Stephen Ames 2009 Children's Miracle Network Classic Winning Clubs

Here is a complete list of the clubs that Stephen Ames used to win the 2009 Children's Miracle Network Classic in a playoff over George McNeill and Justin Leonard:

DRIVER: Nike Prototype SQ Dymo 380 (9.5°) with Apache Matrix Ozik shaft
FAIRWAY WOODS: Nike Sasquatch 2 (13°, 19°) with Fujikura Rombax shafts
IRONS: Nike Victory Red Forged Blades (3-PW) with True Temper Dynamic Gold X100 shafts
WEDGES: Nike Victory Red Forged (54°, 60°) with True Temper Dynamic Gold X100 shafts
PUTTER: Nike Method 001
BALL: Nike ONE Tour

Follow David Dusek on Twitter

(Photo by Fred Vuich/SI)

Nike's Crush Golf Ball Designed for Distance Lovers

With bold, blue packaging and a name like Crush, it's not hard to guess which group of golfers Nike is trying to attract with its newest ball: players who want to outdrive everyone.

Designed specifically for golfers with a swing speed between 80 and 95 miles per hour (the average for most weekend players), the Crush has a soft, low-compression core and an ionomer cover designed to reduce sidespin for increased accuracy.


Rock Ishii, Nike Golf's director of product development for balls, said in a release, "I believe we've done a great job designing a longer and straighter golf ball for a wide range of swing speeds at a mid-tier price."
 


The Nike Crush is available now for about $30 per dozen.

Stewart Cink Using Postseason Events to Test New Gear

One of the perks of winning the 2009 British Open for Stewart Cink has been a first-ever trip to Bermuda and a chance to compete in the Grand Slam of Golf. While he's assured of leaving the island with a better appreciation for the Dark and Stormy, he'll need to play well to beat Lucas Glover, Angel Cabrera and Y.E. Yang and win the $600,000 first prize.

On the windswept Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, Cink is planning to put Nike's new Victory Red driver into play for the very first time. But that's only the beginning of the changes he's facing. Just like the skies that he Twittered about on Monday afternoon, there are ominous clouds on the horizon for Cink and other PGA Tour players: pending rule changes that limit the volume and sharpness of grooves.

"I want to be ready to go and not have any big surprises with the grooves," he said Monday afternoon from Bermuda. "So I'm going to play a little extra this year just to be familiar with that."

Winning at Turnberry qualified Cink for the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, and he's also going to play the Wendy's Three Tour Challenge in Las Vegas and the Chevron World Challenge (Tiger Woods's event) in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

While the former Georgia Tech All-American isn't crazy about the idea of changing both his irons and his golf ball at the same time, there is no way around it. The grooves in his Nike Forged CCi irons, as well as his wedges, will become non-conforming starting on Jan. 1, 2010.

"The one thing that I learned last week at The Oven [Nike's test facility] is that the golf ball I'm using now [Nike's ONE Tour D] is probably a little too hard to be a realistic option for next year with the new grooves," he said.


A softer ball could cut into driving distance for Cink and other Tour pros, but it should also produce more control around the greens, which will be critical when playing the lower-spin grooves. Within Nike's current ball line, the One Tour ball might be Cink's best choice in 2010.

"I'm okay with the changes," Cink said, "but I don’t know that going this aggressively was necessary because it’s a radical change with the wedges. If you are on the edge of the rough, or if conditions are damp like they are here in Bermuda right now, there are going to be some shots hit that are quite ugly and not too attractive to fans. And that scares me a little."

Grooves that are less sharp can't dig into the ball's cover as easily, so the ball comes off the face with less spin. Grooves with less volume than the current square grooves will channel less water and debris off the face at impact, possibly leading to fliers out of light rough and maybe even the middle of the fairway on dewy mornings.

"That's where I think you cross over into a little bit of absurdity," he said.

In Bermuda, Cink is going to closely watch Glover in the fairways; the U.S. Open champion won at Bethpage using a set of Nike Forged CCi irons that are nearly identical to Cink's. Glover will be playing this week with a new set of Nike's Victory Red Forged Half Cavity irons made with grooves that conform to next year's rules.

The 2010 season starts in 10 weeks. That's not a lot of time to practice not looking absurd.

Follow David Dusek on Twitter

(Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

Limited Edition Nike Method Putters Coming Soon

SAN FRANCISCO – Nike Golf is going to sell a limited number of Method putters starting at noon EST on Monday, Nov. 2, on nikestore.com.



After giving Nike your ideal length and lie angle, your putter will be built in Fort Worth, Texas, at Nike's R&D facility where pros like Tiger Woods, Stewart Cink, Paul Casey and Lucas Glover's equipment is made.

While only the blade-style 001 model (photo) will be available, according to Nike, each putter will be customized with your initials and shipped within three weeks.

The cost of the limited edition putter will be $499.The official release date of the Method putter is Feb. 1, 2010.

Follow David Dusek on Twitter

Also see:
- Video: Nike's Tom Stites explains the technology
- Equipment Finder: Research and buy Nike putters
- Special Section: Putters

Golf Balls Give Hints to Foursomes Pairings

SAN FRANCISCO — In the foursomes (alternate-shot) matches this week, the players who are paired together will often play different brands of balls. The prevailing wisdom is that the teams should tee off with the ball preferred by the player who will hit the approach shot. Performance of most low-spinning, multilayer balls is fairly similar off the tee, the thinking goes, but the players would notice a different feel when hitting irons and wedges. Since distance control from the fairway is critical to setting up birdies, you want the player who is going to hit the approach shot to use his preferred ball. The rules allow the teams to switch balls after completing a hole.

On Wednesday morning, as the American team practiced on the back nine at Harding Park, I snuck a peek at the balls the players used off the tee, and I used that information to make a guess as to Thursday's pairings, which will be announced later this afternoon.

1. Jim Furyk and Justin Leonard: Furyk was teeing off on the even-numbered holes using a Nike ONE Tour ball. He typically plays a Srixon Z-Star X.

2.  Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson: Kim, who plays a Nike ONE Tour, used a Callaway Tour ix ball off the tee on the even-numbered holes (photo).

3. Zach Johnson and Kenny Perry: They both use a Titleist Pro V1x, but Perry asked Zach if he could use one of his balls on the tee at 13. "His is a little bit different than mine," Perry told a bystander. It's very possible that they use a Pro V1x ball from different model years.

4. Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker: Woods teed off on the odd-numbered holes using a Titleist Pro V1  instead of his Nike One Tour.

5. Hunter Mahan and Sean O'Hair: After hitting O'Hair's TaylorMade Penta TP off the tee on 13, Mahan said, "Wow! It spins a lot." Mahan uses a Titleist Pro V1x.

6. Stewart Cink and Lucas Glover: Both players use a Nike ONE Tour D ball.

Follow David Dusek on Twitter

Nike's SQ Machspeed Driver Uses Better Aerodynamics to Add Yards

Nike Golf has announced that the square-headed SQ Machspeed driver will be in pro shops in March, 2010. But company representatives say Justin Leonard doesn't want to wait that long and might put the driver in his bag next week at Harding Park Golf Course during the Presidents Cup.

The company says a system it developed called Total Swing Aerodynamics helps the Machspeed increase a player's clubhead speed and add yards to tee shots.

Tom Stites, Nike Golf's director of product innovation, said in a release: "The number one thing that makes the ball go farther is faster ball speed. We've accomplished that through looking at the orientation of aerodynamics throughout the total golf swing, not just a portion of the swing."

Stites compares a club swinging toward a ball to a parachute. "The wider the parachute is, the slower it comes down because air separates around the parachute and causes drag. The same thing applies to the golf club."

By rounding certain areas of the clubhead and designing it to allow air to move more smoothly across it, Nike says the square head of the Machspeed actually has reduced drag.

For shot-shaping flexibility, Nike equipped the Machspeed with the adjustable STR8-Fit system introduced last year in the SQ Dymo drivers. Using an included torque wrench, golfers can unscrew the head and reattach it in one of eight different settings to change the face angle, loft and lie angle of the club. 


The Nike Machspeed driver will retail for about $360.

Paul Casey Tweets About Nike's Victory Red Driver

At this time of year, many of the major golf equipment manufacturers hold their annual sales meetings. Numbers are crunched, plans are discussed and new products are often shown for the first time to people outside the R&D department.

Many companies also bring in their tour pros to speak to the troops, hit a few shots, sign autographs and mingle. Paul Casey, a Nike staff player, has been taking it a step further, Tweeting from The Oven, Nike's facility in Ft. Worth, Texas. Here are two from earlier today:

11:29AM At the Oven today. Checking out 2010 product with the sales team.

1:05PM  Pics coming after lunch. Food always comes first.

Casey sent several images of Nike Method putters. At 3:25pm, he Tweeted some shots of the yet-to-be released Nike Victory Red driver.

The orange area behind the face, according to Casey's Tweets, is the Compression Channel. He wrote that it expands the sweet spot of the driver. The driver appears to have STR8-Fit, Nike's adjustable clubhead system that is currently available in the SQ Dymo STR8-Fit driver.

As GOLF.com learns more about this and other yet-to-be released equipment, we'll write about it here.

(Photos by Paul Casey)

Tiger Woods 2009 BMW Championship Winning Clubs

Here is a complete list of the clubs Woods used to win the 2009 BMW Championship at Cog Hill:

Driver:  Nike SQ Dymo (10°) with a Mitsubishi Diamana White Board 83x shaft
Fairway woods:  Nike SasQuatch Sumo (15°, 19°) with Mitsubishi Diamana Blue Board 103g shafts
Irons:   Nike Forged Blades (3-PW) with True Temper Dynamic Gold X100 shafts
Wedges:  Nike Victory Red (56°), SV (60°) with True Temper Dynamic Gold S400 shafts
Putter:  Titleist by Scotty Cameron Newport 2
Ball:  Nike One Tour

Take a look inside more PGA Tour winners' bags.

Following David Dusek on Twitter.

(Photo by David Walberg/SI)

Nike Golfers Celebrate Kickoff of College Football Season

College football fans are eagerly anticipating the start of the season this weekend, and golfers are no exception, especially those who went to schools with rich football traditions.

On Saturday, during the second round of the Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston, several of Nike's top staff players will wear outfits that show their true school colors. They include Tiger Woods (Stanford), Anthony Kim (Oklahoma), Stewart Cink (Georgia Tech), Lucas Glover (Clemson), Carl Pettersson (North Carolina State), Justin Leonard (Texas) and Paul Casey (Arizona State).

Tiger Woods's 2009 PGA Championship Golf Clubs

CHASKA, Minn. – If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Having won the last two PGA Tour events, the Buick Open and the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, Tiger Woods has not made any equipment changes this week at 2009 PGA Championship.

Here is a complete list of the clubs in his bag at Hazeltine:

Driver:  Nike SQ Dymo (10°) with a Mitsubishi Diamana White Board 83x shaft
Fairway woods:  Nike SasQuatch Sumo (15°, 19°) with Mitsubishi Diamana Blue Board 103g shafts
Irons:   Nike Forged Blades (3-PW) with True Temper Dynamic Gold X100 shafts
Wedges:  Nike Victory Red (56°), SV (60°) with True Temper Dynamic Gold S400 shafts
Putter:  Titleist by Scotty Cameron Newport 2
Ball:  Nike One Tour

Following David Dusek on Twitter