Though I’ve been quietly admiring Cobra’s recent woods from afar, I didn’t expect a whole lot from the Bio Cell+ driver when I signed on to do this review. The S9-1 and S2 scream my name every time I walk by the used club rack at my local big-box stores, and the L5V and ZL Encore were some of the few composite drivers that didn’t make me want to stuff my ears with Play-Doh, but I had never actually put a Cobra golf club in my bag.
“Had” being the operative word there.
My interest in Cobra waned a bit after their spinoff from Acushnet (and thus Titleist) and subsequent purchase by Puma, though I’m realizing now that was a mistake. Cobra was one of the first OEMs to jump on the adjustable hosel bandwagon, which you can find in nearly all of the woods and hybrids they make.
They’ve also gone all-in on offering an assortment of colors, moving past “ghosting” to personalization, surely thanks in no small part to Rickie Fowler’s fondness for orange.
But the changes this year aren’t just esthetic. Cobra has introduced multi-material construction to go along with their E9 forged faces, which they say should give golfers maximum distance and straighter drives.
Let’s dive in.
One of the most hyped family of clubs currently out there is the SLDR from TaylorMade. First came the driver with its signature movable weight that (yes) slides toward the toe or heel to adjust ball flight. This was not a new idea, as Mizuno and others had used a slide-able weight in the past. No, the real breakthrough technology in the SLDR family is the low-and-forward center of gravity (CG). And unlike the slider weight, the low-and-forward CG is found throughout the line, including in the fairway and rescue woods.
In the past couple of years TaylorMade launched one of the most aggressive marketing campaigns the golf industry has ever seen around a unique club named Rocketballz. The Rocketballz line was a very popular line of drivers and fairway woods. Hoping to continue on the excitement TaylorMade released Rocketballz-ier line called RBZ Stage 2. The Stage 2 line was not nearly as popular as the original, and so once again TaylorMade decided to change it up with the JetSpeed line of woods.
It seems to me that the Titleist designers who work on the AP line of irons subscribe to the theory that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The AP2 irons have been extremely popular irons for Titleist since their release in 2010. Although the design has not changed dramatically the designers at Titleist still find ways to improve upon these very popular irons.
