Equipment

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The high-end XXIO line of men’s and women’s clubs ($1,200 driver, anyone?) continue their focus on distance, or more precisely the distance you’ve lost, by pushing the limits of lightweight woods and irons. Using driver shafts that weigh less than 40 grams, clubs with a total weight that’s about 25

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The e12 Contact employs a “Contact Force” dimple that features a raised area in the center. The company says this causes 38 percent more contact with the clubface at impact than traditional dimples. That brings a more efficient transfer of energy and an ability to activate the core of the

Week in and week out, the equipment scene shifts on the PGA Tour. At The American Express in La Quinta, Calif., that meant new irons for Brooks Koepka, new iron shafts for Rickie Fowler and an equipment contract for one of the game’s new pros. Looking ahead, Jason Day appears to have a very different

Si Woo Kim played the three rounds of The American Express contested at PGA West’s Stadium Course without a bogey, carding 17 birdies and one eagle. But it was the final birdie, on the par-17th hole Sunday where he rolled in a 19-foot putt, that secured a one-shot win over Patrick Cantlay, who nearly stole

Kevin Na is on a nice little roll, having won four times in his last 55 events on the PGA Tour after taking the Sony Open in Hawaii. Na birdied the par-5 18th to win by one. Na put himself into position after 54 holes with a third-round 61. “I’m making my share of putts,”

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The Wilson D9 driver leads a new wood family with the company’s most intense re-thinking of face design in its history. In fact, the thought process on the face for the new driver went beyond human cogitation and heavily into computer simulation, producing a variable thickness design without a single

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: A low center of gravity along with a new Power Hole 2.0 design driven by Wilson’s Intelligent Design Computer Simulation process help maximize ball speed and forgiveness across the face of the D9 irons. PRICE: The seven-piece Wilson D9 irons will be available Jan. 26 ($650 in steel, $750 in

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: In pursuing more distance both off the driver and through the bag, the three-piece ERC Soft ball marries that benefit with a focus on the different way many average golfers approach their short games compared to better players. Rather than relying on spin for short shots (and thus a ball

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The new Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x both feature a softer cover as well as a reformulated core along with a fast, high-flex casing layer to generate speed. The real news, though: The first new dimple patterns since 2011 with the new Pro V1 having 388 dimples and the

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Titleist Vokey Design SM8 wedge offerings add the “M” grind to three lower lofts (50, 52, 54 degrees) to its custom WedgeWorks lineup to join higher-loft options, which were an original part of Titleist’s SM8 stock lineup. The crescent-shaped grind is generally ideal for players who take shallower divots and

Just a couple weeks after losing Jon Rahm to Callaway, TaylorMade has re-stocked its tour staff with another European star, signing five-time European Tour winner Tommy Fleetwood to a multiyear deal to play its clubs and golf ball. The signing is not a surprise as the company has been hinting at it on social media

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The TaylorMade SIM2 driver family is not merely a pro forma technology follow-up to last year’s SIM lineup. Instead, the company reexamined every element of the three models in the family to push new frontiers in driver forgiveness. Those include the mid-launch, low-spin SIM2; the larger-footprint, higher-flying SIM2 Max and

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The three new SIM2 fairway woods and two new SIM2 hybrids continue the themes of low center of gravity and reduced turf-interaction sole-shaping established in last year’s models. What’s added is a new emphasis on forgiveness, even for better players who prefer more compact models. The keys are increased perimeter

What You Need to Know: The SIM2 Max and Max OS irons each utilize a “cap-back” design. Doing so brings the distance benefit of a hollow-body design, but replaces the steel back with a polymer “cap” or badge. That allows for a low center of gravity, which gives high launch, low spin for more distance

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Three new drivers and two new fairway woods comprise Callaway’s new Epic line. The models include the forgiving everyman Max, the “high forgiveness for better players” Max LS and the aerodynamically shaped, low-spin Speed in drivers; and the larger, forgiving Max and smaller, flatter-launching Speed in fairway woods). For each,

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Odyssey’s newest putter family is a return to nearly its oldest. First introduced in 2000, the company’s distinctive two-part urethane insert still is the more preferred insert used by tour players even though it’s long not been part of any new line from the company. The new White Hot OG

What You Need to Know: All three Apex irons have cupfaces designed by artificial intelligence and tungsten encased in urethane with microspheres (tiny bubbles of air within the urethane). The two technologies combine to boost ball speed across a wide portion of the face. The Apex and Apex Pro hybrids provide an alternative to the

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The Ping G425 line of metalwoods continue the company’s industry-leading push to the extremes of moment of inertia (MOI), best understood as the stability of the head on off-center hits (so misses fly more like dead-center strikes). The new driver combines the technologies of Ping’s two previous models—building on the