It’s finally cooling down a bit here in Japan. It was as most people know exceptionally hot this year and it has stayed warm so late in the year. It’s hard to believe its almost December and temperatures are still getting as high as 18C during the day and only dropping as low as 10C at night. In other words golfing weather is still great!
Here in Japan’s golfing market, several big manufacturers have started their winter launches leading up to the Japan Golf Fair in February (hopefully this is where the new Taylormade R11 will make its appearance). This includes Tourstage, Yamaha, PRGR and ONOFF which are launching full fledged new lineups. The product listings for the new Tourstage X Series are already up in the pro shop and the listings for both Yamaha limited tour models for 2011. Hard to believe but the V425 Tour Model driver is already back ordered BEFORE launch!! Every year this seems to be the case with the limited Yamaha stuff and we expect to see the 2011 tour model irons sell out before 2011 even gets here. The rest of the product listings for Yamaha as well as the new PRGR and ONOFF will be added this coming week. Other news includes Miura Giken’s first metal wood release in several years, the new MG Hybrid which we have for sale as head only or custom built on request to customer specs. We’re looking forward to testing new clubs from all the manufacturers I just mentioned. Reviews and pictures will be posted here on the blog as always.
The summer say the Ping Anser Forged as the big demand iron, with many customers waiting 3-4 weeks to get their clubs. This fall, the king of swing is the new Titleist VG3 Forged which has been and still is in huge demand. Many customers are waiting for more than 4 weeks as Titleist cannot keep up with demand! (though I think its well worth the wait as the VG3 may very well be one of the best irons released this year). From what I see, and this is a personal observation, is that many of the top brands are having trouble keeping up with demand. One of the reasons for this, is a lot of the best equipment out there is all produced at the same factory, Endo. The best forged drivers in Japan including Epon, Tourstage, Yamaha, Callaway, PRGR and more are all produced at Endo and then throw in some of the hottest irons including Epon, all Yamaha forged irons, Titleist Forged irons, Callaway Forged irons, Fourteen, PRGR forged irons and more… and you can see Endo has quite a load on their hands. And this is quite a compliment for Endo as it shows most of the top brands know they are the forging house and club manufacturer of choice.
On a personal front, I’ve began nurturing two hobbies now… (though truthfully its more like 5 or 6 hobbies). The two main hobbies at least are golf of course and cameras as you’ve seen here on the blog. To be able to capture a moment in life or certain colors and atmosphere has become quite a joy for me. And as you can all imagine living in Japan the land of technology can only fuel BOTH my hobbies. A distant third in my hobby countdown is computers (which was once number one from me back in my competitive overclocking days). Japan is a pretty good place for that as well. Then again if I was truthful about my hobbies, number 1 would in fact be food. For those of you who know Japan, it is a haven for fine dining and tasty foods. :)
While I’ve been shooting a lot with my new Sony a33 and been very happy with the pictures. I’ve yet to really utilize the video capabilities of the camera. While obviously no camera, which has a first priority of taking still images, can match a dedicated video camera, the a33 certainly has some nice features. Thanks to its pellicle mirror the a33 and a55 can autofocus continuously and quickly while shooting video. No other video DSLR can even come close to matching it’s speed during video taking. This can be great for high action video and sports. The new Sony’s are also of course full HD.
This morning while going for a walk with my wife and our dog Saku, I decided to quickly give the video capabilities a try. Saku was playing for and looking for his ball in a pile of leaves from a Japanese maple tree. I shot the video in fully automatic mode though I would love to shoot manually and control aperture and exposure and of course utilizing more depth of field but I do fully expect that to be much more difficult. I uploaded the video to Vimeo which you can see below (those colorful high cut New Balance shoes are my wife’s). I’m impressed with the colors for my first try but the sound is terrible with the built in mic. I actually removed the audio because the wind noise was so bad, an external add on mic would do a much better job. Now all I have to do is learn how to actually take good video and encode it properly for the best quality.
Life is busy here at Tourspecgolf.com, but busy is good and as long as I can keep golfing and taking pictures through the winter I think I’ll be happy.
You have so many wonderful hobbies! Thanks for sharing them with us!! Speaking of sharing, you need to start posting pics of your numero uno hobby!!! :)
That autumn foliage is amazing.
Hey Saku, do you play by Canadian or Japanese leaves rule? Free drop if you can’t find your ball.
I just really happy those are your wife’s shoes and not yours.
dogs rule!
Looking forward to winter releases!
I wouldn’t include Fourteen with only a couple irons TC910/TC1000 made by Endo Thailand and none by Endo Japan. I do think when someone says Endo, they should clarify the facility, not because the quality may be so much different, but the cost of production certainly is. Why would one pay Japan Forged prices if the club isn;t made there?
Ummm that wasn’t my point but okay if you want to be that specific that goes for many companies then as not every company produces their entire lineup at Endo whether it be Japan or Thailand. My point was that Endo as a company is in big demand which is why many of the models are backed up since they are all produced at the same factory.
As for the Japan vs Thailand discussion… that’s constantly talked about and I have spoken to Endo and their top management about this and honestly manufacturing wise there is not much difference as being the same company they share the same materials, same processes, same kind of forging presses and are managed by the same people. Even if Fourteen is forged at Endo Thailand (though I need to confirm this as they state Japan) it still matches Endo’s quality standard using Japanese S20C and Endo’s processes. They were of course designed in Japan as well not in Thailand. It’s not a point I meant to bring up with this post but if you’d like to discuss it further we surely can in say the forum or another medium.