Tag: Reunion Resort

Honma Fitting Experience at Orlando’s Reunion Resort
Orlando is a great place for golf, with great weather year-round and plenty of great courses to choose from. The central florida region has everything from inexpensive public courses to high-end resorts and ultra-private country clubs. Many of the world’s best professional golfers also make central Florida home, which has had a ripple effect by attracting many aspiring young players to the area, along with several big-name teaching pros like David Leadbetter, Brad Brewer, Mike Bender, Brain Mogg, Sean Foley, Gary Gilchrist and others.

With such a wealth of great courses, good players and top notch instruction, it also makes sense that some of the best club fitters would be hanging around the Orlando area.

Fitting has become much more popular in recent years due to the advancement of launch monitor technology, adjustability of golf clubs and the relative lack of technological innovation because of the USGA limits for golf club performance. To get the most out of that fancy new driver, it’s very important to get fitted for the right shaft and club head for your swing.

Honma Golf: Japanese Artistry & Precision

Since 1959, the Honma name and logo have been synonymous with quality, performance and legendary craftsmanship. These days technology seems to be a top priority for many golf club manufacturers, but few companies are able to deliver innovative technology while still making a beautiful looking golf club like Honma can.

Honma is perhaps best known for their opulent BERES models with ranks from 2-star to 5-star, which denotes the level of “bling” built into the club and the experience level of the master takumi (Japanese for artisan) that build the clubs by hand in Sakata, Japan for each buyer. The 5-star Beres woods and irons have features like 24-karat gold accents, gold flake in the shaft’s paint and platinum ferrule rings. The Honma Beres 5-star driver retails for $4500 and complete sets with hand-stitched ostrich bag retail for as much as $70,000.
Club Fitting The Honma Way

It’s one thing to put your game in the hands of a guy that works at a big box retail store, but if you are going to invest time and money into a new set of clubs from a company like Honma, why not put your trust in someone that knows the equipment and the golf swing better than most?

This is why Honma Golf has invested in the US market by opening several new fitting centers located in world-class destinations to provide expert, one-on-one fittings for their clubs. One such fitting center is located at the fantastic Reunion Resort near Disney World and just outside Orlando.

Reunion Resort is the only golf facility in the world with courses designed by Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. The Honma Fitting Experience takes place in a private, secluded indoor/outdoor setting at the back of the range using high-tech Foresight GC Quad launch monitors under the watchful eye of PGA Professional Dick Smith, Jr.

The fitting center has the entire range of Honma drivers, fairways, hybrids, irons and wedges along with a full matrix of proprietary and custom third-party shafts available. In other words, every possible head & shaft combination is available to you at the Honma Fitting Experience.

Honma has a rich history in golf, and they take full advantage of the opportunity to show off a bit at this beautiful facility with a showroom full of high-end limited release merchandise and a cool, nostalgic display of some memorable Honma clubs from yesteryear. No expense was spared in making your fitting for Honma clubs a worthwhile and enjoyable experience. Check out the video below and see for yourself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU15RabEggI

Pricing & How to Book

The Honma fitting experience is on par with most other high-end fitters in the area. Driver fittings cost $150 and a full bag fitting is $350. Fees for fairway & hybrids, wedges or irons range from $100 to $200.

Interested in booking a fitting for yourself? It’s easy. Just visit this website and schedule your fitting online, or call (856) 237-4134
May 12, 2020
2012 Battle of the Golf Blogs – Preview

For many years, the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Florida has brought together many of golf’s greatest minds and influential people for its annual trade show. Over one thousand golf companies will be there along with tens of thousands of golf industry insiders, PGA club pros and media. But for some of us, the PGA Show isn’t the highlight of the week. No, for a select few golf bloggers, there is an event even more important than the PGA Show itself. It’s the Battle of the Golf Blogs!

This match-up that pits the editors of four internet golf blogs against each other in a friendly competition is being held for the fourth time in 2012. This year, the annual competition is being held at Reunion Resort on the challenging and beautiful Nicklaus Course. Its namesake, Jack Nicklaus, designed the course as a parkland layout with long horizon lines and elevated tee boxes and greens. Forced carries, undulating greens and plenty of hazards on the 7244 yard course should provide a worthy challenge to the players. Speaking of which, here’s the lineup for this year’s contest:

John Duval of www.intothegrain.com hails from Daytona Beach, FL and carries a +1 handicap. He most looks forward to the lefty challenge, where he plays one hole left handed against Dave Lair with his own clubs. A former ski instructor and professional tennis player from Montreal, Canada, He's adept at playing golf in cold and/or wet weather and loves a good old fashioned hockey fight. John has kind of a "home course" advantage this year, as he's the only one that has played the Reunion Resort's Nicklaus Course. Dave Lair of www.orlandogolfblogger.com lives in Orlando, FL and carries a bag full of left handed clubs. Dave is terribly worried about losing to John in the lefty challenge. A dedicated family man, Dave is the proud father of three future Masters champions. Given more time to practice and play he would be a single digit player in no time. Dave currently plays to a handicap in the high teens, but has been known to throw down a round in the mid 80s and destroy his low handicap playing partners. Like me. Rob Hayashida of www.sandbox8.com comes from Chicago, IL and probably hasn't touched a club since October 2011. Rob has all the cool gadgets, including a sweet DSLR video rig that even cooks him breakfast. Rob is a cool cat. I mean, just look at him! One of the better guys in the golf blog world, he enjoys photography and loves to follow the pros around when they come to town during the FedEx Cup playoffs. The BOGB is early in PGA Show week this year so he'll have to defrost his golf swing in a hurry! Tony Korologos of www.hookedongolfblog.com lives in Sandy, UT and can play the drums like nobody's business. Tony was injured last year in an unfortunate parking lot skiing accident and had to watch from a golf cart, and being the sportsmen that we are, we didn't let him live it down. Watch out though, because he's looking for vengeance this year. Tony claims to be a 3.4 handicap, but I think he's sandbagging a little bit... The format for this year's contest has yet to be determined, but we're leaning towards a stableford scoring system with handicaps. One thing's for sure, there will be more photos and video shot at this year's event than ever before! As a result of this coverage, potential sponsors have been breaking down the doors to be a part of the action. So far we've welcomed Srixon Golf as our golf ball sponsor to provide their Z-Star and Q-Star golf balls. Our good friends at Loudmouth Golf have agreed to outfit us all with some awesome shorts & pants. Kentwool will be providing the unsung heroes of any golfer - socks! Asher Golf will be providing some of its ultra-cool looking gloves. Frogger Golf will supply some of their amazing brush-pro tools and amphibian towels. We'll be using Champ Flytees exclusively, and you may even see a few other surprises along the way. The four of us will also be providing a full WITB (What's in the bag) as part of our post-round coverage. To get you ready for what's to come, here's a look at last year's contest at Falcon's Fire Golf Club in Orlando, and the dramatic finish:
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January 20, 2012
2011 Golf Digest Golf Ball Hot List – Behind The Scenes

The May 2011 issue of Golf Digest has hit the shelves at your local news stand, and it’s one of the most anticipated of the year. The Hot List issues are always in high demand, and the Golf Ball Hot List is no exception. Every year the editors at Golf Digest get together and test golf balls. Lots and lots of golf balls. Using a combination of machine testing and real life play testers, they find the best golf balls and hand out their gold medal picks in the magazine. Here’s a behind the scenes look at how the process works.

This year I was fortunate enough to take part in Golf Digest’s Hot List golf ball testing at Reunion Resort in Orlando Florida just after the 2011 PGA Merchandise Show. Golf Digest enlisted the services of about 20 testers with handicaps ranging from +1 to 10 or so. After a brief warmup on the driving range we broke up into pairs, each with a Golf Digest editor in tow. Each golf cart of two players is followed by a cart with an editor that observes, takes notes and asks questions of the players in an effort to gather as much information as possible. My friend Lindsay and I went out first on the Arnold Palmer Legacy course with editor Michael Johnson, who is Senior Editor of equipment for GolfWorld.

In order to make the testing as objective as possible, all the golf balls being tested were disguised using black markers. All the markings on the cover of all golf balls were blacked out so as to be almost indistinguishable from each other, and they all had numbers painted on to tell them apart. Obviously we were not told what brand or model golf ball we were hitting, which is mostly done to avoid subjective results from testers who may have a brand preference or may be influenced by manufacturer marketing efforts. For example, most low handicap players would not give a low-cost distance ball a fair shake over a “players” ball with high spin and soft cover, but this way every player gives every ball a chance to be a winner.

Because human golfers don't have the ability to create a perfect impact condition every time, Golf Digest uses robot testing to get data for driver hits with each golf ball. The use of a robot provides consistent contact, spin rates and ball speeds. While feel is a very important factor in golf ball performance, for the purpose of the golf ball hot list the human testers don't hit tee shots during the ball testing for the reason I just stated, and also so that we don't run out of golf balls via wayward drives! Instead, we proceed past the tee box and down the fairway to hit iron and wedge shots on every hole. For the first three holes we were assigned two different golf balls to test. We each received 3 of each ball for a total of 12 golf balls between the two of us. Starting at about 160 yards in the fairway, we alternated hitting iron shots to the green. I found the best method was to hit all three of one brand to get a better idea of the feel and ball flight. I hit all three of mine, followed by Lindsay hitting 3, and back to me until all the balls were on or around the green. All I knew about the golf balls was that they were white and round. I had no idea what brand, model or type of golf ball I was hitting. Our editor Mike was watching and taking notes as we hit iron shots, observing the ball flight and listening to our comments about the feel, ball flight and overall impressions. Once we arrived at the green we collected our assigned golf balls and proceeded to hit chips and putts for a little while and then moved on to the next hole. We played 3 holes from the fairway in, varying the distance of our approach shots on each hole from 200 yards to inside 80 yards. The distance we hit from didn't matter so much, but the goal was to hit mid iron, short iron and wedge shots with each golf ball. After playing three holes with two different golf balls and hitting 60+ shots from irons to wedges, chips and putts with each ball, we gave Mike our final comments on the balls and rated them from 1 to 5 on playability, feel, spin and overall performance. We then moved on to the next 3 hole stretch and were assigned two new golf balls to test. We continued switching every three holes until we finished 18 holes. In all, each player tested 12 different golf balls, hitting somewhere between 300 and 400 shots. We repeated this process the next day also, and I figure I hit close to 1000 golf balls in the two days, between warm ups on the range and testing. I preferred hit a few more chips and putts around the greens to get a better idea of a ball's overall performance. The Golf Digest editors had quite a large task in testing all these golf balls. It must have taken a lot of time to mark every single ball, organize them into bunches and then collect the data from each play tester. Compiling all that data into metrics and information readers can use to make informed decisions isn't easy. Having been a part of the testing, I can say with confidence that the golf balls that earned Golf Digest's gold medals are the real deal. The testing methods used are about as thorough as you can be to test the vast number of golf balls they had in a reasonable amount of time. I learned a lot from the ball testing. I had a chance to hit some golf balls I never would have given a second look to before, and I also learned that golf ball technology has started to blur the line between your cheap, durable golf balls and the soft, spinny player's golf ball. We are starting to see cheaper golf balls that spin, and spin balls that go a mile. Gone are the days of delicate, wound balata covered balls that felt like marshmallows, but these days there is a good chance that if you keep it in play, you can play 36 holes with the same ball. In the past, you had basically two choices - A balata ball that lasted 9 holes, or a surlyn covered rock that didn't offer any spin or feel. Today, with multi-layer construction and advanced manufacturing techniques it is possible to be fit for a golf ball that does it all. My current golf ball of choice has a perfect blend of feel, spin, distance and durability, and I could never get that in a ball 10 years ago. Swing by your local news stand or book store and pick up the 2011 Golf Digest Golf Ball Hot List issue and see what golf ball is right for you. With several companies now performing ball fitting, it's even easier to get the right formula for your game. With all the different models and brands available, it's nice to have a comparison test like the one Golf Digest performs to give us some way of narrowing down the field!
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April 17, 2011