How much can new tech improve your game? Jessica Marksbury found out at Ping.
GOLF
Welcome to I Tried It, a GOLF.com series about golf items — apparel, gear, accessories and more — that we’ve recently taken out for a spin. We’re here to give our honest, no-frills takes on the latest and greatest golf or golf-adjacent items. So, scroll down to read about what we love about golf’s newest (or new to us) products.
Two-and-a-half years ago, I visited Ping’s Proving Grounds in Phoenix, Ariz., to test the new G Le3 family of clubs as a part of GOLF’s 2024 ClubTest. The women’s-specific line was specially engineered to be both forgiving, lightweight, and distance-enhancing.
At the time, I was still gaming clubs I had been fit for in 2015, so needless to say, the new gear was a revelation. Not only did I gain more carry distance with every club, I also radically improved my dispersion on solid shots and mis-hits alike. I was thrilled!
Those G Le3s have been in my bag ever since. So when Ping introduced the next generation, the G Le4s, I wondered how much my numbers could possibly improve in the span of just two years. To put it bluntly: I haven’t been practicing, my playing days are sporadic, and my physical conditioning certainly hasn’t made any gains. Is it possible that technology alone could bridge that gap and deliver better numbers anyway?
I was excited to find out. So in March, I ventured back to Ping’s Proving Grounds to give the G Le4s a go.
Ping’s new G Le4 family of clubs.Courtesy of Ping
My Ping G Le4 fitting experience
My fitter for this test day was Ping’s James Lee, who is not only talented, but a fun hang as well. He made me feel comfortable right away, and had me warm-up with my current set before turning on the launch monitor to make some comparisons.
The new G Le4s offer a number of additional enhancements when compared to the G Le3s, but the most relevant to my fitting was new loft options in the longer clubs, and the addition of Carbonfly Wrap crowns — a first for a Ping women’s driver. Carbonfly Wrap enables Ping engineers to move the CG closer to the force line for higher-launching, longer results. Not only can you go all the way to 8 in a hybrid (!), new lofts in the fairway woods (5-wood at 23 degrees, 7-wood at 28 and 9-wood at 33) also help improve playability and gapping.
One detail about the clubs that must be mentioned before I go on: They’re so pretty! Photos can’t really do them justice. In person, they have a beautiful iridescent sheen. Ping’s name for the color: Galactic Lilac. It fits!
Even though I generally always play from the forward tees, my hybrids and fairway woods see a lot of action. And my naturally flat swing means I tend to prefer hitting those clubs more than my short irons — weird, I know! But that made me an ideal candidate for the new short-iron hybrid options — especially the 7 and 8. And the launch monitor results spoke for themselves.
My misses tend to be to the left in the form of snipe-hooks, pulls or drop-kicks — even with my short and mid-irons. But with the G Le4s, the snipe basically disappeared. Instead, if anything, I was a little right on misses. Not only did I launch the ball with ease, I also improved my shot dispersion — and gained 10 yards!
I should also mention that the G Le4s are designed for women with swing speeds of 80 mph or lower, which turns out to be an ideal wheelhouse for me. James clocked my mid-iron swing speed at 67 mph. The G Le4s are designed to work with speeds like mine to maximize distance and launch. I was amazed. Each swing I made felt great, well-balanced and launched like crazy. I was even able to achieve great trajectory with the G Le4 irons, which isn’t as common with my current set.
I was impressed with every club in the lineup, but the true star for me was the hybrid selection. What a joy it was to step up to the ball, looking down at that confidence-inspiring hybrid head shape — all the way up to an 8-iron loft! That’s a club I’ve never hit before, and a first for Ping too. I loved it. Also, that extra launch — which, as I mentioned above, I could rarely achieve with my irons — means softer landings on the green, which in theory should mean shorter putts and more scoring opportunities.
Another standout feature of the G Le4s: forgiveness. I caught a few shots a little thin, and they still launched nicely and delivered great distance.
On the fairway wood front, thanks to above-mentioned newly increased lofts, I actually fit into a 3-wood, which I haven’t had in the bag for years.
The only club we ended up adjusting at all was the driver in order to bring down the launch a touch. James manipulated the 11.5-degree default setting down to 10.5. That small change resulted in an increase of 2 mph of ball speed and 10+ yards of gain. My carry distance improved, and my dispersion was better. Incredible!
The G Le4 line includes three putter styles too — Oslo, Louise and Anser 2D. At my last fitting, a stroke assessment revealed that the Louise, a mid-mallet, was the best fit for my strong-arc stroke, and James said that wasn’t likely to change. The updated G Le4 Louise has a slightly bigger face and a new, softer face insert.
Ultimately, having a full-bag fitting is a great reminder of just how much the latest technology can benefit our games. I came away from Proving Grounds fit into a set that was longer, higher-launching and more accurate than what I arrived with, all with the same swing. That’s simply amazing — and supremely rewarding.
You can check out the full configuration of my Ping G Le4 fitting below, as well as links to buy the clubs for yourself! To see the full Proving Grounds fitting experience, check out the video below.
G Le4 is our longest and most forgiving women’s driver to date. The Carbonfly Wrap crown, a first in PING’s women’s driver, reallocates weight to position the CG lower and deeper, generating faster ball speed and more distance from swing speeds of 80 mph or less. Higher, longer, straighter results off the tee are generated by a lighter overall club build that makes the powerful 460cc, 11.5° driver easy to swing and square the face at impact.
In the multi-material G Le4 women’s fairway woods, four lofts are optimized to the target swing speeds to maximize distance through more ball speed and consistent spin. A Carbonfly Wrap crown on the G Le4 fairway woods saves weight to lower the CG and increase the MOI for longer, straighter, higher-launching results.
G Le4 women’s hybrids, now deeper and re-shaped, are engineered to be easy to swing and easy to launch, fitting slower swing speeds and delivering consistency and accuracy that lead to lower scores.
Continuing the success of previous generations of our women’s line, the G Le4 is designed as an iron/hybrid combo solution, allowing golfers to create the ideal set make-up with optimal gapping to help ensure success with every swing.
The G Le4 Louise putter, a mid-mallet design named in honor of PING co-founder Louise Solheim, borrows its weight and shaping properties from the DS72 but differs with a flared hosel and parallel-tip shaft to best fit a strong stroke type.
As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of female varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everyone on the masthead. She can out-hustle them in the office, too, where she’s primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Issue, which debuted in February 2018. Her original interview series, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared both in the magazine and in video form on GOLF.com.
