News

Deliberate Success – Crane Wins

Published

14 years ago

Feb 1, 2010

Methodical he may be, but in the big scheme of things it is hard to identify much fault in Ben Crane, whether you’re talking about his character or his ability to play golf. The 33-year-old Oregon native and all-around nice guy was completely focused Sunday as he won the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego.

Just how occupied was he with the task at hand? So much so that when he rolled in the final 3-foot putt to finish at 13 under par and win, he had no idea that the trophy was his for the taking. He had begun play on Sunday two shots back of the lead and did not seem to realize that his final-round score of 70 had been enough to earn him his third PGA Tour victory – his first in five years.

Ryuji Imada, the leader to start the day, faltered early in the final round and Crane quickly gained ground with the skill he is best known for, putting. The pursuer got off to a fast start on Sunday with a short birdie on the second hole followed by a 46 foot birdie bomb on the third. His 3rd birdie of the day, a 22 foot putt on the fifth hole, propelled him to a two-stroke lead that he would hold for the balance of the front nine.

The field came nipping on Crane’s heels early in the back nine but yet another lengthy birdie, this time one from 48 feet on the 11th hole, put his lead margin back to two strokes. That would drop to one after the 17th hole when he stumbled in missing a 3-foot par putt, creating a compelling situation on the final hole of the Torrey Pines South course.

There, on the dramatic par five closer, Crane drove the ball into the rough – effectively eliminating any chance of reaching the green in two to set up an easy birdie. At the same time Australian Michael Sim drove to the short grass and just 245 yards to the hole, creating a great scoring opportunity. Too much surprise he chose not to go for the green in two, ultimately leaving him with just a par and sharing second place with Marc Leishman and Brandt Snedeker. “…for me that is really stretching a three wood so I decided to lay up to a nice yardage,” said Sim when questioned why he did not go for the green on the 18th. “It would have been nice to have a putt at it for birdie to get to 13, but it wasn’t the case.”

Phil Mickelson, who will defend this week at the Northern Trust Open and was mired in a debate over his use of a non-confirming yet legal Ping wedge, got off to a terrible start at Torrey Pines and could not recover from a flurry of early round bogeys. “What we were talking about, my rhythm and timing were off,” Mickelson explained about his erratic final round play that dropped him to 19th place. “I wasn’t able to accelerate through the ball very well and hanging back a little bit. At least I know what it is that I need to work on and I have a couple days to do it”

Although Crane rejoiced at the thought of winning $954,000 and earning an invite to the 2010 Masters it seemed that the success had a higher meaning – that it was validation for all the effort he had put into developing a plan for success on the PGA Tour over the last few months. “…it’s certainly really cool to know that I’m going the right direction,” he stated with a genuine smile in the press room. “But in the past when I’ve played well, I think I’ve rested on it, and I think I have a better plan in place this year. It’s a nice by-product. But really the goal was to sit down with my team this November and talk about the plan that we put in place and reevaluate.

Crane referred to himself as sticking to “The Process” when interviewed immediately following the win and he explained more about it when prompted.

“Yeah, I sat down with my team. I have eight guys that kind of help me, a few therapists and then a mental coach, a guy named Lanny Bassham, Greg Rose my fitness guy, caddie. Anyway, we all sat down in a room and my manager, and we all just said, all right, what are the things we need to improve on, and what are the things we think we’re doing well. We pulled up every stat for the last nine years. It was kind of fun, and my manager ran this whole meeting, and basically what we came up with was a few things that I need to do.

One of the things is I need to play ready golf. I’ve been too slow in the past, and it’s bothered me. So I’m just — that’s one of the things I’m working on is being ready when it’s my turn to play. Anyway, so we just came up with a few things that I need to do in order to improve. And so we determined when we left that meeting, we all knew what I was doing so that when I finish a round, we talk differently about the round. We don’t talk directly about results, we talk about the process I went through before, during and after every shot and how that went. And to judge myself based on that as opposed to just the outcome. “

Crane will have another chance to test “The Process” this week when he plays in the Northern Trust Open at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California.

After more than few bungles by Crane’s chasers this week, something tells me a few of his fellow competitors might be spending their preparation time this week investigating a “Process” of their own.

—

This report provided to GolfWRX.com by Flagstick Golf Magazine (www.flagstick.com)

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Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

3 hours ago

Jul 25, 2024

Brian Knudson

Every week we spot some really cool and custom putters out on the putting green and in tour players’ bags. This week is no slouch with some really interesting and beautiful putters being tested. Let’s take a look at some of the standouts we found.

Tyler Duncan: Scotty Cameron Phantom T-11.5

The Phantom 11 is a pretty wild putter by Scotty’s standards with a multi-material design that boosts MOI for more forgiveness. Duncan’s T-11.5. takes the stock model and moves the shaft to the center of the putter head. We don’t mean a center shafted version, but the shaft is installed in the center, behind the face as well. We don’t have any official details on this T-11.5 but it looks like that setup should create a putter where the face points towards the hole or target, similar to a L.A.B. putter.

Zac Blair: Scotty Cameron 009.M Cameron & Co. “Longneck”

Blair might be in possession of the largest Scotty collection on tour! It seems like every week he has something new, and flat-out gorgeous, that he is trying out. I have seen a lot of 009.M putters over the years, but never one with a long plumbers neck on it. This 009 is a Masterful that utilizes additional CNC machine work to reduce the amount of hand polishing needed to complete the putter. The long, or tall, neck on the putter usually is used to reduce the amount of toe hang and make the putter more face balanced. The face contains a very shallow milling while the sole features a tour truck, tour only, diamonds, and the rare Circle L stamp. The Circle L was made for Scotty’s close friends who lost matches or games and was meant to poke a little fun at their misfortune.

Paul Barjon: PXG Prototype

There are a lot of putters out there that become so widely used and popular that other manufacturers will borrow some of the design cues. The Spider is one of those putters and it looks like PXG has made a prototype putter for Barjon that has some similar features. This proto has a tapered mallet shape with twin wings that come out from either side of the rear. Twin movable weights sit in each wing on the sole and the sole features a plate that is bolted in place at the corners. The top contains a single siteline and the face uses PXG’s advanced pyramid face structure.

Odyssey Ai-One Cruiser Broomstick #7

More and more long, counterbalanced, and alternative putters seem to be showing up recently. The long, or broomstick, putter is making a comeback and more than a few players have joined Adam Scott in using that style. Odyssey has thrown its hat in the broomstick arena with a new Ai-One Cruiser model. The head shape is the very familiar #7 model, but with the shaft going into the center of the club head. An Ai-One face is there to help keep ball speed consistent on off-center hits and three white lines are on top for framing ball and aligning the putter.

TaylorMade Spider Tour S Broomstick

Another option in the long putter is TaylorMade’s Spider Tour S broomstick that we saw around the putting green. The head looks to be a little larger than the standard Tour S and that makes sense with the broomstick-style putters demanding heads near or over 400g. A TPU Pure Roll insert is installed in the face and the shaft is a more traditional double-bend design, just much longer! There isn’t the True Path alignment on top, just a full darker grey finish with a single siteline. Two moveable weights are out in the wings of the putter to dial in the specific weight a player might want.

Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 3M Open

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Equipment

GolfWRX member testing: Reviewing Cleveland CBX 4 ZipCore wedges

Published

1 day ago

Jul 24, 2024

GolfWRX Staff

Our forum faithful are well acquainted with the incredible giveaways and review opportunities in the realm of threads and comments, but we want to ensure front-page readers are involved as well.

Check out what GolfWRXers are saying about Cleveland’s new CBX 4 ZipCore wedges after putting them through their paces.

We have five GolfWRX members testing Cleveland’s CBX 4 ZipCore wedges.

Cleveland on CBX 4 ZipCore wedges

“New CBX 4 ZipCore wedges bring premium versatility and elite forgiveness together in a highly refined, sharp-looking design that blends perfectly in the bag with modern cavity back or hollow iron sets. And now, these CBX series wedges get all of Cleveland Golf’s latest tour caliber technologies to create our finest cavity back wedge yet.”

How we choose our testers

GolfWRX staff evaluates each entry against the criteria laid out in the testing thread to determine the best fit for each specific product — For example, if a game-improvement iron is being tested, game-improvement iron-playing golfers will be considered.

Member testers

@mikes919
@ALTSean
@awtryau89
@vsabre
@rbilramz

Review themes

Forgiveness
Ease of use out of bunkers
Easy to play from a square position
Surprisingly compact given the amount of cavity technology
Impressive spin

Member review highlights

@mikes919

“Initial impression is that these wedges are very clean and high quality in appearance. They have a durable-looking satin finish, and the cavity back insert blends nicely with the steel; you barely notice that it’s an insert. Shafts and ferrules are pristine. The stock Lamkin Crossline grips are more rubbery than the tour velvets I’m used to, but the tread pattern gives a nice locked-in feel. The face milling is very pronounced, and the grooves feel ridiculously sharp. They are quite chunky from the back. The soles are big and wide, with a lot of leading and trailing edge relief. If you’re a digger with wedges, you are going to love these things. Comparing the soles and overall profile to my Vokeys, the difference is most obvious on the 54*. The CBX4 sole is much wider than anything I’ve played in this loft range before. While they’re both S-grinds, the CBX4 grind is much more pronounced on both the leading and trailing edge.”

“Flip the wedges over to the normal address position and it’s a totally different story. You would never know there’s so much sole and tech behind this club! While the topline is slightly thicker on the CBX4, I was pleasantly surprised that the appearance is much more “player” oriented than I would have thought. They don’t feel nearly as big here. The only thing I notice at address is that the CBX4 leading edge sits a little higher, because of that leading edge relief…”

“The other thing you’ll notice at address is the milling and groove pattern of the wedges. The HydraZip face technology is really cool to see and feel. Just rubbing your fingers across the face of the wedge, you know these are going to shred some ball covers! Zooming in on the grooves themselves is even more impressive, with a slightly different pattern between the low and high lofts:

…”My practice areas are sandy and the balls are hard as a rock, but I haven’t noticed any wear whatsoever on the wedge faces yet. Still spinning great, they really grab the ball.

…”These wedges like to be played square. Just line it up, focus on making reasonably clean contact, and you’ll be rewarded with a consistent flight and great spin.”

…”Today I put the Cleveland’s back in the bag for a rainy round. It started off drizzling and was just absolutely pouring by about the 5th hole. I was extremely impressed with the amount of spin I was able to generate with the CBX4’s. I found myself needing to adjust and fire at the pin much more than with my Vokeys; I was getting one hop stops, even in a heavy downpour.”

@ALTSean

“I got the wedges out for another round this morning. It’s been raining and warm here in NOVA so the conditions are on the softer side at the moment and the forgiveness of the soles shines in these kind of conditions. We don’t ever really get super firm or fast conditions so the extra bounce and size of the soles probably will work well here year round.”

@awtryau89

“As you can see, these wedges have some serious grinds. The pre-worn leading edge is on the 54 & 60. Even though these are larger than my Vokeys, they can be manipulated to hit any shot you like.”

“Looks are subjective but these look great. No real offset and not too rounded. They are on the larger side but unless you put them next to a smaller wedge, you’d never know they are a bit on the large side.”

“Feel is really good for cast and cavity back. They have a sharp click and aren’t muted but feel solid. The shafts are KBS Hi Rev 2.0. I play KBS C Taper Lite 110s in my irons so these mesh very well. Overall the pairing of the shafts and heads work very well. You won’t mistake them for soft forgings but overall they are softer feeling than my SM 9 KBS Tour 130 wedges.”

“Spin is exceptional. My Vokeys aren’t old but these definitely have much more bite than the SM9s. The hydro treatment is real. We played very soggy fairways and the spin I saw was crazy. One hop and stop pitches from short distances were the norm. It will be interesting to see what they offer when our course drys out.”

“Forgiveness is what these wedges are all about. I didn’t have any bad misses today that the wedges saved me strokes but I did notice some shots that weren’t perfect ended up being a good bit closer to pin high than expected.”

“Played again today and basically learned these wedges are a cheat code out of bunkers. So easy to hit any shot. I hit it close 2-3 times green side but my best shot may have been from a fairway bunker 127 out, up against a lip, with the 50 degree. Hit it to about 12 feet and promptly 3 putted. Oh well.”

“These wedges have stayed in my bag. Having played Vokeys for so long, I had to convince myself to commit for a while and put the ego aside. One big thing that has stood out to me is full shots and the better results I have seen there. These wedges offer so much more forgiveness that I have to be careful. I’ve had to adjust my yardages since they just play longer. I even took them to have the lofts checked because I thought they were strong and they were spot on so its just helping the ball go farther on those slight misses around the face.”

“I’ve stated they are just so easy out of the sand. I have hit some great shots and even holed out a few times from bunkers. I have to be careful on wet sand with the larger surface area on the soles but overall they just make the game easier.”

“Chipping is also so easy. I go against the grain so many times playing on Bermuda and the pre-worn leading edge just helps the wedge from sticking. I work very hard on shaft lean and keeping the hands ahead while chipping. The leading edge helps me play square face shots this way but you can also open them up.”

“I’ve had playing partners comment on my short game a few times the last few weeks and then ask to look at my wedges. Every one of them are surprised. I play to a 7 but one of my buddies who is a 1 has had some chipping issues lately and he started playing out of my bag one round. He plays ZipCores and probably won’t let his ego buy some but he had to admit he hit some of his best chips and shots with them. Great wedges for the common man.”

@vsabre

“Wedges arrived well packaged and perfect to the requested spec…super clean look and very appealing over the ball.”

“Performance – Range 3/4 Swings…Our practice range turf is slightly sandy from continuous repair with tight lies that are not forgiving for either chunky or blade swings. A really good wedge test and the CBX4s did not disappoint. For not having touched a club for two weeks the CBX4s were incredibly easy to hit. Like cheat code easy to hit as someone else mentioned.”

“Over to the practice green and hit a variety of shots with each wedge and honestly it’s nearly impossible to chunk one (which I can do from time to time). Soft feel coming off the club and I had forgotten what great wedges Cleveland makes, and of course, having a consistent fit spec through the entire iron set makes a huge difference. I will say we’ll see how they fare on tighter, firmer lies around the greens as we approach summer.”

“They will be staying in the bag and I’m sure I’ll be adding a 60 in the next few weeks with the same specs.”

@rbilramz

“My first impression upon receiving the CBX4 was how much cleaner they looked than the previous version. The lack of black plastic badging really makes them look more like players’ irons. I don’t have the CBX3 to compare them with, but I think the footprint is smaller than the previous generation.”

“The comparison to my RTX6 is interesting as well. The CBX4 clearly has a much larger and more rounded sole and bounce. However, from the address, the size difference is pretty minimal. They both frame the ball nicely without looking oversized. I can also manipulate CBX4 in my hand really easily; the sole doesn’t cause any issues with the turf.”

“I am lucky to have a simulator in my basement (Foresight GCQuad) and a putting/chipping green in my backyard. This is where my first round of testing occurred. I started at the putting green, rotating between each club. I do 90% of my chipping with my 54, but I hit a few with all of them. There was an immediate improvement with the CBX4, as poor turf interaction was not punished as much. My putting green isn’t very large (not enough space for any pitches), so I quickly made my way to the basement.”

“After getting warmed up, I compared each club against my current gamer with 12 full-swing shots. I would throw away the worst 2 and then average the remaining. The results here kind of surprised me. Despite identical specs, the CBX4 was consistently 2-3 yards (or more) further than the RTX6. I was expecting more forgiveness and consistency but not additional distance. I should add that I am not looking for any additional distance either, I like my current gapping. I am guessing the distance is due to increased forgiveness as I rarely hit the ball in the exact center of the face.”

“Spin numbers were basically identical. There wasn’t enough difference between the two for any conclusion to be made. The lowest ones were around 8,000rpm with the 48 degree and consistently around 10,000rpm with the 54 and 60 degrees. The UtilZip grooves and face milling really work great. I wouldn’t have any problem stopping and even backing shots up with these wedges.”

“The dispersion of the CBX4s was a little tighter, but not drastically. On good strikes, they were probably identical. The only noticeable difference came on really bad strikes, where the additional stability of the CBX4 became obvious. It won’t save you from a bad strike, but the CBX4 stayed a little straighter and went farther when I put a bad swing on them. I was slightly surprised by this, as I expected the difference to be larger. I guess the shorter distances of wedges make the forgiveness less obvious.”

“Distance/spin/dispersion aside, it would be impossible to ignore the difference in feel between the RTX6 and CBX4. On good strikes, the RTX6 simply feels amazing. It’s very solid while equally soft. I think that’s the feeling that people love about traditional wedges. I don’t have a problem with the feeling of the CBX4, but it’s just not as pure. It is clearly a cavity-back feeling. Feel isn’t overly important to me, so I wouldn’t have a problem with that. I just want to point it out.”

“My next test was taking them to the course and getting real-world impressions. Before playing, I put the wedges through a pretty decent warm-up that included full swing, pitches, chips, and a bunch of sand shots. This is where the CBX4 shined for me. Off of imperfect lies and out of the sand, the more forgiving sole was impossible to ignore. I headed to the Par 3 course at Green Valley Ranch to put them both into action. I didn’t keep score because I wanted to hit basically every shot with both clubs, and putting shouldn’t matter. The par 3 course at GVR is short, but it is NOT easy. By starting every hole with two balls, and then hitting every subsequent shot with each wedge, I was able to get a pretty good comparison between the two. In the end, the CBX4 simply performed better for me. And by the last few holes, I was noticeably more confident over the ball with the CBX4. That may be the largest benefit for me. I simply approached tough angles or bad lies with less apprehension. I was less afraid of hitting it fat or blading a chip.”

“Long story short, I may be the ideal player for the CBX4 wedges. The 54 and 60 degree clubs are securely in my bag. I am going to stick with the ZX5 A wedge over the CBX4 48, but that’s mostly due to my preference to have my gap wedge match my irons. I almost always use it for full-swing shots, so I like them to match. The cavity back design adds some forgiveness (and distance?) on full-swing shots, but the real difference for me comes around the green. The sole design is simply easier to work with. No question about it. I truly recommend the CBX4 to anyone who struggles with their short game. At least for me, my biggest inclination to use them historically has been based on pride. The improved looks make that easier to get past, but the improved playability makes it impossible to ignore. I am deeply on team CBX for now.”

Bonus comment

“We played this afternoon after getting about 4 inches of rain yesterday and late night. It was soggy. These wedges are forgiving and the tagline “chunk a little less” is real. Today was a good day to have more forgiving wedges.” – @awtryau89

More about GolfWRX member testing

Member testing gives our forum members the opportunity to put the latest golf equipment through the paces. In exchange for getting a product to test (and keep), forum members are expected to provide in-depth product feedback in the forums, along with photos, and engage with the questions of other forum members.

For brands, the GolfWRX member feedback and direct engagement is a vital window into the perceptions of avid golfers.

You can find additional testing opportunities in the GolfWRX forums.

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