A look back at your BEST / WORST purchases in 2019

Being a club hoe, I have had plenty or "why did I buy this?" moments of 2019. I also have the "never leaving my bag" pick ups as well. For me, my best pick up of the 2019 season were the New Balance Striker shoes. Yes, shoes were my best pick up. Why? Because they are so damned comfortable, and I love to walk. My worst, probably has to be Odyssey O Works #7. I just didn't gel with it AT ALL. Mistake from the begging and was a pain to unload.

So with that... what you got WRXers?

Srixon Z785 driver, hands down. Still not done with stupid yet, but that driver is a winner.

Update for worst.

(Backup driver). Just finished this off by trading in SLDR 430 that I bought stupid cheap on TP Motore Speeder X shaft. Had a TP Tour AD YSQ in Stiff I had laying around and wanted to try. Bought it at lunch on a cold day so it sat in the car all afternoon. Got home from work pulled the head and tried to fit it on the Tour AD, no go. Old TP adapter. Ok. Put the head back on the original TP shaft, cranked it tight with TM wrench, clicked, turned the clubhead to the ground....and it fell off. The screw broke. ****it. No way I could tap it out. Bought adapter on ebay and installed on the TP Tour AD this weekend, set the head to +2 off a 9.5 and headed for the range.

Hit 5 balls and hated it.

oh well. Low cost adventure but mighty aggravating.

Best purchase - Scotty Cameron T22 Newport - I’m gaming it, making a ton of putts, and as importantly my misses are lagged close for easy tap ins. Spent the last ten years looking for my putting to return, and finally found it.

Worst purchase - Titleist T100’s - Because it led to the trade of my 718 AP2’s which I had gamed for two years. Now thru a process of multiple transactions, I have a set of Mizuno MP20 MMC’s that I don’t believe are keepers, and a set of P790’s which I have played for 27 holes. Hit 620 CB’s and may make this move next. Damn!

Worst was everything the Taylormade rep set me up with in June. Mind you, I went into the fitting with ZERO equipment knowledge, and hadn’t got new irons and wedges in 9 years. I will leave you with this... he put me in an m5 tour driver with an 80gram shaft and an m5 three wood with a 70 gram shaft. All 12 out of 13 clubs have either been reshafted+regripped or sold. At least he got the spider putter right. I then became a real club ho ho and bought 3 more sets of irons and 2 other drivers this year, I think the best purchase was the Modus 120x shafts that I reshafted the p760’s with. Super duper shaft.

I bought a lot this year so it's hard to just name 1 for best.

Best - Mizuno MP-32 3-pw. I was looking for a good condition set for about a year. It's hard to find 32s in left hand and in good condition. In July I won a bid on Ebay for a mint set, no browning. The only negative was the shafts were lite reg flex. I picked up an uncut set of new dg s300s and had them installed. Now a wonderful set I can use for years to come. I will never sell these, absolute pleasure to hit.

Best Honorable mention - Mizuno MP-20 SEL. My current gamers, everything you'd expect from a Mizuno iron.

Worst - Callaway Apex 3 & 4 hybrids. What can I say, I'm a sucker for good deals and hybrids. I just can never get along with them, mostly because most are way too upright. I play 1° flat to mizuno specs (2° most other manufacturers). I did buy Mizuno CLK 3 and 4 this year, they may have promise, but I they are not better than the Mizuno 3 and 4 HMB irons.

best - Apex Pro 19' - liking them more & more every time i use them

worst - X Forged UT 30* - bought used off the bay and someone had messed with lie angle, used it once and was the star of the round, all other times it was a club to use when i wanted to lose a ball.

Can I have a tie for first. Cobra F9 Driver. Excellent distance. Hit 13 of 14 fairways today.

Bettinardi BB1 putter.

Worst: Callaway Rogue 3 wood. I just couldn’t get it to work for me.

Best - finally found the irons I love everything about. Bridgestone J15 CBs. Had heard a lot about them, got a chance to hit some that a friend has, and managed to find a good set. Kept looking and found another as my back-up / weekend set. Love everything about them. Still have some others - Blueprints, 0311Ts, Nike blades, Miura - but the J15s are the gamers for some time to come.

Honorable mention - Miura forged wedges - 51 Y grind, 56 K and 60 K grinds. Just amazing.

Worst - a couple of mallet putters I bought and tried, because I had the putting yips with my standard Newport 2 style, and mistakenly thought I needed help. Total disaster. Have never been able to, and likely never will, use a mallet putter. Had to get rid of them at a loss. Went back and practiced some more and back in love with what I have always played.

I have always been the same on the putter- until I bought the TM Spider Copper Mini. Has a slight toe hang and ridiculously easy to hit where you aim. You may want to give it a shot.

Best Purchases - virtually new Ping G410 irons in my specs $500, G410 5 wood for $120, Clicgear 3.5 new in their holiday sale for $220...........and I just picked up a virtually brand new set of Ping Thrive Junior Clubs for my son for $250 ($600 new)

Work Purchase - none.

Best:

Epic Flash Driver / Rogue 4+ Fairway / Accra Iron & Wedge Shafts

Worst:

Bettinardi BB-28 Widebody Center Shaft

Best- Maltby TS-2 and TS-1 irons. Shafted in RECOIL 680 Stiff. Cobra F-8+ driver. Love it. Maybe the best-- replace my OEM shoulder ball and socket on right shoulder. New one works way better!

Worst- Maltby KE-4 Tour TC #3 wood. Just nothing special at all. Short compared to my RBZ Stage II tour. Also getting a 10.5 in Ping G-400... need the lower loft.

Best purchase is my new C-130 cart bag. Love this thing.

Worst purchase was falling down the "shaft" rabbit hole.

I bought 4-5 shafts trying to replace my Kuro Kage tini's and didn't really like any of them. Luckily I was able to sell a few of them.

There were a lot of hoing that went my way this year but, there were some doozies I still shake my head at.

MP63 dgr300 sm6 58S

Md2 50 raw arriving

Ping G 7 wood

Another 910d2 Illima

Butch Harman swing tips article.Thankyou!

The not so good

915 5wood 44inch and 58 gram shaft

Odyssey heavyputter

Counterbalanced......

So i didnt waste much cash and got a Great Bag and OK swing☺

Best: set of used Miura 1008s and forged wedges as a backup/travel/special set

Worst: set of used Miura 1008s and forged wedges: they are so good to play with, making my primary set jealous

Best- F9 Tour fairways

worst - F9 driver

Best - Mizuno MP-H4 irons. They aren’t going anywhere until the faces are worn smooth.

Worst-TaylorMade M1 440. In the right players hands, I’m sure it’s a beast, I just was not consistent enough with it.

I Totally agree with you on the New Balance golf shoes!

I am in the current retooling stage of my bag. Since I am in in the industry I change clubs every year, it's a sickness! Best for me this year was a Cobra F9 driver and Accra TZ5 55 shaft. I sold it at the end of the season because I got a case of the hooks with it and it was starting to creep a little too low in spin after I had been working on some swing changes. I also had a completely custom made Bettinardi putter and snagged a Scotty T22 Newport 2. The Bettinardi with the Stability has been lights out for me and has helped my putting immensely. I don't think I have 3 putted more than once per round all season, when it was quite the regular occurence before (here I just cursed myself for 2020 I'm sure of it). The T22 I am keeping around more as a collectors item than anything but the one round I used it at a very nice track I putted great. So I am happy with those so far.

My worst purchase I think were my New Level irons. Don't get me wrong, they are a great looking and feeling set of sticks. I just don't love them. I don't know, they were kind of an impulse buy but I have been doing some tuning with the shafts and I think I finally found a combo I really like with them in the Accra 110i. I had DG 105s in them previously and they were meh. These Accra's feel amazing and get me the flight I am looking for and the accuracy I want. My last round out I think I hit I every green, or if I didn't I was dead online on the heart of it, just a couple yards short...so nothing to complain about. I think I'm going to keep them for all of 2020 and look elsewhere in 2021 as they don't have that wow factor that I had with a couple of other previous sets. I've been spiraling out of control since I sold a set of MacGregor NVG2s I loved back in 2013 and then again some Nike Vapor Pro Combos I sold in 2016 or early 2017. Since mid 2017 I've had JPX900 Forged, Maltby STi OS, Ping G700s, Akira K-101 Prototypes, Nike Vapor Pro Combos again (which I STRIPED...why I am such an idiot and sold them again), Titleist 660s (which I am keeping as a backup just because they are fun to use once and a while), and now the New Levels. I have averaged basically 4.5 months per iron set over the last 30 months or so. The crazy thing is I had the 900F and the New Levels all season long, and do most of my random experimenting in the off seasons.

Best: Ping G410+ driver. It has been a fairway finder without giving up distance.

Second best: Tie between a Ping Vault 2.0 Dale Anser, Nike Tour Premiere shoes, and swapping to a TP5 (from the TP5x) golf ball.

Worst: Probably a time between my M6 driver and a G410 Crossover. I was so excited to get the M6 driver after playing a 2016 M2 driver for the past few years. Epic fail. My ball flight was mostly a low right knuckler. I think it was a bad shaft choice, but either way, a bad purchase. The G410 Crossover was bad from the start. It felt horrible and I couldn’t get it airborne. The upsetting part is that I hit a buddy’s and striped it. Oh well.

Best: Taylormade P760s with Modus 120s.

Worst: PXG 0311s that I thankfully sold and got my money back on. The offset in the higher irons is abhorrent.

Best - My first ever properly fitted club - a Titleist TS2 driver w/ a Hzrdus Smoke 5.5 shaft (C3 setting, so up to 11.25° loft and slightly upright). I really should go do a full fitting for every club in my bag.

Worst - I bought a Scotty Phantom 5.5 on a whim. It's 34" and otherwise standard setup. My old putter is a 33" Futura 5.5m 1° flat and it's the best club in my bag. Was pulling absolutely everything with the Phantom and switched back to the Futura.

Good to know about the KE-4 Tour TC. I am pondering going with the 4 or 5 wood but it sounds like there are better options out there from what you are saying.

Best for 2019 was the M1 driver with an Oban purple shaft, even better was the fact I got it for free. Got to love trading up. Not sure how or why it's knocked my 400 Max out of the bag, but I'll take it.

Worst was the used i500 set I bought, lost money on those. Got a steal of a deal on some i210's though, when I sold those I got a little closer to par on the i500's, but still took a hit on those. Haven't learned my lesson on those yet, I kinda want another set, hate giving up on something so pretty.

Best purchase was the set of Srixon Z785/585 irons. I’ve never had so much confidence on my approaches.

Worst is worst by default as it was my only other purchase this year but going the F9 from my G400 max yielded poor results.

Best: Taylormade Original One mini driver.

Worst: Every other driver I've bought this year.

Best was when my shoulder recovered enough for me to go back to Recoil 110F4 iron shafts vs the Recoil 95F3 shafts I needed for much of the summer. The 95g weight (and maybe F3? )affected my consistency more than I would have imagined.

Worst could be a list as long as the Christmas list my niece sent Santa, but if naming just one I will throw out the one hardest to admit. That would be when I traded off the nicest feeling and most fairway finding driver I have owned (The Mizuno 190ST)for the M5. I have a real love/hate relationship for the M5 and the three shafts I own for it. Bottom line, the hoe in me cost me a lot of fairways on that one. Worst yet, I continue to carry it and spray it?? Pretty sure it won't be in my bag after spring try outs.

Best has been my p790 irons. Love the feel and performance. They have really been a step up over my old Callaway irons from last season.

Worst was the Srixon u65 driving iron I started the season with. Got no feedback from contact and the performance was poor. Sold that thing real quick.

Best buy was switching to Sr. flex shafts in my woods and gaining back yardage that has been lost the last few years. I'm hitting the ball longer and straighter now.

Worst purchase was picking up a Cleveland Smart Sole chipper on a whim. Didn't do a thing for my short game other than convince me to use my irons for chipping which has turned out to be just as effective. Maybe more practice with the chipper would help, but it's far from an easy fix to short game woes.