I played 400s and fit myself into 430s. I was fitting for irons in December and my fitter who's been doing it 15 years said at all the golf expos he's been to that other manufacturers were all talking about g430s
Just started golfing about a month ago. Was gonna go make a golf shop sales persons day tomorrow, and now you’ve ruined it for them. More homework to do 👍
Golf has a high skill ceiling. The lower your skill, the more you benefit from new hardware. When your the top 1%, hardware has much less of an impact. Look at the manufacturing of a driver like you would a car. There's subtle differences but you aren't actually getting a 'new' model every year. You're getting variants of the same model over a 6-8 year period. Also with that in mind, manufactures don't rush out their innovations, otherwise they would make a lot less money. For all we know, they have driver tech in the works that adds 20 yards to your shot, but maybe they are waiting for the golf ball rollback to implement.
Standard ST max is the best driver I’ve ever had. Can’t imagine taking it out of the bag anytime soon. So forgiving and confidence inspiring and sounds amazing.
Was at my local big box golf store in Canada for the first time in a few years. Been off injured since 2020 and needed some balls. Saw an off the shelf driver for $900! What the actual F
Great video Simon, I game a TaylorMade SLDR 430cc, and a SLDR 5 wood (2013 I believe), they may not be the most forgiving, but out of the middle they are as long as anything out today I’d imagine!
I just bought a g400 driver pretty much new for less than $200. I hit it WAY better than my TSR3. It’s long but I’m not consistent out the middle with the titleist. G400 is great still. So much value
I got a set of clubs ive been using for almost 20 years with a couple drivers even older. When the driver face starts to get too big its harder for me to see what im doing wrong with instant feedback. When im practicing driving on the range, i use a taylormade burner supersteel 250 (10.5) from 1999 that i hit 200-225. Then, i go up to my big faced driver to rip a few long balls at 250+ carry. I rarely, if ever, use the supersteel during a round,. BUT, with how much it helps me dial in my swing, it will never leave my bag.
I had a TS3 in the bag until the face cracked. I picked it up on the used rack for cheap. Replaced it with a TSi3. I don't see any difference in performance other than the TSi3 sounds better coming off the face. TS3 is really loud.
This is good news for me - I've just picked up a TS3 for £100. I'm hoping it's as forgiving off centre as my 915 D2. I suspect it may be even more forgiving...
Love my Rogue ST Max LS, very forgiving and still plenty long. Does my Mavrik Sub Zero go further right out of the screws? Of course it does, but it also duck hooks and falls out of the air a lot easier just like any Sub Zero / Triple Diamond / low spinning variant will do... for your average hacker, forgiveness, launch and spin are your friend! Rogue ST Max LS strikes a great balance in this regard.
I like my 425 max driver , got it set 11.5 and in the draw setting . 75 years old and seems to work for me . Also have the 40 gram shaft , enjoy hitting it .
Forgive me for asking, but where/how do you gauge club head?. I'm pretty new to golf and am 63. My local Top Tracer gives ball speeds. Is there a ratio as per your 110:160 ? I bought a 917 D2 (largely out an Ebay bargain addiction), rather than any assessment whether it would suit me.
There is many a Pro who has changed and wished they hadn't. The lure of money sometimes, contracts the other. Sometimes they have no choice and have to change every year.
Victor Hovland needs a driver upgrade after his performance at the Masters. Really he might need brain upgrade because after being extremely successful lately he then fired his swing coach, caddie and entire team.
Young man, some of us still use the Cobra King F6 Ladies flex 6 (19.5°) & 9 (24°) woods!!!! That's what you taught me! You didn't? Yes, actually, you did. You taught me that launch was all important!!! I can hit them both as hard as I like, straight, and far!!! Who knew? OK you did! That was £50 well spent!!! Seriously! You made me think of how I play golf differently, in just an hour lesson!!! Wow!
@@jimmythemac869 Generally the lightness of the shaft and thinner grips. I always buy secondhand, so I tend to have them regripped as soon as they arrive, with a men's standard grip. They are a little lighter that seniors shafted clubs, so I feel that I can generate more launch with them. Ironically, this all started when my wife pinched a senior flex 5-wood out of my bag, and found that she preferred it to her fairway woods!!!! So we swapped!!!
I still play the Ping G20 from whenever that was new. Still works well enough for my game averaging just a hair over 100 MPH swing speed. I have tested it against some newer drivers including other Ping's and while a few hit consistently maybe 10 yards farther, none of them were any more forgiving at least for the way I contact the ball. Ten yards isn't worth $600 to me.
I’m still using a Cobra King F7. Cause it’s awesome. And because nobody makes drivers in matte metallic blue anymore. I refuse to swing a regular black driver.
When i was getting into golf a little under a year ago i bought the TS2 out of recommendation from the sales person. It will take a lot to get that driver out of my bag. its so freaking good!
I was playing around with the new paradym drivers but decided to go back to my taylormade m2 I think I’ll just do a shaft fitting and keep that in the bag for awhile
Issue is no one will fit you for older stuff 🤯🤯🤯 YOU are the only one mate...you go for fitting it's the new gear only and trust me I've asked ...I went to a Callaway fitting last year and asked for the rogue ...abruptly NO paradym only 👌
I just got fitted for an old set of mizuno mp-20s. They were fine with it and had me also hit the new pro 245 or whatever with different shafts on for data
wtf are you talking about!?!??! It's a service, a business there to serve YOU!!! If you want fitted for a certain brand and model, they will do so plain and simple, you are paying for that service! Such Fing rubbish talk!
That OG SIM head reminded me so much of the old original SLDR. I could hit absolute knuckleball NUKES with it, but God knows where it was going half the time lol. It would be cool to see those two heads compared.
As a person with a Titleist TS new that I got new no need to upgrade since. That club was the best upgrade I had ever had coming from the 917. It was world haven’t seen any reasons to change since.
The only thing I DO NOT like about the Ping G425 is that it has such a different sound than the rest. It feels so... empty and just has too much of a ring in it
This year I've been lucky enough to of bought the QI10 max in March and it helped me with my first win this year. Long of the tee, straight and so forgiving. Sound is awesome as well. Then I won a Competition and won the Callaway AI smoke driver and ended up swapping it into my bag. It is a demon so long very forgiving, huge head. Looks beautiful. Very simular top line to the Sim. 8hc
As you mentioned, their clubs are almost never the same as the ones on the rack. Their shaft has been dialed in to perfection for their swings. They are not picking a "XS" shafted Driver from the rack at Golf Galaxy and heading to the Masters. Got myself a Cleveland XL2 driver with a Hzrdus Blue S and it has been worlds better than my early 2000's Warrior 450R 7.5 degree driver with lead tape all over it. I will probably play this driver until I am done golfing.
Absolutely no reason to upgrade every year unless you love wasting money. But every team TaylorMade golfer is using the new qi10 drivers. The clubs that some haven’t changed are their fairway woods
The brands definitely try to push the pros into all the new "latest and greatest" but yeah how fast the ball can leave the driver face has been maxed for what over 10 years now. Yes maybe drivers have become a little more forgiving and maybe go slightly further on off center hits but its negligible for the most part. The biggest difference you're going to see is either improving your technique and finding a driver where you can maximize your numbers (launch and spin rate). Just buying a driver that a pro uses will unlikely improve your game that much b/c your swing is most likely nothing like a tour pros.
I'm commenting this before watching the whole video, but one reason tour players use older drivers a lot is because a used driver head will generate more ball speed than a new one. You also have to think that their clubs are perfectly fit to their swing. I still use the original taylormade M1 and average a 310 carry. No i'm not exaggerating that i'm 6 foot 5 and at my prime was a +3 handicap. I've tried every new driver in the books and I can't get the ball speed that i have with my M1
.... They use the newest material because they struggle with their game and their attitude to the game, they struggle at the end at their own. So they take all the money or more they have to to buy the success because thats expression of theories personality! And the Marketingstrategie supports all in this thoughts and feels. But you di the right question because it is senseless buying the newest model, it's not improving the game. For all every shafted is different (also on the same range!) so that for example a player like Stenson is sticking his blue shaft in the wood for years again and again. In my hole career i never bought a driver regular in a shop, i online owned in 30 years only 5 of them. My first driver was a present, s persimmon wood which made me a 5 hcp player within a few months - i loved him and i learned shaping the ball with a driver, giving the ball top spin (roll on the fairways) or back spin for placing a ball. When the hostle broke i got tear's in mx eyes.. Then i got a Callaway Jim Dent big Bertha which I won from a pro in a putting contest - i used them only a few months because of the xx stiff shaft. Then i took the Mizuno ET driver from the club pro, the ugliest and worsted sounding driver ever made. I used them till the metal cage is broken after playing course record rounds with him and becoming the best player in the club. After loosing this driver i used only a 3 wood (13 degree loft) till i bought for 50 euro a Titleist 975 driver which i played till 2023.... For me it was always simple : it's not on the material i use, I'm the reason for bad shots. And if I'm warm and in love with with a driver then I use them as long as possible! Never change what you know and stay in trust to them! Fo you have a tsr2 driver for 50 euros? I take them if the shaft is stiff and suits me... Cheers!
I don’t, luv finding the old stuff thanks to SAS. At $20.00 the titleist 975D UST Proforce75 Gold low Torque X-Stiff tip 8.5* Minty fresh condition, no marks on face, never hit. That bore through technology was something, me callaway greatest big Bertha has exact bore through thinking,they reacts the same same Out driving the kids with old school sticks just makes them nuts. Oops, picked up a nice 917D3…not a fan rather play the smaller heads ✌️
Not quite so. A number of manufacturers design their drivers and clubs with many of the pros. They are the ones they experiment with and design them FOR them. They get to test and tweak and improve their driver and clubs that best fit them. They get the equipment for free. But not really free, it is for their time and input they give the manufacturers. Before they get to market for us.
Simon, do you think these pros could get along with any driver as long as they had their favourite premium shaft in the right head profile (eg low-spin)? A bit of an oversimplification, but I think the fact that they are all playing shafts that cost double or triple what we buy off the shelf makes a big difference. I put a Graphite design shaft in a Gen 5 pxg recently and gained 15 -20 yards just like that and it feels so much smoother and tighter too.
If the club works, it works. I have a Sim 2 and like it. I want a 425max and will buy one from a trend seeker who had to get the latest and greatest, and toss the “just as goods” to the side
Just gone back and put an 8.5 G400 lst in the bag in xstiff. Launches rockets, completely eliminated the left side, the bad shot is now just a power fade. Also sounds way better than the newer pings.
Alright, since you asked I'll tell you. I just started playing and I bought a second hand facebook market place set of clubs for $100.00 which had a really shitty old driver from the earely 80's and real woods. So, I bought a new driver and it makes a cool tunk sound when I hit it just right. I also bought an 11 wood that goes really high in the air. I like hitting it and just seeing the golf ball rise like a rocket ship. I recently got behind some trees and normally I would have had to hit it to the side to get out but instead I just went over them and landed near the flag thingy. The thunk of the driver and watching the golf ball go really high in the air makes me happy. I may have a 120 stroke game and lose a dozen balls per 18 holes but I'm happy. I think I may have also started a trend because two other guys I played with said they were getting an 11 wood after watching me play mine.
😂 been around golf for decades and don’t think I’ve seen an 11 wood. Whatever works. I did have a full set of hybrids when I was like 13 and straight garbage. Not that I’m much less garbage now. Been playing the Titleist 735cm for 20 years now. Great clubs, but it’s about time for replace them, if I didn’t suck.
My beloved Cobra F9 has developed a dead spot and I am unexpectedly in the driver market for the first time in years. I went to the simulator and found that I have also lost a few mph and am now around 100 rather than 105+. Still high flight high spin. I saw Rick Shields video showing Sim2 Max was equal distance and tighter dispersion than Qi10 for him so I was going to look there. Would my lower swing speed rule out the Rogue triple diamond? Which model head Rogue should I compare to the Sim2 Max for my swing speed of 100mph, high spin, high flight? and Ping?
for the high flight high spin I’d suggest lessons or pointers from a club pro. Sounds like your probably swinging up at the ball instead of having a more neutral path
