When we talk about the importance of fitting, the natural thought might be that we mean getting the right specs. Narrowing down the optimal loft or shaft or even the perfect settings on your adjustable driver seem paramount, but one aspect that might be overlooked is the specific model within a company’s family of drivers that is ideal for you.
While it might seem obvious that certain models of drivers might not be for you, what’s increasingly apparent is that there are all kinds of swings out there and picking a particular model based on your swing speed or handicap level isn’t always a sure thing. Top stars like Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Nelly Korda are playing drivers originally designed for average Joes and Janes. Meanwhile, during our recent Hot List testing, when each player was custom-fit by elite fitters from Golf Galaxy, the range of drivers fit to them ran the gamut from “game-improvement” models to “tour” models. In fact, the number of players, largely amateurs, that settled on one or the other was nearly equally divided.
Club designers long have known that players respond to one model over another differently and that response ranges from the look at address to something less visible but even more vital. That’s the view of Tom Olsavsky, Cobra Golf’s vice-president of research and development.
“We’ve found that people swing [a driver’s] centre of gravity. They feel where the CG is and that’s what we’re finding in the fitting world,” he said, noting that the trend is for golfers to prefer the feel of a driver in which the CG is more towards the back of the head than the front. “We think where the CG is really is the biggest thing in matching up with how a player swings.”
Hot List: The best drivers for 2024
To emphasise the point: Don’t assume your best performance is going to come from a driver that appears to be targeting players at your skill level. Our Hot List testing data shows that the right solutions aren’t always the obvious ones. For instance:
• Sean Harper, an 8-handicapper with a 94 mile-per-hour swing speed, got his best results with the Tour Edge Exotics E723, the much more forgiving of the two models in the series.
• Gary Abbott, a 13-handicapper with 95mph swing speed, hit the Mizuno ST-Z 230 model 17 metres further than the more forgiving (and seemingly more appropriate for him) ST-Max 230.
• Peter Lee, a 7-handicapper with 98mph driver swing speed, hit the tour-level Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond 10 metres further than the standard Max model.
• Sandor Valls, a 12-handicapper with 110mph clubhead speed, hit the TaylorMade Qi10 LS five metres further than the average-golfer standard model Qi10.
• Scott Dickinson, a 14-handicapper with a 112mph speed, got his best results with the PXG 0311 Black Ops Tour model, not the one theoretically aimed at players at his level.
Realise, of course, that the difference in the most forward and most rearward CGs in the driver market might be less than the difference between the “H” and “J” keys on your laptop keyboard. Here are some of the key aspects to focus on when you’re contemplating a new driver:
If your mis-hit area is small, you can consider the more compact models, even if you don’t have tour-level speed. If you do have the speed, you might want to choose the lowest spinning models. If your mis-hit area is wide, the most forgiving models might be more practical.
Our general rule these days is that you should consider the most forgiving driver that doesn’t spin too much. Generally, a higher-launching driver will be the model with a larger front-to-back measurement. We think higher launch will do more good than harm for most players’ games.
Finally, given that there is ample evidence that there’s an ideal centre of gravity in the driver for your swing, choose the club that produces the most consistently square face angle at impact and the tightest mis-hit area on the face. That’s where reliable distance off the tee starts.
Driver models within the same family share the same technologies for distance, but they are distinct in how they can optimise distance for each player. Those distinctions, as we’ve noted, can be small, but that tiny measurement could mean a world of difference downrange.
