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Posted

Maybe this has been discussed before but do Drivers have a finite life?..Are golfers doing themselves a disservice by sticking to the tried and true at the expense of their game....Maybe the new Ti or composite drivers aren't a problem but the older types must have metal fatigue after being hit at up to100mph+ time after time over the years thereby changing the dynamics of the head and losing distance and control. When people say they aren't getting the distance they used to and blame it on getting older could be time to update.Looking back at what I just wrote I remembered talking to two guys lately whose Ti drivers had split on the face in the first year ,normal guys not built like Arnie S ,so maybe it's not just the older models that are a problem. Anybody have an idea on this?


Posted

A finite life?   A driver may last 50 years before it fails.  Whether or not or if/when it fails is impossible to predict.....

My take on drivers:

I like to update my driver every 3-4 years for no other reason than to stay current with modern driver technology.  I rarely buy new clubs.  I'm not a "club collector" ....to be sure.  I find what works and stick with it for years.....

When it comes to metal woods/hybrids, I like to stay more current...............and this comment is coming from a guy who's only used 2 different sets of irons and 2 putters over the past 15+years!

What's in Paul's Bag:
- Callaway Big Bertha Alpha Driver
- Big Bertha Alpha 815 3-wood
- Callaway Razr Fit 5-wood
- Callaway Big Bertha 4-5 Rescue Clubs
-- Mizuno Mx-25 six iron-gap wedge
- Mizuno Mp-T4 56degree SW
- Mizuno Mp-T11 60degree SW
- Putter- Ping Cadence Ketsch


Posted

Depends on the driver and the person swinging it.  On Sunday they made everyone stop practice on the range so a guy could run out and retrieve his new R11S driver head that broke off after he mis-swung and slammed the mat with it repeatedly.  About 15 minutes later we were asked to stop again so he could run out and pick up his new RBZ 3w head that he did the same thing to.   In that case driver lifespan was about 10 minutes.

Joe Paradiso

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Posted

Buckeye is wrong. Drivers definitely do lose elasticity due to metal fatique on the club face. I dont know what the lifespan is, im sure 4 years is fine, but metal fatique is a very real thing in high impact plates like those used on a driver.

As for irons/wedges/putters, they are thick and heavily built. They will last until they are so beaten up you hate looking at them.

In the Ogio Kingpin bag:

Titleist 913 D2 9.5* w/ UST Mamiya ATTAS 3 80 w/ Harrison Shotmaker & Billy Bobs afternarket Hosel Adaptor (get this if you don't have it for your 913)
Wilson Staff Ci-11 4-GW (4I is out of the bag for a hybrid, PW and up were replaced by Edel Wedges)
TaylorMade RBZ 5 & 3 Fairway Woods

Cobra Baffler T-Rail 3 & 4 Hybrids

Edel Forged 48, 52, 56, 60, and 64* wedges (different wedges for different courses)

Seemore Si-4 Black Nickel Putter


Posted
Originally Posted by BuckeyeNut

A finite life?   A driver may last 50 years before it fails.  Whether or not or if/when it fails is impossible to predict.....

My take on drivers:

I like to update my driver every 3-4 years for no other reason than to stay current with modern driver technology.  I rarely buy new clubs.  I'm not a "club collector"....to be sure.  I find what works and stick with it for years.....

When it comes to metal woods/hybrids, I like to stay more current...............and this comment is coming from a guy who's only used 2 different sets of irons and 2 putters over the past 15+years!

I agree with the second part ....keeping up with technology.....but the first part might be like the museum that had George Washingtons original hatchet that had two new heads and three new handles.lol.


Posted
Im new here and just had to comment on this. New drivers only last about 5,000 shots, not alot if you practice more than most people. Ive owned 4 TM drivers in the last four years. Smashed in the faces and even seen my old mans titleist 975j cave in. if you swing like a caveman, a driver will only last you maybe 3+ years. Thats takin it easy. IMHO

Posted
i have hit the crap out of my driver for 5 years now and its still just fine.  No face caving, no cracking, no loss of distance, no nothing.  If you hit rocks and range balls you might could crack one in 4 years but I've hit 1000's of drives with it and not had a problem.

My philosophy on golf "We're not doing rocket science, here."


Posted

I used the same Callaway Big Bertha driver for nearly 8 years and never had any problems with it.  The only damage to the club was the shaft was actually weakening and I was fearing it would snap on me.  That is the only reason I purchased a newer model driver.  The first couple years of owning the club I was in high school and played several times a week and visited the range very frequently and never noticed any damage to the clubhead itself.  When it comes to results the only difference between my two drivers is shapability (if that's a word).  I can shape my shots better with the newer one, the distance is roughly the same.


Posted

Its all about club speed.

I have had one shaft last more that 2 months. And 1 clubface last more that a year.   Granted during those same times i broke multiple shafts and a few faces.  But those in particular seem to be solid.   The TM Burner 2.0 is the longest running head ive had.  Ive broken 5-6 shafts on the club, but the head remains rock solid.  Great club head.

If you swing 100-115 you should have the driver until you break it over you knee.

If you swing 125-135+ you will break them monthly if not weekly.

I've broken 3x more shafts that faces, so I would say you could use the same head for forever (why would you want to?)  I'd replace the shaft anyhow because i hate stock shafts myself.


Posted

Unless youre a pro who practices every day, chances are you will never stress a driver to the point of metal fatigue.  However, it is a good idea to update drivers every 5 years or so simply because by that time driver technology has advanced enough where its worth upgrading.

Whats in my :sunmountain: C-130 cart bag?

Woods: :mizuno: JPX 850 9.5*, :mizuno: JPX 850 15*, :mizuno: JPX-850 19*, :mizuno: JPX Fli-Hi #4, :mizuno: JPX 800 Pro 5-PW, :mizuno: MP T-4 50-06, 54-09 58-10, :cleveland: Smart Square Blade and :bridgestone: B330-S


Posted

I have broken two drivers, one new and one used about 5 years, The new one was a TM 580XD that broke in the heel. The other was a Ping G5 that cracked in the face. The new drivers I tried, before getting a Ping G20, all hit the ball with a lot less spin than the older driver, The result was a straighter shot that launched higher, flattend out, and ran more after landing, I can't really say that drivers have a finite life, but the the improvement in the technology over several generations of drivers, would factor into how long a driver stays in my bag.


Posted

My brother took a driver from the pro-shop to "test-drive"  for nine holes.... they put some tape on the face,  and he cracked the face.   He has a ridiculously (had perhaps)  high swing speed,  I wish I could claim it was me!

I hit my Hawk-eye VFT that I got a year or so after it came out used,  until about 2 weeks ago.   110-115 swing-speed,  and I would be surprised if there was any metal fatigue that affected it's playability,  but I could be wrong.   I haven't played my "usual"  courses since getting a new driver,  so I'm curious to see how much technology has changed in 15 years!


Posted

Apparently, the weld can fail where the face is welded to the rest of the body, usually around the outside of the scoring on the face.  Here is a pic of my tour burner tp.  The plasma weld is failing (help with diagnosis from Tom Wishon), so I have taken it out of service.  Taylormade cares not what happened to it, but that's neither here nor there.....  But yes, they can fail.


Posted

I would think number of hits rather than number of years would impact the life span of a club.  I've had a Taylormade Metalwood driver since the mid 80's and it still hits just fine.  Although I don't use it anymore.  Surprisingly that old club is only about 20 yards shorter than my Nike VR-S. but the club head and sweet spot is about half the size of the Nike.


Posted

I have an old Mizuno T-zoid driver that shows no real damage but after the years I have put it through just began to feel dead.  I lost around 15 to 20 yards with it and then got an olf Callaway VFT given to me by my father in law and hit it well for a while.  It wasn't until just recently that I got my Callaway diablo octane driver and surpass the VFT by about 15 yards.  I would say the quality of the club has something to do with the lifespan but they do in fact have a lifespan.  I too like to get something new every 3 to 4 years due to metal fatigue and newer technology.

Driver: CALLAWAY Diablo Octane 9.5*

Woods: CALLAWAY Diablo Octane 15*

Hybrid: CALLAWAY Diablo Edge 21*

Irons: CLEVELAND TA7 3-PW

Wedges: CLEVELAND 588 51*, 56*, and (60* on standby)

Putter: ODYSSEY DFX 1100 mallet

Bag: NIKE Performance Carry (Lime green/Grey)

Ball: NIKE One Tour D

 

 

 

 


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  • Posts

    • I would think of it in terms of time. The time it takes to get the arm angle into a good position to deliver the club with proper shaft lean. Another component is rotation, but that is also a matter of timing. It relates to how the body stalls to give the golfer time to hit the ball. If you have to get 80+ degrees out of that right elbow in one third of a second versus 50 degrees in the same time then you have to steal time from somewhere. It is usually body rotation. That does not help with shaft lean.  I agree in that amateurs tend to make the swing more complicated than pro golfers. 
    • I haven't been able to practice like I wanted and won't for the next week.  1. The weather sucks in Ohio this year. I have been mostly inside hitting foam balls. Just kind of my basic stuff.  2. I woke up last Saturday with a left side rib muscle on fire. If I turned or leaned a certain way it would spasm that almost buckled my knees. I have been taking a break to let that settle. I don't want to get a long term injury. I think I pinched a nerve or just aggravated a muscles.   3. I am going on a mini-vacation to Florida (screw you Ohio weather) with a friend, and rolling that into a work conference I have next week. I will be with out my clubs for a week.  I will be back next in two Fridays to hit the ground running with some warmer temps and better weather in Ohio, hopefully. I would really like to get more out on the course and the range.     
    • Day 580 - 2026-05-04 Played eight holes. Sometimes golf kicks you in the nuts. 😉 
    • I work with a lot of golfers who want more shaft lean at impact, who currently have AoAs that range from +2° to -2°, and who love to see the handle lower and more "in front of their trail thigh" from face-on at P6. And a lot of these golfers try to solve the issue by working on the downswing. They do something to drag the handle forward. Or they just leave their right thigh farther back so the same handle location "looks" farther forward. Or they move the ball back in their stance. Or they push themselves down into the ground to get the handle lower and increase (decrease?) their AoA (to be more negative). The real fix is often to get wider in the backswing. To do LESS in the backswing. To hinge less, fold the trail arm less, abduct the trail arm less. I had a case of this over the weekend. Before, the player had 110° of trail elbow bend, "lifted" his trail humerus only a few degrees, etc. The club traveled quite a bit around him, and he tended to "pick" the ball from the fairways. In the "after" swings below (which are mild exaggerations — this golfer does not need to end up at < 70° of elbow bend. These were slower backswings with "hit it as hard as you normally would" intent downswings), you can see that he bent his elbow about 70° instead of 110° and lifted his right arm an extra ~15° or more. You can't see how much less this moved his hands across his chest (right arm abduction), but it was also decreased. His hands stayed more "in front of" his right shoulder rather than traveling "beside" them so much. The two swings look like this: The change at P6, without talking about the downswing one little bit (outside of him telling me that he tends to pick the ball), is remarkable: Without 110° of elbow bend to get out (which he gets to 80°, a loss of 30°), the golfer actually loses slightly less elbow bend (70 - 50 = 20), but delivers 30° less elbow bend, lowering the handle and letting the elbow get "in front of" the rib cage… because it never got "behind" or "beside" the rib cage. If you look at this video showing the before/afters of P6, you'll note the handle location (both vertically and horizontally) and the shoulders (the ball is in the same place in these frames). This golfer's path was largely unaffected (still pretty straight into the ball, < 3° path and often < 1.5°), but his AoA jumped to -5° ± 2°. I've always said, and in talking with other instructors they agree and feel similarly, that we spend a lot of time working on the backswing. This is another example of why.
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