Stunned improvement from only a new Driver

[Kperkins]

So, I went into Pro Golf Discount the other day to pick up a box of Bridgestone E6, when I saw they had a sale going on.

As a ~20 handicap, I'm not one to really make much of new clubs as my mis-hits and bad puts are the problem, not my clubs. The only time I really blame my clubs, are when using my current driver, a 10 year old Taylor Made 10.5 Reg-Shaft Burner. Usually, I hit the ball in the middle of the clubface, occasionally towards the toe or heel (doesn't everyone?). However, on occasion, I'll swing under the ball, and the shallow clubface of the older driver will result in a 200 yard high 75 yard drive. This always seemed to happen on the long par 4s :(.

Well, I saw the advantage of the new clubface design with the taller clubface and figured the big benefit for me would be no more high wood shots that I don't hit squarely.

So, seeing the 9.5 TM R7 425 with a ProLaunch Blue R65 for sale at $199, I decided to swing it. Felt really good at the store, but I was skeptical if a driver, used at most 14 times a round would really be worth the money.

Wow. What an AMAZING difference. My first round with the new club, with only a small bucket of balls to practice with, immediatley showed it's worth. For a guy that rarely finds the fairway, I found 7 of 13 fairways, with 4 of them just off the fairway. I didn't really turn that into reduced strokes, as I still had my fair share of muffs and horrible putts, but it's something to build on. Additionally, the off center hits (toe or heel) didn't nearly spin the way my old driver would. All in all, hurrah for new technology.

Just thought I would share my story for anyone else that was skeptical of the new technology.

Ken

[mceb]

Good story Ken, technology does offer us some advantages

[Ghetto P]

Imagine if you would have gotten a 460.

[Reefer_Madness]

It's never the Indian........

[Kperkins]

Imagine if you would have gotten a 460.

First off, the 460 was $50 more expensive, secondly, I just don't like the size of the club head. I prefer the smaller heads.

[Ghetto P]

OK. You like 'em small. Just like all the pro's who hit the smaller drivers, like, um, what's his name? Dang, only guy I can think of is John Cleese's character in the Titleist ads.

Still, that 425 should be an improvement over the old bubble technology. Welcome to 2 years ago!

[Thrdroc]

I saw the same thing when I updated my driver. I went for a ~15 year old King Cobra to a Nike Sumo. I seriously added some distance and hit the ball much more consistent. I never really find any fairways but thats always been the case. The confidence you gain from being able to pull the driver out and know you'll hit a pretty good shot really helps the game in my opinion.

You will notice that your scores will start to go down once you adjust to your new game. Mine i went from hitting a 6 or 7 iron into greens to hitting wedges.

[tigerwoo]

Think of it the same way as going from a blade to a game improvement iron or perhaps a maximum game improvement iron with full cavity back, bigger head and extra wide sole. You will increase your chances of hitting the ball on the sweet spot. Thus increasing your distance. Plus, the drivers heads and shaft combinations these days have lowered the spin rates on the balls thus allowing a 'straighter' hit with less left-right dispersion.

So you should not be stunned what so ever. It should have been an expectation.

[NM Golf]

Its not just going from old equipment to new equipment. When I switched to my Nike driver from my Ping G5 I saw a difference. I hit my Ping pretty well, but I always seemed to have that one or two really offline drives every round. The Nike has eliminated those for the most part. I don't necessarily hit more fairways, I just don't have those horrible misses anymore. Less scrambling equals more birdie attempts.

[tigerwoo]

Its not just going from old equipment to new equipment. When I switched to my Nike driver from my Ping G5 I saw a difference. I hit my Ping pretty well, but I always seemed to have that one or two really offline drives every round. The Nike has eliminated those for the most part. I don't necessarily hit more fairways, I just don't have those horrible misses anymore. Less scrambling equals more birdie attempts.

It's likely that it was a difference in the shaft and how it was installed that made the difference over the actual head difference. I went to a custom golf shop where they had a frequency tool to measure the 'stiffness' of the shaft and I was amazed at what I saw. Not all shafts are equally balanced nor are they weighted consistently! I had purchased a UST Proforce V2 stiff shaft to replace my stock Taylormade shaft and I didn't because of what I saw. The technician placed my Taylormade in a grip vise aligning it square and pulled the head back to get the clubhead to vibrate back and forth along the 'target line'. Firstly, he told me that the frequency of 260 was perfect for my swing speed (I had been on a swing/launch monitor earlier) secondly that the shaft was aligned and installed perfectly as the back and forth vibrations were linear along the target line. When he put in the UST Proforce shaft... things were different. Frequency was 244 which meant that it was not as stiff as the Taylormade and thus would have to cut the shaft an inch or more to get it to 260 and the kicker was that it was not weighted equally! Instead of a linear pattern it was vibrating back in forth along a more elliptical pattern. ! This could obviously impact the kick of the shaft in the wrong direction and send the ball off target! Anyways, I learned a great deal at this custom golf shop. I recommend that everyone take their clubs and have them analyzed.