You know that great feeling when you have a new piece of equipment that's working for you? That honeymoon period is sweet.
It's the same for Ernie Els, a recent convert to Callaway equipment.
"I'm so excited now," he said at Bay Hill. "Especially with my new equipment and Callaway and the new golf ball and the driver and stuff. So I feel, you know, I feel like a rookie almost again. I've got new energy and working with new people and it's exciting. The whole company is excited that I've joined and it's vice versa."
In fact, while Els switched his driver right away, he had planned to wait a while before putting Callaway irons in the bag. That plan changed as he found the right clubs more quickly than anticipated.
"I didn't have to change until the end of the year," he said. "But I was obviously excited and I liked what I saw and I liked what I felt. (Callaway club designer) Roger (Cleveland) has made this new mold iron, new forged mold iron which really feels so soft when you strike the ball. I love what I felt and what I saw."
Els said he loved the irons so much he put them into play Sunday at the Johnnie Walker Classic in Thailand at the beginning of the month.
"I hit 16 greens that day," Els said. "If I putted better I could have given Anton Haig, behind there, a bit more of a go."
Els also banished his 2-iron in favor of a 5-wood, which he said he hits 245 with a higher and softer ball flight.
SINGH WINS WITH SAME PUTTER: Vijay Singh used to be known as a man who would change putters regularly. Now, it seems, he has something he's sticking with.
"The way I putted today, I think (it will stay) for a while," he said after his win Sunday. "I started off just before the Father and Son last year. I was fiddling around with it at home, and I just felt good with it. I found a putter that I never used before, but it was the perfect length and looked really good when I set it down.
"But it was a belly putter, so I went out on the golf course and started putting with it and started making putts with it. Played in the Father and Son with it. Went to Hawaii early to practice and I didn't take any other putter but the belly, so I had no choice but to go out and play with that.
So I practiced and played with that putter and just stuck to it."
The putter, a Never Compromise GM2 Exchange model, has racked up two wins so far for Singh.
KING WEIGHS IN ON EQUIPMENT ROLL BACK: Arnold Palmer, host of the Invitational that bears his name, made his feelings clear on equipment issues before the tournament began.
"There is certainly a movement in the direction that I'm going, and the one is the most recent adoption of the back to V-grooves versus square grooves," he said. "I think it took me a long time to convince Dick Rugge that they needed to look at the square groove situation simply because of the way these guys hit the golf ball, and hit it in the rough - unless the rough is like this rough, there's no big deal because the square grooves are almost like hitting it out of the fairway. So that's one of my wishes; that the V-grooves would come back to a reality in golf.
"I suppose that the second one that I would like to see is the golf ball. I'd like to see the golf ball slowed down. Just to help keep from having to do the exaggerated things that we are doing now to golf courses. You know, I just opened two golf courses on the west and they are both 7,600 yards. Well, somewhere along the way, we've got to kind of curtail that, pull it back a little bit."
PHIL SAYS SQUARE IS COMING: Phil Mickelson is on track for putting Callaway Golf's FT-i square driver in his bag at Augusta National. The real question is, why hasn't the previous Masters champion put it in play in other tournaments?
"The reason is the fairways are tight," Mickelson said. "The wind is usually a crosswind, and the FT-5, which I've been using all year, it's much easier to hit low and shape shots. And the driver I'm going to use at Augusta, I just want to hit it high and straight and far. And although that sounds great, it doesn't always fit with Tour courses."
That said, Mickelson admitted he may try the driver next week at Doral, for at least "a couple of rounds."
FROM TAYLORMADE'S TOUR VAN: After launch monitor testing showed that he should bring his spin rate down a little, Darren Clarke tried an r7 SuperQuad 9.5 bent to 8.5 degrees with a slightly open face. He's using 10 grams of weight in the front and 3 grams in the back port of the club. ... Joey Sindelar has been using a 510 driver for a while, but he's now moved to an r7 SuperQuad as well. His best configuration was an 8.5 bent to 7 degrees with a neutral fade, achieved by 12 grams of weight in the front toe, 1 gram in the back toe, 12 grams in the back heel and 1 gram in the front heel. ... Bay Hill local Robert Damron got a new r7 SuperQuad 8.5 with a fade set up. ... Retief Goosen put a Burner 8.5 driver into his bag for the first time in competition. The Goose is also playing a Burner TP fairway wood 15 bent to 14 degrees and tried a TP Black golf ball for first time. ... Sergio Garcia gave the new Burner TP 3-wood a try at Bay Hill. ... Tim Herron grabbed a Burner 10.5 driver for the first time.
COUNTDOWN: Cleveland Golf won the sand, lob and approach wedge count at the AT&T Champions Classic last week with 46 wedges. They also took the all wedge count category with 50 wedges.
