Pick The Best Golf Driver For Your Game

The modern golf game is centred around power.

If you want proof of this statement, you only have to look at the PGA Tour stats for this year. The average drive has breached the 300-yard barrier for the first time since driving stats were recorded.

If we compare this to 10 years ago, the average drive measured 289.85 yards.

Switching our attention to the longest hitters on tour, Rory McIlroy set a new record last year, averaging 326.3 yards off the tee.

The quest for more power in the professional game naturally feeds into the amateur game. Everyone from plus-handicap to 20-handicap golfers wants to hit the ball longer.

Manufacturers fuel this desire with new releases that promise us those precious extra yards through clever design and improved materials.

The driver market is ultra-competitive. This year has seen no let-up in pushing the evolution boundaries to deliver arguably the best range of drivers we have ever seen in the market.

If you are in the process of considering a change at the top end of your golf bag, we’ve pinpointed three critical areas that will help you in your decision-making process, which are:

• What Makes A Great Driver?
• How To Choose The Right Driver for Your Game
• Cream Of The Crop - A Selection Of The Best Drivers In The Market Today

What Makes A Great Driver?

Two crucial elements contribute to making a driver great:

• Increased distance
• Improved accuracy

Increased Distance

Hitting the ball further with the “big dog” gives us chances to score better. It allows us to go for the green on a driveable par four, face a short approach to a medium-length par four or enable us to go at the green in two on some par fives.

Even the hardest holes on the course can become manageable, such as long par fours, becoming less intimidating if we can hit a bomb off the tee.

Knowing that we are getting more distance out of our driver can affect how we use it on the course.

That narrow par four where you usually hit a three-wood for safety might now be worth taking a risk with the driver. You’ll be further up the hole, and facing a shorter second shot can all seem appealing.

Hitting the ball far off the tee can also give us a more intimidating factor when we play.

Playing with a long-hitter can knock players out of their comfort zone as they don’t like seeing their best efforts still end up 30 yards short of where the long-hitter’s drive is.

The bottom line is that seeing a well-hit drive go a long way down the hole is one of the best feelings in golf, regardless of your playing ability, and we all experience that sensation all the time.

Improved accuracy

While we crave distance, it’s easy to misplace the importance of combining increased distance with accuracy.

Gaining extra yards off the tee is of no help if you find that the additional distance puts you further into the rough, trees, or hazards.

You can even shy away from hitting the driver completely if you struggle to know where the ball could end. You could actually lose any distance advantage you might have gained if you have to rely on hitting three-wood off most tees to ensure you get the ball in play.

It’s easy to understand that a great driver has to give us more distance and accuracy, but there is one other element we need to consider.

How the driver looks, feels, and sounds are all important in our decision-making process.

Some drivers, with different head shapes sculpted to improve aerodynamic efficiency, can make golfers hesitant to pull the club out of the bag and remove the headcover because they don’t like how the head sits behind the ball.

Acoustics are important. You don’t want to be the golfer where groups playing on the other side of the course know you have hit driver off the tee because of the noise it makes.

Many of you reading this can probably think of a time when you have been at the driving range, and another golfer has practically deafened you because they started hitting what could only be described as the noisiest driver in the world.

We can also be wary of being unable to differentiate miss-hit shots from centre strikes, which makes it difficult to trust because there is no discernable feedback from the face.

This leaves us with a very important question: How can we find a great driver that helps us hit the ball further and straighter and that we like the look, sound, and feel of?

How To Choose The Right Driver for Your Game

The good news for golfers is that the range of drivers available is better now than it has ever been.

The bad news for golfers is that the range of drivers available is better now than it has ever been.

Let's explain the obvious contradiction.

As we'll see shortly, drivers come in a variety of options aimed at different types of golfers. Low-spin models cater to golfers with higher swing speeds, where the centre of gravity is pushed closer to the face to reduce spin.

A big trend for this year has been the emergence of High-Moment-of-Inertia (MOI) drivers. These drivers are most resilient to twisting throughout the swing and impact, helping the ball fly straighter from heel or toe strikes.

Resilience to twisting can be measured. The threshold for creating the most resilient driver heads to twisting is 10,000g/cm2, and has been achieved in models released by TaylorMade, Cobra, and PXG this year.

These drivers have the friendliest profile at address, with heads stretched as far from the face as possible, giving the biggest legal footprint behind the golf ball.

These driver models are likely suited to players who struggle with consistent ball striking and finding fairways.

Drivers now come in a choice of either titanium or carbon fibre. Titanium has been the mainstay of driver construction for nearly thirty years. However, manufacturers are moving to carbon and carbon composite, which is lighter and stronger than titanium.

The saved weight allows engineers to reposition mass within the driver's head to influence the playing profile.

Adjustable hosels can help fine-tune the ball flight and shape, thereby optimising performance, complementing the work done with internal weighting to create different head profiles.

We could go on, but we get to a point where a couple of questions need to be asked.

• How do we know which driver is right for us if we don’t know our clubhead speed?
• How do we know we are getting the maximum carry distance if we don’t know our launch and spin numbers?

This is where custom fitting comes to the fore.

A dedicated driver fitting session will pinpoint your clubhead speed, launch, and spin numbers captured on a launch monitor with your existing driver.

From that starting point, the fitter can focus on optimising your numbers by tailoring the correct driver head to the correct shaft and measuring the improvements.

Through this process, you can see the creation of your ideal driver, which will help you hit the ball further and straighter, giving you that all-important confidence in your driving game when you are out on the course.

Cream Of The Crop - A Selection Of The Best Drivers In The Market Today

This year has seen many new driver launches as manufacturers up the ante in the highly competitive driver market.

We’ve selected four standouts from this year’s vintage for you to consider.

TaylorMade Qi10 Series

TaylorMade is never afraid to push the boundaries regarding driver design, and its back catalogue is full of groundbreaking models.

The Qi10 launch was significant because it saw TaylorMade switch the emphasis from all-out power to improved stability. The Qi10 series heralded TaylorMade’s first driver to break the magical 10k barrier through improved and expanded use of carbon fibre.

The Qi10 series features 97% carbon coverage across the crown, giving a more seamless transition from the crown into the carbon face.

TaylorMade caused a stir when it introduced a carbon face in its first-generation Stealth drivers. The theory behind making the face from carbon was the same as why it was being employed extensively across the head.

Being lighter and stronger, carbon fibre could create faster ball speeds than titanium. As we know, faster ball speeds lead to increased distance.

In creating the Qi10, TaylorMade added more stability to the driver's performance by redistributing the saved weight more effectively in the heel and toe.

TaylorMade has also kept its tried-and-tested technologies, such as Twist-Face to help steer toe and heel strikes back on target and Inverted Cone Technology and Thru-Slot Speed Pocket to help increase ball speeds across the face.

If you are seeking everything that a 10k driver has to offer, focus on the Qi10 Max. TaylorMade also offers low-spin and standard models to suit different golfers.

Cobra Darkspeed

Cobra liberally employs carbon fibre in the Darkspeed range to increase clubhead speed. Cobra has also relied on extensive wind tunnel testing to create the most aerodynamically efficient heads to improve clubhead speed.

Performance is further enhanced by improvements in Cobra’s trusted PWRSHELL and PWR-BRIDGE technologies, which help maintain high ball speeds and forgiveness across the face.

Cobra also offers the Darkspeed in three variants. The LS is the low-spin model, suited for players with higher clubhead speeds. The Darkspeed X will appeal to the widest variety of golfers. The Max model offers the highest level of forgiveness while still packing a punch regarding distance.

Cobra has scored highly by marrying high-performance technology to a price point consistently lower than TaylorMade, Callaway, and Titleist.

Titleist GT Series

The GT series was launched in the summertime. The major talking point was Titleist’s employing a new material, proprietary matrix polymer (PMP), in the crown and chassis of the latest driver.

PMP is similar to carbon fibre in its strong, lightweight properties. However, Titleist opted for PMP because it created a sound and feel similar to titanium, which meant that Titleist could create a driver that players could trust and become familiar with quickly.

Using PMP also allowed Titleist engineers to reposition the mass closer to the face to help increase ball speeds.

Titleist also took the opportunity to combine the variable face thickness technology they introduced in the TSR 2 and the TSR 3’s Speed Ring technology and added them to the new GT2 and GT3 drivers. The net result is improved ball speeds across the face to maximise performance.

To date, Titleist has launched the GT2, GT3, and GT4. The GT4 is designed as the smaller-headed, deeper-face, low-spin model for players who value shot-shaping capabilities.

The GT2 and GT3 have closer performance characteristics. However, if you are a fan of the traditional Titleist pear-shaped head, the GT3 is still the model to choose.

Callaway Paradym AI Smoke

The AI Smoke has been huge for Callaway this year, claiming the number-one spot in driver sales in the U.S.

Following the successful Paradym range, Callaway expanded the use of carbon fibre throughout the chassis of the AI Smoke, making the overall head weight 15% lighter to help improve club head speed.

The “AI” in AI Smoke relates to Callaway’s extensive data collection; over 250,000 driver shots from tour players to high-handicap golfers to understand were recorded to understand the difference in ball speed and shot dispersion from across the face.

Those 250,000 unique swings created over 1,000,000 data points and 50,000 face iterations for Callaway’s engineers to mull over.

Using AI to pull the data together, Callaway was able to create its new AI Smart Face, which houses what Callaway calls micro deflection points that help maintain ball speed across the face for improved distance and forgiveness.

Callaway’a AI Smoke range is the broadest in the current market. The Triple Diamond is still the driver for better players who are more consistent with their ball-striking and require less spin.

The Max Fast will suit players who are less consistent in their ball-striking and need all the versatility offered by the AI Smart Face.

A great golf driver not only improves distance but also helps you find more fairways. That combination improves your confidence and will have you reaching for the driver even on the most demanding tee shots.

If we are to feel completely comfortable with the driver, we also need to consider how the driver looks, feels, and sounds.

The range of drivers available in the market today is stronger than ever. However, to find the ideal driver for you, you need to understand your clubhead speed, shot dispersion, and spin on the ball.

Custom fitting is the only way to get a clear picture of these details. At Nine By Nine Golf, we have experienced fitters who have helped every level of golfer find the right driver for their game.

Understanding your numbers and pinpointing where improvements can be made during a fitting session will lead you to your ideal combination of loft, weight, and hosel setting. You will also need to have the correct shaft fitted to further enhance distance and accuracy.

Titleist, Callaway, and TaylorMade are the leaders in the driver market, but these brands carry the highest prices. Manufacturers like Cobra, PXG, and Mizuno offer just as much technology at a cheaper price point.

If you want to invest in a new driver, you can book a custom-fitting session with our fitters through our website.

You can also browse the latest driver heads and an extensive range of customised shaft options to create your ideal driver and order directly from our website, where your driver will be made in-house by our Nine By Nine Golf technicians.

We’d be happy to assist if you have any questions regarding the benefits of being fitted for your next driver.