Hit my friends driver now i'm confused....

[trog2233]

I was playing 18 on saturday with a friend that just got a new Cobra L4V driver and was hitting the ball well with it all day. I hit my driver about 220 yards consistantly but thats about my max. At the end of the round i hit one drive with his club and i hit it 290 right down the center of the fairway. Was that most likely a lucky drive or should i buy one of those drivers? It felt really good when i hit it.

[sp33d]

I would say its a bit of both.

Find a demo day, go hit every thing. What ever driver makes you confident, and feels good to you buy.Try diffrent shafts, diffrent flexes, etc. Take a note pad with you, and write things you like and dont. Because often you hit so many the signals get jumbled in your nogin.

[bunkerputt]

  trog2233 said:

I was playing 18 on saturday with a friend that just got a new Cobra L4V driver and was hitting the ball well with it all day. I hit my driver about 220 yards consistantly but thats about my max. At the end of the round i hit one drive with his club and i hit it 290 right down the center of the fairway. Was that most likely a lucky drive or should i buy one of those drivers? It felt really good when i hit it.

My experience is, you can gain 20 yards or so by switching from highly sub-optimal equipment, to perfectly optimal equipment. But you probably have something reasonably optimal, so make it 15. A 70 yard difference is something completely different and was probably the result of your swing + wind conditions + fairway. To go from a 220 max (~90mph clubhead speed) to 290 (~110), requires a serious increase in the clubhead speed.

My suggestion is to get the two clubs on a launch monitor and get some actual, empirical results. That's the only way to know. Everything else is pure speculation.

[trog2233]

I've never had my swing speed checked before so i'm not sure what i'm at. I just didnt want to go spend $250 on a new driver and i cant hit it like that.

[jonnythan]

I see your driver is only a 9*. It's my understanding that average golfers can often gain a fair bit of distances by going up to 10 - 12* drivers. That could have a lot to do with the distance increase you saw as well.

[PiKapp23]

I've always found hitting someone else's equipment leads to big improvements. However, once you make a new purchase those increases in distance or accuracy are quickly lost.

There is little doubt that properly fit equipment will perform better than ill fit equipment, so it's possible that your friend's driver is a better fit for you for whatever reason. It's also possible that the stars just aligned at that moment and you were able to hit that shot perfect and might have done the same thing with your own driver on that swing.

[trog2233]

  jonnythan said:

I see your driver is only a 9*. It's my understanding that average golfers can often gain a fair bit of distances by going up to 10 - 12* drivers. That could have a lot to do with the distance increase you saw as well.

I didnt think the loft of the club would give you any distance? I hit my 9 degree off the ground pretty well.

[ApocG10]

I made a horrible mistake of buying a Ping driver because I bought g10 irons (which I love). It was straight, but not very long. I demo'd 7 more drivers at the beginning of the season. Ended up with a Titleist 909D2 in the end, and dont regret it one bit.

So dont do like I did and go with the first thing that catches your eye. Try before you buy.

[CarlSpackler]

I wouldn't make the call after one swing. My buddy and I swapped 3 woods for a round since he is considering buying a Taylor Made like mine. He hit it really well, but I hit his Bertha like crap. I was VERY happy to retake possession.

[billysandy]

  trog2233 said:

I didnt think the loft of the club would give you any distance? I hit my 9 degree off the ground pretty well.

It can give you distance, just based on your swing speed. For example, if you have a slow swing speed, you need to be able to get the ball up in the air to get carry (you can't be messing around with an 8* driver for example, if you have a slow swing speed). But if you have a high swing speed, you are going to want a lower ball flight that a low lofted driver offers to gain distance - if you have a high swing speed, high loft, you just send the ball high and into the wind but more importantly, lose roll

[Ken Smith]

The bottom line is that you just happened upon a driver that has a shaft frequency very close to what you need for your swing load and unload timing. Swing speed alone does not correlate to an appropriate shaft flex.