I didn’t expect that to happen with the third Odyssey Damascus Milled putter release.

Like many of you, I knew the Damascus Milled Jailbird Mini was coming. Odyssey Europe released the six Damascus Milled models all at once. The internet is great for many things but keeping secrets is not one of them.

That said, what they didn’t release early in Europe was a Damascus Milled Square 2 Square Seven.

I thought this release would consist of the Jailbird Mini. Then that Damascus Milled S2S Seven showed up at the house.

Now I find myself greedily hoping that there are more coming.

How about a Damascus Milled 2-Ball? That would be amazing. I feel like the 2-Ball is not getting much love from Odyssey these days. Where is the Ai-DUAL 2-Ball or any type of zero-torque 2-Ball?

Are there other Odyssey heads that you would like to see get the Damascus Milled treatment? How about a #9? I think we need to see a Damascus Milled Sabertooth. If we are Damascus daydreaming, I’m going to dream big!

Enough speculation. Let’s take a look at the two new Odyssey Damascus Milled models.

Folded steel alloys

At the center of the Damascus Milled story is, of course, the Damascus steel insert. Multiple steel alloys are forged and repeatedly folded together to create unique-looking and -feeling face inserts. The patterns you see in the face are the different steel alloys.

The insert is not just a pretty face. Although not as high-tech as the Ai-DUAL insert, the Damascus Milled insert features some computer contouring that will improve the quality of your strikes.

The insert feels firm and looks spectacular.

If you want a deeper dive into the Damascus story, click here or here to see the previous Damascus Milled releases.

Today, we are primarily here to see the two new heads. I think you will be impressed by how Odyssey gave these two popular shapes the Damascus Milled treatment.

Damascus Milled Jailbird Mini DB

I may have mentioned it before but the Jailbird Mini is my favorite putter in the Odyssey Ai-DUAL putter line. The head’s smaller profile and reversed stripe color scheme look so good behind the ball. Odyssey really got everything right with the Ai-DUAL Jailbird Mini this year.

Having said that, I like the Damascus Milled Jailbird Mini even more.

The Damascus steel looks amazing but that is not the main reason I rank the Damascus Milled Jailbird Mini above the Ai-DUAL version.

My favorite thing about the Damascus Milled Jailbird Mini is the feel off the face. The roll is crisp and the impact tone is ever so satisfying.

Since this is the third Damascus Milled release, I am sure it is also the third time I have raved about this insert. I can’t help it. The Damascus Milled insert is a perfect fit for my speed and sound needs.

Your preferences may be different, of course. However, if you liked the feel of the 2025 Ai-ONE Milled insert, my guess is that you will really like the feel of the Damascus insert.

Damascus Milled Seven S2S

The S2S Seven brings so many dishes to the table. Naturally, you have the Damascus Milled insert and aesthetics. Additionally, as with with the Jailbird Mini, the Damascus Milled S2S Seven looks expensive.

At a MSRP of $699, it is expensive but it looks like it should cost more. It’s that fancy.

The Damascus Milled S2S Seven is a large version of Odyssey’s iconic fang head shape. Behind the ball, the wide profile makes it look like the most forgiving putter on the planet. The great thing is that the build actually makes it very forgiving by boosting MOI.

For the torque removal, Odyssey went back to the original Square 2 Square Ai-DUAL plan of attaching the shaft at an onset position corresponding to the putter’s center of gravity.

My guess is that the Damascus Milled build plan restricted the materials that would have been necessary to move the shaft forward like the S2S Tri-Hot or to the heel like with the S2S HB models.

Adding the necessary tungsten to move the shaft location would also have made this putter even more expensive.

As with with the Jailbird Mini, the feel off the face of the S2S Seven is delicious.

By the way, did I mention that this is the putter design that won the Best Zero-Torque Putter award for 2026? If you want zero-torque performance with the unique looks of Damascus, this is your putter.

Time to add a hot putter for hot summer rounds?

Admittedly, playing in summer doesn’t actually require that you purchase a new putter. But you played so well this spring, and you have all of that store credit from your tournament wins. Why not snag an heirloom-level putter?

Otherwise, you know you’ll just blow that shop credit as per usual on balls and quarter-zip sweaters. The balls will just get lost and you already have too many quarter-zips.

The new limited-edition Damascus Milled models will be in shops and at Odyssey.CallawayGolf.com on July 7.

The post Odyssey Adds Two More Damascus Milled Models appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Golf shafts are arguably similar in that Mitsubishi is asking you to do the same although it’s what many “think” they know that provides some cognitive dissonance.

Stay with me.

For years—decades, really—the shaft fitting conversation has operated on a set of assumptions so widely accepted that they became the industry’s shared language. Color codes. Launch profiles. Spin tendencies. A white or black profile means low (launch) and low (spin). Blue means mid and mid. Red means more of both. It’s not a perfect system. Nobody ever claimed it was. But in an industry that can’t agree on what an inch actually is (that’s a conversation for another day), the color-launch-spin shorthand became the one thing that everybody, everywhere, more or less agreed on.

And now Mitsubishi, inarguably one of the shaft industry stalwarts, thinks it’s time to start over.

 The problem with what you think you know

Let’s play a quick game: When you think about which shaft belongs in your driver, what framework are you working from?

If your answer involves some variation of “I tend to spin it too much so I play a low-spin shaft” or “I need help getting the ball in the air so I want something with a higher launch profile”, congratulations. You’ve been doing it the way everyone told you to do it.

Here’s the uncomfortable part: that approach is right about half the time.

Fifty percent. A coin flip. Which isn’t awful if it’s a blind date or radioactive decay to half-life. It is decidedly less great if you’re a fitter sitting across from a golfer, telling them with a straight face that this particular shaft is going to help them launch it a bit higher and spin it a bit more and then watching 30 swings of data tell a completely different story.

Think about that for a second. A shaft that was specifically designed, marketed and selected to do a particular thing … doesn’t do that thing. Half the time. And when it doesn’t, what happens? Trust erodes. The player trusts the fitter a little less, trusts the product a little less and usually ends up with some combination of both. Meanwhile, they still have the wrong shaft in their hands, the one that was supposed to help them and didn’t.

It’s the golf equivalent of pulling up to the drive-through, ordering a cheeseburger with no onions and getting a regular burger with extra onions. Half the time. How much would you pay for that experience? More importantly, how many times would you go back?

Mitsubishi noticed the same problem from the inside. Jason Felicitas, Mitsubishi’s Manager of Tour Performance and Fitting Innovation, put it plainly: “Whenever we are working with a player, we want to pull levers that have a reasonable expectation of success. What we started to notice is that when using the shaft as a traditional launch and spin lever, we saw many situations where the result [was] not as predictable as a fitting lever should be.”

That observation didn’t come from a hunch. It came from Mitsubishi going back through years of its own testing data and asking, in Felicitas’s words, “what is the bigger picture and what are the shaft’s actual contribution to ball flight?” When the company that makes the shafts starts questioning what its own shafts are actually doing, that’s worth paying attention to.

The shaft isn’t what you think it is

Before we get to where Mitsubishi wants to take us, it’s worth a quick reminder: the shaft is not the engine of the golf club. The transmission? Maybe. A new suspension? Either could work.

I live in a world of analogies and understand the benefit a solid comparative literary device. But any shaft = engine parallel fails to acknowledge the hierarchy of impact on performance.

When it comes to launch angle, trajectory, and spin, the clubhead does the heavy lifting. Loft, center of gravity depth, face angle are the real levers. The shaft has always been a refinement tool. A tuning mechanism. Something that makes tweaks at the margins, not wholesale changes to ball flight.

Which means that when fitters have perhaps been too reliant on a shaft fitting to make significant changes to launch and spin. And the risk is that they’ve been asking the shaft to do something it was never really built to do. And a 50-percent success rate starts to make a lot more sense when you frame it that way.

Felicitas doesn’t dance around this. “Clubhead design—CG, MOI, loft—will always have the most predictable effect on launch and spin. But the way that the club gets to the golf ball is very important and that’s the side that we have the most control over.”

His own fitting philosophy reflects this reality directly. “As a fitter, I would first pull loft and CG levers to affect launch and spin and then pull the shaft fitting levers to affect start line, impact location and matchups to the player’s sequencing.”

That’s a notable thing for a premium shaft manufacturer to say out loud. In effect, the company is telling fitters to look elsewhere first if launch and spin are the primary targets. It’s the kind of candor that builds credibility precisely because it runs against the obvious sales incentive.

So if the shaft isn’t primarily a launch-and-spin device, what is it?

According to Mitsubishi’s research, the better question is about consistency, specifically impact location. Hit the center of the face more often and almost everything takes care of itself. Ball speed improves. Spin stabilizes. Launch optimizes. The face is doing what it’s supposed to do because you’re hitting the part of it that’s designed to perform.

The shaft’s actual job, it turns out, isn’t to change what the ball does. It’s to help you find the face more consistently.  

Enter the Advanced Fitting Protocol

Mitsubishi calls their new approach the Advanced Fitting Protocol and the headline is this: they’ve moved from what they describe as 2D fitting (height and distance, launch and spin) to a three-component model that asks different questions entirely.

The three components are Start Line, Impact Location and Player Feel. Let’s take them in order. And because we’re focusing on Mitsubishi’s shaft lineup, here’s the quick guide:

Diamana WB (White Board) Lowest torque and most firm tip section of the Diamana family.

Diamana BB (Blue Board) The Goldilocks shaft with torque and tip stiffness in between Diamana WB and RB. 

Diamana RB (Red Board) Softest tip section and highest torque of the Diamana family.

Bear in mind that references to shaft characteristics are relative to the shaft family. So Diamana RB has a softer tip section than Diamana BB but Diamana RB could be more similar to another manufacturer’s “blue part.” As in a J LIndberg XL polo and FootJoy XL polo are not one and the same. 

Start Line is exactly what it sounds like: where does the ball actually begin its journey? Not where it ends up; where it starts. Two shaft characteristics drive this. The first is torque which governs how much the shaft twists during the swing. Higher torque promotes more face closure; lower torque promotes less. The second is tip stiffness, which governs droop: how much the tip of the shaft deflects downward during the downswing. A softer tip creates more droop which pushes the start line right for a right-handed golfer. A firmer tip creates less droop and pushes it left.

Put those two variables together, map them across Mitsubishi’s shaft lineup, and you get something genuinely useful: a framework for fitting that’s based on where you want the ball to initially go rather than how high you want it to fly.

Impact Location is the one that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. Because droop doesn’t just influence start line. It influences where on the face contact actually happens. A softer-tipped shaft produces more droop which tends to move impact toward the high toe. A firmer-tipped shaft produces less droop, shifting contact toward the low heel. These aren’t dramatic differences but they’re consistent ones. And consistent differences in impact location have real consequences for ball speed and spin consistency which loops back to the center-of-face conversation.

Player Feel and Delivery is the wild card and Mitsubishi is smart to include it as a formal component rather than an afterthought. Tempo, release pattern, handle tendencies—these aren’t just comfort variables. According to Mitsubishi, player delivery dictates most of what can happen to ball flight and limits some of your ability to change what happens downrange. You can fit all day for start line and impact location but if you’re ignoring how the player actually delivers the club, you’re leaving a meaningful variable on the table.

The question nobody wants to answer

Here’s where it gets interesting—and a little complicated.

I asked Mitsubishi a straightforward question: Would you rather have your competitors adopt a similar fitting architecture or would you prefer the status quo continue?

Felicitas’s answer was more thoughtful than the corporate dodge I half-expected.

“We are trying to help golfers play better golf and that means asking the hard questions of ourselves. Whether or not our competitors follow suit or continue fitting the same way the industry has is not really our focus. We believe that we have developed a tool to help fitters put the best product in the world into the player’s hands. Fitting is an evolving art and science, and we want to continue to learn and refine our process so that we give the golfer the best opportunity to play the best golf they can.”

Translation (if I’m reading between the lines correctly): It genuinely doesn’t matter to Mitsubishi what the rest of the industry does because they believe the framework is right regardless of who else adopts it. That’s either supreme confidence or a very well-rehearsed answer. Possibly both. But it’s worth noting that confidence is a lot easier to project when you’re the company with the receipts.

And the receipts, this year, are promising. Mitsubishi driver shafts have been in play for 23 worldwide wins including a major. Seventeen players in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking are playing Mitsubishi driver shafts. It would be one thing if this were a fringe brand making noise with a contrarian argument. But we’re talking about the company that supplies materials to competitors, that wins its fair share of Tour shaft counts and that, in a very real sense, is the shaft industry making the case that the shaft industry needs to change.

That’s not a small thing.

The part where I get personal

Full disclosure: I’m not sure I’m totally ready for this yet. But I’m getting there.

Historically, I’ve been a low-launch, low-spin guy from a shaft perspective. I fight excessive spin and have no problem getting the ball airborne so conventional wisdom backed by plenty of qualified fitters put me in a “low/low”  white or black profile driver shaft. In the 3-wood slot, we increased the static weight by 10 grams, often using a “blue part” with a slightly softer tip.

It worked. I’m not going to pretend it didn’t.

But here’s what I keep coming back to: “working” and “optimal” aren’t the same thing. Those are distinctions with a quantifiable difference. And the new framework asks a different set of questions: not “how do we manage your spin numbers” but “where does your ball need to start and what does the data say about where you’re actually making contact?”

Under the old paradigm, I was matched to a shaft based on what it was supposed to do to my launch and spin. Under the Advanced Fitting Protocol, the first question is about start line and the second is about whether my impact location is consistent enough to trust those numbers in the first place. Those are better questions. I can feel it, even if I’m still working through what the answers mean for what’s in my bag.

The uncomfortable implication

Here’s the thing about paradigm shifts: they’re not small. They require you to accept that the information you’ve been operating on, information the industry told you was correct, was incomplete at best. That’s a tough sell, even when the new information is clearly better.

The color-code system didn’t fail because fitters were lazy or manufacturers were dishonest. It failed because the tools to measure what shafts actually do (XlinkTech, CFD modeling, GEARS motion capture) didn’t exist at the scale needed to challenge the conventional wisdom. Now they do. And what they’re showing is that the shaft’s real influence on performance has less to do with launch and spin than it does with where you start the ball and where you’re hitting it on the face.

Here’s the other implication nobody’s talking about yet: if start line and tip stiffness govern shot shape as much as Mitsubishi’s data suggests, then it’s entirely reasonable to play different shaft profiles in different clubs—not based on weight progressions or swing speed matching but based on the shot shape you’re trying to produce with each club.

I ran this idea past Felicitas directly: Could a golfer reasonably play a Diamana BB in the driver and a Diamana WB in a higher-lofted fairway wood?

“Every club has a different use in the bag and to a degree has a slightly different swing associated with it Drivers typically have positive attack angles, which is completely different from every club in the bag. A 3-wood can be used as a second option off the tee and/or approaching on par-5s. A player might have slightly different feels with each club which means they might not play the same profiles in all of their woods.”

His example tracked closely with the scenario I floated. “If they have a smooth driver swing but get more aggressive or hit more down on a higher lofted fairway wood, they might play a Diamana BB in the driver and a Diamana WB in the higher-lofted wood.”

He was careful to note it’s not universal (“there are a few scenarios where the player might prefer a similar feel across their clubs”) but his default recommendation was clear: “Most of the time, I would recommend testing and fitting each club for what it will be used for.”

That’s either a fitter’s dream or a complete headache, depending on how ready you are to let go of what you think you know.

My $0.05

The color code isn’t going anywhere overnight. It’s too embedded, too universal, too useful as a starting point for golfers who are just beginning to think about shaft fitting. But Mitsubishi is making a credible, data-backed case that starting points shouldn’t be finishing points and that the industry has been leaving real performance on the table by conflating the two.

The Advanced Fitting Protocol isn’t asking fitters to throw everything out. It’s asking them to add better questions to the conversation. Where does the ball start? Where are you hitting it on the face? How does the player actually deliver the club?

Those are good questions. Better questions, honestly, than “do you want more or less spin?”

Felicitas says the rollout is already underway. “We have already started fitting using this process and have seen a lot of success introducing this to the market.”

His ask of fitters is straightforward. “Approach every fitting analytically and with an open mind. Testing out the process and hitting every product you can will give you a deeper knowledge for the next player you work with.” No hard deadline, no mandate, just a standing invitation. “We encourage fitters to keep learning and growing and we hope that we can continue to provide information and tools for them to help players play better golf.”

Progress, as I’ve said before, remains undefeated. And the fitters—and golfers—who start asking better questions first are going to be ahead of the curve when the rest of the industry catches up.

Whether they want to or not.

The post Forget Everything You Know About Shaft Fitting. Mitsubishi Is Thinking You Should, Anyway. appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

If I put an extra-stiff fairway wood with a tour head and an oversized grip in my bag, I’m going to know pretty quickly that the issue is not just my swing that day. The club probably doesn’t fit me.

Golf balls can be a little more subtle.

You can play the wrong golf ball and still hit some good shots. You may even hit a few that look longer than expected. The problem is that the ball may not be giving you the right flight, spin or stopping power for your game.

Our 2025 golf ball data continues to show that ball flight is one of the best clues as to whether a golf ball fits your game.

Here are three ball-flight problems that could be your golf ball.

Your drives fall out of the air

This is the ball flight that looks decent at first but never really stays in the air.

It launches, starts downrange and then seems to fall flat. Carry distance is weaker than expected and the ball depends too much on rollout to get its total distance.

This can be especially important for slower swing speed players. In our slow-speed driver data, ball speed varied by less than two mph across the field. Spin, however, varied by nearly 1,000 rpm and peak height changed by about 10 feet.

That matters because two golf balls can feel similar off the face but fly very differently.

The Callaway Supersoft is a good example. In the slow-speed driver data, it finished with strong total distance but produced lower spin, lower peak height and a shallower descent angle. Chrome Tour Triple Diamond carried more than four yards farther with a higher flight.

That’s the difference between a ball that gets more of its distance after landing and one that does more of its work in the air. Total distance doesn’t always tell the whole story. If your drives look flat, fall out of the air or only perform when fairways are firm, there could be a spin or launch issue.

Your ball balloons and stalls

The opposite problem can happen.

Some golfers don’t need help getting the ball in the air. They already create plenty of height and spin. For them, the wrong golf ball can climb too quickly, hang in the air and lose forward distance.

The fast-speed driver data gives us a good example of how much flight can change from one ball to the next. Peak height ranged from 69 feet to almost 92 feet.

In the fast-speed driver data, the TaylorMade TP5 produced one of the highest peak heights and steepest descent angles. For the wrong player, that can mean giving up distance even when the strike feels solid.

This can happen with irons, too, but it’s a little different. Higher flight and steeper descent can help you hold greens so they’re not automatically bad. It becomes a problem when the ball floats, comes up short or gets harder to control in the wind.

Your approach shots come in too shallow

A golf ball can be long with the driver but still be a poor fit if your approach shots come in too shallow. If your 7-iron lands on the green and releases like a 4-iron, that’s a problem.

The 7-iron data makes this pretty clear. In the mid-speed 7-iron test, descent angle ranged from 40.9 to 50.6 degrees and spin varied by nearly 1,500 rpm.

Titleist Pro V1x is a good reminder that approach performance is not just about distance. In the mid-speed 7-iron data, it was not the longest ball but it produced more spin and a steeper descent angle than several longer options. That’s the kind of flight that can matter when you’re trying to hold a green instead of just squeeze out a few more yards.

If your approach shots land on the green but keep releasing farther than expected, pay attention to the flight. The ball may not be flying high enough, spinning enough or creating enough descent angle to stop.

The bottom line

The goal is not to find the ball with the highest ball speed or the longest total distance on one shot. The goal is to find the ball that gives your swing the right flight window from tee to green. Here’s a complete look at our 2025 Golf Ball Test.

The post 3 Ball-Flight Problems That Could Be Your Golf Ball appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

But in a recent video with Grant Horvat, Lee gave us a better look at what makes his driver game so good. It’s not just speed. It’s the shots he chooses, the windows he sees and the times he knows not to force it.

Here are three takeaways worth paying attention to.

He has a wind shot with driver

Most amateurs have one driver swing. If the wind picks up, they usually just tee it lower, swing harder and hope the ball doesn’t balloon.

Lee does something different.

During the round, Horvat points out one of Lee’s tee shots and how stable it looked. Lee explains that he has developed a lower fade for the wind. The idea is to keep it down, take some spin off and control the flight.

That’s a big difference from just trying to hit a “safe” driver.

A controlled wind shot doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be predictable.

The key is having a shot you can go to when the stock driver is too high, too spinny or too unpredictable. You don’t always need all of your speed on a tee shot. This is a shot you’ll want to practice before you need it on the course.

He uses a mini driver to fit the hole shape

One of the more interesting comments Lee makes is about using a mini driver on a right-to-left hole.

A lot of golfers think of a mini driver as a safer driver replacement. While that may be part of it, Lee talks about it more like a shot-shaping tool.

Choosing less than driver isn’t always about being scared of trouble. Sometimes it’s about choosing the club that best fits the shape of the shot the hole is asking for.

If your driver wants to fade and the hole bends hard the other way, you may be making the hole harder (and longer) than it needs to be. A fairway wood, hybrid or mini driver could give you a better window. Think of these clubs as providing shot-shaping options, not just safety.

He still knows when the window is too tight

At one point, Horvat asks Lee about a tight shot around 300 yards and whether he would go for it in a tournament. Lee says no. The window is too tight.

Lee has the distance but the target doesn’t give him enough room to miss it. Amateurs do the opposite all the time. We see a number we can theoretically reach and convince ourselves that means we should try it.

Distance gives you options but it doesn’t mean every option is smart. Start asking yourself how much has to go right for a shot to work.

Final thought

Min Woo Lee’s driver is fun to watch because of the speed.

But the better lesson is how much thought goes into those tee shots. He has a wind shot. He uses different clubs to match the shape of the hole. He knows when a target is too small, even when he has the distance to take it on.

Even if you don’t have his distance, thinking about tee shots in this way could help your game.

The post 3 Smart Things Min Woo Lee Does Off The Tee appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Titleist Pro V1 AIM Performance Red, White & Blue Golf Balls

The special-edition Pro V1 AIM Performance ball adds a Stars and Stripes alignment marking and a custom 1776 play number.

The alignment marking is more than just decoration. Titleist says it measures more than 65 percent longer than its standard sidestamp, giving golfers a bigger visual aid for aim on the green.

Melin Odysea Americana Hydro Hat

The Melin Odysea Americana Hydro gives you the July 4th look in a more subtle way. The red and blue straps bring in the patriotic detail while the rest of the hat stays clean enough for regular summer rounds.

At $89, it’s a premium hat, but Melin’s Hydro line is built for sweat, sun and water.

PING Hoofer Lite Stand Bag

The PING Hoofer Lite is always a top performer in our stand bag testing.

At five pounds with a four-way top, nine pockets and 19 liters of pocket volume, it’s built for walking and everyday play.

TravisMathew Good Good Flag Polo

The TravisMathew Good Good Flag Polo is part of the Red, White & Blue Collection and includes golf-friendly details like a performance spread collar. This is an easy one to wear for a morning holiday round and still keep in the rotation after July 4th.

YETI Roadie 15 Hard Cooler

The YETI Roadie 15 in the Patriotic 26 colorway is a strong July 4th golf pick if your holiday round includes drinks, snacks or heading somewhere after. It brings the red, white and blue theme into something far more useful than another shirt.

The 15-quart size fits up to 22 cans or 16 pounds of ice, and the DoubleDuty strap makes it easy to carry.

America’s Braided Men’s Golf Belt

This is the kind of piece that fits coastal golf, summer rounds and classic American golf style. Pair it with a simple polo and shorts and let the belt do the work.

Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins Golf Waterproof Blade Tour Fairway Heritage

The Skechers Blade Tour Fairway Heritage brings the red, white and blue theme into a piece of gear you’ll actually use every hole. It has a limited-edition patriotic look inspired by classic American summer golf, but it’s still a waterproof, tour-worn golf shoe.

The Hands Free Slip-ins design makes them easy to get on and off, while Arch Fit support, ECO FLIGHT cushioning and the Tour Flex Pro Softspikes outsole give them the comfort and traction needed for a full round.

TaylorMade SpeedSoft Red, White And Blue Golf Balls

The TaylorMade SpeedSoft is another easy way to work red, white and blue into the round without changing your whole outfit. It’s a softer-feeling golf ball and has a lower price point than the Pro V1. Just don’t expect the same greenside performance.

Vineyard Vines USA Flags Sankaty Men’s Golf Polo Shirt

The Vineyard Vines USA Flags Sankaty Polo is the easy centerpiece for a July 4th golf outfit. Pair it with navy shorts and you’re set.

Jones A2 Backpack

The Jones A2 Backpack is my favorite one right now. This red/navy colorway is newer and it’s on my wish list now.

It has padded shoulder straps, a cushioned back and enough separation to keep things organized. Jones also uses recycled ripstop material in the R-series which gives it a durable, water-resistant build.

FootJoy Premiere Series Packard Liberty Men’s Spiked Golf Shoes

The FootJoy Premiere Series Packard Liberty shoes are a more classic way to bring red, white and blue into a July 4th round. This is one of the best-looking shoes I’ve seen this season. The FootJoy Premiere Series is all about performance but you’ll look good too when you wear them.

FootJoy Stars And Stripes Golf Socks

The DrySof moisture control, cushioned sole and arch support band make these more than just a holiday accessory. They’re built for walking, heat and a long day on the course.

Draddy Sport Cool Olin Hoodie

The Draddy Sport Cool Olin Hoodie is a smart July 4th layer if you want the look without going all-in on stars and stripes. The Cool Fabric is lightweight, breathable, quick-drying, stretchy and cool to the touch, with UPF 50+ sun protection for long summer rounds.

Ryder 250 Limited-Edition Golf Stand Bag

The Ryder 250 is one of the sharpest red, white and blue golf bags in the mix, with cream vegan leather, bold red and blue details, star graphics and classic stripe accents. The catch is that shipping starts July 6, so it will just miss your July 4th round.

Still, this is a strong limited-edition pick for the rest of summer and America’s 250th anniversary year.

Callaway Quantum Limited-Edition Driver

The Callaway Quantum limited-edition driver is the big-ticket red, white and blue pick. It celebrates 250 years of American independence with patriotic detailing, an eagle emblem and a heritage Callaway script logo.

It’s not just a display piece, either. The Quantum uses Callaway’s Tri-Force Face, next-generation Ai-optimized face mapping and a 360-degree carbon chassis to help produce speed and consistency across the face.

The post Playing Golf On The 4th? Here’s The Red, White And Blue Golf Gear You Need appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

It only made sense to look at the opposite—all of the amazing trends happening in golf (of which there are many).

Here are my favorite seven trends happening in the game today.

7. Unparalleled access to data for gear selection, club fitting and course strategy

You know we love our data here at MyGolfSpy.

Not to toot our own horn but we’re immensely proud that MGS is a (free!) resource for millions of golfers to gain unbiased, data-driven insights to a wide variety of clubs, balls, soft goods and more. Tens of thousands of golf shots go into our testing, recommendations and reviews.

Of course, golf data goes well beyond MGS. Golfers have never had so much information at the tip of their fingers.

Personal launch monitors are reasonably priced. Club fitting is a more precise process. AI caddies for course strategy have become far more reliable and useful.

Getting better at golf is hard. Gaining information about your game so you can track improvement? Getting the right equipment to match your skillset? It’s never been easier.

And that leads me into …

6. Zero-torque putters changing the game

Gone are the days of picking up a random blade putter and hoping it works out.

Based on our recent Most Wanted testing where golfers tried out different putters, 88 percent of our testers had their best results with a zero-torque putter. The other 12 percent had their best results with a mallet.

Not a single tester finished with a blade being their best putter. Not one person.

This is based on real Strokes Gained data. There is no hiding here!

Zero-torque is more forgiving for the average golfer. Mallets are appropriate for some golfers but zero-torque can truly transform a golfer’s ability to roll the ball on line.

These putters are definitely hot for a reason.

5. YouTube golf becoming a wealth of entertainment and information

I picked on YouTube golf in my “annoying trends” article—the golf influencer chase has gone too far—but I want to give the genre some flowers on the other side of the equation.

Never in history has passive golf entertainment become so decentralized and a la carte. YouTube golf has every single subgenre available to you and more are on the way.

Bob Does Sports is comedy. Channels from Grant Horvat, Bryan Bros., Good Good and Bryson DeChambeau promote high-level golf packaged in an entertaining way. Fried Egg is a golf architecture nerd’s delight. No Laying Up is outstanding for its Tourist Sauce travel series and shot-by-shot Film Room content.

I am leaving out a lot of channels by necessity but you get the idea.

Now we have the Internet Invitational exploding and the Your Golf Tour where YouTube golf is going to take on a more serious competition tournament format. That’s exciting.

And I haven’t even mentioned all of the outstanding instructors you can find on YouTube. Yes, this is a dangerous rabbit hole to go down but golfers are always looking for guidance.

My only issue is that I don’t have the time to watch all of it.

4. Modern architecture promoting playability

For a long stretch in the 20th Century, golf course design was based mainly around real estate development. Course playability was an afterthought. Most places were execution tests with narrow corridors.

Over the past 10-15 years, there has been a huge pushback against this type of design. New courses (and renovated courses) are creating wider fairways, less rough and more interesting green complexes.

They are still challenging but in a more captivating way. Instead of looking for golf balls, you are looking for the best angles to the hole. There is legitimate strategy involved.

Along with this, modern architecture values tee box variability and appropriate yardages. Not every course has to be designed to host a major championship. It’s even OK if the course is just 12 holes or something like a par-67.

The standard norms of golf course design have been challenged in the best ways. It makes the game way more inviting.

3. Off-course golf entertainment venues

While I understand avid golfers have complicated feelings about places like Topgolf—that it’s a product not designed for real golfers—the popularity of off-course golf entertainment venues is definitely a net positive.

We’re talking Five Iron, X-Golf, PopStroke, PuttShack and the many local simulator clubs that are popping up in bigger cities.

First of all, simulators are awesome. Add them into a social setting and you have a product that is meaningful for all levels of golfer.

Maybe a place like Topgolf or PopStroke is meant specifically for casual golfers or non-golfers. Is that so bad? It’s getting people more acquainted with golf in an environment that lacks pressure.

And there are now plenty of avenues for hard-core golfers to find off-course golf entertainment centers that suit their needs.

I think it’s an amazing development in our game. These places cut through some of golf’s classic barriers to entry. And, ultimately, they are just fun to experience.

2. Dress codes being relaxed or eliminated

I’ve talked a lot about how I am more of a golf traditionalist. I like to look and play a certain way on the course.

However, I am still a big proponent of golf evolving to fewer restrictions in terms of apparel.

There is nothing inherently wrong with someone playing golf in athletic wear, a hoodie, a T-shirt or whatever else makes them comfortable. Private clubs have the right to impose dress codes for their members but even those rules are being relaxed significantly as memberships become younger.

You don’t need a tucked-in collared shirt or a golf shoe with spikes to play golf. It’s just a standard that has existed for centuries because of tradition.

The bottom line: wear whatever makes you feel comfortable.

1. The expansion of short courses

If you look at the most popular golf resorts across the country, virtually all of them have at least one par-3 course. There are even places like Bandon that have multiple offerings.

I took a deep look at the short course phenomenon a couple of years ago, and the concept has only grown since then.

The great man, Connor Lindeman, also wrote about why short courses are his favorite way to play golf.

The advantages are clear. Short courses are faster to play. They are also easier while still maintaining certain challenges. They are friendly to beginners and juniors. They typically cost less.

As golf expands and adds new players, short courses are highly valuable. They are a terrific way to introduce someone to the game.

And at a higher level, places like Grass League are showing how high-stakes par-3 golf can gain a ton of traction.

So those are my favorite trends happening in golf right now.

What are some of yours? Let me know below in the comments.

Top Photo Caption: Access to golf data has transformed how golfers understand their games. (GETTY IMAGES/Orlando Ramirez)

The post My 7 Favorite Emerging Trends In Golf appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Pinned Golf originally won me over during our golf GPS device testing cycle, boasting a giant touchscreen golf GPS device. It wasn’t practical but it was bold, accurate and fun to use. The practicality kept the Caddie GPS Smart Tablet from winning a badge but won me over as a fan of Pinned Golf.

I’m stoked to introduce you to one of my favorite up-and-coming golf brands: Pinned Golf.

Caddie GPS Smart Tablet

I’m not exaggerating when I say that the Caddie GPS Smart Tablet is roughly the size of an iPad.

Again, not at all practical, but very unique. If you unintentionally play too fast for your own good, you might actually benefit from having what feels like a TV screen mounted to your golf cart. Once it’s magnetized to the cart, it’s easy to use and ends up helping more than it hurts. The inconvenience creeps up when the round is over and it’s time to store and charge the Caddie GPS Smart Tablet.

If the Caddie GPS Smart Tablet could play YouTube, Netflix or other streaming services, this would be an instant buy.

If you’re looking for something big and bold (that you can’t miss or lose), this is the golf GPS device for you.

Prism+ Golf Rangefinder

The lack of features prevented the Prism+ from winning a badge but the overall performance placed the Prism+ smack-dab in the middle of the pack.

The Pinned Prism+ scored 9.2/10 overall, placing it among the top golf rangefinders that also lacked additional features.

The Prism+ was easy to use, accurate, took up minimal space and had A+ optics and display (my two favorite features). If you’re looking for a barebones golf rangefinder that offer the basics, the Prism+ is a winner.

A Few Prism+ Features:

• 7x magnification
• 65-round battery life
• Slope technology

Speakers

At the time of writing, Pinned Golf has three available speakers:

• Dart 2.0 Speaker ($49.99)
• Sound Stick ($99.99)
• Sound Stick Pro ($199.98)

As you can tell, one is for the golfer on a budget, one is the premium offering with built-in GPS capabilities and one is right in between the two.

Assuming the GPS is accurate, the $199.98 price tag is something most golfers should be willing to stomach if you’re looking to utilize more than just the speaker. If you already have a golf GPS or if you utilize a golf app, I’d pick one of the two lower-priced options.

The wrap

Pinned Golf is hot on my radar and they should be on yours, too.

Pinned Golf is making quality golf gear. If they can improve the practicality of the golf GPS device and add a few features to the golf rangefinder, I think there’s a good chance we’ll see Pinned Golf rise in next year’s rankings.

The post Pinned Golf Is Trending Up appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

America turns 250 next week, and the golf industry has decided that’s reason enough to bury everything in red, white and blue. You didn’t think TaylorMade was going to sit this one out, did you? The Americana 250 collection covers MG5 wedges, a Spider ZT putter, TP5 and TP5x balls, and two headcovers, all of it leaning on the usual patriotic shorthand: flags, eagles and some “We the People” for good measure. From what I gather, this stuff tends to sell, so the formula isn’t exactly a state secret. Pick the theme, commit to it, make it look good. On that last part, TaylorMade mostly delivers. The catch, as always with limited edition anything, is that it’ll cost you.

The wedges

The MG5s are where I’ll do my nitpicking, so let’s start there. Three lofts (52, 56, 60), three different engravings: a bald eagle on the 52, the “We the People” preamble on the 56 and the Statue of Liberty on the 60. The details go all the way down, with red, white and blue ferrule rings, a matching Golf Pride Z grip and a shaft label that spells out the 250th anniversary in case anyone needed the reminder. I genuinely like the blue, and giving each wedge its own design instead of stamping the same eagle three times is the right call.

Here’s my gripe, and it has nothing to do with the paint. A 52/56/60 setup in 2026 is a dated spec. Lofts have crept stronger across the bag for years, and a lot of golfers would be better served by something closer to 50/54/58. I get that plenty of people still buy 52/56/60 out of habit, and maybe TaylorMade’s sales data says exactly that. Doesn’t mean I have to love it. Boo. But it is what it is.

The putter and the headcovers

The Spider ZT brings TaylorMade’s Zero Torque platform into the collection, dressed in red, white and navy, with True Path alignment and a Pure Roll insert doing the actual work underneath the paint. It ships with a matching Americana headcover.

The standalone covers are the showcase pieces. Lady Liberty holds her torch against the flag on the driver cover, and a bald eagle stretches across the mallet over the stars and stripes. Two covers, two icons you’ve seen on roughly every patriotic golf release ever made, but the execution here is clean.

The balls

The TP5 and TP5x get the MySymbol treatment, with “1776” sitting below the TaylorMade logo and an American flag side stamp. (1776 plus 250 lands you on 2026, for anyone scoring at home.) Same tour ball you’d play anyway, now in costume.

The bottom line

None of this is complicated. The 250th only comes around once, and if you’re going to mark it, you mark it like this, which means committing to the theme and sweating the details. TaylorMade did both.

The only thing standing between you and the collection is the price. Everything here carries a premium over the standard versions. That’s the cost of admission on limited edition anything, and whether the eagles and flags are worth it is a you question, not a me question. If patriotic isn’t your thing, the regular MG5s, Spider ZT and TP5s aren’t going anywhere.

Specs, pricing and availability

The Americana 250 collection is available now. The Spider ZT putter is $649.99 and the Americana 250 wedge set is $750. On the headcover side, the driver cover is $89.99 and the mallet cover is $79.99. The TP5 and TP5x balls are $62.99 per dozen.

For more information, visit TaylorMadeGolf.com.

The post TaylorMade pledges allegiance with the Americana 250 collection appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

TaylorMade.

That sounds like complete dominance but the full PGA Tour winner count tells a slightly different story. TaylorMade has owned the biggest weeks of the year. It has not owned the season from start to finish.

The TaylorMade Qi4D was already our best overall driver in testing so it’s not exactly surprising to see it performing well on Tour. Still, there’s a difference between testing well and winning majors. Right now, TaylorMade has done both.

TaylorMade drivers have won every major so far

Here are the three major-winning driver setups so far:

• Rory McIlroy, Masters: TaylorMade Qi4D, 8 degrees, Fujikura Ventus Black 6X
• Aaron Rai, PGA Championship: TaylorMade M6, 9 degrees, Aldila Synergy Blue 70 TX
• Wyndham Clark, U.S. Open: TaylorMade Qi4D, 10.5 degrees, Project X Titan Yellow 60 TX

The most interesting part is that this is not just a Qi4D story.

Rory and Clark won with TaylorMade’s current driver model. Rai won the PGA Championship with a TaylorMade M6, a driver that is several generations old.

It’s not just “the newest TaylorMade driver is winning.” It’s TaylorMade drivers, across different generations and different player profiles, showing up in the biggest moments of the year.

TaylorMade fairway woods are showing up everywhere

The driver sweep in the majors is the headline but TaylorMade’s presence at the top of the bag goes beyond the driver.

In the 26 winning bags we’ve tracked so far, 20 included at least one TaylorMade fairway wood.

Plenty of players in this tracker are not using TaylorMade drivers but still have a TaylorMade club in the top end of the bag. The TaylorMade fairway woods are very popular on Tour. After I tested the Stealth 2 that many Tour players still carry, I never took it out of my bag.

Titleist has the most driver wins overall

TaylorMade has won all three majors so far but it does not have the most total driver wins of 2026. Titleist does.

Based on the 26 winning bags we’ve tracked, here’s the driver-brand count:

• Titleist: 10 wins
• TaylorMade: 7 wins
• PING: 4 wins
• Srixon: 2 wins
• Callaway: 2 wins
• COBRA: 1 win

Titleist has the volume. TaylorMade has the majors.

Final thoughts

TaylorMade has had a strong first half of the year and it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the last major of the year. Are you betting on a TaylorMade win at the Open Championship?

The post One Driver Brand Is Three-For-Three In Majors. But It’s Not Dominating The Season appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

At the time, it wasn’t really just for me. It was for everybody. I was the only one in the family with a rangefinder and trying to shoot yardages for myself, two kids and my husband was not exactly helping pace of play.

The Wingman View solved that problem almost immediately.

It gave everyone front, middle and back yardages. It stuck to the cart with a magnet that has never made me nervous. It worked as a speaker. It was easy. It was fast. It became one of those golf products that just stayed in the cart because everyone used it.

What I didn’t expect was that I would eventually prefer it to a rangefinder.

GPS changed the way I looked at greens

Before using GPS regularly, I don’t think I had a great understanding of how much room I really had on greens.

I knew the pin number and the club I wanted to hit.

What I didn’t always know was how much green I had short of the pin, how much room I had behind it or whether the smarter play was nowhere near the flag.

The Wingman View made that obvious.

Front, middle and back yardages sound simple but they changed how I played. I stopped hunting pins quite as much. I started hunting greens and it helped my scoring.

Instead of standing over a shot thinking, “It’s 142 to the flag,” I started thinking, “The front is 132, the middle is 146 and the back is 158.” I had more confidence that the club I had in my hand could land within that range.

For most amateur golfers, that is a much better way to play.

The Wingman View will also give you yardages to hazards, bunkers and other targets. I don’t use that feature all that often. You can also use the Bushnell app on your phone to get more detailed numbers but I don’t love bringing my phone out during a round.

For me, the value of the Wingman View is simple: I get the numbers I need without doing much.

Then I got a pin number again

Recently, my son and daughter have started walking the course more. My daughter has a Garmin kids’ watch and my son has a Shot Scope rangefinder.

A few holes into a round, my son was standing near me and I asked him for a yardage to the pin.

It was the first time I had a true “to the pin” number in a long time.

Secretly, I loved it.

There is something about one specific number that I like. But it also changes the way I play.

With GPS, I’m usually thinking about a zone. With a rangefinder, I’m thinking about a number.

Those are not the same thing.

By the end of the round, I had asked him for a few more yardages. That was when I realized I probably needed to bring a rangefinder back into play for a few rounds and see what happened.

The rangefinder changed my strategy

As soon as the rangefinder came back into play, I noticed a few things.

First, I got more aggressive.

Not reckless, exactly, but definitely more target-focused. A front, middle and back number makes me think about the whole green. A pin number makes me think about the flag.

Second, I cared more about exact shot placement.

If I needed to lay up short of a bunker, carry a corner or hit to a specific area, the rangefinder made that easier. I started planning a little more instead of just looking at the general number and playing.

I noticed the biggest difference on par 3s.

With GPS, I’m usually looking at front, middle and back. That makes me think about the green as a whole.

With a rangefinder, everything gets more specific. That can be helpful when the pin is accessible or when I feel like I can be more aggressive. It gives me a clear target and helps me commit to the shot.

It can also be dangerous. Sometimes that exact pin number makes you think the flag is the target when the better play is still the middle of the green.

If I could only choose one

If you told me I could only have one (rangefinder or GPS), I would choose the GPS.

For the way most amateur golfers play, I think GPS yardages are more useful more often. The pin is not the target nearly as often as we think it is. The green is the target. Sometimes the safe side of the green is the target.

GPS helps you see that.

A rangefinder gives you precision. GPS gives you context.

The best answer is probably to have both but, if I had to pick one, I would rather have front, middle and back yardages than one exact pin number. I should mention that the Tour V7 Shift is the best rangefinder I have owned. Previously, I had budget rangefinders that took longer, couldn’t find targets as easily and just didn’t have the same ease of use.

The Wingman View made golf simpler for me. The Tour V7 Shift makes it more precise.

Now I’m trying to find the right balance between the two.

Anybody else with me on this or are you completely the opposite? Do you trust the rangefinder more than GPS, or has GPS changed the way you play?

The post Golf Rangefinder vs. GPS: What Two Years Without A Rangefinder Taught Me appeared first on MyGolfSpy.