I can’t remember a time in the last five years where I’ve worked on my golf game more than I have in the last two months. But going through major swing changes takes commitment, consistency, dedication, conviction, sticktoittiveness, hanginthereability, dontquityoufreakingwussitude, yourfatherthinksyou’reafailureivity, and all kinds of other made up words. And I’m in. All in.

So to recap, I’ve been transitioning from a very flat, no leverage, laid off, instruction editors from Golf Digest cover their eyes and hide their children swing, to a more upright, deeper, hinged, powerful, clear-off-the-mantle-because-room-is-needed-for-Green Jackets-US Open Trophies-Claret Jugs, and Wannamakers.

The US Open trophy will look good in Harry’s office.

My constant companion has been a large, heavy foam wedge, that will now and forever hereafter be named “Jackson.” Those of you who recall my previous naming of this wedge with an alliterative superlative should know that in the end I felt the name was too impersonal for what has become such a key partner in my journey to golf awesomeness.

I needed a human name. A name with certain bigness. Undeniable magnitude and grandiosity and with a salute to the greatness of the past. So I changed the name of the Wedge to ‘Wedginald Jackson’ or just ‘Jackson’ for short.

Jackson is meant to help me get steeper away from and back into the ball at impact. When used correctly, directly in front of Jackson, where the ball had been, will be the most beautiful, divots you’ve ever seen in your life. And when you haven’t been taking too many divots recently, nothing looks more beautiful that a nice divot.

Beautiful.

Seriously, if you offered me the chance to have framed pictures from the last ten Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues or of the divots from my last two lessons, the divots would have won hands down. Of course anybody hearing that revelation would also know that I would need to get special permission to hang them in my padded room in the asylum, but that’s another story…

So heading into lesson 3 with TheMan, I was really excited to show the progress I had been making and make even further giant leaps towards my rightful place at the World Golf Hall of Fame. I had just come back from playing a few rounds of golf versus my arch nemesis, the perfectly coiffed Senor Hashtag Chad Coleman, where I had taken him very unceremoniously to the South Carolina Low Country woodshed. My game was on the brink…or so I thought…

“Ok, let’s take a look…”

TheMan always delivers the same five-word knock out punch to begin the festivities.

I took a couple of swings that felt fairly representative of the game I had been rocking the past several weeks since our last lesson. Hit a couple of high wedges. Felt pretty solid. Nothing spectacular, but not terrible. Perfectly serviceable.

“Harry, we have to get that club more up and not so laid off. Here, let me show you what that looks like.” TheMan had been taking a couple of iPad videos. Uh, oh. Video don’t lie.

What I saw made me nauseous. My set up looked great. Posture and stance were good. Backswing the first 8 inches was textbook. But then what happened would make a courtroom gallery ghasp. The club lifted away from my body, my body stopped rotating, and the club turned behind me and got flat and laid off.

What. The. (Expletive deleted)! Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!! What had happened? That couldn’t be me in the video. I mean, it looked kind of like me. Same XBomb hat and Del Mar golf shoes. The guy in the video was a little fatter than I am, in my opinion. And his swing was definitely un-Tour like. Ugh.

“Okay, we’ve got to fix this. We need you to turn steeper to get those arms steeper and higher, and we need you to get that left wrist more cocked. Has to happen. You’ve got no chance until we start doing that.”

But how, Sensei?

“I want you to feel that steep and deep sensation with your arms and I want you to feel that you’re really getting the club across the line at the top with your hands and wrists. It will feel a lot steeper and across the line, but you need to do this to get the club in the right place.”

And so for an hour in an unusually warm 85 degree day at the ECPC, I sweated my way through shot after shot of steep and deep arm and shoulder takeaway, and a totally open and across the line feeling at the top. It felt totally Couplesian. In fact, that was the mental image I was after. Steep and across the line at the top with a wide open club face.

When I could do it, the ball came out like a rocket with a nice divot. When I was flat, it was absolutely no bueno. Fat or thin all the time. Ugh to the power of Lee.

Don’t scuff them, Harry!

And so here I am, now working again on getting the club higher and more set at the top. I’m practicing at home swinging the club while I stand with my back to a wall. If I take it away flat without the turn, I will bang my beautiful X Hot Iron into the wall. If I do it correctly, the wall goes unscathed and I get it into the right position.

When I fail, it has a two-pronged penalty: 1) I will scuff my gorgeous iron 2) I will get yelled at by my wife who very stubbornly thinks that the condition of our walls is more important than fixing my golf swing. And I can do this drill inside since my wife has insisted that Jackson stay outdoors or in my car (she doesn’t fully appreciate the journey, evidently).

More work. More effort. More time spent with my best friend Jackson. Halfway through the lesson series but I feel like the train is back on the rails.

Along with his HEX Chrome+ Ball, Bae used a Callaway Driver, Callaway Fairway Wood, an X Hot Pro Hybrid (18°), RAZR X Muscleback Irons and an Odyssey Tour Milled #1 Putter. He led the field in putting average, hit 73.6% of greens and averaged 308.5 yards per drive. Bae did all of this while facing high winds all week, especially on Sunday afternoon.

“The course was really tough,” Bae said after closing out his two-shot win. “The winds were very strong. I did very well this week.” The Callaway staffer and his HEX Chrome+ Ball stepped up under pressure on 16, 17 and 18. On the 16th, Bae hit a beautiful low wedge shot that spun to five feet from the cup, and he knocked in the birdie putt to take a one-shot lead.

Then on the par-3 17th, he played his tee shot through the wind and over the water to 20 feet below the hole. Finally on the brutal par-4 18th, he found the fairway, hit a solid second shot into the green and two-putted to clinch the win. With his beautiful swing and the way he deftly controlled his game down the stretch, this should be his first of many victories on Tour.

Bae’s win highlighted another big week for the HEX Chrome+ family of golf balls, which was Callaway’s #1 Golf Ball at the HP Byron Nelson Championship. Gary Woodland, Stuart Appleby and Tommy Gainey all used it as well, and Phil Mickelson is currently playing it on Tour. HEX Chrome+ also received a gold medal in Golf Digest’s 2013 Golf Ball Hot List.

For more on HEX Chrome+ and all of our golf balls, please visit our golf balls home page. And for more on Sang-Moon Bae and all of our staffers, please visit our Callaway Tour Page.

We really like this one, and we hope you do too.

For more on our X Hot Family, please visit our golf equipment home page.

We know it’s that time of year where we can tee it up for 36 holes, practice all afternoon, or play until sundown. The calendar and the forecast are in our favor, for most people around the country anyway, and it certainly feels good.

If you’re reading this right now chances are you’re sitting in an office or at your house. You’ve taken the time to visit our website and click on this article, so you’re obviously thinking about golf.

And since you can’t pull the clubs out right now, we’ve got a few awesome pictures to get you motivated and excited for your next afternoon 9 or medium bucket. You’re welcome.

Anyone Up For A Quick 18? 

Our social media guru @hashtagchad snapped this photo last weekend when he played with a few members on our Marketing #ZooCrew Team. If this isn’t the perfect way to spend a free afternoon, we’d like to know what is.

The course wasn’t packed so they got around in less than four hours. Without getting too hokey, this picture sums up what golf’s all about. No cell phones, no email; just you, the course, and a few good friends. That’s a hard combination to beat.

RAZR Fit Xtreme Looks Good In The Sun 

Chad also got an up close shot of the RAZR Fit Xtreme Driver and the new HEX Chrome+ Golf Ball during one of his rounds. Again, this is what San Diego County looks like in the middle of May.

Not a cloud in the sky and perfect conditions to play at any time of the day. Right now everyone who’s dealing with tough weather is rolling their eyes. Hang in there, guys! Golf season’s coming and it’s coming on strong!

For more great Callaway pictures and news, please visit our Facebook and Twitter pages. And if you’re looking to pick up new equipment for the season, please visit our shop page.

Are you playing at all this weekend? Where at? Tell us in the comments section.

Yes, you read that right, it’s been put in play 2.5 times as much as our second most popular option. As our Tour Team explains, Callaway Staff Pros have turned to X Hot Pro again and again for its combination of distance and versatility.

“The contrast of head and face color is very appealing at the address position,” says our Callaway PGA Tour Rep Mike Sposa. “They are very easy to hit high, soft shots.” If you look at the equipment surveys at Tour events, hybrids have become a must-have for Pros who need an accurate, easy-to-hit club from virtually any lie. They’re a dynamic option for our staffers, and any golfer for that matter.

“The faces are hotter, the sole’s designed for versatility, and they’re just all around great performers,” says Luke Williams, our Sr. Global Director of Wood and Irons, when talking about X Hot and X Hot Pro Hybrids.

“We’ve got a wide range of lofts to cover anyone’s needs…(but) you don’t have to be an actual Pro to play the X Hot Pro model…It’s a rocket. It’s a bomber.”

Both models are configured for distance, with a Speed Frame Face for faster ball speeds and Modern Warbird Sole for versatility from everywhere.

Matt Haneline, our Associate Marketing Manager, has seen how well X Hot Hybrids perform during custom fittings. “The ball launches off the club super high, which for what you’re trying to use this club for, hitting it into greens, hitting it out of the rough, being able to have something with very little loft on it that launches it high, is great,” Haneline says. “And with the ball speeds, the launch conditions, the ball comes off the face super hot with very little spin.”

We’re not surprised that X Hot Pro is our #1 Hybrid on the PGA Tour, especially after X Hot was voted the category performance leader for hybrids in the 2013 Golf Digest Hot List. X Hot earned a 5-star rating for performance and, as you may have guessed, was recognized for its distance and versatility.

We had plenty of great Hot List quotes to choose from, and this one really summed it up well. “I tried to mis-hit a few,” said one panelist. “But either there’s a huge sweet spot, or I just couldn’t miss. I’m thinking it’s the sweet spot.”

For more on X Hot and X Hot Pro Hybrids, and the rest of the X Hot Family, please visit our golf equipment home page.

For all of our latest tips, please visit our videos page.

We hope you like it! Let us know what think of the commercial or if you’ve played the ball in the comments section.

Fore more on HEX Chrome+, please visit our golf balls home page.

The HEX Chrome family, HEX Hot family, and HEX Black Tour each won gold medals and led the charge for Callaway Golf Balls in Golf Digest’s new 2013 Golf Ball Hot List Edition.

While HEX Chrome+ was recognized for its 4-piece performance and dual core construction, the HEX Hot offerings earned praise for their fast ball speeds, and HEX Black Tour stood out for its well-rounded 5-piece design.

We’ve seen the performance for both these golf balls on Tour and heard tremendous feedback from players like you who use them on the course. Now the Golf Digest equipment team has gone to great lengths to give the full details on our golf balls.

Here’s what they had to say:

HEX Chrome+
Gold Medal Winner

Tech Talk From Golf Digest: “The 4-piece Chrome+ has a soft inner mantle that activates the dual core for added speed…(and) a thermoplastic urethane cover for spin around the greens.”

Their Verdict:

“Tour worthy…Chrome+ is designed for faster swing speeds”

HEX Chrome
Gold Medal Winner

Tech Talk From Golf Digest: “The 3-piece Chrome has a low compression core for increased driver ball speed, and… a thermoplastic urethane cover for spin around the greens.”

Their Verdict:

“Tour worthy…Chrome is for average swing speeds”

HEX Hot
Gold Medal Winner

Tech Talk From Golf Digest: “The HEX Hot has a soft and thin Surlyn mantle that is designed to increase ball speed.”

Their Verdict:

“The HEX Hot is designed for maximum ball speed”

HEX Hot Pro
Gold Medal Winner

Tech Talk From Golf Digest:  ”The HEX Hot Pro has a soft but fast ionomer mantle that lowers spin.”

Their Verdict:

“The HEX Hot Pro offers more feel around the green.”

HEX Black Tour
Gold Medal Winner

Tech Talk From Golf Digest: “The soft inner core and firm outer core have a wide compression difference to yield lower spin on tee shots and more spin on wedge shots…The cover is slightly thicker than previous Callaway Tour balls for enhanced feel.”

Their Verdict:

“A well-executed combination of technologies answering all questions good players have.”

Now we want to hear from you…which of these golf balls have you played? And what can you tell us after playing HEX Chrome+, HEX Hot, and/or HEX Black Tour? Leave us a post in the comments section.

For more info on all of our golf balls, please visit our golf balls home page.

Part of my job here at Callaway is to work with the people behind the golf stories you read in magazines, on web sites, on tablets or even see on TV. While the Zoo Crew will tell you I spend all day in meetings trying to get more left-handed clubs made, the truth is the earned (not paid) media stuff keeps me pretty busy in between all those meetings about left-handed clubs.

And here’s why it matters: never have third-party, independent and peer recommendations been so critical to people looking to find out what products are hot. Paid ads are great for creating awareness and demand, don’t get me wrong, but golfers are savvy shoppers and most research extensively before spending hard-earned (or gambling) money on golf clubs. And research usually brings them to earned media — the independently verified, expert approved stuff.

Where am I going with all of this? Well, we’re always excited when golf media conduct head-to-head product testing because we know that @DocHockCG and his wicked smart R&D team dream up and crank out the best products in the business. And obviously we’re always open and eager to prove that through independent testing. The annual Hot List and ClubTest are well-known examples in the industry.

But in this particular post I wanted to call attention to a recent head-to-head driver test on MyGolfSpy, a blog that outwardly prides itself on fierce independence in the way it operates and reviews products. MyGolfSpy calls its testing “datacratic,” stating, “We don’t care about names. We care about performance – and performance only. The best drivers in golf are determined based on the data, and not a damn thing more.”

“The best drivers in golf are determined based on the data, and not a damn thing more.” – MyGolfSpy

Well, fortunately for us, performance is right in our wheelhouse. To that end, Callaway’s X Hot Driver won MyGolfSpy’s “Most Wanted Driver – Best Overall Award” for 2013, topping 16 other drivers from 12 other companies. And while that is awesome on its own, Callaway also won 10 additional awards, more than any other golf brand.

These other awards include a first place overall award for RAZR Fit Xtreme in the High Swing Speed category and a first place overall award for X Hot in the Low Swing Speed category. If you want to check out the rankings or like to dive into the numbers and see how all of this is determined, click here.

Thanks for checking it out and congratulations to Callaway R&D. The best in the biz. Now, back to work on adding those left-handed club options… Canada, you with me?!

For more Callaway equipment news, please visit our home page.

Over the next 30 days, we’ll be giving away tons of prizes and our Staff Pros will be collecting Drain patches (see above) for every putt they make over 10 feet on Tour.

For all the news on our events, and info on how you can win patches, Odyssey Staff Bags and other swag in May, check out our Odyssey Month home page.