« At the end of the round, it's all about SCORGolf »

Based on the early days here in the equipment section, you may get the impression that Chapeau Noir favors the stylish flair of well played short irons, pitches, and chips over 300 yard bombs off the tee. Though the searing hiss of of a forcefully struck driver has its merits, true scorecard impact is usually found from 140 yards in.

The SCOR4161 system from SCOR GolfAnd that's where SCORGolf comes in. SCORGolf is a small company touting what they call a revolutionary product line in the SCOR4161, which erases the divide between short irons and wedges, making them all finely-tuned scoring tools.

Chapeau Noir is likely a typical example of what SCORGolf is referring to hear, employing a traditional iron set with a separate set of wedges -- though the difference in loft between my pitching wedge and gap wedge, along with its matching sand and lob wedges are dialed in at regular intervals, the design logic of the SCOR4161 product line takes that concept to another level.

Terry Koehler, the founder of SCORGolf, is a seasoned golf equipment veteran, having spent his early career at the Ben Hogan Company, Reid Lockhart and Ray Cook Putter Company. As you might well expect, Terry is a golf tech junkie, maintaining an informative blog that is more about educating than it is about selling -- refreshing yes?

One of the first things you'll notice about the SCOR4161 solution is the wide range of lofts from which to choose -- as the name of the product line reflects -- from 41 to 61 degrees and everything in between. Next comes the always tricky issue of bounce, a concept many of us still struggle to truly understand. SCOR Golf simplifies the vagaries bounce with something it calls its V-SOLE, which combines a high and low bounce into the sole of each and every SCOR4161 wedge and short iron.

SCOR4161 has all the lofts.Now I'm sure you've all seen online golf club configuration / fitting tools in the past, but this one called SCORFit seems a bit more involved. Because Koehler contends that no scoring club should look like your six iron, SCORFit and the SCOR4161 product line can provide a set of up to five wedges custom built to flow into your existing set -- something you can do using the aforementioned SCORFit online configuration tool.

Chapeau Noir plugged in his 2008 Titleist AP1 irons into the tool, along with the associated specs, and the SCORFit tool refreshed to provide the a wedge solution to match. Very cool. The AP1 9 iron at 41 degrees loft would be replaced, as would the AP1 pitching wedge, and the gap wedge as well.

In their place, the SCORFit systems recommends the following:

• SCOR4161 41^° - 139-143 Yards
• SCOR4161 45^° - 126-130 Yards
• SCOR4161 49^° - 115-119 Yards
• SCOR4161 53^° - 104-108 Yards
• SCOR4161 57^° - 95-99 Yards

Based on my input, SCORFit recommends regular flex KBS Tour 120 Gram shafts, something I found interesting as my current wedge solution employs a one shaft fits all philosophy (The theory being that short shafted irons aren't as prone to torque? Chapeau Noir would be happy to learn more.)

After the season Chapeau Noir endured in 2011 that saw his index rise rather than fall, any solution that promises to result in lower scores will garner attention. That said, the SCORGolf story is intriguing, and worth further investigation. After all, you have nothing to lose but fewer strokes. And we all want that.