Revised long end of bag, after indecision

[ChipNRun]

After tinkering and switching all season, I have finally revised the long end of the bag. I have changeouts in driver, fairways and hybrid. New summary appears in the sig line. Here is old summary:

 

What's In The Bag (Summary from January)

Driver:  Callaway XR16 Pro (set open)   ||  Fairways:  Tour Edge XRail 4W + 7W or Calla Alpha 815s set 16° and 20°

Hybrid:  Cobra FlyZ 4H  ||  Irons:  Tour Edge CB Pro Tungsten 4i-9i

Wedges:  Calla MD3 / 48° and 54°... MD4 / 58° ||  Putter: Ping Sigma G Tyne (face-balanced)

Ball: Calla SuperHot (Orange preferred)

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For all three changed groups, moving to lighter shafts was a big factor. All shafts are about 10 grams lighter.

 

• XR16 driver was a tough one. Won senior class long drive with it in 2016 Club Championship (but not tourney). Distance became too inconsistent last year, continued into this season. I got the TE EXS (unhit) in February golf expo for $129. ($149 - $20 for used club: no cellophane on head). The selling golf shop thought TE was an off-brand. Had hit the EXS at a couple of 2019 demo days so I through it would probably work. After playing EXS, I bumped up the loft a degree and reset the weights from draw to neutral. This gives me an medium-height very hot trajectory. I use the 3.25" Martini durable golf tees - if I insert it down to stop ring, ball flies well. 
• Fairways were a headache. I used the Alpha 815s well for three seasons - got distance increase over XRails. Last year I started to struggle with control and consistent distance, so I delofted the 20* all the way down to 17*... used it as 4W with reinstated XRail 7W. It just didn't work. Went back to XRails, but I was giving up distance. So, I bought a used Rogue 4W on a lark and presto! It worked. The Jailbreak parallel titaniuim bars really give an extra boost when I hit the ball center-mass. Next I tried in vain to find an R-flex Rogue 7W. Seems like they only made a dozen or so 😲. I found a VG-quality women's 7W on line for $89 (it had never been hit.) Specs showed the heads for men's and women's Rogues both were 142CC in size and had 58.5° lie angle. I asked my clubsmith to tip the Quaranta 50 shaft a half inch and butt-extend it an 1.5 inches to get to men's specs. When I picked it up, he had instead inserted a spare Evenflow shaft - only cost was $10 reglue! He said my plan would have really messed up the balance of the shaft. He was right, the E works fine.
• The Cobra hybrid was great - until it wasn't. Carried 4H year round and 3H in cold weather to beat wind in place of 7W. It had an unusual 75-gram senior flex shaft. But this year, the weight was hard to handle, and I had some disaster missed shots with it. The BB OS with a lighter shaft is more reliable. From the tee, if I tee it low I can get a superhot stinger-type shot. Also, it comes out of light rough easier than Cobra.

 

So, that's the changeover. All the former clubs worked great - until they didn't. It's the same problems I had circa 2008 right before I dumped stiff shafts for Regular across the bag: I was fighting the shafts.

 

Next move will be to graphite in my irons. I'm retired now, and if I play two days straight the elbows and wrists tingle at end of day 2. Plus, I'm getting really inconsistent distances in my irons - same symptoms as 2008. I played in some late summer senior tournaments, and in five straight foursomes I was only senior with steel shafts in his irons. I'll be 70 in November, and my wife says I should get new irons for next year.

Edited October 6, 2020 by ChipNRun
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