After this morning's competition between the TeeBird and Saint, and the TeeBird winning out, I still pulled out the Saint for a few shots tonight at a different course. On one particular long drive I shaved a couple of trees because it stood up earlier than I expected and I released a millisecond later than I wanted, but to date this year it was the longest throw I have had on that hole. The hole is 438 feet but the only open line is to the right of the tee. You do have a little sky to work with on the right, but absolutely nothing on the left. This is a forehand or left-handed player's nightmare. Normally I swing it out at 1 o'clock off the tee box and put enough hyzer on it so it fades back in at the 370 mark. This leaves me with a very open 70 foot upshot.
Tonight I got a hold of a really good rip from my Gold Line Saint. As I mentioned it stood up flat quicker than anticipated and since I swung it out too far right, I thought I was going to nail several trees that protect the far side of the fairway. Not because it was a Saint, but it skimmed but did not hit a single tree. In the end it came out to 415 feet. If I had been on target instead of being right, it would have been a putt instead of a short approach type of long putt.
Hurray for bag confusion. The TeeBirds are still dominated in my bag, but it is clear that the Saints are close enough, or at least workably close enough, where my game would not suffer in the least if I were to use them instead. The Saint's strengths of super glide and less LSS offsets the TeeBird's strengths or pure straightness with a resistance to doing anything stupid. I am not sure they can co-exist in the bag at the same time because the overlap could cause me to second guess my shot selection. However, if I need a massive right turn by swinging it out wide left first and then have it sky across the field, and all without it fading out on me prematurely, then the Saint definitely has the TeeBird beat. The pop-up of the Gold Line from the slighest of hyzers will be a huge asset too.