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MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED: TaylorMade R11 4-iron to pitching wedge fitted with stiff flex steel shafts.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I play a cavity-back iron that’s a lot thicker than what I see with this TaylorMade set. This almost looks like a blade, it’s a really good-looking clubhead. In the hands, it felt heavy, which was a good feel.

VERDICT: When you hit one in the sweet spot, it comes off absolutely pure. The other thing that was noticeable was the trajectory – it doesn’t climb up like so many game improvement irons. It was a pretty low ball flight, really penetrating, which I think meant the distance was a little longer than my current irons. I also found I was getting a
slight draw out of these R11s, which was strange because I pretty much cut the ball on every shot.

If you’re not hitting them pure, I thought that these irons weren’t as forgiving as others out there, and you’d really lose distance on mis-hits. The shafts also probably weren’t ideal for me, a little whippy.

That said, I rate the irons, and would definitely give them another go. While I found the long irons difficult to get going because you had to catch them precisely, the short irons were great. I hit a 9-iron on the 9th hole of my test round from 140 metres out to within a metre – a pure strike that had a great sound.

MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED: TaylorMade R11 4-iron to pitching wedge fitted with regular flex graphite shafts.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: It’s a perfectly normal-looking club at address, even with a big head. The topline and sole aren’t big and thick, so it’s not so obvious. The red weight port is the only thing that looks a bit odd, but you don’t see that standing over the ball – and it does look good, it matches the colour of my golf bag.

VERDICT: I currently play a set of TaylorMade irons, and I found the R11 to be much longer, even with the scoring clubs. The 7-iron was two clubs longer – I was hitting it in places where I normally would be playing a 5-iron, which made par-3s a lot more fun. The irons were definitely another jump in technology, as you’d expect with new clubs these days.

The forgiveness was excellent. You could hit them off the toe without much loss of distance. The ball flight was pretty high, sometimes higher than what I’m used to.

During the test round, I hit a memorable 4-iron – it was hard to forget, because I don’t usually hit long irons – into a long par-4 that set up a rare birdie on that hole. It summed up how easy to hit these clubs were, and how you could get more out of your irons. And there’s one other good thing – it was a wise decision not to paint the heads of these R11s all white.

FACT & FIGURES

SUITABILITY: A wide range of players.

SHAFTS: KBS 90 steel and Fujikura Motore graphite are standard.

LOFTS: 6-iron 28º, pitching wedge 45º; 50º and 55º wedges also available.

LEFT-HANDED MODELS?: Yes.

HOW MUCH?: $115 per iron (steel), $140 (graphite).

TAYLORMADE SAYS: “The first thing about the R11 iron that will grab the golfer’s attention is its red precision-weighting port, a technology initially introduced in TaylorMade’s forged iron lineup. The precision-weighting port allows TaylorMade engineers to: 1) guarantee precise swingweight and 2) ensure centre-face centre of gravity location in every iron.

“Progressive shaping makes the longer irons more forgiving, and the shorter irons more compact and workable. The soles of the R11 irons are moderately thin (with the exception of the long irons) and the leading edge is moderately sharp, helping it to enter and exit the turf quickly and smoothly. The long-irons are engineered with wider soles to pull the CG lower for easier, higher launch.

“TaylorMade’s R&D department worked diligently to perfect an advanced sound and vibration management system to ensure the feel in the R11 irons would appeal to better players. The R11 irons’ extraordinary feel comes from the club’s combination of shape, construction and the incorporation of an aluminum sound badge in the cavity.”
Contact TaylorMade-adidas on 1800 700 011 or www.taylormadegolf.com

Think back to the last time the beauty of a golf course took your breath away, or at the very least made you stop for a minute to bask in the scene. If it was by the sea, discard that one because any course or hole, no matter how good or bad, can look world class and amazing with an ocean view.

Let your thoughts drift away from the ocean to lush strip-cut and undulating fairways – lined with majestic strands of flooded gums as well as vast areas of sub-tropical forest – and punctuated by white sandy bunkers. In the spring, blossoming azaleas and flowering natives add touches of pink, red, white and purple to the colour palette.

If you’re now thinking of Bonville Golf Resort, you’ve been fortunate enough, like me, to experience arguably this country’s most beautiful inland golf course. If you haven’t played Bonville, there’s never been a better time to experience what some are moved to describe as Australia’s Augusta National.

There is some resemblance to the famous home of the Masters Tournament and all credit must go to the designers, Terry Watson and Ted Stirling, whose brief from the original owners was to create a course like that found in Georgia. However, there is only one Augusta.

What Watson and Stirling did was create a distinctly Australian golf course that has some features Augusta is famous for, including great elevation change between tee and green on many holes, holes incorporating natural watercourses, and, of course, the azaleas.

It seems the opening three months of play on the PGA Tour have been dominated by a handful of discussions – Tiger’s form, the continual rise of Rory, Keegan Bradley’s spitting, long putters and, the bane of the sport, slow play.

Slow play chat rears its head nearly every week now on Tour and for good reason. A growing number of players are so slow that you can almost see the grass growing around their feet as they prepare to hit a shot.

The recently deposed World No.1 Luke Donald has become so frustrated with the pace of play he vented with a Twitter tirade directed at the PGA Tour and some of his Tour colleagues. “It’s not that hard, be ready when it’s your turn … slow play is killing our sport.”

He continued: “I could rant all day long, don’t think anything will ever change as the slow players don’t realise they are slow.”

The key point Donald makes is that too many players are simply not ready to hit when it’s their turn. If these slowpokes spend two minutes working out club selection, wind direction and shot type before even starting their pre-shot routine and settling in over the ball that accumulates into a lot of time during a round when nothing happens.

Some of the worst offenders are Zach Johnson, Jim Furyk, Jonathan Byrd, Ben Crane (although he has worked hard in recent times to speed up) and J.B. Holmes. Two Aussies who earn the occasional mention for their pedestrian play are Jason Day and Nick O’Hern. For mine, the worst offender of all is Kevin Na, who doesn’t need to be put him on the clock by the Tour, he needs to be put on the calendar.

Sadly, slow play on the PGA Tour is going to continue unabated unless something is done to penalise those players boring us all with their time wasting. Forget one-shot penalties for pace of play. When the Tour starts talking about docking world ranking points for repeat infringements, the slow coaches might get a wriggle on.

I mention all this because it has become plainly obvious to me that what happens on Tour and is beamed into our living rooms ends up translating into the way a lot of amateur golfers play the game. If slow play is killing the game as a viewing spectacle at the top end, imagine what its doing to the game at the grass roots.

Slow play is the touchiest of subjects with any golfer. Accuse a playing partner or someone in a group ahead of being slow and you might get slapped across the face with a golf glove and ordered to duel behind the 18th green at dawn.

No one likes to be told they are slow. But the truth of the matter is that most of us are slow golfers. You might not be painfully slow but I’m sure every golfer, every single one of us, can be faster than we are currently.

The key is being ready to play when it’s your turn. If you don’t have a club in your hand when it’s your turn to hit, you’re already wasting time.

Here is a case in point where slow play can completely ruin what is a meant to be a great day out on the course. Admittedly, it is a worst-case scenario but I’m sure most of you will have encountered similar.

I played in a golf day a while back with a couple of mates and an acquaintance of theirs, called Neil. Neil, I was to discover, was a 22-handicapper with more money then sense. He rolled up to the tee pulling a huge staff bag behind him. He was sporting forged muscleback irons from the same manufacturer, an unused driver and some new fairway metals. The only item of equipment not making its golf course debut that day was his putter. I thought he was a low marker that was, until he stepped on the 1st tee and rolled every pre-shot routine he had seen from the slowest players on the PGA Tour into one.

Then, as he stood over the ball, he fidgeted and wiggled like he had ants in his pants. Just when all this stopped and I thought he was going to make a swing, he backed away and looked to the sky like God had changed the wind direction purposely to put him off his swing. With the zephyr gone, he started his routine from scratch, did his wiggle and fidget dance moves, swung the club back and sliced the ball 50 metres right and out-of-bounds. He hit two more drives O-O-B before acknowledging he couldn’t score on the hole.

At the 2nd, he kept the new, and now unpopular, driver in his bag. Pulled a 3-metal from the bag, went through his routine, wiggled and fidgeted and then thinned one down the middle of the fairway, leaving him exactly 173 metres from the flag. I know this because when it was his turn to play he reached into his bag and produced a laser rangefinder. He then proceeded to find out how far he had, tossed some grass in the air for wind direction and then worked through his pre-shot routine. Then came the swing, which saw him gouge a crater out of the fairway with his 3-iron that moved the ball about 15 metres.

I put up with this kind of scenario for the next five hours and 20 minutes. He pulled the rangefinder out for every shot longer than a chip and not once did he get close to hitting a shot that covered the distance flashing back at him from the device. All this amounted to the most excruciating round of golf I have ever played.
And what made it worse was that Neil could not recognise he had a slow play problem. On the four or five occasions when I suggested we should move a bit faster, he scoffed and said: “Why, what’s your hurry?”

After the round, he asked me what he could do to improve his game. I simply couldn’t help myself. I politely suggested his game would benefit greatly by not taking so much time preparing to hit. He needed to think less before swinging. To that end, I added, he should sell the rangefinder on eBay and use the money to get some lessons.
I learned recently that he kept the rangefinder, he didn’t have any lessons but he had switched club manufacturers. His handicap is now 25 and even my mates, his good friends, won’t play with him anymore because he is so excruciatingly slow.

I’m not singling Neil out here because he’s a high handicapper, far from it. I’ve played with 27 markers that play faster than guys on Tour. The fact is there are plenty of club and social golfers around like Neil, who don’t think they are slow players because they see what the pros do in their routines and think if they emulate them they’ll play better. Problem is, they are following the snails, not the road runners.

How does slow play affect your golf? Are you a slow player? What experiences have you had? Let me know your thoughts via email on golf@golfaustralia.com.au or by leaving a comment below.

For daily golf news, Tour player retweets and comment updates, follow me on Twitter at brendanjames2.

Submit your caption, via the form below for the accompanying photo and the best entry as judged by Golf Australia editors, a pair of adidas TOUR360 ATV golf shoes, worth $219.

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Summer in Australia for a golfer is a fantastic time. This past summer presented great events led by the Presidents Cup in November at Royal Melbourne and rounded out last month by the Women’s Australian Open at the same incredible venue.
During the past three months I’ve spent quite a lot of time on the road at tournaments and checking out plenty of courses – some to satisfy my own curiosity and others for stories to appear in this magazine at some stage.

With all the travel comes plenty of time waiting in airport lounges. Here are some of the things that have occupied my head space while twiddling thumbs in transit.

EXCESS BAGGAGE HURTS

I have been travelling with Qantas on a regular basis, as a golfer, for 15 years. You may or may not know but these days it doesn’t matter how much your combined weight is, as soon as you check in more than one piece of luggage you need to cough up $30 ($20 if you pre-pay online). Economy passengers are now allowed just one piece of check-in luggage so if you want to go on a golf holiday with your clubs, and not pay the excess, figure on wearing the same clothes for the whole trip.
It’s even worse if you fly international with Qantas as it charges $150 per extra piece.
Travelling golfers, you have been warned. Has the time come where we need to seriously consider leaving our clubs at home and hiring? For me that’s not an option, I’ll have to look at … changing carriers.

TOO MANY SIGNS

Golf was meant to be a pleasant, relaxing game. The one thing I really dislike on a course is a barrage of signage telling me not to do this and that.

I can appreciate that some public access courses need to have some signs, for example, directing cart traffic.
But one course I saw recently had more signs scattered around the course than golfers. One one hole I counted six signs within 30 metres of the green – four telling me which way to drive the cart, one telling me “don’t park here” and another instructing me to “park here”. I felt like I was on a highway, not a golf course.

WELCOME BACK THE ‘TACHE

What started as high-profile support of the Movember charity by Geoff Ogilvy, has evolved into a permanent fixture on the face of the 2006 US Open champion.

Ogilvy’s mo has been a talking point since he returned to the PGA Tour still sporting the hairy top lip. Can he become the first player with moustache to win the Masters since Craig ‘The Walrus’ Stadler did it back in 1982?

Surely a Masters win by Ogilvy would mark a return of the great sporting Aussie ‘stache. It would sit alongside the wonderful mo’s worn by Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, John Newcombe and Bob Shearer. I will, however, stop short of saying it is in the Merv Hughes class.

OBSOLETE BUNKERS

I played a course over the summer that had spent a small fortune rebuilding some holes and adding plenty of fairway bunkers to the layout.

While these bunkers looked impressive and certainly intimidated you while standing on the tee, it didn’t take long to realise that only really wayward shots would end up in one of these bunkers.

This club, and many others I have seen in recent years, has a practice of allowing rough to grow around nearly all fairway bunkers. This not only narrows the fairways but it affectively takes these bunkers out of play because the only balls going in them are those that fly in and are well wide of the middle of the fairway.

Personally, I think cutting the fairways a little wider and trimming them right to the edge of the bunkers increases the strategy required to avoid the sand and make a good score. That’s how they do it in the Melbourne Sandbelt and if it works there …

UGLY AUTOGRAPH HUNTERS

Here’s a spray for the two blokes I spotted elbowing kids aside as they surged forward to get an autograph from Tiger Woods at the Australian Open. You know who you are because I told you ‘Mr black Royal Sydney shirt’ and your blond-haired mate in the red Emirates cap to let the kids you were towering over to get closer.

With so many people crowding around I couldn’t tell whether you got his autograph or not consider this … it takes a real low life scumbag to bully past starry-eyed kids to grab a signature just to sell on eBay. I wish I knew your names so I could give you the public shaming you deserve.

MORE PLAYERS ON COURSE

I would be interested to hear any feedback from clubs, but there seemed to be lots of people playing golf over summer. Nearly every course I went to from November through the start of February had good numbers of players out and about. Even my local driving range had a queue of people waiting for hitting bays to become vacant.
We can only hope this trend continues.

Do you agree or disagree with any of Brendan’s rant? What experiences have you had? Let me know your thoughts via email on golf@golfaustralia.com.au or by leaving a comment below.

For daily golf news, Tour player retweets and comment updates, follow me on Twitter at brendanjames2.

Motion capture technology is helping Justin Rose change the spec of his clubs – and his shot shapes.

A  TaylorMade staff player, Justin Rose is quick to make use of the company’s Motion Analysis Technology (MAT-T) whenever he can to tune up his club set-up. But he admits that what he really loves about the system is its ability to hone his technique. “It bridges the gap between feel and real,” he says. “MAT-T tells you how much you need to exaggerate certain moves you are working on. It quantifies your game, and that accelerates the learning process. Shot shaping is a great example of this. Sometimes you feel you are swinging in-to-out, but this software shows you that, actually, you are not. Here, I am going to show you my approach to draws and fades, and how the system helps me achieve accuracy with both.”

Understanding The Draw and Fade

Not so long ago, when we wanted to learn to shape the ball, we were told “the path sends it, the face bends it”. In other words, the swing path through impact would set the ball’s initial direction, while the position of the face at impact would apply the spin.

However, thanks to launch monitor technology like TrackMan, we now know this is not quite right. TrackMan has demonstrated that, in fact, the aim of the clubface at impact dictates 85 percent of the club’s starting line. If my face is well open, the ball is going to start to the right, irrespective of the swing path. It turns out that the face pretty much sends it and bends it.

To understand what this means for shot shaping, we must first make sure we understand the draw and a fade.

Let us take the draw. For the right-hander, the idea is for the ball to curve left through the air, in towards the target. This of course means the ball must first be sent right of that target. As we now know, the face is the major contributing factor in setting that line. This means, somewhat paradoxically, that to hit a draw, the face needs to be open to the target at impact.

Equally strangely, the face should be closed to the target at impact to hit a fade, which requires the ball to start left. Things start to make a little more sense when you consider the swing path. For that “open” clubface to apply drawspin, it must be closed to the path the face is moving along through impact. So to hit a true draw, the face at impact must be open to the target, but closed to the path. Of course the opposite is the case for a fade – the face is closed to the target but open to the path.

I sense I’ve confused you enough, so let’s see how this works in practice, with a little help from the MAT-T system.

Whenever discussion among golf partners turns to favourite courses of the Melbourne Sandbelt and I am asked for my preferred options, I am always hit with a curious look or two when I follow up Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath and Victoria with Long Island.

“Where?” is the stock standard reply, especially from those not entirely familiar with the expanse and quantity of layouts that call the Sandbelt home.

I might have given the same ‘where’ answer a dozen years ago too but after missing out on a tee time at the neighbouring Peninsula Country Golf Club, I ventured next door to Long Island and negotiated a start on a course I knew very little about. What an eye-opener!

I can recall finishing that round and walking back to the car confused and thinking, why is this place such an unknown? Every time I have been back to play the course I have the same thought when I leave and the only thing I can pin it on is this: the St Andrews Old Course syndrome.

Please explain! Well, I have long held the belief that if the New course and Jubilee course at St Andrews were on the other side of Scotland, instead of next to the Old Course, they would be more highly regarded, more popular. In the shadow of the great course, they are not fully appreciated for their quality. The same can be said for Royal Melbourne’s East course.

In the case of Long Island, it too suffers from being in a golfing neighbourhood where world-class courses outnumber McDonalds restaurants. I’m not saying Long Island should be positioned shoulder-to-shoulder with Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath. It’s simply not in the same class but if you are after a Sandbelt experience that will have you craving more because you’ve had a lot of fun from holes 1 to 18, Long Island is the course for you.

MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED:

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I’m a user of long irons – I can hit my 3-iron to around 200 metres – so I’ve never really had a good look at hybrids. The Mizuno reminded me of a little 5-wood I used to own, with similar weighting and a little shorter shaft.

VERDICT: I wasn’t comfortable with the club initially, but I put that down to not being a hybrid player. It had a bit of a heavy feel, and you definitely couldn’t swing the hybrid too hard. That said, it wasn’t like a fairway wood – it did have that iron-like feel.
Early in the test round, I had to hit an escape shot from the rough on a par-5. There was a big gap in the tree line to get through, and I had a good lie. I used the hybrid, and hit it well – too well, as it went up quickly and clipped a tree above.

As I got used to the flight that the hybrid produced over the course of the test, I found I could use it more effectively. I used it off the tee to cut the corner on a short, dogleg par-4 and get over a tree. It was a shot that I couldn’t hit with a long iron – while I found the distance of the hybrid was equivalent to my 4-iron, about 180 metres, the height was entirely different.

MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED: Mizuno JPX Fli-Hi 25º fitted with regular flex graphite shafts.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: It’s a nice-looking club, in that classic Mizuno way. It definitely has an iron feel rather than the fairway wood-type hybrids you see out there – it really is designed to fit into the rest of a JPX set.

VERDICT: The hybrid hit the standout shots of the test round for me, a couple of approaches into long par-4s where I normally wouldn’t be thinking of getting there in two. I’m a player that needs the extra help with the distance, so I found the hybrid to be
really useful.

They’re also forgiving and really accurate. The ball would go where I would aim, and even on those occasions it didn’t, it would not miss by much.

I found the hybrid did perform best when I treated it more like an iron than a wood. The ball came off with a high flight, and would stop quickly. It’s an easy club to hit, and with that extra weight behind the face, it gives you confidence not to hit it too hard.

I did like how the hybrid options worked with the JPX irons, which we also played during the round. I definitely could see myself swapping out the 5-iron for the equivalent hybrid – it really performs better in the situations that I normally use my 5-iron.

FACTS & FIGURES

SUITABILITY: All levels of player.

SHAFTS: True Temper Dynalite Gold XP steel is standard. Graphite options include Fujikura Orochi and Project X.

LOFTS: 19, 22, 25, 28 and 32.

LEFT-HANDED MODELS?: Yes, in steel shaft only.

HOW MUCH?: $115 (steel), $140 (graphite).

MIZUNO SAYS: “The new JPX Fli-Hi replaces the difficult-to-hit, traditional long iron with an easy-to-launch, hugely forgiving wood-type hybrid.

“The JPX Fli-Hi harnesses the same distance-generating technologies used in the JPX irons. A multi-thickness HOT METAL clubface and MAX COR Pocket Cavity are used to increase ball speeds across the entire clubface. Combined with a low, deep centre of gravity, the JPX Fl-Hi allows players of all levels to execute long, soft landing shots with ease and accuracy.

“The JPX Fli-Hi can be integrated seamlessly into any one of Mizuno’s JPX iron sets.”

Contact Mizuno on (03) 9239 7100 or visit golf.mizunoeurope.com

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