The Ben Hogan Driver You Never Saw Coming

I take Ben Hogan’s PTX Max Driver on course and put it thru the paces. The origin story is wild.

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Garmin Approach G80 Handheld Golf GPS & Launch Monitor

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i love taking a look at direct to consumer clubs on this channel and today I’ve got another one from a brand that’s famous for their forged irons but now they’ve got a new driver this is the Ben Hogan PT Max this looks absolutely beautiful and on today’s video we’re going to throw it through the gauntlet to see how it performs now this is an entire new line here in 2025 from Ben Hogan and if you take a look here at the hybrid on your screen you might have a good idea where some of the design cues came from i’m sure the astute viewers out there can tell that this has a very Adams tight liz look to it and if you did notice that then you’re a very smart person because the designer that Ben Hogan tapped on the shoulder to design the PT Max line here actually came from that company and had a hand in designing the Tit fairway woods so we won’t be looking at the fairway woods today we’re looking at the driver but I’m excited for the pedigree behind it not only the Benhogan name but the design team behind this one let’s take a closer look here’s your closer look at the Benhogan PT Max now as you can see really good looking club from Address you’ve got carbon fiber peeking through this gloss black you got really nice contrast here with the Ben Hogan logo serving as the alignment dot for this it’s really really nice really deep face as you can see the shape of this club though is long but not super wide now most drivers today we’re seeing these big big long even more than half moon shapes this is more like just kind of a half moon circle type of look to it at the bottom this is kind of giving me SIM 2 Max feels you can see that shape there very aerodynamic you got a tungsten weight there for a little more and you’ve got a speed slot to again help in aerodynamics here’s the profile and again if that doesn’t remind you of a SIM 2 Max I don’t know what would very very nice now this is an adjustable loft driver i’ve got this set at 10 1/2° at the standard loft you can go up or down a couple of degrees you’ve also got a draw setting so if you struggle with hitting balls right maybe you are slicing them this is going to be an adjustment you can make you’ve got the Tensei 60 g stiff flex shaft here on this one there are a couple of different shaft options i just know that this is a good shaft for me and you’ve got a Ben Hogan custom branded grip here this is actually a Lamkin grip but it’s nice that they’ve continued the branding here really nice package and it comes with an equally nice head cover i love the patriotic red white and blue colors there and that gold it just looks high-end it also feels high-end this is a little higher quality it’s not real leather but it’s a higher quality pleather than you’re going to get on most direct to consumer clubs it’s just a really nice package time to put this one to work all right first test here just going to get a feel for this driver we got a straightaway kind of pretty narrow par five but let’s see what we can get out of it i’ve got my Garmin G80 here we’re going to get club stats you’ll get some stats as it flies off the club head and then we’re also going to get GPS here to know exactly how far they went people are always asking what this device is so I will leave a link to it down below if you’re interested all right first shot here i’m actually gonna try to cut one i did not cut one but I’ll tell you what for an early morning toe shot which is generally my modus operand I hit it about here it flew off the club very nice and high it actually was drawing i kind of double crossed myself the club head speed was 102 the ball speed was 138 the smash was low because I hit that nowhere near the center of the face it was 136 and the estimated distance there was 243 landed I think right side of the fairway it might be in the right rough but it was a very good shot for where it was struck all right now this one I am going to try to draw groove that swing in first here that one was hung way out to the right clubhead speed 101 ball speed 146 smash 144 the estimated distance on that one 263 we got to straighten it out though cuz that one started right stayed right on me [Music] that one’s like almost a carbon copy of the last one club head speed 100 ball speed 146 smash 147 that’s a nice number to see estimated distance on that 265 got to adjust my direction here cloud speed there 100 ball speed 149 smash 148 estimated distance 272 all right let’s go find them so initial impressions in terms of sound and feel the sound is a little tingier than I like honestly but it’s not as egregious as things like the Tored driver you’ve seen me test some of those older pings that sound very plastic it’s not that but it’s not a rich thuddiness that I love i’ve got to say in terms of feel my number one thing with feel is you know you want to feel compression when you hit it in the middle of the club face and I certainly felt that the one time I did and I certainly could feel where on the club face I was striking the ball so in terms of feel that’s pretty good that shaft seems to make me want to push things off to the right a little bit so we’ll just have to monitor that i’m going have to make some adjustments here to my stance and my club path but we should be able to get that let’s see how far these rolled out this is the first one that was severely off the toe all right so to be back on the right side of the fairway we certainly lost distance cuz our better balls up there about 15 20 yards but it could have been a whole heck of a lot worse and distance-wise I’d call that pretty darn good especially in the morning it’s dewy out here 251 here’s our ball in the middle and we’ve hit the 270 mark in fact 271 is the number here dead middle of the fairway well I can’t say dead middle just slightly left center really nice and again I don’t feel like that was my best swing either i think the two that we actually pushed off to the right were better swings the trees are probably going to hold up the distance over there but once I made the adjustment and hit that one here I didn’t think I quite caught it these two got hung up in the woods that I pushed right so 242 is the number on that one and 253 on this one so good distance for getting hung up in the trees but these I think would have gone 275 plus easily if they would have been in the fairway so I think this driver has a lot in the tank i’m going to try to find it here on hole number two and continue to test let’s go all right this next test is going to be a workability test so we’re going to test and see if we can really shape our shots and as you know I generally hit a draw so first thing I always like to test is a bit of a fade so in order to do that I open up my stance a little bit place that ball a little further in my stance as well i try to take more of an outside to in swing we’ll see if we can pull it off and see how workable the PT Max is also a lot of people like to play their fade shots from the right side of the T- box and I like to play my draws from the left side we will do that here as well all right shot one here i’m aim just so you know you can see that bunker out in the distance that’s my aim line and then we’ll see if we can get this one to peel back oh yeah excellent that peeled back so much honestly that we finished right at the cart path and I don’t mind overcooking it a little bit here when we’re testing give that one more shot from the fade swing and that had a really nice feel to it because that was middle of a club face as well yeah really nice workability there on the fade that’s peeling right back to the right side of the fairway and it seemed to have kind of a lower trajectory which really had that one rolling out i think the spin on this driver is going to be a little bit low if we were to look at spin numbers so for you high swing speed players I think you might really appreciate that all right I’m going to move to the other side of the tea box here because now we’re going to see if we can hit a different type of shot going to tee this one up a little lower we’re going to play it a little more middle of my stance now and I’m going to aim out to the right because I want this one to be the wind cheater we’re going to see if we can direct this ball right to left keep it low and under the wind that one stayed right out there for me but I may not have exaggerated my swing enough either so let me try that one again with this I really got to take it inside yeah that was the opposite of that swing that was a smother hook somewhere in between those two swings would be perfect and there it is so from what I can tell really excellent workability here out of the PT Max let’s go on to the next test all right time to take some rips we’re going to go max club head speed as much as I can get it up to this year 109 i think I top down at anywhere close to there would be great and then we’ll see how far this one flies i think our top driver was around the 290s this year it’s possible we don’t have any wind behind us or anything like that it’s very still conditions out here but this seems to have a lot of pop we’ll see how far it goes well again that one not caught in the middle of the club face but it could have been a lot worse in terms of a result club head speed 105 the ball speed was 153 wow smash factor 144 and the estimated distance there 283 but that didn’t quite get the peak height so it’s not going to get that kind of distance shot two here that one’s moving down the left side as well clubhead speed 103 ball speed 153 smash 148 estimated distance there 284 again I’m not quite catching these in the middle though i don’t think there’s more in this tank somewhere again another one that was a little off the toe it’s going to be just fine in the middle of the fairway club head speed 105 ball speed 150 smash lower 142 for that toe shot and the estimated distance 274 i got to catch one in the middle here there’s the launch I was looking for it’s just a little right up where I’d like to be that went a long way club at speed 103 ball speed 151 smash 146 estimated distance 279 one more i’d say I hit that one slightly low on the club face but again I think I blew it past the fairway here on this dog leg club head speed 105 ball speed 150 smash 143 estimated distance 276 let’s go find them now I’ll still say I don’t think I caught any of those dead middle of that club face and um some of those smash factor numbers were pretty telling on that so forgiveness wise I don’t know how many fairways we hit here honestly we hit at least one or two of those shots but I think four of them are going to be either on the right side or on the left side here forgiveness might be the one spot in this club that could be lacking a little bit certainly you’re getting great distance numbers you can see that with the smash factor and the ball speeds coming off this and honestly when you’ve got a club that has great workability very often you’re going to have a club that misses fairways a little bit more often it’s not going to be quite as consistent of a driver so these balls I don’t think they launched very well so even though our launch monitor was giving us good numbers they’re not going to be quite as far as we’d like them to be 233 is the number here we’ve got 241 here again in the bunker both of those were pulled and not very well hit this one was I thought a good result for again where it was struck on the club face cuz it wasn’t middle of the club face but we are dead middle of the fairway at 241 as well the two best ones are over here on the right hand side again i hit him so good we hit them past the dog leg but they did get caught up in the rough i’m getting 255 and this is the one that launched really nice and high and this one 266 so this test I wanted to be a max distance test i think it became more of a forgiveness test to be quite honest with you so I think I learned a lot from this club and I’ll give you my rankings here after we give this one more chance to see how far I can hit it all right so we’re going to try the max distance test here once again but we got our forgiveness test in i got a good idea of that we’re a little into the wind here i’d say it’s blowing maybe 5 mph in our face so it’s going to cut down distance just a touch but the launch monitor will also give us a good idea of how well we hit these that is the first one I can say I really struck in the middle of this club face got nice peak height launched really well club head speed was 101 the ball speed was 148 and the estimated distance there 269 shot two see if I can get the swing speed up a little higher i did but might be in different fairway it’s not quite that bad it’s off in the woods though club head speed was 103 ball speed was 151 and smash 147 and the estimated distance there 278 got the club head speed up there 104 ball speed 153 smash 147 the estimated distance 285 that one’s going to be over there in the left rough though near a bunker but that was really well hit last one again really well struck but favor in the right side it’s going to be in the right rough club head speed 103 ball speed 150 smash 145 and the estimated distance 275 let’s go find him and then we’re going to rank this club all right here we are our lone soldier in the fairway is at 271 all right we’ve got 263 over here in the right rough but we’ve got another one that’s even longer than this it’s our longest one 275 268 over here on the left side all right time to rank the PT Max here from Ben Hogan so in terms of distance I think that this is really a standout category you’re getting really great ball speed you’re getting a lot of distance and again I think having a little bit lower spin than some of these other drivers on the market you’re also going to get a lot more roll out of it i’m going to give this four and a half out of five stars in terms of distance it’s a really good performer and I didn’t hit very many in the middle of the club face today but when I did they were really good when it comes to forgiveness though that’s where this one is going to lag behind a bit for me and again we saw it here i only hit one fairway i was trying to swing hard obviously so I was swinging a little bit out of my shoes but only hitting one out of five fairways that’s going to make golf a little bit more difficult for us mere mortals so for me in terms of forgiveness I’m going to give this one three out of five stars when it comes to workability though that’s again where this club I think really shines and I’m going to give this five out of five stars here in terms of workability it’s almost maybe too workable for some just like a Ben Hogan blade it’s going to be a driver that’s I think going to be meant for the lower handicappers out there the folks that can really make good contact now when it comes to aesthetics looks feel sound and I really love what I see the only again nitpick for me would be maybe soundwise it’s a little higher pitch than I like but the looks are beautiful the feel coming off the club face excellent so I think four out of five stars is what I would give it and then in terms of value at 379 again four out of five stars this is going to sit considerably below a lot of the options on the market from the big OEM brands but there are also a couple of DTC drivers sub70 comes to mind and a couple others on the market that going to be sitting a little bit lower and are also really good performers so I really think that if you’re a person that’s a looking for max distance out of a direct to consumer driver probably the longest one I’ve seen and again if you’re someone who really wants to shape their shots this is going to be one you really want to look at all in all really enjoyed this driver i hope you enjoyed this review if you want to continue the direct to consumer driver journey I’ve got a video right here you’re going to want to take a look at and I’ll catch you back here next time on another edition of Let’s Play Through