Clone Wedges - Cleveland 588 Black Pearl/Professional Open Series 690

Having started to think about getting a new set of clone irons in early 2013, I looked at some of my options (reduced to Rocketballz, Rocketbladez or Ping G25s) but considered that I could not justify the cost at that time. This left me frustrated partly because I like new things, but mainly because I had started to find out more about building my own clubs. The first set of clones I had bought had been built for me, but this would bring a totally new dimension to my clone golf.

I contemplated my situation, then one day as I mindlessly surfed the world wide web on things golf related, I stumbled across some voice of expertise speaking with authority on the importance of wedges in the modern game. This was it, my low(ish) cost option for new, custom, home built clone clubs. I looked at a site I had come to favour in the US and liked the look of the Professional Open Series 690 black wedges, which were clones of the Cleveland 588 wedges. Both the clones and the brands got good write-ups around the net, so my choice became easier.) As always shipping from the US tends to bring some dose of reality, however I found a website (based in Sweden,) which had the wedges at a reasonable price with shipping. I spent some time convincing myself that I needed to be able to build golf clubs - it was a life skill that would surely only improve me as a person - and then I ordered them. I ordered those bad boys without swinging a club or even casting my eyes on them. This was hopefully worth a punt.

I opted for a 52 degree gap wedge and a 56 degree sand wedge. For shafts I thought of something with a low kickpoint to get a higher ball flight, and thus less roll on landing. The thought of being able to stop the ball on a sixpence appealed to me. The Apollo Shadow steel shaft was a low cost option, so two of those went into my shopping cart. Finally, I went for the Winn Excel AVS AI grips in red and graphite. A couple of half inch ferrules would finish the clubs off nicely.

Many many times over the next seven days, I would click on the "track my order" link to see if my package had moved at all in the last five minutes. A few of those times, it had, and at the end of that week, there lay on my kitchen worktop, the components that would make my first ever self built clubs.

The assembly of the clubs themselves, was quite straightforward. I abraded the end of the shaft, fitted the ferrule, mixed the epoxy, and placed the shaft into the hosel. The hardest bit was suppressing my excitement and setting the club aside to let the epoxy cure. The following day I cut the clubs to length and fitted the grips. Easy. Now just one more day to make sure the grip solvent had evaporated.

The thing I noticed immediately about the wedges was their weight. They seemed much heavier than the PW and SW which were part of my clone G2 set. This would give me confidence in the swing, I thought. They were really nice looking wedges, their black melonite finish looking rather menacing, but the overall shape was a thing of beauty. I practiced short shots in the garden frequently over the next couple of weeks, prior to my golf weekend down to Co Sligo, on the West coast or Ireland.

The story was good and bad that weekend. Anything close around the green, I seemed to be able to leave close to the hole, which was no doubt due to the amount of short shot practice in my back garden. However my shots into the green from 100yds and less were more miss than hit. I found myself taking massive divots, with very little ball. This could not be the wedges' fault, could it?

Since that weekend, I have improved my swing for those long wedge shots - I think I was keeping too much weight on my right foot, not transferring it enough through the swing. I'm now hitting my 52 degree around 100yds with a full swing, but more pleasingly, with some consistency.

That was a risk worth taking.

Clone Putter - Odyssey White Ice D.A.R.T./SoooLong D.R. Technology Mallet Putter

So when I bought my new driver components, I though I would consolidate the shipment with some other components to make the cost of shipping a bit more cost effective. Putting has always been one of many Achilles' Heels to my success at golf (although I'm pretty sure Achilles himself only had two heels.)

Off to the golf store to try a few putters. I immediately liked the heavier mallet putters, as I had a tendency to leave long putts short and my thinking was that the extra weight would increase the momentum (and proportionally, velocity) transferred to the ball. I also struggled at times with short putts as I would chicken out of those and the club head would be decelerating through the ball. The larger mallet head putters seemed to give me more confidence, at least on the putting mat, and that combined with the target alignment aids on those deep putters would help me line up the hole (another of my putting weaknesses.) Aside from long putts, short putts and putt alignment, my putting was in great shape.

Narrowing it down to clubs, the clones of which I had already sourced, my choices were, the Ping Scottsdale Wolverine, the TaylorMade Spider Ghost and the Odyssey White Ice DART. I tried all three and found them pretty similar for feel and performance (on the mat,) added to that that I really like Ping (clones,) and Wolverine from the X-Men, I thought my choice was simple. I did however like the other two as well, the alignment aids on the Odyssey being especially appealing.

When I re-looked at the clones, I noted that the Ping clone, the Turbo Power Palmdale, had a steel painted face, whereas the TM and Odyssey had a milled steel face and aluminium insert face respectively. I looked at what technology of putter faces was supposed to do and found that although the milled steel face might give a truer ball roll, the aluminium insert would give better feel, previously an area of weakness in my putting, (forgot about that one.)

I ordered the Odyssey (SoooLong) with a standard three bend shaft for the 90 degree lie head and of course a Winn grip, favouring an orange and white midsize pistol grip which reminded me of Nemo from the Pixar movie. I also spotted a 100 gram counterweight which fits into the butt end of the shaft to give better "balance." I'll have one of those.

After assembly of the head and shaft, I tried swinging the club with and without the counterweight, and thought that it did feel a wee bit better WITH the weight, so I slotted it into the shaft, put some grip tape around it to hold it in place (which would later become a bit of a problem,) and fitted the grip.

Having a few rounds under my belt I noticed that my long putting was becoming consistently better and anything under four feet almost felt like a gimme. I know that there may be a bit of new club "bump" in this but I definitely feel that this was a good investment, especially since, having seen my new putter, a friend ordered one and I made a tidy profit from it.

The aforementioned small problem, as it turned out was that the club developed a rattle when I took it out of the bag, due to the counterweight not being stuck in place. This progressively deteriorated until the point where I've decided to regrip so that I can epoxy the counterweight in again. We learn from our mistakes.

Clone Driver - Ping Anser/P24 Action

In September 2012, just before a golf trip to the famous Druid's Glen Golf Club in Wicklow, Ireland, I decided to have a golf lesson, with the intention of curing a slice as wild as an African elephant who's just seen a mouse. The pro told me exactly what was wrong and having given some direction on my "release," had me hitting straight shots with my driver in no time at all. I used the driver during that trip to relatively good effect so much so that a couple of the better golfers with whom I was playing said I should get myself a good driver, as it would give me another few yards.

Of course, everyone likes to be flattered, but it started me thinking about getting a new driver. I thought it was time to ditch my £10 Dunlop 11.5 degree, 43 inch steel shafted driver, and go for something a little more intense. Something which I could build myself, after my positive experiences with my wedges.                                                                                                                                
I decided that my choices were going to be between Ping and TaylorMade. Largely because I had been browsing for new irons and had narrowed that choice down to the Ping G25s and the TaylorMade Rocketballz/Rocketbladez. Ping of course had a couple of drivers which interested me, the G20 and G25, whereas TM had the RBZ and RBZ stage 2. I ventured forth to my local golf store.

I loved both the matt black of the Pings and the white of the TMs. This was going to be tough. I lifted the G25 and held it as if at address. Immediately I was disappointed. I just didn't like the shape of the head. Although not a golf professional, (understatement,) I understand that a lot of golf has to do with the mind, and if I don't like looking down at a driver at address, then that's not giving me a psychological advantage. I tried to convince myself that I liked it, but I didn't listen to my own sales patter. Likewise the G20 was not jumping out at me as a beautiful club. I turned to the RBZs and was immediately taken with the White head. It looked great. It was a pleasing shape but it was the colour which stood out against the ground which captured my attention. This was going to be easier than I thought. I will add at this point that I did not try out any of these drivers; I was just going by handsomeness.

If it hasn't been apparent from this blog, then I confess, I am a tinkerer. I love to go into my garage and make things. I love to customise things to 'make them better.' Kind of like Tim Allen in the show of the 90s, Home Improvement; some would say disturbingly similar.

The aforementioned Dunlop driver was the next victim of my tinkmanship. I masked up the face and sole and sprayed it white - with radiator paint. I have to say, it looked good, and so off I went to my annual golf weekend on the West Coast of Ireland and played four rounds with it. I'll be honest, perhaps not surprisingly, it didn't make me play any better, but some of my golfing buddies were very complimentary of the paint job. I think at that time, I lost interest a wee bit in the white.

After visiting the local store once more, I had reviewed my options and selected a Ping Anser 10.5 degree driver (who knows from where,) and the RBZ stage 2. Having already found an online golf store which sold a great selection of golf components, I had decided this was my go-to place for a driver. Again, another big risk, as if buying a driver without having hit it wasn't enough, this was buying components, which I'd never seen, but which when built would be perhaps somewhat similar to a driver I'd looked at, all from a supplier I'd never used before. My old adage that a good swing will suit any club, would soon be tested once more.

In the end, I decided on the Anser clone. It is strange but I felt some loyalty to Ping after years of playing with G2 clone irons so I thought I would stick with the Ping clone driver (of course made by a totally different manufacturer than my irons.) There is very little rationality in this.

The clone club in question was the P24 Action driver from Monark Golf in California, which is a bit of a way from Northern Ireland, but Monark does have a fantastic range of equipment at very reasonable prices. The down side for me is the shipping costs but I try to consolidate the stuff I want to cut down on shipping, (I got a hybrid and putter in this shipment.) The head had 10.5 degrees of loft and a cup face, (the face is flanged and the weld line is then not directly on the face but around the driver body.) Monark also had a Grafalloy ProLaunch Blue stiff shaft on offer, which looked to match my requirements; I threw in my favoured Winn Dri-Tac grip and I had my components for under $75 plus shipping.

After two long weeks (over half of which was UK customs clearance,) my components arrived and I set to work attaching the 10.5 degree driver head with some quick set shafting epoxy. I did wait for 24 hours though before cutting the club to size (45.5" for me,) and gripping. As I didn't have a playing partner organised, I called on my 14 year old son to play with me the following Friday.

So there I stood on the first tee, new driver in hand, although it was a short par 4, which dog-legged left. A hole, at which I would normally take an iron for a lay up into the green, I did not need a full whack at it so decided to take it easy. One easy swing and a surprisingly low clunk (perhaps something to do with the cup face?) later and the ball went in a straight line towards the corner of the dog leg. I was chuffed. I didn't get to use it again until the fifth hole, but I got my offspring to video it with my phone. I hit the ball into a fairly hefty head wind, but straight and true. The story was the same for the rest of that first round. Due to the wind, I hit a couple of 290+ drives and was astounded at how the driver sent the ball in exactly the direction in which I aimed it. After a couple more rounds, I reckon I'm hitting it around 250-260 yards with no wind.

Why doesn't everyone build their own clubs?