than retail except weighting and possibly shimming of the shaft to make the face more square or open...with the exception of the GBB 8.2* which was designed for Titleist balls and the Hawkeye 8.3* and 8.7* I think also designed for Titleist balls. The VFT pro series. and tour series is a VFT with a legal ERC forged face (super hot driver). Callaway tour irons have groove options. The standard grooves have vertical scoring lines on the face and the box groove model has no vertical scoring lines. Taylor made forged irons are forged somewhere else. Taylor made cast clubs usually have custom ground soles (which any good clubmaker can do) and have taper tip hosels vs. parallel hosels. I could go on and on..............................

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Just a comment, not trying to bash you or anything….

You are saying that tour clubs are just hand picked for weight, loft etc.? That’s it? A club is 3x the retail price, and all you get is a driver that has 204g head instead of a 205g retail head?

How many people on tour know or care about what type of groves they have in their irons? Tiger, Phil, and maybe a handful more? How much difference does box groves make to a ball? Didn’t some guy named Mulphy (works for golfworks) to a test with a wedge saying that he could spin the ball just as much with NO groves as he could with groves?

Please show a pic of the R580XD retail and tour sole. Explain to me the difference in terms of ball flight.

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Grooves make a difference, I don't care what anybody says. It's physics. Some players request different grooves, I'm sure why that is an option in the first place. I gave my kid brother my Cleveland 58* 588 tour only wedge with tour grooves and he overstopped the ball with approaches for a while. The club literally will chew the cover off a pro V regular like a precept tour premium.

A club with a loft different than stated can play different than the player wants, that's why the tour gets the accurate lofts. Those guys are machines and their clubs are matched to fit their optimal launch angle, spin rate, etc......and as stated, some heads available to the tour are never offered retail.

Don't quote me, but I'm sure COG is different on the XD retail vs. tour option. The sole looks like a r510 DF but says r580xd.

I play a 300 tour driver and it's more solid than any other driver I've ever used...with the exception of a Miz. 300s. Unfortunately, the 300s was about 10+ yards behind. My fairway wood has a nice factory grind on the leading edge for forgiveness from all lies. The pw in the MP30 set sucks IMO so I replaced it with a better looking wedge. The gap/sand has a heel drop and I use a black nickel vokey 5808.

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Yes it is a topic that has pretty much been over talked. But there are some differences between tour clubs and their retail counterparts. For most it makes no difference, but for the few (thats us) looking for that special something they can provide us with our fix.

Just a couple of interesting things (I believe)

When TM Tour clubs are touted as the next best thing they are said to have a maxed out COR. Yet on other posts I read that you are more likely playing a non-conforming club if its retail. This was said as if its a bad thing, yet if it was tour, the price would go up $200.

Headweights really annoy me - people say its great because it has a heavy head.... Well for me that is true. I want to play me driver at 44" D4 with a 70 gram shaft. But say if I am a bad player and need the extra length say 45.5" D2, well pretty much every driver on tour is unplayable at that length!

Tiger's Driver - when everyone was going crazy over the latest technology, he was still playing a trusty 975D. Steel shaft, 6.5* (confirmation?) with a 70 year old 125gram steel shaft! No one drove the ball bettre in 2000. Now he has got a Tour Prototype Ignite and the ONE made just for him, yet he cant hit a fairway!! (Yes I know - swing related)

And that brings me nicely onto my next point - money! Say I jump on the TM band wagon (or any other OEM - its just TM does it for me)

I am a promising 15 handicapper who has potential to play off scratch if I could just stop slicing the ball 20 yards. Enter the R7 Tour $1400 - now I just load up the weights and vóila - power draw! My X-12 thats I got when I first started and too forgiving & I need more feed back - here come the TP combos. Not the poor retails forgings but the Tour Miura Satins. Bling Bling but the 2 iron is more useful as a knife than a club. Oh yeah $1500 for the extra offset ones!

Now comes the wedges - I am going to get 304SS TMs with an M-Grind. Why an M-Grind? Coz Tiger has in OBVIOUSLY! I have read countless posts (indeed one by an owner of another board) that said he wants an M-Grind even when a well known wedge Guru said it did not suit him at all! But these say proto in Times New Roman Font on the back $550 for 3.

I am going to stop now, but thats in excess of $2500 for a bag that does not suit me, and is only bought based on hype. I have no problem with a person buying tour clubs if he has at least seen/hit them. How many lessons/range sessions could you get out of that $$$?

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Yes it is a topic that has pretty much been over talked. But there are some differences between tour clubs and their retail counterparts. For most it makes no difference, but for the few (thats us) looking for that special something they can provide us with our fix.

Just a couple of interesting things (I believe)  

When TM Tour clubs are touted as the next best thing they are said to have a maxed out COR. Yet on other posts I read that you are more likely playing a non-conforming club if its retail. This was said as if its a bad thing, yet if it was tour, the price would go up $200.  

Headweights really annoy me - people say its great because it has a heavy head.... Well for me that is true. I want to play me driver at 44" D4 with a 70 gram shaft. But say if I am a bad player and need the extra length say 45.5" D2, well pretty much every driver on tour is unplayable at that length!

Tiger's Driver - when everyone was going crazy over the latest technology, he was still playing a trusty 975D. Steel shaft, 6.5* (confirmation?) with a 70 year old 125gram steel shaft! No one drove the ball bettre in 2000. Now he has got a Tour Prototype Ignite and the ONE made just for him, yet he cant hit a fairway!! (Yes I know - swing related)

And that brings me nicely onto my next point - money! Say I jump on the TM band wagon (or any other OEM - its just TM does it for me)  

I am a promising 15 handicapper who has potential to play off scratch if I could just stop slicing the ball 20 yards. Enter the R7 Tour $1400 - now I just load up the weights and vóila - power draw!  My X-12 thats I got when I first started and too forgiving & I need more feed back - here come the TP combos. Not the poor retails forgings but the Tour Miura Satins. Bling Bling but the 2 iron is more useful as a knife than a club. Oh yeah $1500 for the extra offset ones!

Now comes the wedges - I am going to get 304SS TMs with an M-Grind. Why an M-Grind? Coz Tiger has in OBVIOUSLY! I have read countless posts (indeed one by an owner of another board) that said he wants an M-Grind even when a well known wedge Guru said it did not suit him at all! But these say proto in Times New Roman Font on the back $550 for 3.

I am going to stop now, but thats in excess of $2500 for a bag that does not suit me, and is only bought based on hype. I have no problem with a person buying tour clubs if he has at least seen/hit them. How many lessons/range sessions could you get out of that $$$?

i totally agree with you there tour stuff isnt for everyone.im off scratch and improving and i know that most tour stuff doesnt suit me.I also no that there are m,any people on here that buy tour stuff cause they think it is better but thay r just kidding themselves. lastly you could be a scratch golfer if you got rid of a slice.fair enough but i could be number1 in the world if i just holed more putts.also a fair comment.but see its unlikely to happen. my advice if you sort ur swing out u could get to scratch.if you are off 18 now its VERY unlikely you have a scratch golfers swing. ihave to say that through out last year i did have a majour slice with my driver so u no wot i didnt use it.

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My biggest complaint about retail drivers is the face is either slightly closed or has some degree of weight bias. I have had some retail drivers I picked up that sat very square and seemed to have no weight bias but not many. I have found with the Pro Series Callaway drivers they seem to be very close to tour and the TP models in Taylormades.

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No bull,

Tours have more square to open face angles to give the ability to move the ball left to right or right to left better. Hotter faces on some models. Higher center of gravity on some models to flatten out trajectory for longer total distance. Some are more solid feeling heads because of extra weight or foaming.

I play a 420 TM Burner Tour, great great club, the retail is one of the worst drivers I have ever hit, simple as that.

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goingleft,

I have a 420 tour also, I have had several 510 DF's and 510 TP tour's and I must say the 420 tour is a better fit for me than DF or the TP tour, it is a rocket. I am currently testing a 540 DF, the 420 tour is the most underrated tour driver there.

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For this topic I want straight up, no BS answers as I am sick of the total BS on that BS site (wink wink, you know who) Also, don’t link me to another trend. This topic will never go away, it has to be talked about…

What is the difference between tour and retail besides the square/open face?

For woods - No difference unless it's a head that isn't available in retail. It might not even have a square/open face. Taylor Made is the main company that has heads that were not released retail. It's changing though and they are releasing the newer heads to retail after a short testing period. However, the tour faces are not hotter and they are just set up for someone else's specs. I've had many tour clubs and I've had them tested by one of the best clubmakers around.

The irons, wedges and putters - They are just set up for someone else. Tweaked to their spec w/ grooves, grind and whatever. Or could be prototypes.

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just for the record I am actually a 5 handicap not 18! 4.9 to be precise but have not played a competition since last August on a/c of school

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I almost never post on any tour vs retail topic on any forum and I probably have more credibility than just about anyone on this topic. Why? One, I have bought and/or played just about every tour club out there under the notion that it was fun. I was never under any illusion that a tour club was going to save me strokes. Two, I play to a 12 index but I also regularly play with three scratch golfers (well, two and one that used to be scratch) and I can hang with those guys on any shot they can hit. I just cannot consistently do that over 18 holes. Lose a stroke here and there and it adds up.....especially off the tee which is my biggest weakness.

So here is what I have found in two+ years of being a huge club ho.

1. The industry cannot keep up with me. I am bored with club ho'ing. The R7 has me mildly interested, but not to the point that it is in my bag today. After that, there is nothing out there in terms of technology, looks, or just plain wow factor that has me chasing after another club. Sure, there are a ton of Japanese clubs that would be cool to try, but I am not in a hurry.

2. Tour clubs do not save shots, clubs that are fit for you and feel comfortable save shots and those could be tour or retail. Feeling comfortable is not a science, it could be the satin finish, it could be the face depth, it could be the sound, but whatever it is, your mind knows what feels good and what does not. When a club feels good and relaxes you, this has an unquantifiable positive effect on your game.

3. Once in awhile a tour club comes out that is not otherwise available in similar setup or retail that is just an awesome club. TM is the most guilty of this. When the 300 Tours were out, that driver blew away every retail driver by 20 yards, and this is no joke. Sure, the sweet spot was the size of a quarter, but if you could hit it, the new balls just exploded. The next best club in retail were the new Cobras at the time with the super big sweet spot. But holy cow, the Cobras were LOUD!!!!

The TM 510 DF is another example before the 510 TP was released. It was nothing like the other TM retail drivers and it was a more forgiving version of the 300 Tour.

4. So, is it worth an extra $300 - $1000 (or more) to get the tour issued driver? Of course not. How could it be? It's been argued many times before and the bottom line that always comes out is that tour issued is for players who do not pay for clubs (pros), enthusiats who have the money to burn and like the hobby aspect of golf whether that be a passion or for collecting, other enthusiasts who have good connections so the cash outlay is minimal so therefore its fun to hit the best clubs, and the very rare soon to be pro golfer who needs the rare combination not otherwise offered in retail. Any other reason is a lie.

Pick your OEM. Titleist? The best they can offer is that tour issue club heads are weight sorted, blah, blah, blah. The best "tour club sellers" can offer is "I assure you, tour issue is different, blah, blah, blah." Bottom line is the differences are so small that not more than 1 or 2 out of 1000 golfers could tell the difference. Personally, I think Titleist thins out the face a little more in tour drivers, they have room to do this because the retail drivers are not pushing the COR limit. Other than that, it's a little bit of rat glue and strategic placement of lead tape that differentiates the driver. And of course, the rare proto head that never makes it to retail - see LFF, which is a neutral version of the same looking retail driver and again, slightly thinner face.

Callaway? Guess what, it's the same heads, and Cally does make square faced drivers. They make a lot of closed face ones too, and a few open ones. Check the damn website for the specs. And if there is any doubt Cally has something special, go to their pre-owned site and buy used clubs from the "tour" and when you get it in the mail I will not say I told you so when the GBB II looks just like the one at the store.

TM? We know their story. While it's nice they have a TP line, TM is still a bunch of pricks.

5. In terms of Drivers, awhile ago I had a Titleist JVS HiCor before they were declared illegal and I was killing it off the tee. It would drive another member here nuts because there should be no way that I am consistently longer. Then the club became illegal, the other guy got a TM 300 Tour and I was 40 yards behind him for many months. Then I got a 510 DF (tour issue) shafted by Joe Kwok with a 693 Fuji Tour Spec. And I was back to killing it off the tee. Then against all logic, I gave out the driver to another member and went on a 4 month quest to find a replacement. I tried a lot of drivers with a lot of shafts. Nothing came close. The best short experience was the Cally Titanium 2004 Big Bertha with a Fuji Tour release. Finally, I got another 510 with a Fuji 693 and am back to my comfort level. But, this one is a TP, not a DF. Difference? None. Maybe it sounds not quite as muted as the DF, but it is every bit as long.

So, really the two things I learned about tour vs retail drivers are, the face setup in terms of heel to toe length and face depth was very important to my comfort level and allowing me to swing more smoothly. Performance wise, the Fuji 693 matches up very well to my swing and scientifically, that makes the biggest difference. A 693 in a retail driver will not be as good because I am not as comfortable with the face, but a 693 in a GBB II will be better than say an Aldila in a GBB II simply because Aldilas are death for my swing profile.

6. Irons - Tour issued irons are mostly about looks. Whatever tour iron is out there, you can get a very similar setup in retail. Tour at best gets you a certain finish or style that you cannot get from OEM retail. Any other aspect can be duplicated, you just might have to pay more.

The business about tour brand X feels much softer than any retail is nonsense. Recently I just saw "tour" Titleist 704.CBs. You would not believe how minute the difference is between tour issued and retail. Look at the end of my sentence, that's the difference. A pro's 704.CBs vs retail is about fitting. And why would you want irons fit for someone else? A little bit of grind here and there, and a shaft setup for the swing profile is all that is different. And by the way, retail 704.CBs are pretty soft feeling for a retail CB club. I was very surprised. They are not far off from TM RAC CBs from Miura....very close.

Save your money, get a retail iron set you really like, then spend the money to get the right shafts and blueprint them. Why? Because a consistent feel across your set is much more important than a tour set that has one or two irons you like. And the nature of steel shaft manufacturing is such that there will be a spine. There is plenty of scientific data that proves dispersion of blueprinted clubs is better than off the rack clubs. But if you are a club ho, then do not waste your money on blueprinting - you will never have the irons long enough to get to know them, so why bother?

7. Wedges. Here is a very gray area. Wedges are highly customizable compared to irons/drivers, so easily there are many tour issued wedges out there that could be more suitable for the better player than anything they can find retail. A few notes:

- If you are a TM player, do not waste money on tour wedges, their retail offerings are really good and very close to what is on tour. Biggest differences are in the additional grinding some pros get. Most common extra grind is heel relief. Buy the retail and if that does not have enough heel relief, pay JK $5 to grind on your wedge. Yes the 304 SS is really soft and there are very few wedges like it at all. So if you play these, you definitely fall in the category of "I can afford to beat up my $300 wedges".

- Quit asking for and using a special grind that is one, not suitable for you, and two, you do not even have a clue what the grind is for. If you must experiment with different grinds, buy $20 clevelands from Ebay, grind them up and experiment until you find what you like for the courses you play the most. Otherwise, what are you doing? Heel grinds are important if you know how to use the wedge correctly, otherwise what a waste!

- Some retail wedges have terrible grooves, most of the ones from the major OEMs are suitable for 99% of the golfing population. If you have to have "tour grooves" then get an aftermarket job from Iron Factory. It is the same damn club that costs you $400 in the form of a tour vokey.

- Cleveland and Titleist Vokey makes good wedges, suitable for most. What "tour issue" gets you that retail cannot is the special grind (if it works for you) and weight. Tour Clevelands for example can be really heavy, like D-7 swingweight with no tricks at all, just a S400 and a grip. There are no D-7 retail wedges. So for people who like a really heavy wedge, you go the "tour" route or you buy a roll of lead tape. It's all about personal preference.

- Grooves pushed to the max of legal limit spin more, end of story. Does not matter if it is boxed, U, hybrid, whatever. If you maximize groove width, the wedge will grip the ball better and spin it more. "Tour" wedges tend to have this more. Is that good? Maybe? But ask yourself this, lately on the PGA Tour, are the balls spinning back 25 feet on every green? Does TW spin the hell out of his wedges? Spin is sexy, but too much is stupid and uncontrollable. You need to know your shot patterns, know how you tend to use your gap, sand, and lob wedges. Then you can determine where spin can be removed or applied. The answer could be in the ball, the answer could be in the grooves, the answer is most likely in a retail wedge, rarely does a "tour" wedge solve it all. The point is, if you do not know your short game pretty well, what reason do you apply to a "tour wedge" purchase?

8. Putters. I have a potentially $10,000 true tour putter just sitting against my bookshelf while I type this up. In terms of performance, it is very streaky. Even if it was a $100 putter, it woud not be in my bag. Tour putters are the ultimate in status symbol or collectibles. They absolutely do not perform any better than retail putters as a whole. Tour putters have very few distinct characteristics that you cannot ever get in retail such as special stamps, different finishes, and custom hand ground. None of these make you a better putter.

Here is a newsflash for all of you. Nowadays when a pro wants to try a Scotty Cameron, the tour rep is giving out a retail Scotty. Just because you are on tour does not automatically get you the Circle T or the handstamped. You need to have some sort of relationship with Scotty, then you get the "custom" putter ordered from the studio and delivered. So PGA Tour pros are putting with retail Scotty's God forbid!!!!

And please, most of you do not need 350G putters. You know what I am talking about.

Okay, my fingers are getting tired.

9. I wanted to find more forgiving clubs thinking I could save some strokes. I played a bag of Callaways for six weeks. It was fun, but I did not necessarily get better. In some ways I got worse. So, I went back to an almost all MR-23 Tourstage bag. No doubt the CBs and MBs are some of the smaller clubs out there and therefore less forgiving and harder to hit. But you know what, my iron game has been much better over the last month. It's not the clubs. It's better tempo and better lag. I am still working on those.

10. Conclusions:

Once in awhile a tour club gets you better performance that cannot be matched with the retail version of the same club. If you have the money, great.

There are a ton of very good retail clubs out there.

Titleist has little difference, TM has a few tour only clubs but many of them are making their way to the TP line, Callaway has little difference. The rest of the OEMs have little difference, at best, their are tour only prototypes.

You cannot overestimate the importance of properly fit clubs, tons of people underestimate it.

Tour clubs in the hands of golf forum members are pretty much a hobby. It's something to have fun with and talk about away from the action of the game. If it means much more than that to some of you, it's time to reevaluate.

Cheers.

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Thanks for the really good post DM!

Just on a note about getting retail equipment to fit you.... Well I can only speak about my own experiences but this is how I set up my bag:

I could have gotten pretty much any Tour/Japanese/Rare club out there & at a good price. Club prices over here are crazy - a set of 690s cost literally $1300, a R510 TP is $650, and a Scotty is pushing $350. So when I traded in my old gear I got a nice bit.

Well lets start with the putter - I have always liked the Del Mar 3.5 head shape and love the "mystique" about Tour CT Scotties. I spent ages looking on ebay, scouring BST and just hoping I could score a CT 303SS Del Mar 3.5, the best price I saw was $850 over this time & that putter was chipped & beat up. So what did I do? I picked up a PP 2nd hand on GO for $140 and had George Palombi work on it. He did some hand grinding on it, and its now got a black finish & a totally blank sole (ala Tour) silver paintfill & my favorite grip. So yes, its not a tour putter and its not going to make me automatically putt better, but its a sexy putter & will inspire confidence.

Wedges were only ever going to be one thing - Scratch. Custom ground, custom finish and totally suiting ME! I love them - they take the best things about say my 60-M Vokey, the forged feel, shape etc.

Irons - here is where I will 100% stand behind these babies. I was googling at a set of RAC Miura Satin Tour CBs and other high end clubs, but they did not really suit me. So what did I do? I got a set of 670MBs second for $425 and had them refinished in Satin and grinded to suit me. Then I had them blueprinted with Project X 6.5s to my specs.... So in essence I got a Tour set of irons for LESS than a second hand set of Japanese spec RAC CBs!

FW Wood - this is just my favorite club in the bag. Again I was eyeing up the rare tour club - namely the 970 Silver. But I could not justify paying that much money for a club that I had never hit & has its reputation. Enter the SS-03 I got head only in Ireland, shipped to the States & put a Fujikura Speeder 869 in it. Now you coud not get this club for my cold dead fingers!

I will not move onto the driver just yet - I am still searching!

On a side note - for that entire set I paid less than for what a R7 Tour is going for now.

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Hey DM, Nothing like a good post like that to stop you from spending money without reason! :)

PxExG's post is great too. Reminds me that I need to buy stuff that fits me and not stuff that I think is cool...

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Great post DM and oh, so true!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I play a few tour clubs but I went not for the hype stuff but rather the things MY game will benefit from. Certainly not the newest-and-better-than-the-last-holy-grail stuff.

haribo

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