It was Demo day at our club.... Cleveland, Taylor, Nike, Ping, Titleist and Mizuno. I wish I had more to report on but I got a bit rapped up with the drivers (surprise)....
First I currently play with a Taylor R7 TP w/fuji SIX S...my swing speed is probably 98-102 on the course and on demo day I topped out at 104. The testing took place on our club range, outdoors and there were an array of launch monitors proclaiming each driver the 'best.' I hit the Titleist 905, the Ping G5?, the Nike Satchmo or whatever they call the thing, the Taylor 460, and the 425 TP and the Cleveland Hiball or Hibore....
The first thing I'd say is this... this new generation of drivers is better than the two or three year ago equipment. The flight consistency and the shot dispersion is very consistent. If you haven't bought a driver in a few years, you'll be in for a very positive surprise. All the drivers are easy to launch and the ballflight is MUCH flatter than previous versions.
All the drivers were good. I do hit my r7 pretty good too... I maxed out at a ball speed of 150 with my driver, avg. about 147 and I hit it pretty straight. I also had my 'eyes' (although no vendor would believe me when I said that went 210... they all said "maybe, but it is very windy" if it weren't it carried 240)
to check on the launch monitor results. The one standout was the Cleveland hi-bore... I carried several 10 yds further than my best with my driver and the max ball speed was 153 and avg. was about 149. It might have been better if I got used to 'a' single shaft... the vendor keep giving me a different shaft every swing. AND cleveland has a wide assortment of shaft options on this driver. The Nike was pretty good, probably second to the hi bore and the Taylor 425 TP was better for me than the 460, although the difference was negligible (also negligible compared to my driver).....The Titleist was the best looking and sounded good but I didn't hit it as well as mine.
The real conclusion is if you have an old driver in your bag... the new ones unfortunately, are really that good.
P.S. This would have been a GEA post...but since they drove yodasolo out... I'm posting it here instead if anyone is interested
We had a demo day today, also, but just Taylor & no launch monitor fun. I have a Mizuno driver, and a slightly older Adams. I hit both pretty well, but these new TM drivers were noticably better...especially the TP versions. I also liked the 425 better than the 460.
I'll have to find a cleveland and nike demo day to try out those drivers you recommend.
Still love my Titleist 983E. I've tried a bunch of new drivers and the latest Titleist definitatly has more spring off the face. It's all about maximum compression off the sweet spot no matter what. I'm actually concerned about more distance. Most courses haven't caught up to 300 yd drives on average. 280 is plenty for most courses I play.
All I can say is, focus on the swing geometry and save a few bucks.
I spent some time with Ted and Steve at the swamp a few weeks ago and got the skinny on the Henry Griffits technology. Sounds like heads and shoulders above the conventional stuff.
I find the new drivers are more forgiving on off-center hits, but I don't find any improvement with balls hit squarely.
Ed,
The one big difference I noticed was ALL the new drivers I hit went higher with FLATTER flight. I was outside in a fair quartering ( into and right...10-15 mph) wind. The higher ballflight allowed for and actually was achieved with less spin. I wasn't able to determine if that meant more roll but that isn't that important to me. The less spin did mean the ball held it's line better and the club had more area on which to hit an acceptable shot. On my R7, shots hit low on the club spin alot... on the Cleveland there wasn't a ton of spin increase. While this low spin, flat flight has been marketed and promised for a number of years this was actually the only time I've (with my relatively low ss) been able to actually SEE a difference.
I'm not here to sell anything.... AND IF it were an allocation of resources choice (as bagger suggested) I'd go with lessons from Ted or Yoda anyday. But if anyone was thinking about it, I think one of the new products might pleasantly surprise people.
Hybrid Mode
