TaylorMade shoots to top on PGA Tour
By CHRIS STEVENSON, Ottawa Sun
It just might be the first golf club ever to come with instructions. Now, I don't know about you, but I figured most golf clubs needed about as much explanation as shampoo. You know, grip, hit, repeat (in my case, more times than you need to know about, okay?).
The new TaylorMade r7 quad driver, which hit area retailers in the last couple of days, comes with instructions on how its radical system of interchangeable weights can affect ball flight.
The club, which retails for $649 -- at the upper reaches of golf-club pricing -- is expected to be the next "must-have" weapon in your bag and has created a buzz in what has been a flat golf equipment industry.
In just five weeks, it has become the No. 1 driver on the PGA Tour. Sergio Garcia used one to win the Byron Nelson Championship.
The folks at Tommy and Lefebvre sold three of them the first day.
At Chuck Brown's, "we have a couple of demos and people are fighting over them," said John Pulcine, the manager of the Somerset St. store. "It seems to be what everybody wants in a club. It's a standard club that you can set up six different ways."
"Rather than the shaft, it makes the head the engine of the club," said T&L's Kevin Pidgeon.
The radical thing about the r7 is the interchangeable weights, two at the back of the club behind the face and one each in the heel and toe. They range in weight from 2-10 grams and must be screwed in with a special wrench (the TaylorMade Launch Control Torque Wrench. You must pay for this thing by the word).
By moving the weights around, ball flight can be adjusted. More weight in the back produces a higher ball flight. More weight in the heel can produce a draw ... and so on and so on.
"If you put it on Iron Byron (the mechanical swing machine) you could go from a hook to a draw to a fade to a slice depending on the plugs," said Pigeon.
The advances in titanium technology, including the ability to stretch it thin for the face and save weight which can be distributed elsewhere, have made this kind of club possible.
Now, in case you're thinking, "Hmm. I'm on a dogleg left par-4 here. I'm gonna load this thing up for a hook," stop right there. Under the Rules of Golf, you must choose your setup before the round and it cannot be changed during the course of the round.
HEAR AND THERE: William Kirby of Greensmere topped the field at the OVGA Class B Field Day at Upper Canada this week with a 77. That was one better than Yvan Laflamme of Rideau Glen and Tim McCooeye of Glen Mar. Gilles Cote and Rene Pinard, Jr., both of Tecumseh, were next at 79 and 80 respectively. Handicap class winners were: 9-11, Jack Edmunds of Prescott, Peter Jones of Mont Cascades, Bill Coulter and Mike Atherton, both of Glen Mar, 81; 12-14, Steve Hambling of Champlain, 81; 15-20, Tom Lippa of Carleton and Sheridan Harvey of Poplar Grove, 84 ... Up this week: The Investors Group Mid-Amateur at Brockville, Monday ... The top-ranked local player on the Quebec Golf Association's Order of Merit is Jeremiah Shields of Royal Ottawa. He's eighth. Stephen Fritsch of Rideau View is 10th ... The CJGA's schedule continues this weekend with the Lipton Brisk Canada Cup Team East Qualifying at Club de Golf Val des Lacs in Sainte-Sophie, Que. After a couple of third-places finishes to her credit, Ottawa's Vanessa Stol, 15, will be looking for a win in the girls' division. The Lipton Brisk Canada Cup is a Ryder Cup-style event for Canadian juniors.
FROM THE FRINGE: I had a chance to play Le Fontainebleau, the new Darrell Huxham design operated by Club-Link northwest of Montreal last week. It will get its first public scrutiny next month when it hosts the Telus Skins Game (Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, John Daly, Hank Kuehne). The course has a number of brilliant risk-reward holes and organizers will likely put the tee blocks where the players will be tempted to drive some par-4s. It should make for a good show with the likes of Kuehne and Daly, who rank one and three on the PGA Tour in driving distance (314.7 and 304.6, respectively.) Singh is no slouch, either, at 10th (297.7) while Mickelson is the wimp of the group at 295.9 yards (19th on Tour).
chris.stevenson@ott.sunpub.com
