bridgestone j38 vs tourstage 701

panicmotion · July 30, 2011

hi guys,

first post but have been lurking here for a while. i have a question about these two drivers. i understand tourstage = bridgestone. i've done some searching about tourstage in general but i'm interested in these two clubs in particular. does anyone on here know if there are any differences between the two?

they look almost identical but are the materials the same/made in the same place? i've read that once tourstage releases some of their clubs to the US market, they cut some corners on quality and i'm not sure if that's true about these two clubs.

thanks in advance!

Vegaman · July 31, 2011

Maybe not cutting corners when it comes to QC, but they usually, like in this case, use cheaper kind of Ti for the j38. Plus, when they J38 gets its US release there is already a new driver out from TS, the 703. That I use by the way.

panicmotion · July 31, 2011

thanks vegaman. does the cheaper titanium result in a much different feel? i.e. - the difference between some usdm iron and a miura...

Vegaman · August 1, 2011

[quote name='panicmotion' timestamp='1312127478' post='3438735']
thanks vegaman. does the cheaper titanium result in a much different feel? i.e. - the difference between some usdm iron and a miura...
[/quote]

I havent tried the J38, but some sort of difference in feel should be there. Wether better or worse I dont know. The J38 is a quality piece of kit it seems though, and a great price too. From what i understand the best feeling in the driver family you are looking at is the 901..Go to Rakuten.com and get a slightly used one, usually comes with a premium shaft too. Ive been thinking about getting the rare deep faced 701R too, looking for a head only bargain somewhere, ha ha.

The 703 is the best feeling driver I have ever had, soft and powerful at the same time. Not too loud, a soft Ti thud really. I like it a lot. But its a very advanced driver, 7-piece construction and 3 different kinds of Ti, Beta ti, Ks100 and VL Ti cup face. Im pretty sure they will never release a bridgestone version of the 703, because its just such and advanced and expensive to produve driver. If they watered it down for the US market it would be much too different from the 703, or much too expensive for the US market.

drpino · August 1, 2011

I have not hit the USDM J38 head but do have a TS 701 + VC6.2 and a 701R + Ka'li 70 and both are amazing drivers... as is to be expected from TS. The non-R is a little more hollow feeling/sounding than the R which feels very, very similar but even more solid/muted/dense than the tried and true J33R 460. I'm hazarding a guess that the J38 is almost identical to the 701...the US just sees it 2 years after it's introduced in Japan. The R is definitely fade biased relative to the non-R.

Vegaman · August 1, 2011

Yeah, the J38 is very similar except for this from the TSG blog:

"It's missing the magnesium weight screw and ridges on the sole, has a slightly different profile, and is made of 6-4ti instead of the more expensive Ti811. Yet on a positive note it should cost a lot less than the TourStage version released over a year ago."