MacGregor MACTEC NVG Driver Review

MacGregor has been home to some of the greatest names in golf equipment, especially drivers. From the Toney Penna and Tommy Armour drivers to the Tourney and Eye-O-Matic drivers, many of the most-loved and most-played persimmon woods of the last century. Over the past few years, MacGregor has made an aggressive move to infuse more technology into its current drivers.

The new MACTEC NVG is the latest, and boldest, addition to the company’s lineup. Does it live up to the hype – and the history?

While most of MacGregor’s historic clubs have come from the company’s legendary Albany, GA, factory, the MACTEC Driver was born across the Pacific. MacGregor’s Japanese subsidiary designed the original MACTEC Driver, which has been on the market for a year. MacGregor USA took the original and made it bigger. Otherwise, the esthetics are essentially the same. This driver doesn’t look like anything else on the market in the U.S.

In fact, you could also say it doesn’t sound like anything else on the market, either. But we’ll get to that later, along with the answer to the important question: does it play like anything else?

Construction
First, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts. And there are some parts that look like pieces you might find at a hardware store, but by design.

The MACTEC NVG is a 435cc driver. It isn’t the largest driver on the planet, what with all the drivers that are now bumping up against the USGA’s 460cc limit on clubhead size. But the MACTEC NVG is still plenty big – bigger than top-selling drivers like the TaylorMade R7 and the Titleist 905 series.

MacGregor boasts that the MACTEC NVG is the world’s first “dual beta titanium” driver. What that means is that there are two separate parts of the clubhead made from beta titanium, which is stronger than the standard 6-4 grade titanium used in many drivers (and the body of the MACTEC NVG). Beta titanium can be made very thin, which is the calling card of the face and crown (top) of the MACTEC NVG. The crown is just 0.4mm thick, which frees up weight to be moved to other areas of the clubhead. More on that later.

Depending on the loft, you get one of two different kinds of beta titanium in the face. The 7.5- and 8.5-degree models get 15-3 beta titanium, which is harder and imparts less spin for golfers who have high swing speeds and generate enough spin on their own. The 9.5-, 10.5- and 11.5-degree models have TVC beta titanium faces, which has greater rebound properties to enhance swing speed. Lefty models are available in 9.5 and 10.5 degrees and a 400cc ladies’ version comes in 11 and 13 degrees.

In addition to all the different types of titanium at work in the MACTEC NVG, the driver also has four tungsten weights in the sole. Two weights are in the rear heel area of the clubhead, totaling 14 grams. Meanwhile, there are 2.5-gram tungsten weights located in the extreme heel and toe ends of the club, midway between the front the back of the sole.

These weights are not removable, like the TaylorMade R7 or its many progeny. Instead, they are fixed in a location that MacGregor designers believe optimizes the moment of inertia (MOI) to stabilize the clubhead at impact and improve forgiveness. Face angles are tuned to shift the preferred shot shape with each individual loft, from a fade in the 7.5-degree model to a draw in the 11.5-degree version.

The other standard equipment on the MACTEC NVG includes a proprietary “Quadra-Action” graphite shaft, which has four distinct zones to help generate energy and stabilize the shaft for accuracy. MacGregor’s testing shows an increase of 3 miles per hour of swing speed for most golfers compared with other shafts. The shaft length is 44.75 inches for all lofts, and comes in senior, regular, stiff, stiff-plus and X-stiff flexes in weights from 48 grams in the senior flex to 74 grams in the X-stiff.

Esthetics
The MACTEC NVG, as noted earlier, doesn’t look like anything else on the U.S. market. At address, the brilliant midnight blue of the top of the clubhead is stunning. There is no alignment aid on the crown denoting the center of the clubhead, but the driver sets up very nicely to the ball. The result is a driver that looks powerful and clean at address.

Once you flip it over, however, things get a bit, uh, busier. The sole of the MACTEC NVG is a collection of angles, bevels, screws, graphics and lettering. And there’s a medallion, too. Yes, there’s a lot going on. Whether you like this or not will depend upon whether you like the way the driver performs. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The sole of the driver absolutely is the product of the Japanese design esthetics, where all technology is meant to be visible and obvious.

There are some other nifty touches. The grip has a silver endcap that has a raised MACTEC logo, and the headcover is a massive zippered mitt with complementary black and blue colors and cool Mylar piping. As my 5-year-old daughter said, “Mmmm… Shiny!”

Performance
Regardless of what you think of the MACTEC NVG’s looks, it really gets your attention once you hit it. The sound and the sight are singular.

While sound doesn’t have anything to do with distance and accuracy, it deserves a small mention because it is such a large part of the MACTEC NVG. This is a loud driver. Very, very loud. My playing partners described it as “two pipes hitting each other,” and “the most high-tech aluminum baseball bat hitting a cue ball.” Yes, it’s like that. And loud. It will attract attention on the range and on the course.

You’ll happily get used to the sound once you see the sight of your drives soaring down the fairway. Not only is the MACTEC NVG loud. It is also long. Very, very long. The first two rounds I tested the driver were on courses I’ve played many times. The MACTEC NVG took me to places in the fairway I haven’t been before. Using the 10.5-degree model with a stiff shaft, I averaged 5 to 10 yards more than my Great Big Bertha II. Nicer still was the fact that when I really caught one, I became scary long. I average 270-275 off the tee, but I had multiple 300-plus yard clouts with the MACTEC.

Forgiveness-wise, the MACTEC NVG is solid. The clubface is not as deep as many jumbo-sized drivers, creating a very wide sweet spot. Heel and toe hits didn’t lose much distance, and they stayed straight. My only bad drives with the MACTEC NVG were either awful swings or the result of poor alignment. Yes, user error. But this driver made up for most of them.

The ball flight was high, as we’re growing to expect from high-launch, low-spin drivers. Carry distance was good, and I think the roll is where I picked up my extra distance. The only disappointment was that I had trouble shaping the ball. I hit a pretty straight ball, but sometimes I like to hit a hard cut off the tee on a few dogleg-rights on the courses I play. That shot was hard to pull off with the 10.5-degree, which is setup to create a slight draw. This driver simply wanted to hit the ball straight. I’ll take the tradeoff. But if you want to work the ball, you’ll want to look at a MACTEC NVG with less loft and a more open face angle.

Conclusion
The MACTEC NVG is a bit of a secret, since it isn’t being used widely on the PGA Tour (Greg Norman was playing it prior to his recent back surgery). But if you haven’t hit a MacGregor driver since Jack Nicklaus was winning majors with one, or if you’ve never hit one at all, the MACTEC NVG deserves a try. It is long and forgiving, and it has about as much technology as I’ve ever seen crammed into a driver. At a street price of $399, this driver is also more expensive than many others on the market.

I think products like this bode well for a MacGregor resurgence. If you want to be on the cutting edge of a big turnaround, or if you just want to smack some really long, loud, straight drives, I think you’ll find the MACTEC NVG to be well worth the money. It is a fitting addition to the pantheon of MacGregor drivers.