Grouchy Golf Blog

Introduced in the Fall of 2000, the Titleist Pro V1/V1x was one of the most revolutionary golf balls of all time by incorporating a multi-layer construction with a soft urethane-covering to virtually eliminate the traditional trade-offs between distance, spin, feel, and durability. Since then the Pro V1/V1x has been the dominant ball in golf. Dominant among pros and amateurs alike.

Not wanting to be left behind, I adopted the Pro V1 as my primary ball from the get-go. I'm always open to trying the competitor's new offerings, but I just haven't found anything that's materially better yet. Part of the reason is that Titleist isn't content to rest on its laurels. There has been at least 2 major revisions to the original Pro V1/V1x. The newest adds the A.I.M. (Alignment Integrated Marking) sidestamp so that you don't even have to manually line up your golf ball anymore!

I've always used the Pro V1 rather than its X-rated sibling because I've always thought that the former was softer, spun more and produced a higher ball flight; all qualities that I prefer. According to the Titleist website, here are the differences between the Pro V1 and the Pro V1x:

• Distance: For most players, Pro V1x will be longer off the tee.
• Feel: Pro V1 is softer than the Pro V1x.
• Durability: Pro V1 is the most durable Titleist tour played golf ball.

However, results from the cover story, "The Best Ball For You" of the February 2008 issue of Golf Magazine seem to contradict some of these claims. According to this exhaustive robot golf ball test, the Pro V1x is indeed slightly longer than the Pro V1 by about 1.4 yds in total distance (carry plus roll) off a driver (90 mph swing speed, 137 mph ball speed, 13.75-degree launch angle, 2,900 rpm). However, additional tests indicate that the Pro V1x also spins more (the printed article lists the spin rate of the Pro V1x at vs. the Pro V1 at ) and is softer! Based on these new test results, here's a revised summary of the differences between the Pro V1 and the Pro V1x:

• Distance: For most players, Pro V1x will be longer off the tee. (According to Titleist and Golf Magazine)
• Feel: Pro V1x is softer than the Pro V1. (According to Golf Magazine)
• Spin: Pro V1x spins more than the Pro V1. (According to Golf Magazine)
• Durability: Pro V1 is the most durable Titleist tour played golf ball. (According to Titleist)
• Ball Flight: Pro V1 has a slightly higher flight. (According to Titleist)

As a longtime Pro V1 user, I found the new evidence that the Pro V1x is actually softer and spinier than the Pro V1 to be downright shocking. Maybe even more shocking is that it took almost 8 years to come to light. Durability and ball flight be damned, any ball that flies farther and spins more is a better ball in my book. I'll be switching to the Pro V1x right after I go through my current stash of 3 dozen Pro V1s! How about you?

Labels: Equipment

My favorite part of golf is hitting irons. I can spend all day at the range without hitting a wood and be perfectly content. Irons are the surgical instruments of golf. In the right hands, they can place a ball within 10 feet of a hole from 2 football fields away. If you think about it, that's pretty amazing. The U.S. military would love to have a weapon that accurate! There's also no better feeling than hitting that pured iron shot.

But mastering the irons is much easier said than done. To understand the concept of hitting irons properly, you must throw logic out of the window. Like most things in golf, your common sense will lead you down the wrong path. Most people look at a pitching wedge and assume that to get the ball in the air one must somehow get the club under the ball and hit it with an upward blow. In other words, people see the clubface and assume that the club must impact the ball perpendicular to its the loft. This is incorrect and the reason that most people have difficulty with irons.

In reality, an iron launches the ball into the air because it imparts massive amounts of backspin. This backspin combined with the dimples on the golf ball creates lift, known as the Magnus force. As a result, the spin rate directly influences how high the ball flies.

To impart this necessary backspin, the clubhead must impact the ball with a descending blow. The swing advice, "hit down on the ball" is meant to convey this concept concisely. However, I find that this term can be somewhat misleading because it implies that the clubhead should impact the ball on a very steep angle. Better ball-striking will result from a shallow downward approach into the ball. Once I understood this concept, it truly was a golf epiphany. The key is to re-wire your brain.

It helps to see the physics in slow motion. Below is an impact sequence from the SwingVision of Tiger Woods hitting an iron off a tee. A red dot marks the same point on the ferrule. Some important things to notice:

• The club strikes the ball on a slightly descending angle of attack
• At impact the ball compresses and then leaves the clubface with backspin
• The club strikes the ball first and then takes a divot out of the turf

Labels: Swing Tips

Johnny Miller sounded like a man in love last week at the Honda Classic. However, the object of his affection wasn't some hot young Betty, but a 27 year-old Aussie golfer named Matt Jones. Johnny's frequent gushing over this PGA Tour rookie during the 3rd round reminded me of some pre-teen girls talking about heartthrob Corey Haim back in middle-school.

Just read a giddy Miller commenting on a slo-mo replay of Matt's swing on Saturday: "He has a perfect setup...Just a "10" on a scale of 1 to 10...He has a real good "chase"...I really believe that he has a good chance to be a star in the next couple of years."

Ironically, these comments came shortly after Johnny criticized Ernie Els' swing, arguably the best swing of all-time! I guess Johnny reserves the über praise for golfers that have incorporated his patented "chase" move. It's been a recurring theme with Johnny Miller for quite some time now. I just wish that I knew what the heck he's talkin' about.

And Johnny, don't you think that you're a little premature anointing this guy as the next young golf star? In four years on the Nationwide Tour, he failed to win any of the 94 events that he played. Have the Wies finally convinced you that winning doesn't matter? Remember, people once thought that Corey Haim had star potential. Those people were morons.

During the television coverage of last week's Accenture Match Play Championship, there seemed to be enough promotion to rival a Ron Popeil infomercial. Only it wasn't Ron plugging stuff but the Golf Channel's on-air personalities, Kelly Tilghman and Nick "Han" Faldo. Every time a player hit the new Nike SQ Sumo square driver, Kelly was sure to identify the driver and comment about how much that player loves its performance. During the final match between Tiger and Stewart Cink, Kelly made sure to point out that the "Swoosh" was well represented in the tournament with Nike staffers Woods, Cink and Leonard making it to the semis. Is Kelly trying to make amends with Tiger over the "Lynch him in a back alley" incident or is there some kind of undisclosed relationship between her and Nike? Whatever the reason, it is suspicious at best that she made no similar comments about other golf manufacturers or equipment.

Tilghman's booth-mate was even guiltier of thinly-veiled promotion. Faldo did his best to sneak in plugs for his current endorser, TaylorMade Adidas Golf. Faldo made it a point to talk about players using the new TaylorMade Monza Spider putter with success. But even worse, he took an opportunity to bash his former endorser, Nike, while extolling the performance of TaylorMade's new golf ball. Nick went out of his way to highlight Golf Magazine's recent golf ball test results that showed the new TaylorMade TP ball bested the Nike One Platinum by 20 yards with a driver (90 mph swingspeed). C'mon Nick, was it just a mere coincidence that you happen to choose your current company's ball to compare against that of your old company? I think not. It was quite a cheap shot you old bloke!

Sadly, this isn't the first time that golf announcers have utilized their abundant air time to serve as pitchmen. In the past, I can recall Paul Azinger plugging Nike and Johnny Miller will still occasionally mention Callaway. It's just that this kind of conflict of interest has never been as blatant before as it is now. If an announcer has a relationship with another company, it needs to be disclosed upfront. When I tune into a golf broadcast, I want golf coverage, not an infomercial. It's not like this kind of advertising is effective anyway. How stupid do they think we are?! Now I wonder where I can demo that new Nike driver and buy a box of those hot TaylorMade balls...