History of the Driver: Persimmon/Steel to Titanium to 460 cc heads

[titaniummd]

For those who have played with the early 1 woods made of wood, the early steel driver heads, and even the smaller titanium faced drivers:

Have you noticed a significant increase in distance since the use of 400+ cc drivers and even latest 460 cc heads?

If not distance, how has the newer driver made an impact on your game? Straighter shots, lower scores, lower handicaps?

I was just curious since it doesn't appear to be changing in the past 2 years much since the size of the head has been limited.

[joshtpa]

When I started playing, we were still using "woods". The biggest change for me was going to metal. That added distance for me. Never really thought much of the different metals, but with the new 460 drivers, I not only have added a small amount of distance (10 yds), but they are much more forgiving in my opinion. I have lost a little playability, but they are straight and long. I cant ask for much more than that.

[Chief Broom]

I've been an avid golfer all my life (I started playing regularly at 12) but 15 years ago I got married and for all intensive purposes stopped playing. After going to this year's Master's Tournament with my dad my sons (11 and 8) got fired up about golf and started asking me to take them golfing and so I've started playing again in a big way (2-3 times a week). After playing a few weeks with my old equipment (a 30 year old set of MacGregor Golden Bears) I decided to get new clubs.

A couple of observations going from old equipment to new:

I honestly don't see much of a difference between my old MacGregor Irons and my new cavity back Wilson Staffs. I'll still hit my old irons around the yard and I can hit them just as well and just as far. I haven't seen any difference in forgiveness on miss hits or any less frequency of miss hits with either set of irons. I like my new irons but I honestly could have continued to use my old irons (I had them a regripped a few years ago).

The driver and fairway woods though are a different story. I had my MacGregor wooden woods and I had an early Taylormade metal driver. I also had a metal "Billyclub" driver with a graphite shaft. When I got that Billyclub graphite shafts had only been introduced a couple of years. 15 years ago I was a 15 handicapper and a good drive for me was ~250yds. Today with my new driver a good drive will go 300yds! My game isn't quite back to the level it was back then, but the combination of my new driver and maybe today's balls adds up to serious distance. I can smoke my fairway woods too.

I've also got a hybrid/rescue 3 iron, but so far I haven't been able to figure out how to play it well. I got it to fill the slot between my 4 iron and my five wood, but so far the best I can do with it off the tee is ~200yds. I can do that with my 4 iron. I'm considering picking up a 7 wood to see if it will better fill that slot. I can smoke the hybrid on the fairway and it does seem to be pretty forgiving regardless of the lie I've got, but it still only seems to want to give me 200yds. Since my 5 wood will go 230yds that's a pretty big gap that has left me hanging quite a few times on the course. So I guess I can't say I've seen any kind of miraculous improvement with the introduction of the hybrid.