3 wood & driver advice??!

Hey guyz,

With my birthday and christmas coming up , i'm allowed to replace my old 3 wood and driver. I've got around £100 to spend on 3 wood, and £200 on the driver, my swing speed is about 90 mph and hit about 250 with the driver and 220 with the 3 wood.

The clubs i've looked at so far are:
Drivers-
Callaway Big Bertha Titanium 454 Driver
The r7 Hi-Core Quad driver
CLEVELAND LAUNCHER 460 COMP DRIVER

3 Woods
TAYLOR MADE RESCUE FAIRWAY WOOD
MIZUNO MP-001 FAIRWAY WOOD


Will a rescue 3 wood differ from a normal 3 wood; length, accuracy, easier to hit etc? if so which is better.

Which is better, graphite shaft or steel? or are they similar?

Any other suggestionson drivers and 3 woods??!!

Thanks very much
Richard

__________________
It's not how much skill, it's how much will

For a 3 wood, I'd recommend the TaylorMade V-Steel. So easy to hit of the tee and fairway and you will be able to find some decent prices for one now that the newer version is out. The Callaway Bertha fairway woods are awesome too.

Can't really help you out with drivers I'm afraid. I've got a r580 which I love to bits, but it's a bit 'old'. If you can get your hands on an r7 for that money, that's what I'd recommend.

Get Ashton X1. It comes in both driver and 3 wood, and both are beeeeeyoutaful!

I second Ben - I have Ashton and it would take a lot of cash for me to switch to another brand. Since that day will probably never come, I will be sticking with my Ashton X-1s for a long time.

Here is a list of distributors (which are also located in Europe) for Ashton products: http://www.ashtongolf.com/Distributo...tributors.html

Gord, are you using the X1 3 wood? And if so, is the the 'D' or straight up?

They look nice, what maeks the better than the r7, Big bertha etc? Just need to know a bit about them, never heard of them before.

What makes them better? All the performance (and more), for much less money. (Read: Ashton isn't paying players to use their stuff, and haven't sunk millions into marketing).

It's the same (or better) technology, though.

I have the Ashton MS-5 driver and the X-1 3 wood. I have had the three wood for about a year now (I got it just before they came out with the deep version).

What makes them better? Well, as Ben mentioned, they are less expensive to purchase. You aren't shelling out big bucks to have the TM logo on your club. Also, if you go into the R&D section of Ashton's website, they are leaders in the inovation of how the clubs are made.

Snoop around their site, if you have any questions, post them up here or you can even email them at info@ashtongolf.com and they will actually answer your questions quite quickly!!! I have sent them a few emails and I was pleasantly surprised with how quickly they responded. Once you email them they will also automatically update you on new products that are coming out.

__________________
Gord

Quote of the month:
"It's easy to see golf not as a game at all but as some whey-faced, nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister's fever dream of exorcism achieved through ritual and self-mortification." ~Bruce McCall

I forgot to mention, they are comng out with a new driver head for 2006, but prices won't be as easy on the pocket book due to the process. Here is a copy of the email I was sent:

Yes, the rumours are true. We're working on a new driver for 2006. We'll be debuting it at the Orlando show in January.

Here's a little bit of info on it...
Black, like our other drivers and fairway woods
X-1 Score lines
MS-5 shape but deeper
460cc
Moly Ti double satin face
3 intersecting eliptical sweetspots behind the face for max forgiveness
Max COR along a larger area of the face.
Brand new headcover

Here's the kicker. We're working on the tolerance of the head to be +/-0.
In other words, every head will be absolutely identical, loft wise, lie wise, weight wise and the COR of each head will be exactly the same. This is in response to customers who buy a driver, lend it to a friend, the friend loves it and buys what he thinks is the same head but it doesn't perform the same. Probably because one of the loft/lie, weight or COR is not the same. With the new E3, the performance will be exactly the same from every head, in the same loft.

Something new for us too. We've now got the opportunity to work with some PGA Tour players. They're going to test prototypes for us over the next 2 months to give us feedback. We might even be able to get one of them to endorse the product too.

I really do think this head will stand out not only in the component industry but in the golf industry in general.
As far as price goes, we won't be able to settle on the price until our testing is complete. All I can say at this time is it won't be cheap.

I'll keep you posted.

Thanks,
Cliff

Ashton Golf

__________________
Gord

Quote of the month:
"It's easy to see golf not as a game at all but as some whey-faced, nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister's fever dream of exorcism achieved through ritual and self-mortification." ~Bruce McCall

I saw that on FGI.

We started ribbing Cliff...

"So, what happens with the heads that aren't within tolerance?"

The best answer:

The in-spec head is expensive, and the out-of-tolerance heads are the price of other high-quality heads.

What is FGI???

what are the prices for the ashtons?

FGI = Free Golf Info
http://www.freegolfinfo.com

As a guy from Ontario, I head to www.customclubshop.com

As an American, I'd head to http://www.lowprogolf.com/LOWPRO_DRI...ductID=ASH1002 for the X-1, or http://www.lowprogolf.com/LOWPRO_DRI...ductID=ASH1001 for the new MS-5