Equipment (Thursday, 9th October)

The club used by Tiger Woods in his record -breaking Masters victory, the King Cobra steel deepface driver is now available in Europe from Cobra Golf.

The club Tiger used was a 9 degree version of this driver since his amateur days and it is also the favourite of Greg Norman.

The new King Cobra will be delivered for sale in Europe next March and will be available in a 10 degree version and three wood options.

Titleist has now strengthened its club range with a new titanium driver tested on the tours this year with seven wins on three tours.Two head shapes are offered with a variety of lofts. the 975D is a 265cc pear-shaped driver with lofts in 6.5, 7.5, 8.5 and 11.5 degrees lofts and the 976R is more compact 215cc size. This latter club comes in 8 or 9 degree lofts.

Top-Flite has added new products to its Intimidator titanium faced driver and woods with the Top-Flite Intimidator 400 series. The clubs feature an innovative spoiler-sole, a Top-Flite Ultralite Muscle shaft, 400-tip technology and an all titanium head. The driver comes in 8.5, 9.5 and 10.5 degree lofts. Both woods and driver are now available and are priced at around £199 each.

Top-Flite has also unveiled its new Pro Grind Irons. These have been made for the professional and players seeking the look and feel of forged irons but giving the performance of investment cast clubs. In addition to the club head modifications, Top-Flite has added a new Dynamic Gold Sensicore steel shaft by True Temper and the new Muscle graphite shaft by Fenwick as stock shafts

The new clubs will be available in January 1998 together with a new Micro Groove series of putters.

A new 'Isopur' face insert has created a new feel in five of Ping's most popular putters. Isopur means isolated purity. explained Karsten president, John Solheim.The Isopur putters, the Anser2, Pal2, Zing2, B60 and B90, will also be slightly heavier than their original designs.

Ping has added two new putters to its range. The Nelli which is cast from manganese bronze with face and cavity being a large Isopur inset and the Darby, the first cavity-back mallet putter, and crafted entirely from stainless steel.

Tommy Armour has two new versions of the acclaimed 845s model along with new 845s titanium woods. Both will be promoted heavily in 1998 together with its oversized Ti-100 pure titanium irons.

The Titanium Face insert model has improved better perimeter weighting and moment of inertia than the original 845s while the Oversize 845s has a stainless steel head with an enlarged sweetspot. Both models come with a choice of steel shafts manufactured by True Temper, the Tour Step 3 and Tour Step 3 Sensicore or G-force 3.3 Tour series lightweight graphite from Aldila.