Well I did not expect that!

[Slab]

Thread for anything golf related that turned out it just wasn't what you expected (either in a good way or a bad way) Could be gear, clothing, a course or anything really




I'll kick off with the Pinnacle Soft golf ball. I'd hit the older pinnacle 'rocks' and that lived up to its nick-name, so when i won a box of these Softs for a NTP I wasn't all that hopeful.... but these things really are surprisingly nice!

I get that some of the better players might never try these but for your average Joe Golfer I'd say give them a try (at about £13 a doz its not much to lose)

If I'm buying balls then my choice/budget would normally top out with the Callaway chrome-soft which I really like but these Pinnacles feel pretty similar and go at least as far if not further (always subjective i know), for half the price and unlike some of the more expensive soft labelled balls, the cover doesn't cut up either

I've only used them for a couple rounds so far but kept the same ball all the way round yesterday and its still in good shape (and it was put into play the round before)

So its a :thup: for these because I did not expect that!

 

[Capella]

My first driver was from a cheap beginners set (I got it off ebay, just the driver, for 5 € or so). I always felt that I was hitting it quite well. Nothing wrong with it, slightly shorter shaft, easy to control and went further than the hyrid, which had been my longest club in the bag to that point. I am not a massive believer in brand names and advertisement, so I was pretty happy to have found a functioning driver for so cheap. Then, during a golf holiday, the pro asked me: "Why do you bother with such a crappy driver?" I told him it was working fine for me and that I did not believe that a more expensive one would do a better job. He said:
"Yeah, okay, lets test that theory. Hit a drive."
I did, and was quite pleased with the result, a maybe 140 yard hit, which was pretty much what I was used to seeing from my driver on a good hit. The pro grabbed the driver out of another woman's bag. It was a Taylormade Burner, from a set that she had rented for the holiday, so not a very current model, I think it was about 5 years old or something. The pro handed it to me and said: "Now hit this."
I did and the result absolutely stunned me. I would say that the swing was pretty similar to the shot I had hit with my own driver, but it went a good thirty yards longer without any extra effort and just felt and sounded so much better.

As soon as I got back home, I banished the no-name driver from my bag and got my current Cobra Fly-Z. It was probably the biggest leap forward in my golf game ever. So yeah, not everything the golf advertisements promise might be true, but there really is a tremendous difference between a crappy no-name club and a quality brand name one.

 

[Junior]

I did not expect that, having signed up to a golf forum 10 years ago, I would have played so much golf, on so many different courses, with so many different people.

The best thing about this forum imo.