![]() ![]() ![]() “We met for the first time on that trip,” Cruz remembers. Cruz, a two-time Olympic medalist at 800m and one of the world’s most decorated track athletes of the 1980s, knew Leeper was a diamond in the rough, but he also knew Leeper’s talents would be lost without proper training or dedication. Paralympic track and field team since 2005. It also landed him in the capable hands of Joaquim Cruz, the coach of the U.S. Paralympic track team that would be competing in an international meet in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil where he’d truly start to realize the potential of his emerging talent. Those performances earned him a spot on the U.S. He blitzed the 100m field that day in 11.95 seconds and also went on to win the 200m (25.44) and the 400m (56.79) in the same afternoon. ![]() “Being my first track meet, my main goal was not falling down and making that 14-hour drive back home a whole lot longer.” “My main concern was not disappointing my family,” he admits. All he knew is that he wanted to run fast. Not only had he never run in a track meet before, Leeper had never seen one in person. “We saw that the Endeavor Games were coming up so the thought was ‘Go big or go home,’” Leeper recalls. Although he had been using prosthetics since he was 9 months old, he was never the type of kid to ease into anything. Leeper was born without feet, ankles and lower leg bones, and had his legs amputated to the knee shortly after he was born. He had played basketball and baseball as a kid and even played varsity basketball in high school, but it wasn’t until he received a pair of top-of-the-line prosthetic running legs, courtesy of the Challenged Athletes Foundation and the manufacturer, a small Icelandic company called Ossur, that track and field ever crossed Leeper’s radar. Leeper, along with his mom, dad and older brother, had driven 14 hours from their home in Church Hill, Tenn., to Edmund, Okla., to see if he had a future in this new sport. The 19-year-old double below-knee amputee had traveled 950 miles to get to the 2009 Endeavor Games, but he had no idea at the time the 100 meters that lay in front of him offered the opportunity to take him on an even greater journey. Three years ago, under the hot Oklahoma sun, Blake Leeper crouched down in his starting blocks with something to prove. The result is greater ball speed and forgiveness.22-year-old American Paralympian Blake Leeper is on a fast track to sprinting success. The Speed Pocket disconnects the bottom of the face from the sole allowing for a free-floating face. These irons and iron sets feature an innovation called a Speed Pocket. A great example of this is the TaylorMade SIM Max Irons. The ability of the iron's clubface to give a slight impact can help deliver a straighter shot with more velocity. Why is face flexibility a valuable feature for a golf iron? Wedges are typically higher lofted and shorter than the highest numbered irons. Irons are numbered 1 through 10, where the higher the number the higher the loft. However, wedges are not part of the typical numbering system of irons. Technically, yes, wedges are considered a higher lofted subset of irons. And, since they are more forgiving, a game improvement iron set can help get the ball in the air more accurately and consistently on poorly hit shots, potentially lowering a player's score. These irons are usually targeted at casual or novice golf players since they can be much more forgiving. "Game improvement irons" typically have more perimeter weighting and a wider sole. In fact, most modern irons and iron sets fall somewhere between the two, borrowing aspects from both types of clubhead designs. Are cavity back and muscle back the only types of irons? So, in general, more skill is usually required to get the best shot performance and accuracy from a muscle back design. Since the weighting of the clubhead is more central, the muscle back can be less forgiving on mis-hits. ![]() The muscle back clubhead is also the more traditional clubhead design of the two. In contrast to cavity back irons, muscle backs have a fuller back area on the clubhead. What are muscle back irons or muscle blades? In general, cavity back irons can be more forgiving on mis-hits due to a larger "sweet spot" on the clubhead face. When the weight is redistributed lower on the clubhead, for instance, it can lower the center of gravity, allowing for a higher launch angle in relation to the club's loft. Cavity back irons have a hollowed-out area on the back of the clubface allowing for the redistribution of weight from the center to other parts of the clubhead, like the toe and heel. ![]()
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