MARANA, Ariz. — I've been snooping around the golf bags of the game's best players for about three years. As a group, the pros are demanding, exacting and almost always open to anything that can help them play better. With the money that's on the line, why wouldn’t they want any edge they can get?

Before I started to really pay attention to their irons, I assumed that all pros played a uniform set, but that's not the case. Players like Phil Mickelson, Anthony Kim and Stewart Cink mix and match different types of irons to create their sets.

For example, Mickelson uses a Callaway X-Forged 4-iron, but his 5-iron through pitching wedge are prototype Callaway RAZR Muscle Back blades.

There are two main reasons why lots of pros choose to go with more forgiving cavity back long-irons. First, they're simply easier to hit.

"Sometimes you stand there and you get an awkward lie and you just go, 'I know I'm a great player, but I just can't pull off this shot because the ball is sitting in a divot or a ball mark or whatever," Paul Casey said before the start of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

The Englishman, who is ranked No. 6 in the world, uses Nike VR Pro Combo long irons and VR Pro Blade mid- and short irons. Until recently, he carried an old Nike Pro Combo OS 2-iron. You can see his irons in the photo on the right.

"If that situation costs you one shot at a tournament, that's one shot too many," he said. "That could be the difference."

Just as they do for weekend players, cavity back long irons offer the pros larger sweet spots and more forgiveness than blades. Awkward shots like Casey described are simply easier to handle with the help of a little technology.

More reasons the pros consider dropping a cavity back iron or two into their bag: those firm, fast greens they face on tour.

"I used blades for a long time," Ian Poulter told me in the practice area at the Ritz Carlton Course at Dove Mountain. "But then I just wanted to hit my long irons a little higher, so going from a blade to something with a cavity just made a lot of sense."

Poulter, who is currently ranked No. 12 in the world, uses Cobra Pro CB irons (4-7) and Pro MB irons (8-PW). You can see his irons in the photo at right.

Hitting higher long irons helps stop the ball faster on the firm greens of par 5s and long par 3s. Generally speaking, hybrids and fairway woods don't stop the ball as quickly as irons do.

There has never been a better time to mix and match clubs for amateur players who want to create their own composite set of irons. Lots of manufacturers sell clubs individually, and in many cases, different clubs look very similar to one another in the address position.

Poulter told me the transition within his set has not been a problem, and at address his irons all look the same.

That said, the transition from an oversize iron to a cavity back, or from a cavity back to a blade, can create problems if you try to create a composite set by yourself. Without the help of a good club fitter and a launch monitor, significant distance gaps between your irons can inadvertently be created. To avoid this problem, a good club fitter might adjust your lofts or suggest slightly different shafts to blend two or more types of clubs into an effective set.

"I think it would help amateurs way more than it helps us pros," Casey said.

Assuming you don't practice as often as a tour pro, Casey's advice could well be worth heeding.

See-Try-Buy: Learn more about Cobra and Nike clubs, and schedule your fitting with GolfTEC or Golfsmith.

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Paul Casey was the first player to put a Nike Method putter in play at a PGA Tour event, the 2008 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club. A few weeks later at the Barclays Championship at Ridgewood Country Club, Casey beamed when he talked to me about his new putter.

"C'mon, I'll give you a sneaky peaky," he told me on the driving range.

Casey, the winner of last week's Volvo Golf Champions in Bahrain, recently sent me four images comparing the original Method putter to his new one, a customized Nike Method Core.

The original Method putter has grooves milled directly into the head that are partially filled by a polymer. The edge of the groove that remains exposed grabs the ball and helps get it rolling faster, according to Nike. In the new Method Core putter, the same polymer groove technology is housed in a red insert, instead of in the putter head itself.

As you can see in the photos below, the two heads are nearly identical, but Casey's Method Core (which is based on the Method 001's head) has a plumber's neck instead of a slant neck.

"After trying the Method Core putters I was a fan of the way the ball rolled off the face," Casey told me in an e-mail. "So I asked [Nike's] David Franklin if he could combine the face of a Core with my traditional head shape. He obliged so what you see here is a bit of a David Franklinstein creation!"

Casey's new Method Core has a red insert that contains the polymer grooves.

The new putter has Casey's name stamped on the neck...

... and a plumber's neck.

See-Try-Buy: Learn more about Nike clubs and schedule your fitting with GolfTEC or Golfsmith.

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Paul Casey fell in love with a prototype of Nike's Method 001 putter after trying it at the company's test center in Ft. Worth, Texas. After convincing company brass to allow him use the club in competition, Casey dropped it into his bag at the 2008 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

It's never left.

In 2009, both Stewart Cink and Lucas Glover won major championships using a Method prototype, and last year Tiger Woods started sporadically using one too.

But for a lot of golfers, the $250 price tag attached the Method putters was simply too much to fork over. Nike aims to change that with the release of the Method Core line of putters, which have a $129 sticker.

Like the original Method putters, the Method Core line features a unique polymer-groove technology that Nike says gets the ball rolling on the greens faster. However, while the grooves are cut into the face of the Method putters, Nike designers set the grooves of the Method Core putters in an insert.

Essentially, the technology is the same: the grooves are partially filled with a polymer for soft feel, but the unfilled lower portion of the grooves grab the ball and get it rolling.

Nike says the original Method putter starts the ball rolling a touch faster, but not by much. The company also says that the Method Core putter should give a softer feel than the original Method because the grooves are housed in the insert.

Method Core putters will be available in three blade models and two mallets, and all will come with a Black Nickel finish that reduces glare. None of the designs are shockingly unique, and in fact, all five will look familiar to many golfers.

Look for the new Method Core putters to start arriving in pro shops by early March.

See-Try-Buy: Learn more about Nike  clubs and schedule your fitting with GolfTEC or Golfsmith.

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ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- In their never ending quest for more distance off the tee, most professional golfers try to reduce the spin imparted to the ball by the driver. Backspin does help get the ball airborne, but too much spin makes drives balloon, decreasing yards. The trick is to find the combination of loft, shaft and ball that creates the ideal spin rate and launch angle.

For Paul Casey, that meant a Nike Victory Red Tour driver with 9.5° of loft, an 83 gram Mitsubishi Diamana Blue Board shaft and a Nike One Tour golf ball. With that combination he has averaged 290 yards off the tee in PGA Tour events this season and 298 yards per drive on the European Tour.

But this week Casey decided to increase the loft of his driver. Here's his rationale for the move:

I went up about three quarters of a degree. The reason being the squalls we were getting coming through this week, the rainstorms. My spin rate is pretty low, I'm low 2,000s RPM off the driver which is great when it's nice and hot and sunny, and tricky when water gets between the ball and the clubface. So I had a couple of drives slip off the driver face and not go in the desired direction in practice. So I changed that, got through it on Thursday, played pretty good, but went into the van and [Nike Tour rep] Pete Powell in the truck went from a 9.5° to a 10.5°, same head, VR Tour, same shaft, same everything. I said I just want more spin. He said that the easiest way of doing it is more loft. 

I haven't had a problem keeping it down if I want to keep it down. We're just getting our numbers, but if it just gives another 100 or 200 rpm, that's the difference between middle one that slides off the face, and one that goes down the middle of the fairway. That's given me the confidence this week.

The adjustment certainly seemed to pay off, because through the first three rounds he hit 81 percent of  fairways and averaged 314 yards per drive.

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Driver: Nike Victory Red Tour (10.5°) with a Mitsubishi Diamana Blue Board 83X shaft
Fairway woods: Nike SQ II (15°, 19°) with Mitsubishi Diamana Blue Board 103X shafts
Irons: Nike Pro Combo OS (3) and Victory Red Forged Split Cavity (4, 5) with Project X 7.0 shafts, Victory Red Forged Blades (6-PW) with True Temper Dynamic Gold shafts
Wedges: Nike Victory Red (52°, 59°) with True Temper Dynamic Gold shafts
Putter: Nike Method 001
Ball: Nike One Tour

See-Try-Buy: Learn more about Nike clubs and schedule your fitting with GolfTEC.

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(Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

In this video provided by Nike Golf, Stewart Cink, Paul Casey, Michelle Wie and other staff pros talk about the Nike ONE ball.

Related: Follow David Dusek on Twitter | See-Try-Buy: Nike clubs and GolfTEC custom fitting

In this video provided by Nike Golf, Stuart Cink and Paul Casey talk about their experience with the new Victory Red STR8-Fit Tour driver. Tom Stites, Nike's director of product creation, also explains what makes the club special.

Related: Follow David Dusek on Twitter | Nike Clubs and Custom Fitting

TaylorMade
During the off-season, Sean O'Hair switched from TaylorMade's Tour Preferred irons to the company's new R9 TP irons.

Martin Laird, Nathan Green, Retief Goosen and SBS Championship runner-up Rory Sabbatini are all playing TaylorMade's new TP wedges with XFT, which have interchangeable face plates that allow golfers to replace old and worn grooves without having to switch clubs.

2009 PGA Championship winner Y.E. Yang (top) asked TaylorMade to build him a new 3-wood that produced a lower ball flight and would keep his shots below the winds swirling in Hawaii. Yang used a 13° TaylorMade Burner TP at Kapalua.

Nike
All four Nike staff players who competed last week at Kapalua—Stewart Cink, Paul Casey (right), Stephen Ames and Lucas Glover—used one of the company's Method putters. The Method line of putters should begin arriving in pro shops around Feb. 1.

Casey and Cink both used Nike's new Victory Red STR8-Fit Tour drivers, but stuck with their trusty SQ II fairway woods.

Titleist
I was well documented that SBS Championship winner Geoff Ogilvy is now a Titleist staff player, having switched from another Acushnet brand, Cobra. Bo Van Pelt also competed at Kapalua as a Titleist player for the first time. Van Pelt used:

DRIVER: Titleist 909 D2 (8.5°) with a Mitsubishi Fubuki 73 X shaft
FAIRWAY: Titleist 909 F3 (15°) with a Mitsubishi Diamana Blue 73 X shaft
HYBRID: Titleist 909H (17°) with a UST Mamiya Proforce V2 104 shaft
IRONS: Titleist Forged MB (4-PW) with True Temper Dynamic Gold SL shafts
WEDGES: Titleist Vokey Design Spin Milled C-C (51°, 56°, 60°) with True Temper Dynamic Gold SL shafts

Related: Follow David Dusek on Twitter | Nike | TaylorMade | Titleist

(Photos: Yang/Eric Risberg/AP; Casey/Robert Beck/SI)

In this video provided by Nike Golf, several of the game's top players explain what they hope to achieve this season:

For more on Nike Golf's latest equipment, go to golf.com/nike.

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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)

CHASKA, Minn. – A year after Paul Casey convinced Nike officials to let him use a new prototype putter at the 2008 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, the company officially announced the arrival of the Method putter line Tuesday evening.

There are five putters in the line and each will retail for about $250. A limited number will be available later in 2009. The putters will be made widely available on Feb. 1 of next year. The photos here show the Method 1, an Anser-style, heel-toe weighted blade with a plumber's neck and site dot. There are two other blade-style putters in the line, as well as two heel-shafted mallets.

All of the five Method putters come standard with 2° of loft and will be available in 33-, 34-, and 35-inch lengths. None of the five head shapes are groundbreaking, but each employs a technology that has drawn a lot of attention.

The grooves in the face of the Method putters are what Nike calls Polymer Groove Technology. A channel is cut in the sole of the club and behind the face. A soft polymer material is then forced into the channel and allowed to seep out of slots cut into the putter's face (right). A portion of the polymer is then cut out, leaving a tiny gap between the soft material and the sharp stainless steel grooves.

"As the putter is coming up and through the ball, these tiny little knife edges of steel will actually dig into the ball, and the polymer will dampen the feel," said Tom Stites, Nike's director of product innovation.

On the green, a golf ball rests in a small depression created by its weight. Putters need loft to get the ball out of the depression, but the loft also imparts backspin, which causes the ball to tumble when it first lands rather than rolling smoothly. Nike says these polymer grooves help get the ball out of its depression without imparting backspin.

"By taking the backspin off, the ball can just start to roll," Stites said. "A putt that rolls more quickly and more true to the hole is more efficient, goes a little bit farther and stays on line much better."

Using high-speed video footage, Nike officials showed that, using his old putter, Justin Leonard's putts skidded 3.6 inches before they started to roll. Using a prototype Method putter, that distance was reduced to .3 inches.

"By being able to bite into the ball itself, we're able to put less loft on the putter, still lift the ball out of the depression on the green, but we get immediate over-roll."

Stites also pointed out that by creating the channel and removing some steel from the face, 30 grams of weight could be redistributed to improve performance. That mass was repositioned in the form of tungsten weights (right) placed in the heel and toe areas to lower the center of gravity and add stability at impact.

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

(Photos by David Dusek)

This week via Twitter, I asked Paul Casey what this week's winner will have to do well at Turnberry.

His answer was simple: "Drive the ball well. Look at the two previous Turnberry winners, Norman and Price. Both drove it brilliantly. Same this week."

Casey's coach, GOLF Magazine Top 100 Teacher and CBS on-course analyst Peter Kostis, told me, "Drive it poorly here and you won't finish."

To avoid Turnberry's deep rough and handle a forecast that calls for a mix of sun, rain and wind, players will need to be especially dialed-in with their drivers. For Casey, that means he's got to be accurate with his Nike SQ Tour (8.5°).

According to TaylorMade, Rod Pampling practiced on Tuesday with an R9 460 that was cut down to just 43.5 inches. That's an inch and a half shorter than standard length. Generally, a shorter driver will allow for more control and feel, but less power. The effect is similar to a baseball player choking down on his bat.

According to Titleist, Adam Scott (right) tested a shorter driver in the days leading up to the British Open. The Aussie has experimented with a 909 D2 (9.5°) with a UST Proforce V2 86 shaft that is just 44.25” long.

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(Photo by Peter Morrison/AP Photos)

Before the start of U.S. Open at Bethpage, many players put hybrid clubs in their bags and pulled out long irons. With several long par 4s and wet conditions to contend with, they were looking for a way to hit high-flying, soft-landing shots from 220 to 230 yards out.

Now, as the best players in the world get ready to take on Turnberry's Ailsa Course in Scotland in the British Open, those long irons may be going back in the bag.

On Tuesday, Paul Casey said on Twitter:
"Thinking the 5 wood will be coming out and the 2 iron will be making a guest appearance for the Open. No other changes."

I asked him which model and he wrote back, "Still the Nike Pro Combo OS. I have 2 or 3 of them that I'm hanging on to."

Turnberry is located on the western coast of Scotland, so players can expect windy conditions. Since hybrids are designed to hit the ball high, irons would seem to be a better choice.

Here is a list of the clubs that Casey used to win the blustery 2009 Shell Houston Open:

Driver: Nike SQ Tour (8.5°) with a Mitsubishi Diamana Blue Board shaft
Fairway woods: Nike SQ II (13°)
Irons: Nike Pro Combo OS (2), Victory Red Forged Split Cavity (3, 4), Victory Red Forged Blades (5-PW)
Wedges: Nike Victory Red (52°, 59°)
Putter: Nike Prototype
Ball: Nike One Tour

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(Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)

AUGUSTA, Ga. – I had a chance to talk with Paul Casey in the locker room this week, and the winner of last week's Shell Houston Open told me he's just about ready to switch drivers.

Casey began testing a new Nike Dymo 380 (9.5°) at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in February, but he has continued to use a Nike SQ Tour (8.5°) in competition. In tests, Casey has continued to use the Mitsubishi Diamana White Board shaft that is in his current driver.

Tiger Woods and Anthony Kim have already made the switch to the 380cc model, which Nike's Rick Nichols says has a lower moment of inertia (MOI) that should allow the pros to carve the ball left and right more easily. Most amateur players need a high MOI in order to hit straighter drives.

Aside from being smaller, the Dymo 380 looks identical its sibling, the Dymo and STR8-Fit Dymo, but according to Nike it is not going to be available to consumers.

(Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

Here is a list of the clubs that Paul Casey used to win the 2009 Shell Houston Open.

Driver:                   Nike SQ Tour (8.5°) with a Mitsubishi Diamana Blueboard shaft
Fairway woods:     Nike SQ II (13°)
Irons:                    Nike Victory Red Forged Split Cavity (2-4), Victory Red Forged Blades (5-PW)
Wedges:                Nike Victory Red (52°, 59°)
Putter:                   Nike Prototype
Ball:                      Nike One Tour

(Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)