Driver Evolution
Entry posted by bkuehn1952
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I have been fortunate to have played golf for close to 55 years. A lot has stayed the same in golf during that time but much has changed. I started thinking about the evolution in my driver (or 1 Wood/1 Metal/1 Multi Compound).
My first non-junior driver was a laminated maple, steel shafted, leather gripped brown behemoth. On those rare swings that I hit it on the sweet spot, I could literally state I had hit it on the screws as it had a screwed in insert. Through high school and college I carried that seemingly unhittable club. I mainly used 3-wood and just carried the driver because I was allowed to have 14 clubs.
After getting out of school and joining the working world, I became interested in golf once again. As a Christmas gift one year, my parents gave me a Daiwa Exceler driver. If one is a fisherman, Daiwa is probably a more familiar name, but they have also been involved in golf for many years. The Exceler had a graphite composite head and graphite shaft, all black. My phobia with drivers continued for a while but finally I decided I had to learn to hit driver if I wanted to get the most from my game. Eventually I tamed “Big Woody”, a name my wife & I gave to the Exceler despite there being not a single molecule of wood in it. He stayed in my bag until the Big Bertha revolution occurred.
A member of our golf league showed up one year with a Big Bertha driver. It looked enormous and he could hit it long and straight. Eventually golf club envy took hold and Big Woody was replaced by Bertha.
A few years rolled by and my love affair with Bertha continued until the Member-Guest at my parent’s club in Florida. One of the team members of an opposing team wielded a Great Big Bertha. It made my Bertha look like a 5-wood. And that 70+ year old man could hit his ‘balloon on a stick’ a mile. I had to have one. Poor old Bertha got dumped for the latest & greatest.
As time passed, driver heads continued to grow bigger until we hit the 460cc limit. I settled on a Big Bertha 454 and was content for many years. Then fate (or luck) intervened.
I had been active on a website for a number of years. Periodically there would be a drawing for a golf towel or sand wedge. Then one day they had a drawing for a Nike Covert Driver. You guessed it, I won. After letting the club sit in the basement for several months, I decided to give it a try. Started using it on the “factory” setting of “neutral” and never felt the need to adjust it. So far I am just a bystander to the adjustable driver revolution.
What will be the next driver? I have no idea but if I follow through with my plan to get fitted this summer, I may be getting a new dance partner.
How about the rest of you? Tell us about your first driver or how you arrived at your current equipment.
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