Golf: Of drivers and big dog with depressed appetites

Kenya Railways Golf Club Lady Captain Jane Alice Mutuota lets loose the big dog. [Mose Sammy, Standard]

Nothing feels better than when the big dog eats; the golf ball splitting the fairway, long and straight down the pipe.

King of the long drive is undisputed proof who activated their testosterone best on the course that day.

 For you to earn that title, golf equipment designers are continuously engaged in research and development of new materials and better golf clubs.

If you are always being left in the dust on your drives, 20 yards behind even after going flat out, this just might be the time to read the last rites to your clunky performer and get a new dog.

The rule “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” does not address improving it. Does it? Yet that is what golfers all over the world strive for, starting with better driving on course.

Tiger Woods switched to a new driver, the Taylormade SIM for his season-starting event, the Farmers Insurance Open in January.

Brooks Koepka, current top-ranked golfer, was spotted with a Callaway Mavrik SubZero at the Saudi Open. Phil Mickelson had the same driver at the Farmers Insurance Open.

Since Tiger signed on with Taylormade two years ago, he has produced results and wins that pundits would never have dreamed of five years ago considering how far south his game had gone.

Tiger’s targets for 2020 are clearly defined, and the world is waiting with bated breath to witness history as it happens. For starters, he needs to win a PGA Tournament and set new record of 83 and thus becoming the undisputed GOAT, greatest of all times, in golf.

He will also be gunning to defend his title at Augusta by winning the 2020 Masters. Fasten your belts, this will be one fast and furious ride.

Changing to better equipment is a no-brainer. It stands to speculation just how many Majors and Championships Tiger would have won by now had he stuck with the Titleist and Mizuno golf equipment he had started out with. But, a man has to eat, so he had to make his money first.

A loaded Tiger

That was then; this is 2020. With pockets full of cash and investments guaranteeing he will never be broke, Tiger is once again chasing records and glory. And for that, he will be leaning heavily on his new Taylormade SIM driver.

The first metal-headed golf drivers had a flat face made of a steel plate of uniform thickness. Modification of the face with roll and bulge improved the gear effect upon impact on the ball.

Since 2010, some wonderful innovations have led to some incredible technologies in golf club design.

Callaway introduced Variable Face Thickness, VFT, in which the clubface face was slightly thicker in the center and thinner all around the outer perimeter.

Tiger Woods in action:  It stands to speculation just how many Majors and Championships Tiger would have won by now had he stuck with the Titleist and Mizuno golf equipment he had started out with.[ AFP, Standard]

Callaway would also introduce Cup Face Technology, in which the piece for the face was cupped over the face-roof edge such that the seam between the two was located further into the body.

The cupped face was said to improve the amount of face flexing for balls struck on areas off the centre of the face, and resulted in higher ball speed, better distance, performance and a more solid feel from these off-centre hits.

Golfers went nuts

Taylormade then invented Inverted Cone face, where the back of the driver face was shaped like a volcano with a caldera in the middle.

Big driver heads were heavy and soon the steel on the crown was replaced with extremely strong Carbonfibre materials. This also lowered the driver head’s Center of Gravity.

Golfers went nuts when adjustable hosels that enabled changing the loft and lie angle of your driver were introduced. The activity took only a few seconds to execute.

That is a good check, actually. If your driver and woods do not have an adjustable hosel, they are too old for the modern golfer. But good enough for new beginners. Just go ahead and donate them to the JGF or Rose Naliaka’s golf academy.

In 2017 Callaway launched their Great Big Bertha Epic driver that featured Jailbreak Technology. Two carbon rods placed behind and close to the face helped stabilize the carbon crown from collapse during impact.

In January 2018, Taylormade introduced Twist face technology in their M3 and M4 drivers. You can hardly see the twist with the naked eye, but it’s there. They claim that with the twist face, a ball struck at any point on the driver face to still get decent distance and direction.

Taylormade’s Twist Face is an oxymoron but seems sensible.

Some of the new drivers are so good that better players are finding it hard to fade or draw the ball with them because the ball just shoots off straight, with minimal sidespin.

For the low handicap player, 2020 has some amazing cutting-edge designed and precision-engineered products on offer.

Customisation

Taylormade have introduced Shape in Motion, SIM, technology in driver design. SIM is the exact opposite of VFT; the centre of the driver face is thinner at the centre and thicker towards the periphery.

The other trend we see in golf club sales is Customization. One size does not fit all, hence SIM drivers are being offered in three models; SIM, SIM MAX, and SIM MAX D.

Following a similar trend established with the Epic Flash drivers, Callaway have launched a new line of drivers called Mavrik in three offerings: Standard, Max and Sub-Zero. Callaway have also retained the jailbreak carbon rods behind the face.

Titleist, home of the best and most technologically advanced drivers, if you doubt that ask any Tour Pro who is not on an equipment contract, joined the fray with their TS Series drivers in 2019.

The TS driver Face is the opposite of Cupface; the driver body curls beyond the edge of the club and into the titanium face.

The Titleist range comprises of not three but four models; the TS1, TS2, TS3 and TS4, each with distinct properties and targeted to a particular kind of golfer. These gizmos will set you back $500 with and it’s all worth it.

Srixon, the biggest secret in high-end golf clubs, have launched the Z785 driver that builds on the amazing Z765 from last season.

For the mid to high Handicapper, there is the King Cobra Speedzone, Ping G410 and Cleveland Launcher HB Turbo that offer real value for your money.

For the ladies, the new and improved Ping G Le2 is light and extremely forgiving to maximize on their characteristic lower swing speeds.

While all the attention on a golf driver goes to the clubhead, savvy golfers and gearheads know that the engine behind the driver, no pun intended, is a high-performance shaft. These will cost you an extra $200, but believe me, they make a world of difference.

Nanotechnology graphite shafts were all the range in the last two decades. The TS series is being offered with Mitsubishi Kurokage, Mitsubishi Tensei, Project X HZRDUS Smoke and Project X Even Flow graphite shafts in that order of decreasing launch.

The bottom line is that if you are playing a driver that was made before 2010, you are playing vintage equipment, akin to drawing water from the Nile with a shaduf.

Anything older than 2015 is racing a Peugeot 504 at the 2020 WRC Safari Rally Championship. It’s time to upgrade. Google your club make and model to find its age.

Ditch the shortest hitter title

Golf equipment is very sturdy and hardly breaks down, so do not wait for it to break down before you change it. By then it will have cost you a whole lot of strokes and even more in bets.

As a rule of thumb, if you want to play and enjoy golf at your best, plan to upgrade your driver every three years, or at least as frequently as you upgrade your car.

Ditch the shortest hitter title in your fourball; upgrade to a modern Hi-Tech golf driver and watch the big dog eat.

Lipouts. The magic of Tiger Woods will never cease to amaze us. On the final day of the Farmers Insurance Open in January, he did the impossible once again. On the second hole, he holed out his approach shot from the fairway in what would have been a spectacular eagle. But the ball then defied the laws of physics and amazingly spun out of the hole! 

 

[email protected], @pigamingi1