West Coast Putter Co.

I love trying new stuff out, especially balls. I should start by saying that I’ve been a devoted Callaway player for several years but I always like to try a new box of something here and there. I’ve given Srixon, Bridgestone, Volvik, Taylormade and Maxfli a try, but I always go back to my Callaway Tour ball (currently Tour i(s)).
I went to Golftown recently and grabbed a box of #1 Wilson Staff C:25. Before I took them out for a test round I wanted to get an idea of the balls’ feel at my indoor range. I popped out a sleeve and started swinging. When I first connected with my 7 iron I was very happy with the “butter” soft feel coming off the clubs face. Loved it! The net and padding gave way with a solid thud. So it continued; THWAK followed by THUD! I went through all my irons and wedges with the same result. To me this is pretty cool partly because most balls out there fell a little different as you go through the bag; soft balls don’t feel as nice as a distance ball on long irons and hybrids, maybe it’s me. Also, I wanted to judge the wear on the ball with my irons, I religiously sharpen the grooves every six weeks and had just done the maintainace. The cover held up rather well considering I hit those 3 balls roughly 35 times each and the cover definitely showed wear but I’ve personally seen worse.
This weekend I’m heading to my local 9 hole Par 30 to give them a playing test. So far they really seem promising.
More to come with pics.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

There is always a lot of talk about “What’s in the Bag” at PGA tournaments. Everyone always wants to know what their favourite pro plays at a particular tournament. Have you ever picked up on the fact that the Top 25 players in the world change up a few key clubs depending on where and in what conditions they’re playing. If you think about it, it actually makes sense.
So what brings this on, you ask? Well, being US Open week there’s been a lot of WITB talk all over the place. I’m playing in the Malaspina Open in Powell River, BC this weekend so I’ve been doing a lot of tinkering myself. My set-up for the last year has been fairly consistent; Nicklaus ML-3 8.5* Driver, Claw 13* FW, Polarity 3h, 4h, TR-1 5-PW, Callaway X-Forged 50, 54, 58 wedges and of course whatever prototype putter I’m working on at the time. Recently, I made a slight change adding a Srixon 5 wood and Cobra Baffler TWS 4h; I dropped my Polarity hybrids. Now this is why the change:
D- 255, 3W- 235, 3h- 185 … You can see the descrepency in distance, 50 yards, far to big a gap. Adding the 5 wood bridged the distance at 205, choked down I can hit it 190. Last little change made was my 5 and 6 irons; I’ve had some issues getting my distance dialed with the TR-1 irons so I swapped out for my Polarity HCT 5 and 6 iron. The HCT’s have a wider sole and floating face technology that really helps get my distance back and help impact the ball solidly on softer fairways.
So my set-up for the tournament is as follows:
Driver- Nicklaus ML-3 8.5* or Cobra X-Speed 9.5*
FW- Nicklaus Claw 13* and Srixon 18*
Hybrid- Cobra Baffler TWS 24*
Irons- Nicklaus HCT 5&6
Irons- Nicklaus TR-1 7-PW
Wedges- Callaway 50, 54, 58
Putter- West Coast Putter Co. Plumber’s Blade

Wish me luck at the tournament. Malaspina Open @ Myrtle Point GC&C, Powell River, BC June 19-20, 2010.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Hi folks,
Just an update to apologize for my recent absense. I’ve suffered back problems most of my adult life and the last couple of weeks have been difficult up here.
There have been a couple of developments and I will post a full update this week.

Marco.

I should have titled it Rick and Me but this has a lot to do with Jack Nicklaus too. More over it has to do with the people he has working with him, in this case Rick Gomes.
Rick and I met over a phone call almost a year and a half ago now. I had purchsed the Polarity HCT irons with Rifle graite shafts and had a question about trimming and flex for my supplier. To make a long story shorter my supplier couldn’t answer specifics so he emailed me saying someone from Nicklaus Golf would give me a call. Within in the hour the call came in from Rick. Here’s what I didn’t know about Rick at the time; Rick Gomes has been Jack’s clubfitter for 35+ years and is Nicklaus Golf’s Director of Technology.
After a long chat about my clubs and what I wanted them to do Rick told me he would call my supplier and have them send me a box of FST Silver Light shafts. In that conversation we talked about Nicklaus Golf, Clay Long NG’s Chief Designer and of course a newly formed company called West Coast Putters. Here’s where our relationship began.
Rick Gomes has been an excellent friend to me and West Coast Putters. He always had time to chat, always answered my emails and always took time from his busy days to offer a helping word. I asked, in time, if I could send Rick the first prototype for him to look at. I asked as a friend looking for some feedback from someone who knew golf clubs and has been the go-to guy for one of the legends of the game. Rick, as a friend, said he would have a look and give me his thoughts. Now to be fair, Rick was NOT acting on behalf of Nicklaus Golf, nor did I ask him to, but he still took the time to give me some feedback on the design and he found a few problems that I later rectified. This week I’m building a new putter for Rick; there have been a couple changes and the lines are cleaner, I’m getting the neck engraved with his name this time, I hope this one is a keeper for his bag.
I’ll say this in closing, Rick’s kindness gave me the energy to continue to dream big. I’ve never met him in person but we share something intangible and that’s a love for golf and the people that play the game.
Thanks to you Rick Gomes for your friendship and support, West Coast Putter Co. will always have a special place for you and those at Nicklaus Golf.

Well, well, well … I have to say that 2010 will go down in my memory for some incredible sporting events and it’s only April! We opened the year with the Olympics here in Vancouver, which has turned out to be one of the most celebrated Winter Olympics in recent history. Now The Masters has come and gone but what an event to watch.
Leading up to this weekend in Augusta you would think the name had been changed to “The Tigers” with all the anticipation of his return to the game. The man did not disappoint with good rounds Thursday through Saturday to remain in contention to Sunday. The biggest story from his rounds was the minor meltdown where he proclaimed to all the Patrons, “Tiger Woods, You Suck!” By past standards, pretty tame for Tiger. Then the final round, the pressure cooker that is Sunday, and the all important first tee shot. Tiger found himself in the 8th fairway with a stand of pines between him and the green. Foreshadowing for the days events, unfortunately yes. Woods never really looked comfortable out there, it was as if the smiling, confident and relaxed Woods was replaced by a Tiger that had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Still, he did manage to grind it out and finished off the tournament to the applause of the gathered Patrons.
The attention was squarely on the final group on Sunday, as it should be. The crowd favourite lefty Phil Mickleson and the dark horse Brit Lee Westwood. To be honest I was cheering for Westwood from the start, maybe it’s being in a Commonwealth Country maybe because I like an underdog. Both Phil and Lee found trouble while strolling the hallowed grounds of Augusta but both players also played two spectacular rounds of golf. When Phil took the lead, he never looked back, although Lee tried he just couldn’t take it back.
The one moment that will stick out in my mind will be the 5′ putt Phil hand lined up perfectly and as he took the putter back a small seed pod fluttered down landing directly on his line at the exact moment of impact. The ball skipped offline and he missed the birdie. You had to stop and think for a second, “Has Augusta already chosen its champion this year?” More like Bobby Jones played a practical joke on one of his favourite sons. That point couldn’t have been made more clear when Phil took a 6-iron out of the pine straw, under and through the trees and cozied the ball up to 8 feet or so.
Phil deserved his Green Jacket and Lee deserved to revel in being #2. Lee made a statement about world golf and its’ golfers while Phil conquered his own demons to prevail. This will undoubtedly go down as one of the most entertaining Masters this Century, well in my mind at least.

Marco.

It’s been 48 hours since our review with The Hacker’s Paradise. Traffic at West Coast Putters dot Com has doubled, people are very intrigued by the technology and we are moving quickly to get our remaining two prototypes manufactured and into the hands of our testers and media outlets.
We have been re-energized with all the positive feedback and emails received encouraging our efforts. Thanks so much to our new fans. We’re in the process of putting together a Facebook page for the company to add another destination to our web presence.
WCP is also searching for new PGA Tour Pros to test and comment on our products as well as searching in ernest for solid partners in the club making industry. One thing we’ve learned in the past 2 days is that our putter design really has mass appeal with golfers at all levels of play.
Lastly, we’ve taken some advice to heart and are splitting our products into two finish styles: the ‘Garage’ style for those that love the unique look and the ‘Refined’ style for those that like a polished, shiny finish.
Whew! What a couple of days.

The first reviews of our prototype Anser style putter are in from The Hacker’s Paradise. Have a read and let us know what you think below. We’re pretty happy with the review here (at West Coast) as it is an independant test of our first prototypes. What we were most happy with was that the little details were what impressed the testers most.

So now that the press conference is over I guess the world can go about its daily business again. I watched this anti-climactic interview with a perverse interest, not in Tiger’s sex life but to see if anyone actually asked him ANY questions about golf. Finally after 20 agonizing minutes there it was!
I respect Tiger as a golfer and always will. It is because of this respect as a sports figure that I couldn’t care less about his private life just like he doesn’t care about mine. He is a sports personality, pure and simple. He plays a game for a living. If Tiger quit the game tomorrow the sun would still rise and the world would go on another day, so why is it that “The world stopped today to hear Tiger’s words(The Golf Channel’s Rich Learner)” like he was His Holiness The Dali Lama. We as a society need to re-examine what is important if this is how much importance we place on a sports celebrity.
Today’s press conference proved one thing to me and that is that Tiger is humble, human and still a competitive golfer. Isn’t that what we really wanted to know anyway? Now let’s leave the guy alone and let him get back to what he does best and that is play golf.
Play well this week Tiger and enjoy being back on course; I know we are looking forward to the highlights on Sunday night.

I received the irons shafted with FST Silver Stiff shafts, I immediately re-gripped the irons, installed TT Sensicore inserts, a kind leftover from the Internet boom, and I happily trotted to the range on the weekend. First thing I noticed, my 7 iron flew 20 feet higher and 15 yards longer with the first swing. The next 25 balls landed with +/- 10 yards in distance and +/- 5 yards dispersion left to right. The 7 would hit down range around 160, take two forward bounces and roll to a hair over 170. Distance, check. Control, check. I went down through the 8 then 9 finally PW. Each club consistently 10+ yards farther with a consistent high 5 yard fade. I was feeling really good about my purchase so far. These clubs are considered “Super Game Improvement” irons by Golf Digest and other publications but they out-perform the Taylormade and Callaway equivalents at twice the retail price, almost twice anyway. Now came time to hit my nemesis clubs, the 5 and 6 irons. It was something mental, it had to be, anyway, now that I’m good and warmed up and feeling quite confident in my swing and clubs so I just lead with that. I hit 10 perfect straight long 6 irons and couldn’t wait to wail on the 5. I put the ball down and hit the most pristine 5 iron I have ever hit in my golfing life. I felt an actual springboard effect as the ball left the clubs face and went straight down the range the coming to earth on the other side of the 200 yard marker. I hit 270 balls that day, of that maybe 10% were terrible.
I played my first round of golf with them a couple of weeks later in Powell River,BC. The performance from range to tee box is impressive. Solid impact and true flight on every iron. With the big distance boost it made me have to start thinking through my bag which I enjoyed a lot more than just hitting my 7 iron over and over.
The Polarity hybrids are and continue to be a thing of genius. I challenge EVERY clubmaker out there to match the forgiveness to performance ratio that Clay Long managed to design into these clubs. Whether I was in the woods off the tee, in a fairway bunker or in 6″ fescue these hybrids cannot shank a shot. Believe me I’ve tried.
I played these for a year and now use them as my winter clubs in Vancouver where carry distance is at a premium because you get little roll (in the winter months). Dollar for dollar I can’t think of a better set of clubs for the guy or girl that is looking for jaw dropping distance and game improvement through common sense design.

Marco on the Nicklaus Polarity HCT irons.

Well it looks like this weekend is going to be a wet one. If I get some clear hours I’ll set of a video shoot to demo the new putter.
Will also video some stroke saving tips for the community downloads.
Hope all in Houston are having a great round!