Equipment

Untitled Page

Tweak Performance

Many new clubs this year are upgrades or refinements of previous ideas that worked well in the past. But no matter how you look at it, these goodies could be a good fit for your bag.

BY JOEL BEERSPublished: April, 2010

Print This Article

Email This Article

RSS Subscribe

Golf club manufacturers unveil new products each year.

Or do they?

In some years, like 2010, the new clubs are refinements of existing products. It’s not that manufacturers are running out of ideas, they’re simply running out of room.

“The major companies have already hit their limits as far as clubhead size and COR (coefficient of restitution, or how fast a golf ball springs off a clubface), so you’re finding them tweaking what they already have, as opposed to coming out with anything radically new,” said Mike Rovira, store manager of the Roger Dunn Superstore in Santa Ana. “They can’t make the clubheads any bigger or their faces hotter, so what you’re seeing most of the manufacturers doing is optimizing their clubs to be more forgiving while maximizing distance.”

That doesn’t mean the hot new clubs this year are merely marketing ploys. The research and development departments at most club manufacturers are constantly working on ways to make existing lines more forgiving, feel better in your hands and more cosmetically appealing.

Take a look at these products and see what you think.