140 - What Have I Started...

The reader of this crappy little blog will know that over the last couple of weeks I’ve received some tuition on golf fundamentals from two mates Terry and Richie. Both of them have given me really useful tips and both were really impressed with me, and by me I mean my clubs.

In the first session with Terry he had a few shots with my Mizuno MP57’s and went all quiet before mumbling something along the lines of “these feel great” over and over again. He then had a few shots with my MP-R wedge and my F-60 3 wood and there were yet more mumbles from him.

Next I went to Kirkby Golf Course for a session in the bunker and around the green with Richie. I only took my MP-T wedge but it was enough to produce quiet utterances of pleasure from Richie as he attacked the pin from the sand and light rough surrounding the green.

The upshot is that both Terry and Richie are now the owners of new clubs!

Both of them were debating about getting new clubs but after a few balls with my Mizuno’s Terry was convinced he needed some new bats which in turn made Richie’s mind up.

Terry scoured the Internet and picked up a set of Mizuno MP62’s (right) for a ludicrously low price (less that £200 I think – not bad for a set that are going for £400 today) and Richie plumped for a set of MP57’s like mine for about the same price. Richie is now looking for a MP-T too now and a bag too!

Those two were already fans of Mizuno and both have vintage sets (that I think they are going to get on eBay as soon as possible) but now they have shiny new sets like mine. I’m worried about what we will look like if we all turn up to play at the same time.

Is there anything worse than seeing a group of beuts decked out in all the same gear on the tee? The three of us will look like we read a magazine and bought the latest fashion – actually we won’t, we will be using Mizuno not Nike…

139 - Sand Blasted...

I mentioned in my last post that the bunker had the beating of me; another thing that took a beating was my wedge. The club comes with what Mizuno call a Raw Haze finish, which is a sort of dark bronze coating designed to come off over time leaving the face covered in spin producing rust. After today the face is shinier than an airhostesses’ grid.

The sexy little 58* baby was fantastic at getting the ball up and over the lip of the bunker but wasn’t tough enough to resist the power of sandblasting. With every shot I could see the coating being stripped from the metal leaving the face looking almost polished in certain places.

I’m hoping that with the protective layer now gone the face with oxidise nicely leaving it nice and rough, ready to shred the cover off my Srixon AD333’s as I chip my way towards the pin…or more likely out of the rough towards the fairway then the pin.

Richie kept joking that I was more concerned with the damage to my club than where the ball was going and to a certain extent he was right.

Although the wedge was relatively cheap (£30 from onlinegolf.co.uk – a bargain frankly) I’m not about to wreck a perfectly good club just for the fun of it.

I did a bit of snooping to see what the club would eventually look like once the rust really starts to take hold and the condition it is in now is pristine compared to how it will end up. Eventually it will look like the bodywork of a 1973 Austin Allegro that had been stood in a fjord for 20 years.

The snob in me is appalled at the thought of having this manky club sat next to my delicious MP57’s in the bag but the geek in me can’t wait for the oxidisation process to engulf the face and make it rougher than a night out in Brixton.

I’m expecting epic amounts of bite from the MP-T, which in turn should result in a fair amount of spin (if the right balls are used but that is a whole different topic). If the face decays and my game improves then the little practice session will have been worth it on many levels.

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.

67 - We Bow Down To The Big Wedge...

Just because I haven’t been playing golf recently doesn’t mean I haven’t been obsessing over it or buying stuff to play it. I’m up to three golf magazines a month now although one of them is a mostly rubbish American one I picked up from Borders because it had a review of the Mizuno MX-200 clubs I’m thinking of getting.

I have been taking advantage of the January sales that just about every golf equipment selling website has had on. The first purchase was a gorgeous Mizuno MP-T Raw Haze wedge. This copper coloured beauty is 58* with 10* of bounce (whatever that means). What I do know is that it looks stunning new and is designed to rust like the hulk of the Titanic to make it work even better.

It can be found on certain sites for a whopping £85 but I got it for £30 delivered! Absolute bargain I’m sure you’ll agree. I now have a full set of Mizuno wedges ready to conquer rough/bunkers/fairway around the green.

To go with my new 58* Raw Haze I’ve also got a 52* and a 56* Mizuno MP-R Black Nickel. The three of them should weigh in at over £250 but I got the lot for just £90, which is, if I’m being honest, giving me a semi!

I’m going to put in a lot of practice with these babies as I ready somewhere that 70% of golf is played within chipping distance of the hole (although I’m not sure how true that actually is). Both Richie and Terry have both offered to help me learn how to chip the ball accurately and Alan is always there to give me advice at the driving range.

Yep, the addition of the Mizuno wedges is going to see me chipping like a champ although if I’m still useless I’ll just blame the cheap arsed bats I have just bought…

54 - Knackered Ankles and Treacherous Thoughts…

On a recent drinking expedition around the many and varied bars of Liverpool I managed to ‘hilariously’ go over on my ankle. Oh how the lads laughed as tears welled up in my eyes with every electric shock that shot up my leg when I put any weight on my foot. Bunch of bastards. I tried to drink through the pain but it was no good, I’ve knackered my ankle.

The initial diagnosis, admittedly made by a mate who had “been on a health and safety course and done a bit of first aid an that”, was that I had “done my ligaments”. Great news. When asked what I should do I was advised to strap it up, apply liberal amounts of ice and then wait a month until it sorts itself out. And like that, I’m not playing golf again this year.

After four days of rest I can walk on it again but if I twist my ankle, say in the way I would at the end of my now almost perfect golf swing, I get those lovable little electric shocks up my leg again. Typical isn’t it? I finally get some professional tuition, now know what I’m supposed to be doing and I can’t practice. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; this game is evil.

Now that I’m not playing I’m back to looking at all the pretty, pretty golf things. I was again drooling over the Titleist Vokey wedges and it got me thinking about Mizuno’s wedge range. It turns out that those clever chaps in Japan have only gone and made a wedge that not only looks as good as the Vokey but is apparently almost as good…no seriously!!!

The Mizuno wedges come in two flavours namely the R Series and the T Series (the R and T stand for Round and Teardrop and refer to the shape of the head with the former having a slightly fuller look while the latter looks more traditional). Both come in two finishes; chrome and a pant tighteningly gorgeous Black Nickel. You can see where this is going…

After a bit of research it turns out that Mizuno are the shit when it comes to grain flow forging club heads which is handy when producing wedges as clubs made in this way are softer and have more feel – exactly what you need according to the experts I’ve been listening to online. They rave about how buttery the wedges feel and how easy they are to use.

In their video review, Today’s Golfer praises the wedges for the quality of the materials (it seems plating the clubs in Nickel makes them more durable and softer than traditional chrome), their cool design and their playability. They are slightly heavier than the other wedges they tested (including the Vokey) meaning that you just need to swing it and it does all the work for you.

New they actually cost about the same as a Vokey but a quick look around shows they can be had at a decent discount, especially by eBay shops (£40 delivered in one place) so they are definitely more attractive to my wallet. I haven’t budgeted for a new wedge or two so the cheaper the better in my opinion.

Do I turn my back on the object of my desire for the last few months for the sake of a few bob? Nah, but I might turn my back on it because the Mizuno is a fantastic iron that looks really, really good, it the same wedge as my clubs and because I won’t feel such a beut using it on the course.

Oh and they make one called the Black Ox which starts off black and rusts to shit like the Vokey! Get in...