After knowing that I was going to buy the Callaway X-18 graphite irons, I went to 2nd Swing Golf and hit a bunch of different clubs to make sure I was making the right choice. What surprised me most was that I liked hitting the steel clubs better than the graphite clubs.

I narrowed it down to the Callaway X-18 steel and the Ping G5 steel. I never even thought of Ping when I was looking for clubs but after hitting a ton of balls with them I decided that they were the ones. But not before causing a lot of noise in the store.

Since I had it down to the 2 brands they taped up the faces of the irons with masking tape and I hit a bunch more. What’s nice about that is not only does it protect the face while they are still in the store, but you can easily see where on the club you are hitting the ball because of the imprint of the dimples left behind on the tape. I hit them both about the same but the Pings were a little more consistent.

So they put this white tape on the bottom of the club that had a gauge on it. Then they brought out this Plexiglas mat, set a ball on it and had me hit it. After you hit it you look at the white tape and it is black where you are hitting the ground. Lets you know how the lie is working for you. The Ping was right on the money. He said you really couldn’t get any better than that. So I tried the Callaway and it was a little on the inside and a hair towards the heel. Again, not too bad, so he put a new piece of white tape on the Ping and had me try it again.

I took a huge swing at it and must have dipped down a little because the club caught the back edge of the Plexiglas and it sounded like an explosion went off. The club head went flying in to the wall and I was left just holding the shaft of the club. Everyone in the store turned to see what all the noise was. It was really loud. That Plexiglas is tough! Everyone agreed that no club would have survived the blow to the Plexiglas. Embarrassing.

I almost left with the Callaways but the Ping just felt a little better since it has a wider bottom to help get the ball in the air quicker. I don’t think I would have gone wrong either way and can’t wait to get out and try the new clubs.

Oh, the best part is that I call them my free clubs because we went to the casino and I won enough to more than cover the cost of the clubs. Enough that I also brought home a new Odyssey 2 ball blade putter. The only thing I have left to do is to have the regular flex graphite shaft on the R580 driver switched to stiff.