Mizuno

What it does: Mizuno’s three-driver family, all sharing weight-saving composite-crown and sole sections, addresses two kinds of golfers: those who thrive on complexity and those whose approach is more grab-and-go. The Z and X drivers feature a 20-gram weight set in the extreme rear perimeter to help reduce spin and boost forgiveness. The Z places the weight in the deep centre, and the X positions it slightly towards the heel for a slice-fighting draw bias. Meanwhile, the G driver features heel, toe and centre tracks to accommodate two seven-gram weights to tweak spin, draw and fade bias, forgiveness and workability. 

Why we like it: These drivers are all designed to do different things, but it’s what they have in common that makes them special. Each clubhead is significantly more stable than past Mizuno models. Ball speed is not only consistently high, but the spin and launch angle have less variation on mis-hits. The beta-titanium alloy in the face let Mizuno engineers create new thickness patterns to produce distance in spots that were previously dead zones.

lofts 9.5, 10.5 (z); 10.5, 12 (x); 9 (g); adjustable