What's in My Bag

I've been tinkering with the clubs in my bag for about 1 year now and I think I finally got the right combination. Here is what's in my bag for the rest of the trip...




Irons

Mizuno MP-H4 3-PW with Project X PXi 5.5 Shaft

I've played with my new Mizuno MP-H4 irons now for about 10 rounds and I am very impressed with the iron and the shaft I got on them. The irons are super forgiving for the long irons and very accurate with short irons. Mizuno designed these irons with the larger soles for the longer irons and progressed the soles thinner as the irons gets shorter. The result is the 4-iron is as easy to hit as the 9-iron. I've definitely had a few 180 - 200 yard shots these past few rounds that I was able to have them land softly on the green from that distance.

 Woods

Ping G20 10.5 degree Driver with Aldila NVS 55 Stiff Shaft
Ping G20 3-Wood, Ping G20 Hybrid 23 degree

I did the coolest thing today. Hwan and I got up in the morning and headed to the Ping factory and did a custom fitting by a fitting professional at Ping! I've always liked Ping drivers ever since I got my first set of woods in 2006 so getting to go to the Ping factory was really a treat. The driver use to be my most consistent club in my bag. As weird as that sounds, I was able to hit a nice fade on my Ping G5 driver consistently for about 230-240 yards. After I moved back from Singapore I wanted to upgrade my driver to the new G20 driver. I had mistakenly (through some bad advise from the Golfsmith sales guy) bought the Regular shaft on the G20 when I should be hitting a Stiff shaft. The G20 never had any control with that R shaft so I replaced the shaft with the ProLaunch Blue shaft from my G5 and cut the driver down to 44.5 inches. What a huge mistake that was! I was even more inconsistent and I barely hit the club further than my 3 wood. So today I got properly fitting for a new shaft at Ping. It was either that or get a new club and I figured this was a MUCH cheaper option. I ended up getting the Aldila NVS 55 Stiff Shaft that's lighter and with a higher ball flight. Besides, it's burnt orange (same school color at THE University of Texas at Austin) so I had to get it. I also went back to the 45.75in standard length to get more distance on the driver. So the rule of thumb from now on...if it ain't broke, don't fit it. I should have just bought the standard S-shaft with the first place with stock everything. It would have been a much cheaper option than all the tinkering I've done with this driver.

 Wedges

Titleist Vokey 52 and 56 degree SM4 Wedges

I've had these Vokey wedges for about 9 months now and I absolutely love them. I had and old set of Mizuno wedges that I replaced because the bounce on my previous wedges were too low. I was digging into the ground too much instead of using the bounce on the club and hearing that "thump" sound when the ball is struck well. I'm finally able to get some decent amount of spin on my pitches and have been shredding some of the softer golf balls on the market. The ball stops on a dime now and I can really target the pin from 100 yards in.

 Putter

Titleist Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Blade Putter with SuperStroke Slim grip

If you've played golf with me in the past few years, you know the putter was something I've been struggling with for years. I was even dumb enough to buy one of those heavy putters (one of the worst golf purchases of all time.) It was like taking 3 wedges together and trying to put with that weight. I also found that the putter I was using was too long for me and I had grip down on the putter which caused the weighting to be off. So over Christmas, I bought myself a used Scotty Cameron putter on eBay (can't justify the cost of a new one). I got the putter in 33in length and put on a SuperStoke Slim grip on the bad boy. The difference has been night and day. I'm beginning to develop a lot more touch on the short putts. The long putts are still a work in progress. So this trip my putting average has decreased from 2.0 to 1.78 per round. This will definitely help save a few strokes a round.