Puetz Golf - In The Bag

PRODUCT REVIEWS AND EQUIPMENT NEWS YOU CAN USE

Long days, pure shots and fresh gear to elevate summer

BY TONY DEAR • CG EDITOR

Summer’s here and we couldn’t be more excited. Early morning tee times and late evening strolls with a pencil bag and a few clubs are in the immediate future and we’re not sure there’s anything better (you could probably think of something — like a date with your significant other, a book that keeps you engrossed from start to finish, or a bacon sandwich perhaps, but go with us).

Whether you’re having stress-free, casual games with friends and family, or playing competitive rounds where your score actually matters with golfers you’ve not met before, you’ll be spending quality time doing what you love. And whether you’re at your home course or on a trip playing at places that are new to you, you can expect firm playing surfaces that always make the game more interesting and enjoyable.

Summer has traditionally been a relatively quiet time for equipment releases. The lion’s share of activity happens around the PGA Merchandise Show in late January and Fall when companies begin introducing new tech and updated gear. And while that will certainly remain the case for the foreseeable future, society’s buying habits do change over time (changes occur much quicker and more regularly nowadays, of course) which means we see some significant hardware releases at non-traditional times.

Ping, Callaway and Titleist are all making significant releases right now, while smaller brands are keeping the golf equipment business purring, too.

Puetz Golf has got it all, of course, so you can make it a particularly fruitful summer with some new gear that’s fitted just for you. Bring it on!

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1 • PING

iDi Driving Iron

PUETZ GOLF PRICE • $267.99

Thankfully, there are several alternatives to long-irons nowadays. Hybrids and high-lofted fairway woods are the choice of mid-high handicappers. More capable players who generate greater clubhead speed generally choose driving irons designed for those who prefer the iron shape over that of hybrids and lofted woods, and who need a club they feel confident of finding the fairway with every time or which enables them to get home on par-5s in two. The major equipment manufacturers have long/driving irons in their inventories for their stables of brand ambassadors. Ping has offered its iCrossover for a few years and recently launched a new long/driving iron – the iDi – which it describes as a “a big step forward in long-iron performance, giving better golfers the flexibility of three loft choices to fit their distance number and trajectory window.” Distance numbers and trajectory windows are the stuff of better golfers, but there’s so much good tech in the iDi, there might be a few 5-15 handicappers reading this who benefit from a change in this section of the bag. The deep, shallow head is made of 17-4 stainless steel (15 percent greater moment of inertia than iCrossover) while the thin, forged, maraging (hard, durable) steel face flexes more to increase ball speed and distance. The ‘2’ is a traditional driving iron, delivering low launch and spin. The ‘3’ delivers mid launch and mid spin, and the ‘4’ generates even more spin. The inR-Air air pocket inside the clubhead and i-Beam structure help to dampen sound and improve feel.

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2 • PING

i240 Irons

PUETZ GOLF PRICE • $199.99 per club, $1,599.99 8-piece set

While certain golf clubs typically benefit certain types of golfers, manufacturers have become very good at making higher handicappers’ clubs look more stylish and compact while creating better players’ clubs that are more forgiving than they once were. But while those better players’ clubs have gotten more forgiving, they’ve retained their shot making characteristics enabling golfers to control the flight and trajectory of their shots and hit fades/draws, helping them get to tucked pins. Ping’s Players clubs deviated from the company’s early game-improvement models (Eye 2, Zing, Rapture, Rhapsody, etc.) and the latest of them, the i240, ticks numerous boxes. The shape is “Tour-inspired”, and Ping says they provide “added forgiveness along with the control, look, and feel that will appeal to a wide range of skill levels.” This is the company’s highest-launching Players model, giving you more control and the ability to consistently hit your target yardages while stopping the ball close to the hole. The ABS badge in the cavity is 8.5 grams lighter than on previous models and, combined with an elastomer insert, allows for more perimeter-weighting increasing the MOI in the mid and long irons. This, says Ping, reduces shot dispersion by 11 percent. And, together, the badge and insert also create a more desirable sound. The grooves are spaced relatively far apart, which promotes more approach-shot spin, and the tungsten toe screw and shaft tip weights are used to fine tune swing-weight.

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3 • CALLAWAY

Elyte Night Edition 3

PUETZ GOLF PRICE • $649.99

It’s one of those quirks of the business that, suddenly, limited edition clubs featuring unconventional designs that might appeal to somewhat limited audiences have become almost common. Callaway has been doing it for a while and recently launched the Elyte Sandstorm Driver featuring orangey/brown graphics to commemorate U.S. troops’ involvement in Middle Eastern deserts. That came after last year’s Paradym Ai Smoke Tactical driver which, like the Elyte Sandstorm and the Elyte Night Edition, was technically identical to the standard model. The Elyte was launched in January and came on the heels of several terrific Callaway drivers including the Paradym, Paradym Ai Smoke, Mavrik, Rogue, and Epic. The Elyte was conspicuous for its shaping — Callaway altered the hosel and rear sections to improve aerodynamics and help you generate more clubhead speed with no extra effort. The company used 3-D printing to create 75 prototypes before choosing the most effective model — a process, it says, that saved 5-6 years of testing. The Elyte is Callaway’s first driver to feature a Thermoforged Carbon Crown, which is so lightweight it enabled engineers to lower the Center of Gravity (CG) very low in the head — something that increases the club’s MOI and the launch angle. The Ai face has 25,000 control points — points on the face that Callaway can make thicker or thinner to keep ball flight consistent and tighten your dispersion pattern. The result of all this is one fast, forgiving, and consistent driver.

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4 • CALLAWAY

CB12 Wedges

PUETZ GOLF PRICE • $179.99

After Ping’s Eye 2 wedge of the 1980s, and Tommy Armour’s 845 and Callaway’s S2H2 of the early 1990s, the cavity-backed wedge went silent for a while. It made a return eight years ago, however, when Cleveland launched its CBX wedge after which the company released the CBX2 and CBX ZipCore. Callaway entered the fray with the Mack Daddy CB in 2021, and Ping, PXG, TaylorMade, Cobra, and Mizuno are all now in the game. The thinking is that if you require the high MOI of cavity-backed irons, why wouldn’t you also play a wedge with a cavity? Yes, the shots you play with a wedge are shorter, and your swing more compact, so you’ll be closer to the sweet spot more often. But you’ll still miss it, so extra forgiveness will always help. And besides the cavity which boosts the club’s MOI, cavity-backed wedges feature a few other technologies that help the higher-handicapper get closer to the flag. It’s well-known that if you prefer to play square-faced shots around the greens rather than opening or closing the clubface, a cavity-back/game-improvement wedge design is probably a better option. And clubmakers also tend to alter the sole of the club, making it wider and giving it more bounce to make it easier to get the ball out of sand and other trouble spots. The sole of Callaway’s CB12 is designed to make you more consistent around the greens, and 12 grams of perimeter-weighting makes it extremely forgiving.

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5 • CALLAWAY

APEX Ai 150 Irons

PUETZ GOLF PRICE • $228.57 per club $1,599.99 7-piece set

The print ad for Callaway’s new APEX Ai-150 iron uses a simple image of a flag surrounded by several golf balls all in very close proximity to each other and the hole. The words “Get fitted. Make a statement” appear underneath, and the message is clear — this club will help you create a very tight dispersion pattern and finish close to the hole. Underneath the computer-generated image and those five words is a photograph of the Ai-150 — a very attractive club that’s clearly meant for better players. The word “Forged” is stamped at the heel end and seems almost unnecessary as it’s an APEX blade/muscle back — of course it’s forged. There isn’t much offset here, the topline is relatively thin, and the head is made using 1025 soft carbon-steel. It’s also hollow to allow the face to flex (giving your ball speed a little boost) and produce a distinctive sound. The face of the 3-7 irons is made of 455 steel while the 8-PW is 17-4 steel. The Ai10x face — also found on the company’s Elyte drivers — delivers 10 times as many control points as the Ai Smart Face — an incredible number of places on the clubface whose thickness Callaway can manipulate to ensure ball speeds remain consistent wherever contact is made. While the lines between the various APEX irons are somewhat blurred (choosing which is right for you requires an expert fitting — something else Puetz can provide), the Ai-150 is obviously for sticks who really can golf their ball. These are expected to fly off the shelves. We encourage you to set a fitting session this month.

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6 • CALLAWAY

APEX Ai200/Ai300 Copper Irons

PUETZ GOLF PRICE • $1,749.99 7-piece set

Unless you’re new to golf and require a club that eschews style-enhancing features in favor of game-improvement technology, then you probably look for a combination of good looks and useful tech when choosing a set of irons. If tech means as little to you as looks do to the beginner, however, and you purchase clubs based on looks alone, then you would surely opt for any of the copper-finish irons that have been released in recent years. We’re not even sure you have to like the color of copper particularly to appreciate the beauty of these clubs. You might associate it with rust, discoloration, tarnishing, corrosion, or staining. But it makes a golf club look refined, stately, classic, sophisticated, vintage, and deeply, deeply attractive…no? Clubs with a black finish are, likewise, smooth and stylish. But is it just us that thinks even they are not quite as appealing as copperfinish clubs? We’re smitten, clearly. Callaway has done the decent thing and given two of its APEX irons — Ai200 and Ai300 — a brushed-copper profile. And because they are part of Callaway’s impressive line of players-distance APEX clubs (the Apex began life as a Ben Hogan club, of course) there’s plenty of tech, too. The hollow-body and forged 455 Steel face give Tour-quality feel and sound. And that face (‘Ai Smart Face’) gives AI-driven consistency, meaning tighter dispersion patterns. The Ai200 has a slightly more compact clubhead than the Ai300 and more traditional lofts (though often only one degree apart).

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7 • TITLEIST

T Series Irons 7

PUETZ GOLF PRICE • $215.99 per club

Golf clubs come in families these days or, in the case of Titleist’s new irons, series. The technology is the same throughout the line, but each model is tweaked to suit a certain golfer. It might be slightly larger than the standard model, the sole might be narrower, or it might possess a different amount of internal weighting. Importantly, each model has similar DNA and resembles the others strongly — important if you want to combine clubs from one set with another. The T Series irons (T100 — “The Modern Tour Iron”; T150 — “The Faster Player’s Iron”; T250 — “The Redefined Player’s Distance Iron”; T250 Launch Spec — “The High-Launch Player’s Distance Iron“; T250•U — “The Player’s Distance Utility Iron“; and T350 — “The Ultimate Game Improvement Iron“) all feature what Titleist calls ‘Max Impact Technology.’ It’s described as “a striking innovation that extends optimal speed across the entire face, designed to improve distance on every swing while preserving superior sound and feel with a unique polymer core.” Dense D18 tungsten is strategically distributed to make the clubs more stable, optimize CG, and produce satisfying sound. The sole of T Series irons offers more toe relief, and a smooth trailing edge designed to give exceptional turf interaction in varying conditions. A ‘muscle channel’ locates the CG precisely, making long irons easier to launch. Aggressive grooves in the short-irons promote consistent spin and distance control, and the forged face features a V-taper design in the T250, and a multi-zone taper in T350 to improve full-face performance.

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8 • XXIO

13 Sets & Royal Edition 6 Women’s

PUETZ GOLF PRICE • $3,199.99 and $5,299.99

You know from previous issues three indisputable things about XXIO clubs. First, their names correspond to the order in which they were released. Second, they’re extremely lightweight, and designed predominantly for seasoned golfers who are losing a little clubhead speed and thinking of moving forward a set of tees. And third, they are not inexpensive. The company also typically offers its clubs in complete sets — like the XXIO 13 Ladies Complete Set which consists of a 12.5-degree driver; 3, 5, and 7 fairway woods; a 6 hybrid; 7-9 irons; pitching and sand wedges; five headcovers; and a cart bag. The woods feature all XXIO’s familiar technologies, including ACTIVWING, an airfoil positioned at the heel-end of the club to stabilize the clubhead and harness aerodynamics in the dowsing. Also, the BI-FLEX FACE elongates the toe and narrows the heel to adjust the stiffness of the clubhead’s edges and expand the face’s high-COR area (meaning it flexes more). The REBOUND FRAME also enhances the club’s COR and WEIGHT PLUS puts weight in the butt-end of the club to promote a smooth transition and better tempo. The four-piece construction works together with Rebound Frame to produce an effortless, high launch, and the high-strength titanium faces, together with a high-density, tungsten-nickel, toe weight optimizes the CG. Progressive face thickness optimizes speed and launch for each loft. XXIO says the Royal Edition Women’s 6 are the “ultimate in moderate swing speed performance for seasoned players” with advanced technologies.

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9 • SUNDAY GOLF

Big Rig Cart Bag

PUETZ GOLF PRICE • $279.99

San Diego-based Sunday Golf, founded in 2020, began life small when Irish-born, Gonzaga graduate Ronan Galvin returned from China where he’d worked in golf bag development. He began making small, lightweight, pencil bags good for a few irons and a couple of balls and ideal for loops round the famous par-3 Loma Club, a mile from the city’s airport and where the less-than-devoted golfer got back into the game. The Loma was one of the company’s first products and, unlike other pencil bags, featured collapsible legs — great for the golfer who doesn’t want to carry much or bend down to pick it up. A quick look at the company’s website (sundaygolf.com) suggests business picked up quickly for Sunday Golf, as the company now offers numerous styles of cart bag, regular-size stand bags, coolers, beer sleeves, hats, towels, headcovers, tees, groove sharpeners, pouches, golf bag patches, belt and sling bags, rain hoods, and golf bag wall hooks, as well as the original pencil (Par 3) bags. The company’s popular Big Rig cart bag features 14 full-length club dividers with an Anti-Catch Putter Slot, a comfortable single carry strap, 12 storage compartments including a seven-can cooler pocket, velour-lined valuables pocket, frosty pocket, a smell-proof organizer pocket, a magnetic rangefinder pocket, two Velcro glove holders, interior tee and ball marker compartments, a built-in carry system, utility towel ropes, a Duraflex Stand System and rain-hood. The Big Rig comes in eight colorways, weigh seven pounds, and its dimensions are 36 inches tall by 15 inches wide

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10 • SUNDAY GOLF

Ryder Stand Bag 10

PUETZ GOLF PRICE • $239.99 

Sunday Golf introduced its Ryder Stand Bag in 2023, thus becoming a fully-fledged golf bag company rather than a casual concern making bags for occasional golfers whose course time was limited to a lazy couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon. Regardless of how little action those early pencil bags saw though, they were particularly well-made from quality materials and attracted a lot of five-star reviews. And it was the same with the Ryder Stand Bag, which soon won a devoted following of golfers saying it was the equal of any stand bag they had owned before. It weighs just 4.9 pounds and has a padded double-strap that makes walking and carrying as easy as possible. The flat base makes it function as a cart bag, too, and it has a five-way full-length divider able to handle 14 clubs. There’s an insulated frosty pocket, a smell-proof pocket, a velour-lined valuables pocket, a large ball pocket, and all the pockets have high-tech, water-resistant zippers. It has a Velcro glove-holder, a tee holder, a rain-hood and a sturdy, full-size, Dura-Flex stand system. It stands 34.5 inches tall and is 6.5 inches wide. The divider dimensions are 10 inches by 7 inches. There are 20 colors/styles — Burnt Orange, Grellow (green and yellow), Toasted Almond, Black, Mossy Oak Bottomland Camo, Mossy Oak Country DNA Camo, Matte Black, Heather Gray, Coral, Navy Blue, Black and Yellow, Cream Vegan Leather, Dusty Pink Vegan Leather, Olive Vegan Leather, Navy Vegan Leather; Black Vegan Leather, White Vegan Leather, Midnight Green, Blackjack and Mindy Lemon.

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