STROKE 3

The Block Party has ended

Your stance on Michael Block might be the most controversial topic in golf right now. Some people love him, others despise him, he’s a feel good story in some eyes, and an arrogant old head pro in many others. Despite your opinion, he is unanimously a great golfer, just not great enough to hang with the best in the world a second time. This just shows how well conditioned these pros are both physically and mentally, they’re on another level. They’re consistently in headlines, accustomed to the pressures of golf media, but more importantly they are constantly prepping and playing in huge events. Block hasn’t felt that pressure, he hasn’t had to play with the world on his shoulders, he doesn’t have the mental fortitude of a PGA pro. This all equated to him finishing dead last at 15 over par prior to the weekend, and considering the leader after two days was 12 under par, he wasn’t on the same planet as the rest of the field. Despite the missed cut, and several news media outlets attacking his character, he stayed at the course for 3 hours post round to sign items for the kids. Sure he has made some snobby comments, but overall this story has been good for golf. It has brought tons of eyeballs to the sport, and created a narrative for non-golf people to follow. Luckily, Block will be teeing it up at the RBC Canadian Open from Jun 8-11, so this story doesn’t end here, stay tuned.

TaylorMade Releases the new “Stealth Bomber”

Anyone remember the TaylorMade Gapr? No? Most likely because it was TaylorMade’s worst performing club of all time. Briefly used by Tiger himself the Gapr was meant to bridge the “gap” between your irons and woods. Mix in some terrible aesthetics, and confusing marketing, you equate to their worst performing club of all time. Now this time around they took a very, very, different approach, with absolutely stunning aesthetics, limited availability, and clever marketing, the new “Stealth Bomber” was done the right way. Lofted at 17 degrees, this is designed to be used off the tee, a lower flighted option to deal with wind. Now is TaylorMade going to make iron covers cool? Probably not, but they gave it a real shot with the war plane theme. Now if you want one of these I’m sorry to inform you they’re already sold out, maybe look for it in the trade-in section of your local golf shop after 80% of people realize they aren’t good enough to hit this thing.

GPS golf balls?! Introducing OnCore

Quick one here, several PGA pros were spotted using OnCore sub50 golf balls at Colonial this weekend. OnCore is a golf ball manufacturing company who is working on placing GPS units inside their balls. For the average golfer this is used to find your ball with bluetooth tracking, saving you money and time. For the scratch golfer/pro, it is used to track spin rates, velocity, and distances, more as a training tool. This is an extremely cool concept which is surprisingly versatile. I’m very excited for what the “Smart Golf” space has to offer in the future, these aren’t available at retail yet but from what I am reading they are aiming for end of year.

Thanks for all the love on the last post, and welcome new 3 putters! - Tee