Now that Memorial Day has come and gone and summer season has unofficially commenced, it’s time to ask a fairly severe query.
Are you, expensive reader, able to improve your driver?
I’m not speaking to those that rushed out to get fitted earlier than the snow melted. I’m not speaking to you fortunate so-and-sos who reside the place you don’t get snow and assume winter solely because the time of 12 months when you possibly can’t put on shorts on the golf course.
I’m speaking to you hard-core, cynical readers who scoff at every year’s new driver choices with intelligent observations reminiscent of, “Nothing new right here, transfer alongside.”
Or “Similar advertising and marketing BS.”
Or “A brand new driver received’t repair your crappy swing.”
And my private favourite: “GET LESSONS!”
I do know you’re not the sort to take recommendation from a mere golf weblog. However because you’ve learn this far, we humbly invite you to speculate the following 5 or 6 minutes and browse the remaining. On the very least you’ll be amused.
You would possibly discover a nugget or two that you might use.
Or you might inform us to take an aerial intercourse at a motivated piece of pastry.
Both manner, you win.
Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Signal #1
In case your driver was a baby, might you signal it up for kindergarten?
With apologies to Invoice Engvall, “Right here’s your signal.”
OEMs will inform you straight: year-to-year driver upgrades are pretty minimal with nearly no distinction in efficiency on a dead-center strike. However even the sport’s finest will miss the middle extra usually than they’d like and that’s the place OEMs are making efficiency strides.
This 12 months is just a little completely different. The PING, TaylorMade and PXG 10K revolution and Callaway’s new AI-designed face have flipped the script barely. However half a decade’s price of small enhancements can add as much as one thing you’ll discover on the course. It may very well be tighter dispersion, it may very well be straighter drives or it may very well be mishits that aren’t fairly as punishing.
Perhaps new can be higher for you. Perhaps it received’t. However you received’t know till you undergo the method, ideally below the watchful eye of a talented fitter. However by way of driver expertise, 5 years is sufficient time to see some tangible variations.
Due to this fact, with apologies to that different Blue-Collar comic …
In case your final driver buy predates the worldwide stay-at-home celebration we fondly confer with because the COVID-19 lockdown, you would possibly simply be a brand new driver shopper.
Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Signal #2
Quiz time!
Since you purchased your present driver, have you ever:
A: Grown older?B: Grown older however gained velocity by exercises?C: Grown older however improved your swing by teaching?
For those who answered “sure” to any of those, right here’s your signal. For those who answered “no” to any of those, we’ll ship you again to Engvall and he’ll offer you that different signal.
Tiger famously informed us that Father Time is undefeated. All of us get older and, whereas a few of us age like advantageous wine, others age like Memorial Day potato salad left within the scorching solar. Whereas instruments reminiscent of Tremendous Pace Golf or The Stack System (choose a aspect and seize your popcorn) can hold Father Time’s inevitable velocity loss at bay, we’ll all want to regulate.
For those who’ve gained velocity since your final driver becoming, congratulations! You’ve earned your self a brand new driver. Take delight in going from a stiff shaft to an X-stiff shaft. Go get fitted and bomb the hell out of it. For those who’ve improved your approach by teaching and tamed that hook or slice, you, too, deserve a brand new driver.
If, nonetheless, you’ve misplaced some swing velocity, don’t fret. OEMs know we sexagenarians, whereas growing old gracefully, are an enormous market phase. They’re following XXIO’s lead and making lighter-weight, easier-to-swing drivers that, for lack of a greater time period, are the finders of misplaced yards.
Due to this fact, for those who’ve survived the final half decade or so and might nonetheless swing a membership, you would possibly simply be a brand new driver shopper.
Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Signal #3
Once you take a look at your driver stats, do you discover that you simply hit fairways on the similar price as Storm Troopers hit Skywalkers? If that’s the case, right here’s your signal.
OK, you’re slicing the ball like Hannibal Lecter. Your launch monitor numbers verify an out-to-in swing path with an open membership face is supplying you with spin numbers within the 4,000 rpm vary. Your swing is an issue however can the best driver assist?
A brand new driver received’t “repair your crappy swing” (significantly, verify any social media put up on any new driver. It comes up each time) however the best new driver can take a nasty shot and make it higher.
“Drivers are getting much more forgiving,” says Steve Thomson, a fitter and teacher at Golftec in Danvers, Mass. “MOI is increased, CG is additional again. Larger lofts now produce extra spin so lowering static loft helps loads. I see much more folks becoming right into a nine- or a 9.5-degree driver head than I did 5 or 6 years in the past.”
Whereas we at all times advocate teaching, the best driver might help mitigate that slice to the purpose the place you possibly can have enjoyable on the course.
“These are essentially the most gratifying ones,” says Thomson. “Give a giant slicer a draw-type head that may cut back that slice by 10 or 15 yards? That may change somebody’s golf sport.”
In case your slice is the envy of any hibachi steakhouse chef, you would possibly simply be a brand new driver shopper.
Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Signal #4
This one would possibly rile up the plenty, however what the hell …
It doesn’t matter what your handicap is, for those who love golf, play frequently and have by no means been fitted for a driver, right here’s your signal.
A typical false impression is that membership becoming normally and driver becoming particularly is just for the completed golfer.
“And not using a constant swing, driver becoming is a waste of cash,” say golf’s on-line illuminati. However any teacher price his licensed PGA standing will inform you a mid- to high-handicapper will profit extra from a driver becoming than a low-handicapper.
The low handicapper is a keep on with the ability to adapt to virtually something and, whereas he received’t play his finest with an ill-fitted driver, he’ll handle. The mid-to-high-handicapper could not have a constantly good swing however he/she possible has sufficient tendencies for an excellent fitter to discover a sample and supply a useful answer.
Perhaps it’s a draw-biased head. Perhaps it’s a shorter shaft or possibly it’s a better MOI. The underside line is regardless of your handicap, for those who’ve by no means been fitted for a driver, you would possibly simply be a driver shopper.
Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Signal #5
For those who’re nonetheless not riled up, hold studying.
We did cite 5 years as a driver benchmark. However the backside line is that this: For those who merely desire a new driver, right here’s your signal.
Sure, we stated it. As a shopper, you earn your individual cash and might spend it any manner you need. If shopping for a brand new driver makes you content, what anybody else thinks is simply noise.
Will it magically remodel your sport? Presumably, however provided that you change an off-the-rack, ill-fitting driver with one thing fitted to your swing. Will it make you a greater golfer? No, nevertheless it might allow you to play higher golf.
And, sure, there’s a distinction.
For those who’re gaming a 2022 Callaway Rogue or an unique TaylorMade Stealth and also you need to go full PING G430 MAX 10K, go for it.
Whilst you shouldn’t fall prey to any OEM’s mass advertising and marketing machine, additionally keep away from the rising anti-OEM mass advertising and marketing machine. It’s simple to dismiss every year’s choices with a cynical crack or two and cry “Get Classes!” Single classes are good however are typically Band-Aids at finest. Teaching is long-term and that’s the place actual enchancment is made. Why you play golf and what you’re on the lookout for will finally allow you to resolve easy methods to spend your cash.
For many of us, golf is a sport. And video games are purported to be enjoyable.
Assume it by logically. For those who actually desire a new driver, that’s ok for us. You would possibly simply be a brand new driver shopper.
Git ‘er completed.
The put up Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Right here’s Your Signal … appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
