119 - Shake The Fake...

I was reading an article in Golf Whine Monthly recently about the biggest counterfeiting scam in eBay history which saw thousands of fake clubs sold for millions of pounds. Initially I had a picture of a Del Boy Trotter character, a lovable rogue selling hooky gear from a shed but then it dawned on me that I should be very angry at this modern day Fagin.

I, like a lot of you out there I suspect, buy a fair bit of my golfing paraphernalia via eBay as it often throws up the best price. I don’t mind that the gear doesn’t come with a full warranty, that there is virtually zero after sales and that there is a good chance the equipment isn’t brand new. What I do mind is being ripped off by being sent fake goods knocked up in an Asian factory for a few quid when I have paid for the genuine article.

A guy called Gary Bellchambers from Rainham in Essex set up a number of eBay accounts selling the likes of Odyssey Two-Ball putters, Cleveland irons and TaylorMade R7 drivers. He would buy the fake kit from China for as little as £3 before hawking it on eBay for up to £100 (which was still a bit cheaper than the shops but not too much). The pricing was very clever as it didn’t raise suspicion with the buyer for being too cheap yet still had that delicious smell of a genuine bargain.

Over five years his team was responsible for over 96,000 golf related transactions on eBay but it all come to a juddering halt in March 2008 after a little old lady complained to Trading Standards after she didn’t get a refund on a shoddy fake she had been sent.

Normally Bellchambers would refund customers instantly to stop them escalating the complaint but in this case he was out of the country and couldn’t respond.

Trading Standards launched ‘Operation Augusta’ and raided a number of homes seizing computers and 2,500 fake clubs. Computer forensics found emails between the team with detailed lists of which customer had bought what equipment, common complaints for returned goods and how flaws in the golf gear needed to be addressed to prevent the operation being caught out.

Bellchambers was charged with the rather catchy crime of ‘conspiracy to sell or distribute golf clubs and accessories bearing signs likely to be mistaken for registered trademarks contrary to Sec 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977’ and is due to be sentenced any day now. If convicted he and his co-conspirators could face up to 10 years in prison.

Golf by its very nature drives us to strive for constant improvement. The big manufacturers play on this and are relentlessly producing equipment that promises to give us tiny advantages over our fellow hackers but with money tight we are all on the lookout for a bargain. Bellchambers and his crew exploited this situation and merrily ripped off thousands. Loveable rogue? Don’t make me laugh.

73 - Chip Around The Clock...

I love wedges; I think they are some of the sexiest pieces of golf kit on the market right now. They are some of the most lovingly created tools in your bag (to me woods, hybrids and clubs can be exercises in engineering these days) yet wedges haven’t changed much in design over the years. Look at this years offering from Callaway and it won’t be a million miles from the wedge released 10 years ago and the one 10 years before that.

Technological advances in chippers seem to be cutting slightly different shaped grooves (which will soon be banned) or adding a swirling pattern to the face. None of this multi-composite materials malarkey, no lowering the centre of gravity, none of this increasing the MOI tomfoolery just a classic shape, good quality metals and plenty of that illusive feel the magazines talk about so much.

But a quick look at any online store will show there are so many different wedges out there and how come some stand out more than others? All the big manufactures produce a wedge to compliment their range and I’m sure they all perform admirably but there are a few clubs that seem to rank higher than others.

Titleist, TaylorMade, Callaway and Cleveland are renowned for their wedges as are my favourite manufacturer Mizuno. The Titleist Vokey is arguably the right now delivering tour standard spin and control with the rest of the field hot on it’s beautifully crafter heels. I came close to buying an Oil Can finished Vokey a few months ago but I had a bit of a run in with Acushnet – the parent company who own Titleist and FootJoy – so I boycotted them.

Instead I turned to Mizuno who, after a bit of research, are apparently famed for producing quality wedges that deliver bags of feel. Perfect for an international ball chipping legend like me! Ahem. I purchased three wedges via the internet saving myself around £160 on the RRP and, from my limited experience and testing, they are mint.

I’ve got two MP-R Series wedges and an MP-T Series. The difference between the R and the T is the shape. R stands for round and, as the name suggests, the face is bigger and slightly more rounded to give more flexibility and make it easier to hit better shots. The T stands for teardrop and it is a more traditional, classically shaped wedge.

The MP-R’s are 50* and 56* and are finished in Black-Ni (above)which gives the club a sort of gunmetal finish that is claimed to reduce glare when used on sunny day and makes the club look fantastic. The MP-T is 58* and has what Mizuno call Raw Haze finish (below). Basically it looks like it has started rusting straight out of the box (it will rust for real over time to increase spin) – it is stunning I reckon.

Both are gorgeous, both are useless to me at the moment as I can’t use them properly. This will change soon though as I’ve been onto Richie who has confirmed he will be happy to help me get my ‘A game’ on using a method he read where you break the chipping stoke into three zones with the average distances are calculated to help distance control. I like the sound of this; it arouses the engineer in me.

So how does it work? Each wedge is swung to a set distance which is equated to three times on a clock. Imagine that when the club is sat behind the ball it is at 6 o’clock (straight down on the clock face). The first swing sees the club is drawn back to 7 o’clock, the second 9 o’clock and the last one 11 o’clock to produce three levels of swing and therefore three different chip distances (still with me?)

The idea is that I focus on just three chips and then simply use a different wedge to produce different distance results. Once the distances are mapped with each wedge I should be able to predict roughly where the ball should go thus taking some of the guess work out of chipping.

Obviously there will be more to it than that as there are a lot of other variables like lie, weather, type of shot needed etc but having a pretty good idea of where the ball should land will be one less thing to worry about. That is the theory anyway; I’ll give you all an update of what happened once I attempted to put this into practice.