Bridgestone Golf has been around for quite a while, but its only in the last couple of years that I’ve seen their balls on the shelves of local pro shops and retailers. They are fast gaining a reputation for quality. I know a golfer who has converted in the last year to Bridgestone balls and swears that they are the best on the market.

The E5 and E6 models made Golf Digest’s 2006 Hot List for Value Performance balls.

The E5 is designed to produce higher trajectory for greater distance, while still offering soft feel around the green. The ball has a two-piece urethane cover with a seamless 432-dimple pattern. The Seamless Cover Technology is supposed to eliminate any vagries in ball flight that come from the intersection of seams and dimples.

Bridgestone’s E6 is aimed at players who need to hit the fairway more often.  The 330-dimple design and the seamless cover are designed to reduce sidespin, and thus, hooks and slices.

Interestingly, Golf Digest’s criticism of the two balls was that the editors were “not sure how to choose between the two.” Let me help them out: E5=Distance; E6=Accuracy.

BRIDGESTONE E5 Golf Ball

BRIDGESTONE E6 Golf Ball

Tour Edge has a reputation for high quality, but low priced clubs. That’s why the Iron Wood was a 2005 Golf Digest Best Value, and why it’s on the 2006 Golf Digest Hot List.

Designed—as all hybrids are—as a long iron replacement, the Iron Wood is designed to be more forgiving and easier to get the ball in the air. The hollow body is constructed of super-thin super steel, which allows half of the clubhead’s mass to be positioned in the sole. The body is supported by internal struts.

You can get the Bazooka JMax Ironwoods in three different combinations: as an individual iron, as a set of Iron Woods, or in a mixture of Iron Woods and Traditional Irons. That’s a terrific idea, and one that I’d liek to see other manufacturers offer. TaylorMade, for example could offer a set that consists of 3, 4, and 5 Rescue Duals, and 6-PW R7 XDs. Or Ping could have a 3, 4, and 5 G5, with 6-PW irons.

The idea good, but it isn’t new. There’s a retired teacher I know (who coached the school’s golf teams before me) who has always played with a club set composed nearly entirely of woods. Some of those woods have faces that look like ski slopes. But he had to compile that set on his own, since such things weren’t available when he started.

You can check prices and get more information at Golfsmith, below:

TOUR EDGE JMAX IronWood w/Steel Shaft

TOUR EDGE JMAX Iron Wood Set w/Graphite Shaft

TOUR EDGE Bazooka J-Max QL Combo Set 3,4/ 5-PW w/ Graphite Shaft

Like their big brother the MacTec NVG2 Driver, the NVG2 Irons have an unusual look. In the 2006 Golf Digest Hot List, they were described as “borderline malformed,” but were praised for being “ridiculously easy to hit.”

The irons are a Frankenstein monster of technologies. The cup face design eliminates welds from the face, and stretches the high rebound surface over as large an area as possible. MacGregor says that this gives its clubs the largest possible “sweet spot.”

The clubs also feature maraging steel, variable face thickness, and a tungsten weighting system that moves the weights around to maximize each club.

MACGREGOR MACTEC NVG2 Iron Set 3-PW w/ Steel Shaft

The TaylorMade r7 CGB Max is probably the best looking of the Super Game Improvement Irons on Golf Digest’s 2006 Hot List. I spent a long time at the local pro shop the other day, standing over the various irons and quietly swinging them. The CGB Max looked the least like a game improvement iron.  I guess I really just don’t buy into the standard golf manufacturer’s line that a thick topline “promotes confidence.”

Personal preferenes aside, the TaylorMade CGB Max has a lot of high tech features to help you improve your game. At the heart of it all is TaylorMade’s pull face construction, in which a thin 455 stainless steel face is welded to a hollow topline frame. The large, thin, unsupported face produces an extremely high Coefficient of Restitution for an iron, resulting in more distance.

Pull face technology also allows TaylorMade to use the same ‘inverted core technology” that has made their drivers and fairway woods so easy to play. TaylorMade says that they spent three years trying to find a way to incorporate the inverted core technology into irons.

With the largest steel clubface TaylorMade has ever made, the CGB Max also has the largest moment of inertia, making it very stable on off-center hits. Tungsten weights and a hollow topline allowed TaylorMade to shift even more weight to optimize launch conditions.

TAYLORMADE r7 CGB Max Irons 3-PW w/Steel Shaft

The Ping G5 Fairway Wood rightfully has a place on the 2006 Golf Digest Hot List. Like all of Ping’s club’s, it’s designed to be easy-to-hit, but still usable by low handicappers.

The G5 is the successor to the G2, which was itself an outstanding fairway wood. A friend of mine has a whole bag full of Pings and I had a chance to hit his G2s last year. I hit some very nice shots with it, and was duly impressed.

This year’s offering from Ping comes in 3, 5, 7 and 9 woods. In each, the internal weight pads are strategically positioned, moving further back as loft increases. Thus, Ping says, you get more distance with the lower lofts, and more accuracy with the higher ones.  The face is made of thin 455 Carpenter steel, and is plasma welded to the body. A ‘rocker sole” design is supplsed to help you get the ball moving, and the face squared through all sorts of lies.

The club has a crescent moon- shaped alignment aid on the top, which seems to be a theme lately with Ping. Their new putters also have the crescent. I think that it looks very nice and is confidence building. Somehow, the curve looks as though its going to sweep through the ball.