New Mizuno Golf Clubs

Last week, Mizuno announced the introduction of some new additions to their golf club arsenal. Here's a look at the MP-H4 Iron set and the JPX-825 Woods. If you ask me, Mizuno needs to get a little more creative on naming their clubs. This comes shortly after Puma/Cobra announced their new club line, 'The Baffler'. Here's a look at what Mizuno came up with...

Norcross, GA (November 15, 2011) – Mizuno, the industry leader in iron technology and development, today announced the launch of its revolutionary new iron set that offers serious golfers the most forgiving and playable MP irons in Mizuno’s storied history, the MP-H4’s. Utilizing a seamless blend of hollow hybrid long irons and half-cavity scoring irons, Mizuno’s patented Grain Flow Forging process provides players with a soft, solid, consistent feel throughout the set. They also announced the addition of the JPX-825 lineup of woods to the already popular JPX-825 iron family. Created with balanced performance, extreme distance and uncompromised forgiveness in mind, Mizuno’s new family includes the JPX-825 Driver, JPX-825 Fairway Wood and JPX-825 Hybrid.

Lehman Cruises to Second Straight Schwab Cup Title

Tom Lehman fired a 5-under 65 Sunday to sail to victory at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, becoming the first Champions Tour player to win the season-long Charles Schwab Cup in consecutive years.

Lehman finished the event at Desert Mountain Golf Club at 22-under 258, six strokes ahead of runner-up Jay Haas. He entered the week in second place in the season-long points race behind Bernhard Langer, but was able to overtake Langer with a dominating performance in Scottsdale, Ariz.

"It feels great," he said after the round. "To have everyone here, to win this in my hometown, means a lot."

Lehman becomes the fifth player to win the Charles Schwab Cup twice in its 12-year history, but the first to pull off the feat in back-to-back seasons. Hale Irwin, Tom Watson, Jay Haas and Loren Roberts each won the championship twice across respective three-year spans.

Langer, the 2010 overall champion, matched Lehman's 65 Sunday to finish the week in sixth place. Fred Couples, who entered the final round one shot behind Lehman, made only one birdie Sunday and struggled to a 3-over 73 to finish in a tie for fourth, nine shots off the pace.

After the round, Lehman shared thoughts on his long-time swing coach Jim Flick, who is currently battling cancer.

"The last four days have been somewhat difficult, trying to fight back tears at times," explained Lehman, who was emotional upon holing his final putt Sunday. "(Jim) has meant a great deal to me and I never would have gotten to where I've gotten in golf without him."

John Daly Closes in on European Tour Card

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – John Daly has a chance to be fully exempt and set his own schedule next year for the first time since 2006.

Just not on the PGA Tour.

After consecutive rounds of 63-86 in Las Vegas contributed to a last-place finish, Daly missed the cut in the Frys.com Open and the McGladrey Classic, losing a great chance at finishing in the top 125 on the PGA Tour money list. He did not ask for an exemption into final official event at Disney for a couple of reasons – he has never played particularly well there, and he still has a chance to qualify for the European Tour finale in Dubai.

Daly is No. 88 on the European Tour money list, courtesy of a fourth-place finish in Qatar, along with his tie for 11th in the Sicilian Open and tie for 18th in PGA Championship at Kiawah Island. He is about $226,336 short of the cutoff to qualify for the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, which makes this next month important.

Ryder Cup 2012: Hospital Encourages Fans to "Move on the Course"

Readers probably remember that while I am a golf blogger by night, I also work in healthcare during the day. Walking and cardiovascular exercise is something I take very seriously, so when the Hospital for Special Surgery informed me of their newest campaign aligned with the Ryder Cup, I had to write a quick post.

As the official hospital of The PGA of America, HSS is encouraging spectators to get moving by giving away pedometers as part of the “Let’s Move on Course!” initiative starting next week. A total of 25,000 pedometers will be given away with a limited supply distributed each day at Medinah Country Club on a first-come, first-served basis. In addition, fans that scan their ticket at the “Let’s Move on Course!” booth or create a “walking” account and track their steps at HSS.edu/golf can enter to win an autographed pin flag by Ryder Cup Captain Davis Love III.

Local Las Vegas Golf

Hot, dry, bright lights and golf: if you have not figured it out yet, we are talking about Las Vegas. When the city first started being developed, Las Vegas boomed when the President Herbert Hoover green lighted the building of the Boulder Dam. (Boulder Dam was later renamed by the Truman administration Hoover Dam) During the construction of the damn, Las Vegas’ population boomed from a little town population of 5,000 to a staggering 25,000 practically overnight.

Choosing the Right Collegiate Golf Bag

For those of us who have a deep running passion for the sport of golf and a love affair with that special college team, we like to sport our collegiate heritages where ever we go. I have seen whole cars painted the color of their favorite sports team, I have seen license plates with U.S.C. or Running Rebels logos, t-shirts, shorts, hats, gloves, jackets, I can keep going on and on for another whole page, but I will save you the pain. The point is we love to show our school pride. Some of us are not even our favorite teams Alumni; we just might be from that state and love our hometowns. (Go Gophers!)

The point is we sport our teams everywhere, why not the golf course?

Some of you might already have yourself a collegiate golf stand bag and rock it every weekend, and brag about how well your guys did last season or how you are going to stomp out the competition this season.

The trouble is there are a few companies that produce these collegiate golf bags, the question is which company makes the highest quality of product and who offers more bang for your buck.

The first company we are going to look at is Ping Golf. Ping has roughly 33 schools to choose from and Ping as a golf company offers high quality product throughout their whole entire product line from golf bags to golf clubs. The Ping Collegiate Golf Bags are made in the Hoofer model and the starting price is 189.99.

Now that we looked at a golf power house like Ping Golf, let us look a company that focuses mainly on the production of strictly golf accessories; Sun Mountain Golf. Sun Mountain offers a wider selection than Ping with their selection and also has a very high quality product line. The problem is Sun Mountain is more expensive than Ping. Only $10.00 more but still, ever since the economy tanked a penny saved is a penny earned and I love earning my penny’s.

The Sun Mountain collegiate stand bag features a 6-way top offering plenty of room for you to store all your clubs spaciously. The bag also displays 3 different school logos on different sides of the bag. Sun Mountain offers their collegiate bags in either a cart bag or a stand bag, the cart bag is only $30.00 more than the stand bag, making the grand total $229.00.

Another major player in the collegiate golf bag game is Team effort. Team effort is actually a sub-company of a major sports apparel manufacturer, Nike. Team effort are hands down (personal opinion) the better of the three options listed. They have great pricing starting at $149.00, a whole forty bucks cheaper than the competition. Just because the bags cost is cheaper doesn’t mean Team Effort cut any corners on the production of their equipment.

Team Effort also offers, besides a high quality product, the option of personal embroidery. You can get your name blasted on the side of your bag for no extra charge, a pretty cool feature that is available if you opt to choose it. If you like the styles of Team Effort you will also like the amazing feature on the cart bag of a built in cooler. When I first found the Cooler Cart Bag had a built in cooler, I thought that was the coolest thing I have ever heard of.

As always with golf, it all boils down to your own personal opinion and what you like. Find a company that fills your needs and go for it.

This article was written by Richard Hart from Vegas Golf Inc.

Optimizing Your Golf Bag

Many of us all over the world truly fell in love with the game of golf which is baffling at times, but also can be very rewarding. The biggest downside to the game, many of us love and enjoy, is we are all our own biggest competition. Nobody can take us out of the game quicker than ourselves; one terrible shot can through us off our axis for the rest of the days, trying to get back to the state of mind we were at teeing off from the first tee box.

This is a tough feat to achieve when we have no confidence in our equipment that we are using. Many of us try to figure out what the best set of irons to use, which driver will give me the max distance, which putter will give me the best spin. I don’t know about you, but I am plagued by these questions, I don’t only enjoy golf, I obsess over it.

I have found when my confidence is broke my faith that my golf clubs are the top of the line and best for me usually gets me back to a level headed state. It took a lot of work on my part to prepare my psyche like that, first things first is I had to find the Men's Golf Club Set which I thought was the best for me. I opted for the Adams a12 OS for the reason of it is a very forgiving iron, something I can trust to get me out of trouble when I’m in it thick.

Now that I have the Men's Golf Club Sets I am comfortable with I have to go to my local shop where I can get the necessary work done. I went down to my local shop Vegas Golf and I spoke with the manager, took a few swings on the lie bored, got my measurements done and they promptly adjusted my irons lie and adjusted the length. I am fairly tall at 6’03 so we had to add some extensions to get the length of the club perfectly optimized for myself.

Now I got my Irons set I needed a putter, I don’t care who you are, if your short game up to par you can’t make birdies. I have met very few people who got the ball to go in the hole from 50 feet out; unless your Tiger Woods get yourself a decent putter.

With so many putters to choose from how are we supposed to know which one is best for us? Well, you can go the way many amateurs have with the belly putter. Although if you go that route with the belly putter you may be disappointed in 2014, when the UPGA might vote to ban the belly putter. My best suggestion is to go and get you a 33”, 34” or 35” blade putter and start practicing. Odyssey has just released a new putter called the flip face putter, giving you the option of having either a white ice insert or the option for the new metal x technology. Giving you the best shot on having a winning round of golf depending on whether the greens are fast or slow.

I have no suggestions when it comes to purchasing a driver. I am afraid it really all comes down to personal opinion. Maybe add a few extra inches in length, but other than that you are on your own.

This article was written by Richard G. Hart from Vegas Golf Inc.