382 replies to this topic

[Seanmx]

mat562, on 19 January 2010 - 10:33 AM, said:

The first regular European tournament I remember Stenson winning was down at the Belfry in the old B&H. Two thousand and...... one? From what I remember he beat Cabrera by a few with a Top Flite bag with Callaway irons in it and an old Firestick-shafted 3 wood that was the only driving club he could keep somewhere on the hole he was playing at the time.

I saw Stenson play in The Irish Open in Fota in 2001 and at that time he was playing Ping Zing2 irons and a battered looking Wilson Ultra 3 Wood. I distinctly remember his iron play was awesome but he couldn't keep it on the planet off the tee.

Edited by Seanmx, 21 January 2010 - 12:55 PM.

[The Gachet]

Seanmx, on 21 January 2010 - 12:54 PM, said:

mat562, on 19 January 2010 - 10:33 AM, said:

The first regular European tournament I remember Stenson winning was down at the Belfry in the old B&H. Two thousand and...... one? From what I remember he beat Cabrera by a few with a Top Flite bag with Callaway irons in it and an old Firestick-shafted 3 wood that was the only driving club he could keep somewhere on the hole he was playing at the time.

I saw Stenson play in The Irish Open in Fota in 2001 and at that time he was playing Ping Zing2 irons and a battered looking Wilson Ultra 3 Wood. I distinctly remember his iron play was awesome but he couldn't keep it on the planet off the tee.

This photo is from the Benson & Hedges International at The Belfry which he won in 2001.



Not sure if this is the same head but in a different shaft a couple of years later.  

Was it an Ultra Tour 3-Wood with rails on the bottom !?

Edited by The Gachet, 21 January 2010 - 01:43 PM.

[The Gachet]

Anybody remember these !?  I've still got one in the garage somewhere.

[jaskanski]

I remember those. Quite a long driver actually - maybe they were the start of the 'trampoline effect' drivers? I'm not sure.

[mat562]

I do indeed remember them. Old Jumbo, his boxed up free gifts to numerous pros, and the hottest club in town during the spring of 1990. A high centre of gravity, an equally high price tag, a fancy green-ish coloured shaft and a ball that went twenty yards further than it did with a Taylor Made was my abiding memory of the things.

Apparently the sole of those drivers was also very useful for flattening pesky blades of grass that were sticking up behind your ball too. Eh  Jumbo?

[Caldymat]

Whats this about Jumbo??!!





Was he accussed of cheating??!! Similar to the Vijay story?

[The Gachet]

Caldymat, on 22 January 2010 - 04:37 AM, said:

Whats this about Jumbo??!!

Was he accussed of cheating??!! Similar to the Vijay story?

Nothing to do with cheating whatsoever.  Well, not that I am aware of !?

The Bridgestone J's Professional Driver was designed originally for the famous Japanese professional golfer, Masashi 'Jumbo' Ozaki.  He then gave a few out to a handful of great players in 1990 such as Jack Nicklaus, Ray Floyd and Greg Norman.

When they were released to the public due to their success on tour they were being sold at around £400 each which was over double what the Taylor Made Tour Preferred Flex-Twist's were retailed at.

FYI he was know as 'Jumbo' due to his height and length off the tee.

Edited by The Gachet, 22 January 2010 - 05:24 AM.

[The Gachet]

Just found some excellent information from Mat in another thread which also confirmed that the stock funky dark green shaft was actually a Harmonte C Pro HM-70, whatever that is !?

From mat562................

That J's driver takes me back.

I remember when the things were all the rage. A couple of them were knocking about, doing the rounds amongst all my contemporaries of the time. From what I remember, the secret to the extra length was apparently a new idea based around a thinner face that deformed and gave a trampoline effect - imagine that... - and a very high centre of gravity compared to similar metal woods like Taylor Mades and MacGregor Muirfields that cut down the spin on the ball. As with Jumbo, we all found that the key to exploiting the extra length was to use a long tee (or to have a regular one, precariously balanced on about a millimeter of tip stuck into the turf) and to hit up on the ball.

From what I remember, the story with them was that they were initially designed for Jumbo Ozaki (hence the monicker) to fit his powerful game. He played the clubs on the JPGA Tour to great success and they gained a cult following. During an exhibition match, played with a nigh on 50 years-old Jack Nicklaus in late '89 or early '90, Nicklaus was astounded at how far Ozaki was driving the ball and asked him about the club. A week or so later, a box arrived at Nicklaus Towers containing several drivers and a note from Ozaki. Both Ray Floyd and Greg Norman heard about the driver and also received similar boxes in time.

Both Nicklaus and Floyd played the driver at the 1990 Masters, and both did very well with them. A rejuvenated Nicklaus finished in the top 10 - outdriving Faldo all day in the final round - and Ray Floyd almost won the tournament with both a driver and 3 wood in play. Nicklaus stuck with the original shaft, whilst Floyd - after reportedly ringing Ozaki to get his blessing - switched to Brunswick Fibermatch shafts in both his woods.

Greg Norman played a graphite-shafted J's driver for a couple of years after the splitting the head of his old faithful MacGregor M43 in 1990.

Edited by The Gachet, 22 January 2010 - 05:50 AM.

[Chelanace]

eagle9, on 20 January 2010 - 06:47 PM, said:

Good stuff.  But lets not forget the venerable tour spoon.

This was a great club.  Used it for years.  Still have a few in my basement.

[bma725]

Caldymat, on 22 January 2010 - 04:37 AM, said:

Whats this about Jumbo??!!


Was he accussed of cheating??!! Similar to the Vijay story?

Many many times, yes, but not similar to the Vijay story.

Vijay's cheating was with scorecard and pencil.  For Jumbo, that was pretty much the only area where people thought he didn't cheat.  He was accused many times of using illegal equipment, and perhaps more often of improving his lie in the rough.  

There's a famous story from 1990 or 1991 where Greg Norman confronted him in a locker room about how Jumbo tapped down the grass behind his ball with a driver so that he could hit a 3 wood out of the rough.  According to articles back then, it almost became a fist fight before they were separated by Isao Aoki.

If you do a google search on it, you can even find an article from 15 or so years ago that has a picture of him cheating during a round by pushing down the grass on his ball with his driver.

[The Gachet]

Very interesting, I never knew about that !  Thank you.

Here is that article as mentioned above on the incident.

http://www.bradewart...diaclips029.pdf

He's banged to rights, placing a driver behind the ball in the rough only 155 yards away from the green and then changing it for a mid-iron !?  Ridiculous !

Edited by The Gachet, 22 January 2010 - 09:20 AM.

[The Gachet]

Just love this comparison.

[jmck]

Great thread. I still have two of the 8.5* Burners in the basement, plus a Tour Spoon and a Raylor in the 18* loft. The Raylor was in the bag as recently as 3 or 4 years back. One of the drivers has the FlexTwist, one has an S300. I remember being about 10 yards longer with the FlexTwist, but I'd have to go back to the S300 if I was going through a wild phase. I still have one of the original headcovers too, with "FlexTwist" on the knitted part and the small purple stripe on the top. Classy clubs!

Then I got a hold of one of those J's and that knocked the TM drivers out of the bag for good (until the 300 came along). You'll never guess what shaft I ended up going with in the J....wait for it.....a Fiberspeed 2000! Anyone else remember those? Man I loved that combo. Very very long. Eventually a Warbird 9* with the factory Memphis 10 knocked it out of the bag. Not nearly as long, but man that Warbird was stupid easy to hit. I have a hard time remembering ever missing a fairway with that thing, and with the old balls you could hit it off the deck too....I'm daydreaming right now about big high fades into par 5's with that thing. With the Warbird and a Tour Balata 90 you could open the face a little, hit down on it, and you could almost back a ball up from 240 out if the greens were soft and there was a little breeze in your face.

Every once in a while I get the bug to track down one of those Fiberspeed shafts to see if it was as good as I remember it. I have no idea what happened to that J driver. Must have lent it to a friend. That's definitely one I wish I still had.

[The Gachet]

Anyone know much about these !?  I know that it burst onto the scene when Daly won the 1991 PGA Championship at Crooked Stick and that I owned one for a very very short amount of time as I found it virtually impossible to hit in the air and in the right direction !!!











Those Reebok Pump Golf Shoes were pretty cool at the time.  I picked up a pair in the States, were a bit of a gimmick but certainly very comfy.

Edited by The Gachet, 22 January 2010 - 04:38 PM.

[DallasPanic]

The Gachet, on 22 January 2010 - 04:35 PM, said:

Anyone know much about these !?  I know that it burst onto the scene when Daly won the 1991 PGA Championship at Crooked Stick and that I owned one for a very very short amount of time as I found it virtually impossible to hit in the air and in the right direction !!!











Those Reebok Pump Golf Shoes were pretty cool at the time.  I picked up a pair in the States, were a bit of a gimmick but certainly very comfy.

SANDVIK Titanium Shafts!!!! God those were cool back in the late eighties/early nineties!
Have a look at JD's reebok pump golf shoes as well!

[freddiec]

Matt,
Check it out. The Texan.. oh la la. This was not the one he used to Win the Masters, but this was his original, he later got one custom made.

Edited by freddiec, 22 January 2010 - 05:25 PM.

[DallasPanic]

Keeping with the flex-twist theme...el tigre from his AJGA days.  Also notice the LSU Tiger hat

Attached Images

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[ws6]

Is that LSU or Grambling?

[jebb]

Have I remembered rightly that the Cobra Ultramid was made of bullet proof material?

I'm guessing this was before he went to Wilson.

Btw does anyone remember the Wilson Zero Iron? Had a swish in the net at Eagle Golf with one back in the day. Yikes!

[The Gachet]

jebb, on 22 January 2010 - 06:15 PM, said:

Btw does anyone remember the Wilson Zero Iron? Had a swish in the net at Eagle Golf with one back in the day. Yikes!

Can't find a picture right now but did find this information from 1996 about the Wilson Zero iron.

Look out, Oakland Hills. John Daly is coming armed and possibly dangerous. In the past Daly has complained that the Open takes his best weapon, the driver, out of his hands. While that no doubt will happen again this year, Daly thinks he has found a club—the Wilson Staff Midsize-RM Zero iron—that will allow him to combine the accuracy needed to hit narrow fairways with most of the distance that gives him such a big advantage. He used the club for the first time last week in the Kemper Open and finished tied for 10th, his best performance in the U.S. since winning the BellSouth Classic in April 1994. Daly used the driving iron on the longer par-4's at the TPC at Avenel in Potomac, Md., laying up short of fairway bunkers and staying out of the rough that frequently swallows his 300-yard drives. He can get nearly 300 yards out of the Zero, which is plenty of distance considering that he can hit a seven-iron 190 yards. "I love the Zero off the tee," Daly says. "It helps on some of the tight par-5's that we play, especially at TPC courses. We've got a lot of real thread-the-needle par-5's. And at holes like the 13th at Augusta, I can just pull that out and whip it around the corner. I can't wait to break it out at Oakland Hills."

Wilson's Zero, which has 12 degrees of loft (a normal one-iron has 17 or 18 degrees), is not the first on the market. Tommy Armour Golf made one about four years ago for Davis Love III. For long hitters such as those two, a club like the Zero fills a gap. Daly, for example, has never had adequate distance control with a three-wood, and his one-iron wasn't long enough to serve as a bridge between his driver and his two-iron, which he used frequently. "It's something I've needed," Daly says. "I think I've found an iron where I will never have to hit another three-wood."

Daly experimented with a makeshift Zero (he delofted his one-iron) at the Shell Houston Open, then called Mike Boylan, Wilson's vice president of Tour promotion, to see if the company could make one. Within two weeks club designer Bob Mandralla had the Zero in Daly's bag. When Daly raved about the club before the Kemper, the Wilson switchboard started lighting up. By last Friday, Wilson claimed that more than 1,000 orders had been placed for the Zero.

"It was John's idea," Boylan says. He said, 'Put my name on it and we'll sell thousands of them.' I usually tell him not to give up his day job, but this time I guess he was right."

Edited by The Gachet, 22 January 2010 - 07:30 PM.

[Caldymat]

Those reebock pumps look sweet!!And Tiger using the flex twist hey, what clubs did he use growing up?? Wasn't he a ping man??

[The Gachet]

DallasPanic, on 22 January 2010 - 05:31 PM, said:

Keeping with the flex-twist theme...el tigre from his AJGA days.  Also notice the LSU Tiger hat

Great photo, never saw him with a flex-twist before !

[freddiec]

Here is a pic of Tiger playing as a Junior with a persimmon driver. Anybody know which model he was using? Looks to me like a MacGregor. I've got a mid to late 80s Mac EOM T945 that looks similiar to this.

Edited by freddiec, 23 January 2010 - 08:44 AM.

[jaskanski]

Could be. I vaguely remember hearing he had a Jack Nicklaus signature one once. I can't see the #1 though.

[Androooo]

I had a Tommy Armour 845 "Heater" back in the day.

14* of loft, where the 1 iron had 16*. The shaft was also an inch longer.

Used to scare most people... "Is that a 1 iron?" "No... it's a big fat zero!"

[ssp]

Correct on the Ultramid - It was also discontinued right before the PGA.  They had to bring it back into production with all requests that came after that Daly win.  

I also was having a beer with a Wilson rep the day they were all faxed the letter that Daly signed with Wilson.  The rep was on cloud 9 and buying all kinds of drinks.

[ewfnick]

I own a Wilson Zero iron and it still finds its way into the bag on windy days, goes about head height and like a bullet and surprisingly easy to hit, it has the midsize RM head, 13* of loft and a firestick shaft, I will get a picture loaded.

Edited by ewfnick, 27 January 2010 - 11:23 AM.

[The Gachet]

ewfnick, on 25 January 2010 - 09:17 PM, said:

I own a Wilson Zero iron and it still finds its way into the bag on windy days, goes about head height and like a bullet and surprisingly easy to hit, it has the midsize RM head, 13* of loft and a firestick shaft, I will get a picture loaded.

That would be interesting to see !

[alibab2001]

jebb, on 22 January 2010 - 06:15 PM, said:

Have I remembered rightly that the Cobra Ultramid was made of bullet proof material?

I'm guessing this was before he went to Wilson.

Btw does anyone remember the Wilson Zero Iron? Had a swish in the net at Eagle Golf with one back in the day. Yikes!

If I remember correctly, the Cobra was made of Kevlar...

I have recollections of the pro at my club getting an Ultramid....the Cobra rep was very happy with himself announcing that Greg Norman had 'signed' for Cobra...I was devastated he had left Spalding....

I have just located an old Cobra wedge I bought from the same pro...never seen anything like it since....

[jaskanski]

alibab2001, on 28 January 2010 - 01:28 PM, said:

I have just located an old Cobra wedge I bought from the same pro...never seen anything like it since....

Pics old boy, pics!
Actually, I owned one of these back in 1993

I bought it on the strength of his Open victory, thinking it couldn't harm my game either. Believe it or not, I gave up using it after 1 day and went back to using a Ping Eye 2 L wedge. How times have changed.

Edited by jaskanski, 28 January 2010 - 02:16 PM.