Equipment Insider: Guess the color of Srixon's new ball?

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Each week in the Equipment Insider, Adam Barr -- PGATOUR.COM's equipment columnist -- will provide breaking news, notes and analysis focused on PGA TOUR players. Adam will also appear in video segments for PGATOUR.COM.

Check out more of Adam Barr's equipment coverage at AdamBarrGolfGearGuide.com.

Video: In the Bag

What do players carry when they head out on TOUR? We take an inside look at the adjustments they make to their clubs ... and they show us other things (ball markers, training aids) that make their tools of the trade unique. Archive: In the Bag MORE IN THE BAGS Sergio Garcia Jim Furyk Dustin Johnson

STRICK'S PICKS: Northern Trust Open winner Steve Stricker's bag included a Titleist 909D3 driver (8.5 degrees of loft), 906F2 3-wood (13 degrees) two 909H hybrids (19 and 21 degrees), 755 irons (4-PW) and two Vokey wedges (54 and 60 degrees). The ball was a Pro V1.

Those irons, the 755s, are not the latest model from Titleist. But they're still favored by a lot of good players. The design relied on a thinner face, and the weight saved there was moved to the heel and toe for some "forgiveness" weighting and good, old-fashioned oomph. The thinner face also allowed for a bigger cavity, into which engineers slid an aluminum vibration dampening chip.

Stricker has no incentive to modernize at the moment. He has made the cut in all three events he has entered in 2010 (SBS Championship, Sony Open in Hawaii, Northern Trust), and his greens in regulation percentage is 73.61 percent (22nd on TOUR). In 2009, he hit 66.67 percent of his greens in regulation (57th on TOUR).

Not everyone is a holdover, though. Bill Haas was using new Titleist CB irons when he won the Bob Hope, and Geoff Ogilvy won the SBS Championship right after putting new Titleist MB irons in the bag.

VISUAL CUES FROM INTERESTING HUES: Remember orange golf balls? They turned out to be a fad, and now white dominates again on tours around the world. But Srixon is reintroducing color to the golf ball, this time with some science behind it.

The Z-Star and Z-Star X Yellow golf balls are just what the name promises -- with all the visibility that comes with. But Srixon, the golf arm of massive Japanese company SRI Sports, put its research and development staff to work on the visual elements of stress and athletic performance. The new balls were the result.

You'll have a hard time losing sight of this ball.

"By tapping into the psychology of hitting each shot and the visualization and calming effect at address, the Z-STAR"! and Z-STAR"! X Tour Yellow golf balls incorporate the science of visual perception with the psychology of color effect on the human brain," Srixon noted in a press release. "Science has proven that yellow is the most visible color in the visual spectrum and psychology has correlated green with calming and stress relief; therefore Srixon has combined the two colors based on these findings to tap into the player's mind and expand the benefits of playing a better ball."

Both Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh play the white versions of the Z-Star. Srixon says some white Z players are trying the yellow ones. Keep your eyes peeled. The yellow balls will be available in April at a cost of $40 per dozen.

NEW AMMUNITION: Plenty of new golf ball technology is on the way for when all that nasty snow melts. Titleist is introducing new versions of its popular NXT and DTSolo families.

The new NXT Tour model has a larger dual core for increased distance, Titleist notes, plus a thinner Fusablend cover for soft greenside feel. The multiple-dimple pattern actually uses seven different sizes of dimples; it's a Tour-proven design that will improve ball aerodynamics overall, Titleist notes. The "regular" NXT model, which replaces the NXT Extreme, has a core almost as large as the Tour version, plus a low-driver-spin ionomer cover with enhanced durability.

Both balls use something called a Staggered Wave parting line within the dimple pattern; this too helps with aerodynamics, Titleist engineers say. Shipping has already begun. The NXT Tour suggested retail price will be $40 per dozen (expect a "street price" of about $30), and the new NXT will list for $34 per dozen (street price about $26).

In the soft-core/lower price echelon, Titleist offers an updated DTSolo. The ball has an even larger core than the NXT Tour, the idea being to provide as much reactive rubber in the core as possible to take advantage of every mile per hour of swing speed. The ionomer cover is guaranteed cut-proof. This ball has also started shipping. Its list price is $28 per dozen, but the street price will settle in around $20.

LEANING INTO THE BENDING MACHINE: You don't often think of a wedge as a club that needs a lot of offset. But some guys want it. And if it helps a player confidently get the leading edge under the ball, he won't hesitate to move that shaft forward.

That was the plan for Paul Goydos, who put a new TaylorMade-adidas wedge into play at Riviera. He also had both his 54-degree and 60-degree wedges double-bent -- a complicated process that takes an experienced hand in the equipment truck to keep the club from breaking or getting just plain ugly.

The process generally goes like this: near the bottom of the hosel, the club technician bends the loft much stronger -- in Goydos' case, it was six degrees. Then, the top part of the hosel gets bent back toward its original loft. The effect is to shove the hosel much more forward relative to the face.

It's not a new idea -- both Cleveland Golf wedges and the lately infamous Ping Eye 2 wedges have been set up this way. For Goydos, the altered look leads to a leading edge that dives under the ball the way he intends.