If you are going to use CBD, this is the only way

CBD is a non-psychoactive phytocannabinoid that has reportedly helped a number of people with a variety of symptoms as well as conditions. These range from muscle spasm and chronic pain to intense anxiety and inflammation. Due to the increasing popularity of CBD and CBD oil products, many are asking… Is CBD safe and what is …

from Dai Manuel: Your Lifestyle Mentor https://ift.tt/2SAPrE7

{VIDEO} – A Shot of the Truth: Wilson Driver vs. Driver 2

MyGolfSpy Owner, Adam Beach and Director of Club Testing, Sam Robinson were featured on Episode 5 of Wilson’s Driver vs. Driver 2. As guest judges, they hit each of the 4 remaining designs and joined Jeremy Roenick and Rick Shiels in providing feedback on the performance.

If you haven’t done so already, there’s still time to enter our Driver vs. Driver contest. And you’ll definitely want to watch today’s video for an opportunity to win something truly special…in a matter of speaking.

Watch as Adam and Sam discuss the Wilson Golf brand, their experience on Driver vs. Driver, and which club they think has the best shot at winning and coming to retail.

from MyGolfSpy https://ift.tt/2OgsVgr

Halloween Writing Prompt: Terrify Readers With Six-Word Stories

Happy Halloween, everyone! Since I write horror, this is obviously my favorite holiday. To celebrate, I crafted several six-word horror stories to tweet throughout the day. And today, you’re going to practice doing the same thing!

Warning: Six-word stories are addicting.

Six-Word Horror Stories

Supposedly Hemingway invented the six-word short story with, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” I don’t know about you, but every time I read that a chill runs down my spine.

What happened there? Did the baby die? Was there a false pregnancy? Was the family rich and just didn’t need those shoes? Were they never the right size for the baby? Who’s selling the shoes?

Both six-word stories and horror rely on unanswered questions and the unknown, which makes them natural bedfellows. In six words, you don’t have time to build tension, develop monsters (or any other characters), or even set the scene. What you really need to rely on for this exercise is the reader’s imagination.

Here’s one of the six-word horror stories I wrote: “Jake barks furiously; the closet’s empty.”

This isn’t horror gold (or even six-word gold), but see how you have to fill out the rest of the story with your imagination? Just like with Hemingway’s six-worder, there are questions here. I mean, do we even know Jake’s a dog?

“

Six-word stories and horror both rely on unanswered questions. Give your readers just enough clues to set up a story, and let their imaginations fill in the rest.

Tweet this

Tweet

A six-word story is a flash of emotion that’s left open for interpretation. There are a million questions and the reader’s emotional impression of the story is up to how they answer those questions. Most people probably feel sorrow over Hemingway’s. With horror, you’ll want to aim for chilling or even gross.

Six-word stories are kind of akin to a joke. There’s a bit of an “Oh I get it!” moment when you’re finished reading. This normally comes in the last two words, which serve as a twist ending or big reveal for the story.

Think about Hemingway’s story again. The words “never worn” are what make the whole thing come together. They bring the emotion and completely change the (normally rather innocuous) meaning of the other four words.

You can look here and here for more examples of six-word stories to help you get a feel for the style.

Don’t Stop With Just One!

Remember not to stress over these as you’re writing. They’re meant to be fun, not make you sweat over every word for half a day. Jot something down and move on to another one.

If you’re feeling really inspired by one of your own or someone else’s, go ahead and use it as a writing prompt! For more on how to do that, check out this post by Joe Bunting.

Have you ever written a six-word story before? How do you like them? Let me know in the comments!

PRACTICE

Today I want you to write a six-word horror story. You don’t have to go with traditionally scary stuff. (Though it is Halloween. Hint, hint.) If you’d rather write about the horror of milk going bad, have at it. See how many you can write in fifteen minutes.

Then share your writing in the comments and give your fellow writers some feedback!

The post Halloween Writing Prompt: Terrify Readers With Six-Word Stories appeared first on The Write Practice.

from The Write Practice https://ift.tt/2ADC9Qf

Surprise and Suspense: How to Make a Story Suspenseful

Surprise! Okay, that probably wasn’t very surprising. How do you surprise your readers? And how do you create the slow burn of suspense, keeping them on the edge of their seats as they tear through your story? Let’s talk about how to make a story suspenseful.

Do you like ice cream? I imagine you said yes. Me too!

When you go to the ice cream shop and stare down through the glass-top counter at all the flavors to choose from, do you sample several before making your choice? Or do you know what you like and go straight to it?

Let’s say you have two favorites that bring you the most consistent and satisfying ice cream experience. Let’s say they are a deep, dark, intense chocolate that pleasantly haunts your thoughts long after the last lick is gone, and a creamy strawberry that hits you with a surge of sweetness, waking up your taste buds as it melts over your tongue.

You may try a variety of other flavors, finding them interesting and delicious, but these two are your steady favorites and never fail to delight. Even if you decide to experiment with butter brickle or go with plain vanilla, you know that a sprinkling of strawberries or a dollop of chocolate sauce will add to your enjoyment, bringing you that flavor you really crave.

What’s Your Favorite Fiction Flavor?

Our fiction reading habits are much the same. When we’re browsing for a new book to read, we may decide to sample something new, trying out a new author or a new genre. Or we may be so attuned to one or two particular genres that we always go straight to them, feeling fairly confident that our reading experience will be a rewarding one.

But no matter how we choose our story or what we settle on reading, there are two flavors fiction writers add to their creations that consistently deliver a pleasurable reading experience: surprise and suspense.

As writers, it’s useful to:

• Be aware of the difference between the two.
• Understand the power of each to satisfy a reader’s taste buds.
• Know how to create them in our own work.

Surprise and Suspense: What’s the Difference?

I’m going to liken suspense to that deep, dark, intense chocolate. It permeates your senses and triggers your pleasure centers. It’s got staying power, melting in a slow release throughout whole sections of the book and with an aftertaste that often lingers long after you’ve read the last sentence.

And surprise is like the strawberry. Bam! It smacks you broadside with a burst both tart and sweet. It’s delectable and satisfying, and then it’s gone, sometimes leaving behind a sticky mess.

Defined by the Master

Alfred Hitchcock has long been considered the master of suspense. If anyone has ever known how to make a story suspenseful, it’s him. When asked to describe the difference between surprise and suspense, he came up with an interesting illustration. I’ll paraphrase it like this:

If an audience is watching a couple having dinner at a restaurant and suddenly a bomb underneath their table explodes—that’s surprise. Bang! We didn’t see it coming and it shocks or thrills us, giving us fifteen seconds, or so, of heightened emotion.

But if the audience sees the villain plant the bomb under the table and set a timer, and then sees the couple come in and sit at the table and listens to them talk while the minutes click by on the clock above their heads and the bomb ticks away beneath—that’s suspense. We bite our fingernails, wondering what will happen. Will the couple find the bomb and avoid getting blown to smithereens? The suspense approach draws out the experience, giving us long moments of escalating emotional involvement.

Let’s Go to the Movies

I thought of a few movie examples to illustrate these two techniques. SPOILER ALERT!!

For surprise, think about these:

• Star Wars: “I am your father.”
• Alien: The creature erupts from some guy’s chest in the cafeteria.
• The Sixth Sense: He was dead the whole time!
• The Untouchables: When Capone used the bat on his buddy’s head at the dinner table.

Contrast those examples with these scenes of suspense:

• Inglorious Basterds: The opening scene where the Jews are hiding beneath the floorboards while the Jew Hunter has a pleasant conversation with the farmer in the kitchen above.
• Back To The Future: Waiting for lightning to strike, will Doc make the connection in time? Will Marty get back to 1985?
• Jurassic Park. Raptors in the kitchen scene.
• The Great Escape: The POWs make their move.

Both are awesome flavors and can sometimes be paired for even greater effect, like a chocolate-covered strawberry.

The Power to Please

Before we explore how to write a suspenseful story, I want to make clear that surprise and suspense are effective ingredients in just about any genre you can name, including nonfiction. I’m not just talking about mysteries and thrillers here. Their power to please is applicable across the board.

Surprises affect a reader in many ways. A surprise can enchant, amuse, fascinate, enthrall, shock, irritate, anger, worry, or inspire. But surprise also wields a secret superpower.

In her fabulous book Wired For Story, Lisa Cron quotes neuroscience writer Jonah Lehrer when she says this: “Nothing focuses the mind like surprise.”

The Superpower of Surprise

I experienced this a day or two ago while I listened to the audiobook version of Stephen King’s Finders Keepers. I was sorting laundry, letting the dog out, and other mundane chores, and the characters in the story were having a conversation. I was paying attention, more or less, and then the narrator said, “He shot her in the head.”

I hadn’t seen it coming and I literally stopped and said—what!?! Dirty laundry dropped from my hand, the dog waited to be let back in. All my attention was on what had just happened in the story. The focusing power is real.

Think about it. Has someone ever given you one of those cans of assorted nuts that you open and a snake pops out? Or jumped out at you and screamed boo? In that moment, everything else falls away and your attention is totally focused on what just happened.

So, be aware of surprise’s super-power to focus reader attention, but don’t abuse or overuse or it will cease to be effective in your writing.

The Superpower of Suspense

The word suspense comes from the Latin word suspensus, meaning suspended, hovering, or doubtful. Suspense’s power comes from being able to hold the reader in anticipation, hovering, waiting, wondering what’s going to happen. Though it arouses many of the same emotions as surprise, it’s the slow-burn version.

Suspense engages the reader with uncertainty, eliciting our “need to know” response. We love that feeling that all is not as it seems and we savor the thrill as we follow the story.

But it goes deeper. After all, many of us like to reread our favorite books or rewatch our favorite movies. In which case, we already know what the deal is, but we still get satisfaction from the experience. How can this be?

Inside the Simulator

A well-crafted story acts as a simulator, allowing us to actually participate, experiencing the events as if they were happening to us. Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated this phenomenon, and it’s what allows us to suspend our knowledge and experience the story almost as if it were the first time all over again.

Or, if we choose, we can hold our focus on that knowledge and examine the story from the perspective of one who knows the end from the beginning, giving us a new angle on suspense for that particular story.

Puzzle It Out

We’re a puzzle-loving people. From toddlerhood, when we pushed bright-colored stars and circles through corresponding holes in a plastic box, we have been striving to make things fit, to match up, to make sense. Our brains are hard-wired to find the questions and problems in a story and work out the solution. We crave it.

As a piano teacher, I sometimes share this story with my students to illustrate a point. When Mozart was a small boy who didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning, his father would play a long scale on the piano and leave it unfinished. Young Mozart, unable to leave it hanging, would spring from his bed, run to the piano, and play the final note.

Suspense strings out a scale, a repeating pattern, and we follow along, hanging on each note, determined to see it through to the end. Our minds fill in the patterns, match up the clues, work to solve the puzzles. The power of suspense is the power to engage your reader.

How to Surprise Your Reader

To create surprise, you’ve got to hit your readers with something they didn’t see coming. But—and here’s the key—you have to set it up in advance. There must be a natural, unseen progression toward the unexpected event.

There’s an old Kenneth Branagh/Emma Thompson movie I enjoy called Dead Again. In the middle of the movie, there’s a scene that made me jump and scream the first time I saw it. (Maybe even the second time.) Nothing jumps out, no sudden gun shots, no cheap tricks. Kenneth’s character simply utters a single word and I freaked.

The beauty thing is that after he says it, I knew it was totally logical and yet unexpected enough to shock a scream out of me. This was a perfectly executed surprise.

Look at some aspect of your story and ask yourself, “How can I do the opposite of what the reader will expect?” And then make sure you thread in tiny clues leading up to the surprise, making it logical in hindsight.

How to Make a Story Suspenseful

The key to creating suspense in your work is giving your reader something to worry about, rekindling and escalating the worry as the story moves along. When you let your reader know more than the character knows, you create a particularly delicious brand of suspense known as dramatic irony.

Whether you go overt or subtle, craft the impression that all is not as it seems. Do this by:

Controlling information flow. Feed your reader. Don’t dump out what they need to know in large dollops, making it difficult to digest, and don’t withhold information. There are techniques for downplaying information you must in fairness reveal.

Creating story questions. Keep a fresh supply of story questions coming. When one gets answered, make sure a new one crops up to take its place.

Using patterns to your advantage. Set up patterns that your reader can follow, lulling them in one direction, then break the pattern. And try to find a timing and method of doing it that they won’t expect.

Combining Surprise and Suspense: Go for the Double Dip

You can pair these two flavors in two ways:

1. Use surprise to launch the reader into a tense situation, fraught with suspense.

The Fugitive: Dr. Kimble comes home to the surprise of finding his wife murdered, which throws him into a tense, drawn-out game of cat and mouse.

The 39 Steps: A very bored Richard Hannay comes home to find a mysterious stranger in his apartment and is hurled into a high-stakes adventure, dripping with suspense.

Jaws: A woman is brutally attacked by a shark, a shocking surprise which puts the whole beach community on tenterhooks.

Misery: Paul Sheldon suffers a horrible car accident, followed by a long, tense recovery aided by his biggest fan.

2. Create a tense situation, fraught with suspense, and throw your reader a curve ball.

“The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson: An entire village gathers for the lottery drawing and all is clearly not as it seems. Right up to the shattering surprise ending.

Soylent Green: Tension grows throughout the film, keeping viewers wondering what’s going on, until the surprise reveal toward the end.

Gone Girl: The first half of the book builds the tension and suspense until Flynn pulls back the curtain about halfway through with a shocking disclosure.

Misery again: The situation is full of tension as the story draws out, then Annie brings a big surprise in the form of an axe or a sledge hammer, depending on whether you’re reading the book or watching the movie version.

Delicious and Satisfying

Chocolate and strawberry. Suspense and surprise. Perennial favorites that won’t lead you wrong.

Sprinkle, spoon, and pour them into your stories for greater satisfaction for your readers. Mmm!

Whatever genres you like to read, don’t you love surprises and savor suspense? Do you have any more tips for how to make a story suspenseful or surprising? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

PRACTICE

Consider a scene you’re getting ready to write. Can you twist it in an unexpected direction? If so, how will you weave the setup into the earlier parts of the story? OR, try adding some suspense to the scene by creating the impression that all is not as it seems, as discussed above.

If you can’t find an appropriate scene for this exercise in your own work, try using this prompt: Darlene entered the office after-hours to pick up some paperwork.

Write for fifteen minutes. When you’re finished, post your work in the comments section. And if you post, be sure to give feedback for your fellow writers!

The post Surprise and Suspense: How to Make a Story Suspenseful appeared first on The Write Practice.

from The Write Practice https://ift.tt/2zhrwk2

MyGolfSpy: Featured Judges On Driver vs. Driver 2 {Watch Tonight and Win!}

Starting tonight at 9 PM on the Golf Channel, Wilson Golf’s Driver vs. Driver 2 is about to get interesting.

Very interesting.

Driver vs. Driver 2 debuted a month ago with 13 contestants and their driver designs. That list has since been whittled down to just four: Cortex, Magnus, Roswell, and Launch Pad. Tonight’s episode takes on a unique MyGolfSpy-focused tilt, as MGS owner/sensei Adam Beach and MGS Director of Testing Sam Robinson will be featured judges as they test, critique and give their #Datacratic take on the the final four.

And if you tune in, there’ll be a little something-something in it for you (A Year’s Supply Of Wilson Golf Balls).

Watch & Win

Starting tonight (Golf Channel, 9 PM Eastern), and running through the November 13th finale of Driver vs. Driver 2, MyGolfSpy and Wilson Staff are offering you chances to win some pretty cool stuff, including the winning driver itself. All you have to do is watch.

HOW IT WORKS:

• Every Tuesday We Will Post 2 Contest Questions
• Watch The New Episode
• Come Back & Answer The 2 Questions (Have Until Friday)
• Answer Correctly To Be Entered
• Win Prizes! (Including The Winner of Driver vs. Driver 2)

So it’s watch, listen and respond.

PRIZES

And what do we have as prizes? The Episode 5 winner will receive a year’s supply (6 dozen) Wilson Staff golf balls, the Episode 6 winner gets a customized, stamped Wilson Staff PMP wedge and for the finale, Episode 7, the winner will receive the winning driver from Driver vs. Driver 2.

• EPISODE 5 – A Year’s Supply Wilson Staff Golf Balls
• EPISODE 6 – Custom Stamped Wilson PMP Wedge
• EPISODE 7 – Winning Driver from Driver vs. Driver 2

This contest is open to anyone in the US or Canada who watches the last three episodes of Driver Vs. Driver 2.

QUESTIONS (ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS SECTION)

So for tonight’s episode, our questions come straight outta MyGolfSpy:

• With which two drivers did Adam achieve the highest smash factor results?
• Which driver did Sam say the younger generation would be likely to pick up off the rack?

Nail those two, and you could wind up with a year’s supply of Wilson Golf Balls.

Remember, you’ll have to watch tonight’s episode of Driver vs. Driver 2 to find the answers, and to get a close up look at how GolfSpies test and evaluate golf equipment. As always, it’s #datacratic.

from MyGolfSpy https://ift.tt/2qjfS4r

First Look: Cobra KING F9 SPEEDBACK & SPEEDBACK TOUR Fairway Woods

Glancing at the Cobra F9 SPEEDBACK Fairway, two things are nearly impossible to miss.

First is its bold yellow paint (also available in avalanche) that matches the driver. Second is Cobra’s now signature CNC milled face. F9 is the first time Cobra has offered a milled face fairway. The company says the added precision nets 2.5 MPH of ball speed compared to hand polished faces.

That’s all well and good because everybody wants distance, but with fairway woods, golfers list being easy to hit and accuracy as the things they’re looking for most (though I bet most still buy the one with which they hit the longest ball).

Cobra believes it can address those desires – particularly the easy to hit thing – with its Baffler rails. The rails are designed to provide better turf interaction for more head speed at impact. Speaking from more experience than I’d care to admit, if you’re the kind of golfer who finds himself off the fairway from time to time, I don’t think there’s a better design for bad lies. It works just fine from short grass and the tee as well, but it’s one hell of a get out of trouble club.

With the F9 SPEEDBACK, Cobra moved the 15-gram tungsten weight to sit between the rails. That helps push the center of gravity down, making it easier to launch the ball into the air. For the most part, turf interaction with a fairway wood takes place near the front of the head, so the weight shouldn’t interfere, but just in case, Cobra gave it a little bit of a fin to help you get through the turf when you stick the club in a bit deeper in the ground than expected.

Additional weight is saved via an ultralight carbon fiber crown, while the PWR Ridge design (also found in the driver) stiffens the crown prevent energy loss at impact.

While you probably shouldn’t expect a ton of additional head speed because of it, as with the driver, the F9 SPEEDBACK fairway features Cobra’s 360° Aero polymer crown and titanium sole trips to help reduce aerodynamic drag.

Specs, Shafts, and Grip

The standard F9 SPEEDBACK Fairway is available in a 3-4 (14.5° in the neutral position, adjustable from 13° to 16°), 4-6 (18.5° in the neutral, adjustable from 17°-20°), and 7-8 (22.5° in the neutral position, adjustable from 21°-24°) models in both Yellow and Avalanche colorways. Cobra may add a lower lofted option in the future as Bryson DeChambeau prefers the larger head, but needs less loft.

Stock shafts include the UST Helium 60 (R,L), and the Fujikura ATMOS Blue 7 (R,S).

The stock grip is a Cobra Connect enabled Lamkin Crossline.

KING F9 SPEEDBACK TOUR

Players looking for a compact fairway wood – possibly THE most compact fairway wood on the market – should consider the F9 SPEEDBACK Tour. While Cobra has changed the nomenclature a bit, the Tour is the direct replacement for the F8+ fairway.

There’s not a ton of competition in this space. Whether you know it or not, Cobra owns the compact front CG fairway wood space, and the F9 SPEEDBACK TOUR only increases the advantage.

That’s not to say compact is for everybody; it isn’t. The smaller footprint and enhanced workability come at the expense of forgiveness, but Cobra believes that for strong fairway wood players, front CG is better. If you’re not a strong fairway wood player, or need help generating spin, the standard model is almost certainly a better fit.

As a guy who sometimes feels stuck between a 5-wood and a 2-hybrid, the compact Tour design gives me a look I like with more forgiveness than a hybrid offers. Better players may appreciate having a true 13.5° option as well. Average golfers will likely appreciate the forgiveness of the standard model.

The F9 SPEEDBACK Tour offers the same features (Baffler Rails, PWR Ridge Crown, and CNC milled face) as the standard model, but the milling pattern itself is more traditional. The circular milled pattern common to the driver and standard fairway looks wonky with scorelines. Tour guys (Rickie) wanted scorelines, so Cobra went with a simple horizontal milling pattern. The consistency and speed benefits are the same, however.

Any Color You Want…

Unlike the driver and standard fairway, there’s no yellow option for the F9 SPEEDBACK Tour. As they say, you can have it in any color you want, so long as it’s black, or in this case, black on black. A low glare leading section is paired with a glossy black crown.

GIVEAWAY: Titleist Driver + Fitting!

TITLEIST TS2 or TS3

Enter MyGolfSpy’s Giveaway!

---

Specs, Shafts, and Grip

The F9 SPEEDBACK Tour Fairway is available in a 3-4 (13.5° in the neutral position, adjustable from 12° to 15°), and 4-5 (17.5° in the neutral, adjustable from 16°-19°) models. The 4-5 is available in RH only.

The stock shaft is the Project X HZRDUS Smoke 70 (S,X).

The stock grip is a Cobra Connect enabled Lamkin Crossline.

Retail price for the KING F9 SPEEDBACK Fairway Wood is $269. Availability begins January 18^th, 2019.

For more information, visit Cobragolf.com.

from MyGolfSpy https://ift.tt/2CRuM9y

First Look: Cobra KING F9 and KING F9 ONE SPEEDBACK Irons and Hybrids

Inside the walls of Cobra, the KING F9 SPEEDBACK iron project was referred to by its codename.

Bruce Lee.

Why? According to Cobra’s VP of R&D, Tom Olsavsky, “because he kicks ass.” The new irons? They kick ass too.

Truth be told, I haven’t been the biggest fan of Cobra’s more recent game improvement irons, but why dwell on the past when this time around things are different? As with the driver, the shape of the F9 SPEEDBACK irons is purposeful, though unconventional It’s a design that may prove to be polarizing, but as with the driver, I love that Cobra is taking a risk on something different that’s not just for show.

What you’ll likely notice are boxier heel and toe regions that house a significant amount of tungsten. Very early prototypes featured F7 driver weights welded to the heel and toe portions of the iron. It turns out, F9 SPEEDBACK wasn’t the most radical design on the table. The final version is more conventional than it could have been, but Cobra is still banking that its F golfers (80% have handicaps above 10) are willing to buy into something that looks a little different because of the improved performance it delivers.

F9 SPEEDBACK is Cobra’s attempt to resolve a critical flaw with most distance irons on the market today. They may be long, but despite manufacturer claims to the contrary, they’re not particular forgiving. I suppose the converse is true for many game-improvement designs. They’re forgiving, but in the grand scheme of things, they’re often not among the longest. Cobra’s position more or less holds true when you consider MOI and Sweet Area. Mizuno’s JPX919 Hot Metal is good, and you can make a case for PING G700, but that one has a blade length that’s longer than most.

Ultimately what Cobra was seeking to create with the F9 SPEEDBACK is an iron that’s truly long, truly forgiving, and doesn’t rely on an overly long blade to make it happen. If some other things have to look a little bit different for that to work, so be it.

Unique Shaping

Some of the things packed into the F9 irons are typical of what you’d expect from Cobra in this category. Progressive hosel lengths that are shorter in the long irons keep CG low. Longer hosels in the scoring irons raise CG to help generate a penetrating flight with more spin. It’s all part of Cobra’s TechFlo design strategy.

What is new is the shape. It’s boxy, and I need to be clear about this point, boxy isn’t the same as clunky, and I’m not calling F9 a bag full of shovels either. It’ good boxy – if that makes sense. Typically flowing regions, specifically, the low heel and toe regions have been squared off considerably. That allowed Cobra to place a massive amount of tungsten (image below) in those areas (33-grams of tungsten in the 7-iron alone). That gets you a huge boost in inertia without having to make the club any larger, but yeah, it does look a little different.

The second unusual detail is the F9’s two-tiered SPEEDBACK Sole. Olsavsky calls it a weight belt, but what we’re talking about is a wide sole that’s used to push weight lower and deeper into the head to create higher launch. By way of comparison, center of gravity locations are significantly lower than F8 in the longer irons and appreciably higher in the scoring clubs. That extra mass has everything to do with controlling trajectory.

We’ve heard this part of the story before and because of that wide soles aren’t usually particularly noteworthy. With the F9 SPEEDBACK, however, there’s a bit more to it. The SPEEDBACK sole features a narrower, raised center section that’s dramatically thinner than the total sole width. It’s designed to improve turf interaction, which generally isn’t the strength of wide sole irons. My experience with the irons suggests it actually works. It gets through grass nicely and plays narrower than its footprint.

Another small tweak to the head design offers a huge improvement visually – at least I think so. Cobra added a little bit of camber to the topline. It’s a preference thing, but the last several generations of Cobra GI irons offered exceedingly flat, blunt toplines. Adding a bit of radius makes it appear significantly smaller at address. It’s much easier on the eyes though I’d be remiss not to mention that the wide sole design does put a bit of the backcavity in view from the 4 to the 7-iron. Once you get into the true scoring clubs that stuff disappears and the irons themselves look a bit more conventional from all angles.

GIVEAWAY: Titleist Driver + Fitting!

TITLEIST TS2 or TS3

Enter MyGolfSpy’s Giveaway!

---

PWRSHELL FACE TECHNOLOGY

PWRSHELL is Cobra Speak for its speed-boosting face technology. PWRSHELL has been a part of several generations of Cobra iron face stories, but as with most anything else in golf, it continues to evolve.

Like any good face technology, it’s thin (1.8mm at its thinnest point). Cobra has added a variation of its E9 technology to further increase speed on off-center hits. Engineers also thinned and extended the return – the lower part of the face that gets welded to the body – deeper into the body itself. It’s not a true cupface design, but the principle is similar to slot designs. It helps generate more face flex and boosts ball speeds particularly on low face shots.

In the 4-7 irons, Cobra uses a 3-piece insert (TPU, acrylic foam, and aluminum badge) to help dampen vibration without slowing down the face. Manufacturers are always trying to make cast, multi-piece irons feel more like forgings. While it’s unlikely you’ll mistake the two, Cobra says F9 offers best in class feel. It’s certainly not a KING CB/MB, but it’s good for what it is.

Cobra’s Progressive Spin Technology carries on with F9 as well. It’s not so much technology as it is a means to explain that different irons within the set have different grooves. The 4-7 irons use V-grooves to reduce spin and maximize distance. The 8-PW have U-grooves for better control and accuracy, while the GW and SW leverage more tightly spaced wedge grooves for more spin around the green. Cobra chose not to offer a lob wedge for the F9 SPEEDBACK irons. They don’t sell enough of the high lofted set wedges to justify making them. Other than guys who just want all their clubs to look the same, I can’t come up with a single justification for using a set lob wedge anyway.

It’s also worth pointing out that the marking on the clubface now reads Milled Face instead of Forged. Cobra admits some responsibility in taking part in what has truly become one of the industry’s more misleading trends. A good number of companies are welding forged faces to cast bodies, and stamping the word Forged on the body. Golfer’s love forged, but the practice is inherently dishonest. What’s a little white lie in the interest of selling a few more clubs, right? Cobra is still using a forged face, but the company is making an effort to be more transparent about the finer points.

From a performance perspective, despite higher inertia (long iron MOI is 10% higher than F8), in Cobra’s internal testing, the F9 SPEEDEBACK was significantly longer than competitive offerings from Callaway, TaylorMade, and PING. Generally, the brands doing the testing come ahead out in internal testing, and it hasn’t tested against any of its competitors’ 2019 stuff, but it has enough of a cushion that it doesn’t think anyone will offer a longer game improvement next season.

Whether or not you should be overly concerned about a few yards worth of iron distance is another conversation entirely, but having spent some time on the course with them, I can tell you that they’re incredibly easy to hit and distance isn’t going to be an issue. It’s easily my favorite Cobra game-improvement iron in the close to a decade since I started working for MyGolfSpy.

Chrome Plating

This is one of those things that most consumers don’t think about, and many probably don’t care about, but I believe you should. In this spot in the market, a good number of the offerings aren’t chrome plated because it saves the manufactures a little bit of money. Mizuno chromes, Titleist does, PING’s recent offerings have been plated, and now Cobra does to. Callaway and TaylorMade, what are you waiting for?

The market leaders are sacrificing quality to save a buck, and because of it, the best-selling products on the market show wear much more quickly than they should. It’s not a small thing. For what irons cost, every damn set on the market should offer a durable finish. It’s nice to see Cobra making an effort to raise the quality of its product and give you a bit more for your money.

Real Deal Steel Shafts

And speaking of cost-cutting, it’s not uncommon for game-improvement designs to come stock with lightweight, made-for shafts. Like nearly everyone else, Cobra has done that in the past, but – again, raising the quality of its product – is using the KBS Tour 90 as the stock steel offerings.

The graphite offering is still a made for (Fujikura ATMOS). Cobra is far from alone here, and the typical lightweight graphite player isn’t likely to notice much of a difference.

F9 SPEEDBACK Variable Length Iron Secs & Pricing

Retail price for a stock 7-piece set (5-GW) of Cobra F9 SPEEDBACK Irons is $799 steel and $899 graphite. A 4-iron and SW are available through custom. A graphite Combo set, which includes a 5H and 6-GW is $899. A combo steel set with the same set makeup is also available through custom.

ONE LENGTH

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Cobra is offering a ONE Length version of the F9 Speedback iron. While ONE Length sales dipped a bit in 2018, ONE Length sill accounted for 40% of Cobra iron sales. In the two weeks following Bryson DeChambeau’s win at the Dell Technologies Championship, Cobra sold 150 sets of ONE Length through its website alone.

As we’ve said before, ONE Length isn’t for everyone, but there’s a market for it, and if Bryson continues to play well (I think he’s going to win a Major next year), interest will continue to grow. For now – and with all due respect to Edel and Sterling – Cobra has the mainstream market cornered, though it wouldn’t surprise me to see a legitimate competitor enter the fray.

Apart from the signature Bryson blue accents and the necessary differences in individual headweights, the ONE Length offering is basically the same as the variable length option. The one notable difference is that sole widths on the long irons are slightly wider to promote higher launch.

Lower than desirable launch in the long irons has been the biggest hurdle for slower speed players looking to switch to ONE Length. The wider blade should help with that – as should some changes to Cobra’s shaft strategy (see below) – but if that doesn’t alleviate your concerns, remember that Cobra offers a ONE Length utility and ONE Length hybrids. Either of those could potentially resolve any long iron launch issues.

Call it a product of the ONE Length learning process; Cobra has updated its progressive lie angle strategy. The long irons are more upright, which contributes to higher trajectories, while wedge lie angles have been flattened for a flatter, straighter trajectory.

Real Deal Shafts – with a Twist

As with the variable length version, Cobra will offer real deal KBS shafts in the F9 SPEEDBACK ONE Length option. Instead of using a single shaft model, Cobra has chosen a progressive weight strategy with KBS Tour offerings. The 4-6 irons are outfitted with KBS Tour 80 shafts. The 7-9 use the KBS Tour 90, while the PW-SW will come with KBS Wedge shafts (115g).

It’s similar to an AMT/AWT strategy (True Temper’s AMT White is stock in the Forged Tec ONE Length). The idea is to leverage lighter-weight shafts in the long irons to generate more speed and higher flight, and heavier shafts to create a more penetrating flight in the scoring irons.

F9 SPEEDBACK ONE Length Iron Specs & Pricing

Retail price for a stock 7-piece set (5-GW) of Cobra F9 SPEEDBACK ONE Length Irons is $799 steel and $899 graphite. A 4-iron and SW are available through custom. A graphite Combo set, which includes a 5H and 6-GW is $899. A combo steel set with the same set makeup is available through custom. Left-handed is also available through custom.

Full Cobra Connect Included…if you ask for it

Last season Cobra put Cobra Connect enabled grips on all of its irons and included Arccos sensors for the rest of your clubs with every iron set purchased. The adoption rate for the Arccos powered offering was about 50%, and while that’s pretty damn good, it also meant that 50% of sensors went unused, and that’s just plain wasteful.

This year, the deal is the same…mostly. The stock grip is still a Cobra Connected embedded Lamkin Crossline grip. Cobra will also still provide free Arccos-embedded grips or Arccos sensors for the rest of your non-Cobra clubs, and it will still do all of it entirely free of charge. The only ripple is that this time around, you have to ask for them.

Cobra wants you to take advantage of the Cobra Connect platform, but it doesn’t want to effectively throw sensors away if you’re not going to use them – and you should use them, but that’s just my 2 cents.

KING F9 SPEEDBACK Hybrids

It’s not any huge secret that there isn’t a ton of innovation in the hybrid category, so to Cobra’s credit, it’s not trying to oversell what it’s done with the KING F9 SPEEDBACK hybrids. There’s not a huge tech story here. They’re designed to replace difficult to hit long irons, and they’re bigger than the F8 version, and that’s mostly the whole of it.

The KING OS hybrid turned out to be popular, even with the better players inside Cobra, so they decided to size the F9 SPEEDBACK version between the F8 and the OS. It’s 10% larger than last year’s model. Going bigger allows for a flatter leading edge and a bit better alignment at address.

SPEEDBACK F9 ONE Length Hybrid

A ONE Length version of the hybrid is also available. It shares the same basic design as the variable length model, albeit with a shorter shaft and a heavier head. The main point of emphasis Cobra would like to convey – and I’m doing it because I agree – is that ONE Length hybrids aren’t strictly for golfers who play single length irons.

They have the potential to work for anyone who struggles with long irons or variable length hybrids. It may take a bit of adjustment to get used to the look of a hybrid head on a short shaft, but if you can do it, you should find it scarily easy to hit. I’ve added it to the list of potential solutions to my struggles with a 5-iron.

Unfortunately, that’s becoming a winter project as we seem to have mostly skipped fall here in the northeast this year. I digress…and miserably so.

Specs, Pricing, and Availability

Like the F8, the SPEEDBACK F9 hybrids aren’t adjustable but will be offered in discrete lofts of 17°, 19°, 21°, and 24°. Women’s models are available in 22°, 25°, 28°, and 31°.

ONE Length hybrids are available in 19°, 21°, and 24°.

The stock shaft is a 70-gram Fujikura ATMOS Black in stiff, regular, or lite flex. The women’s model is 60-grams in ladies flex. Cobra has brought the specs of the shaft closer to the aftermarket version but concedes it’s technically a made for. Shaft upgrades are available. Price differs by model.

The stock grip is a Cobra Connect enabled Lamkin Crossline.

Retail price is $219.

Retail availability for KING F9 SPEEDBACK irons and Hybrids begins January 18^th, 2019.

For more information about, visit CobraGolf.com.

from MyGolfSpy https://ift.tt/2SyQy7t