Ultimate gift guide for golfers

Is it tough for you to believe all the global warming warnings when you look out at the first hole of your favorite golf course this holiday season and find it lined with snow and ice? Does the inhuman sting of a thinly hit 3-iron in the crisp December air have you avoiding the local driving range like that Carrot Top Christmas special?

If the answer to either question is yes, then it’s time for you to pack up your bags and head to the nearest warm spot for a much-needed golf vacation. And with the all-important PGA Merchandise Show coming up next month in Orlando, here’s a sampling of the latest in innovative equipment to fill up those bags if Santa (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) or anyone else you might know in the giving spirit comes through for you.

Drivers
We won’t get into the very technical and very boring details, but high MOI, or Moment Of Inertia, means you have as much forgiveness as a golf club can give you on mis-hit shots, and 460cc means you’re getting the most distance allowed by the rules of the game. And if you don’t have a 1-wood with these two qualifications, you’re way behind the times — and probably way behind your friends in the fairway.

These developments have ushered in an era of ridiculously big clubheads on drivers, but you’ll get used this shoebox-on-a-stick look the more you play. Of the top-of-the-line models, the new Ping G-10 has great feel and a simplified look with a traditional round head, as does King Cobra’s L4V X. Meanwhile, Titleist’s 907D1 combines the high MOI and 460cc head size into a cool triangular shape.

Waves have been made in the industry with square-headed drivers, including the Nike Sasquatch Sumo2, which emits a strange sound when club strikes ball but is an incredibly forgiving piece of equipment. The latter can also be said for Callaway’s square FT-i driver, of which Callaway boasts that it’s “designed to be the world’s straightest driver.”

There’s a couple of do-it-yourself models out there, too. The triangular-head Taylor-Made r7 CGB Max has “Movable Weight Technology” with three weights that allow you to personally dictate trajectory change. And the Mizuno MP-600 has a “Fast Track” with two adjustable eight-gram weights that gives players a choice of 15 ball-flight settings.

Fairway clubs and hybrids
In this ever-changing world of golf where 2- and 3-irons are practically extinct, Titleist’s 960F4 fairway wood is available in three different degrees of loft and its 585.H hybrid counterpart provide a good one-two punch with a more conservative, old-school look and feel that traditionalists might like. Nike also makes excellent 3- and 4-metals in its square and round Sumo lines along with hybrids that take the place of 2- and 3-irons.

The Adams Golf A3 Idea hybrid iron set has helped Adams become an industry leader in the hybrid market. Buy this set and you get your traditional 3-, 4- and 5-irons in the form of beautiful, easy-to-hit hybrids, with regular shorter irons rounding it out. The King Cobra Baffler hybrid has two designs — one for a recreational player and one for a more advanced golfer — and is an excellent rescue option.

Irons
So many irons, so little time to figure it all out. Well, I tested out a bunch and found an excellent set in the new Taylor-Made r7 CGB Max line, which also has the weighting options on the back of the club. They’re cool-looking and comfortable to hit, even for a hack like me. Taylor-Made insisted that I go out to one of their custom-fitting centers, too. There, a professional painstakingly figured out my swing and tailored the clubs to how I hit the ball. All of this is based on club speed, where you strike the ball on the clubface, and more. And it’s absolutely essential before you make a purchase of this magnitude, so do it no matter what set you’re looking into.

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Nike has several high-quality iron sets out there, with the CCI forged a standout because of the gorgeous, clean-line, higher-end look and feel. They’re more advisable for the scratch or single-digit player. The “UF” in King Cobra’s UFi irons means “Ultimate Forgiveness,” and that can’t be a bad thing, right? The irons are fantastic — great to look at, fun to play with, and offering some of the best technology out there.

Cleveland’s CG Red irons are geared more for the better player, with color-coded hosel markings that denote if the lie angle is flat, standard or upright. They feel buttery when you hit one cleanly, and the same can be said for the Srixon I-701 forged irons. Srixon, known for making an excellent golf ball — more on that in a moment — and for sponsoring Jim Furyk, also is carving its niche in the club market, and this set should help in that regard. These irons are elegant to look at, easy to hit and offer an innovative two-piece clubhead design.

Wedges
Wedges are all about feel and comfort, and Titleist’s Vokey Design line hasn’t been a staple on the PGA Tour for the last decade because they’re lacking in those departments. They’re still among the best you can buy, and Cleveland, always respected for its wedges, shouldn’t be ignored either. Their new line of Cleveland CG12 wedges offer a new type of groove called ZIP Grooves that Cleveland swears is its “most consistent, precise and visible wedge technology to date.”

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If you’re into old-school, check out a smaller club-maker based in Seattle called RedBird. Their wedges come in a traditional shaped blade design, and, like all RedBird clubs, will be custom-fitted for you. Mizuno also has a new line of old-fashioned looking wedges, the Grain Flow Forged MP-T Series. These wedges feature the classic teardrop wedge shape and “innovative workshop C-grind sole that offers players maximum versatility around the greens.”

And if you’re into ridiculously high-end, luxury equipment, Miura Golf furnishes hand-finished clubs, including the new Nobel Black Wedges that use a proprietary “spin welding” process that gives it what Miura calls the “industry’s most consistent hosel.”

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