Hiring the Swing Studio 

You can use any of the equipment while you are in the Swing Studio. Playing shots into the 12 metre square screen, under the watchful eye of the GC2 launch monitor, is the ultimate indoor experience. You can play your shots on a choice of 18 golf courses, on any hole you like, or on a driving range if you prefer, with far more information that you ever had before. Practice, see your spin rates, learn your true yardages and even see the direction and exact angle of your swing path as the club goes through impact!

You can also use any of the demos or other equipment in the room, for example to test your own lie angle. If you bring me back a club with a sticker on the sole that is marked consistently in the heel or toe, I can explain why and correct them for you. Test how well-fitted your clubs really are, and whether your specs have changed over time. Your spec can and does change over time with any changes to your swing be them good or bad! With any irons that were purchased from me, and however old, I will make any necessary lie angle alterations FREE OF CHARGE.

Sorry, you won't find smoke or mirrors in the room though! All the data you could wish for is there for you. It is totally transparent and you see everything perfectly clearly in pictures and numbers.


 

What irons?

As described above, the GC2 allows me to provide the most accurate club fitting possible.

Q - But what clubs perform the best? 
A - Come and test them yourself and see 

Q - Which irons are the best VALUE for money? 
A - The ones that perform the best and you enjoy using the most 

Q - Which company focuses most on customer care? 
A - PING, who actually care about HOW their products are sold. They insist that golfers are correctly custom fitted and strongly discourage online sales. They do not care about their lost sales online as long as those that do buy Ping are correctly fitted. Unusual and honourable ethos for any company in 2015 you must agree! 

Q - What do I get after I have paid the money? 
A - Depends which you buy and who you buy from.

OK, here's some real insight into some of the club manufacturers:

If a company produces a new range of clubs every two or so years, this is considered to be a long life cycle. If you buy clubs with a longer life cycle such as Titleist or PING, you can expect to notice more improvement between models if you change your clubs say every 2 to 4 years. You can also expect them to remain worth something to trade back in.

If you buy from a manufacturer with short product life cycles such as TaylorMade, who bring out a new range every 3 to 6 months, you can expect to notice little difference between models and for your new clubs to be obsolete in a few weeks, and the value of your investment to capitulate. This is a brand at the very opposite end of the spectrum to PING, widely available online. Incidentally, TaylorMade's sales fell by 50% between 2012 and 2014 and have fallen further this year.

Such differences in product and service greatly influence what I stock. Whatever you buy online is purely pot luck with no come back. If you buy from me the service and after sales care is much better.

Titleist irons 

We are a few weeks away from the eagerly awaited Titleist 716 range of irons. As you know, the 716 are so named as they are the 2016 model and will replace the 714 series released almost two years ago. Great news! Thanks to the new Swing Studio, in 2016 we will be an authorized Titleist Fitting Centre (in addition to PING as we are now). This means that we will have a full selection of the new Titleist products for you to try.


Clearance

I have one set of Titleist AP1 (the bigger more forgiving head) irons that are the 714 range. This set is reduced from £479 to £379 with the imminent arrival of the 716. They are regular flex steel and I can customise the length, lie angle and grip size to suit whoever buys them. 

I also have one set of Titleist AP2 714 model (this is the forged club aimed at the mid to low handicapper and they are soft!) reduced from £649 to £519. Great irons, custom fitting included as above.

 

Exchange - at this end

Sale sent 151 players for the Exchange on Saturday which was an exceptional turnout. The car park was jam-packed, as was the grass at the front of the clubhouse and we just about got everybody in before the early players began to leave. The weather was great, Nick had set the course up superbly and the Sale members were very complimentary of our course. As usual the main topics of conversation were the quality and speed of the greens, and of course the severity and difficulty of the 18th.

I would say about half were playing the course for the first time and some didn't know it was here. One guy loved it and explained how he had 'driven past this place for 5 years to get to Houldsworth where I was a member, I can't believe it!' I don't think Sale do many exchanges and the whole thing seemed pretty new to them, one common question of the day was 'how do I collect my 2s winnings?!' While many found the course tough, their winning betterball score was 46 points off three-quarters! And yes they all played off three-quarters and of course they all played off the white tees, everything at this end including the greens ran very smoothly indeed.

I'm sure you have already read Dave's email showing our results from Sale, but if you haven't the winners were Mike Radcliffe and Colin Barr with 42. To view the prize winning pairs click here.


 

The majority of the finals for this year's club knockouts have been played, with the following results:

Foursomes KO was won by Dave Sanders and Justin Pickering who won 6&5 against Paul Wheelton and Mike Radcliffe
Liam Houghton and Bradley Brokenbrow won the Fourball KO against Bill Graty and Franc Brown 2&1
Andy Covell won this year's Singles KO, beating Ryan Jackson

Well done to all the winners. Adam Stott and Phil Houghton teed off at 12noon today in the play-off to decide the winner of The Victory Trophy so they are still out there.

 

Sun 27 Sep - Paul Jackson won my Stableford on Sunday with 38 points, good form just ahead of the infamous Spain trip he and a few others are just about to embark upon. Second was the man in-form Andy White who finished with 36 points, beating Steve Smith on a card play-off. For all voucher winners and 2s, please click here.

Wednesday Section - Well done to Steve Cole, Tim Crampton and James Mottram who were this week's winners. There are only two more Wednesday Section qualifiers left this season.