I Finally Tried the Vice Driver and I’m Blown Away

I Finally Tried the Vice Driver and I’m Blown Away

On today’s video, I’ve got Vice’s new driver. This has been a huge, huge request here on the channel. This is the VGD01. I’ve got to say, I’ve seen a lot of direct to consumer drivers. Generally, they look cheap, they feel cheap, they sound cheap. This is not that. This is absolutely a premium looking driver, and I’m hoping we get premium driver results out of it here today. We’re going to take a closer look at this. Then, I’m going to take it out on course. We’re going to run it through a battery of tests. I’ve got all of the technology here to measure our shots, give us all of the launch metrics, and really make sure that we’re getting the best data we can. We’ll see if this driver can live up to the big OEMs. Can it be the first direct to consumer driver that I can really truly 100% recommend? We’re going to find out. Let’s get to work. All right, here’s your closer look at the VGD01 from Vice. This is by far the most interesting driver I have seen aesthetically all year. Now, it’s not just interesting for look’s sake. It’s interesting from a construction perspective. There’s three different materials being used here. You’ve got carbon fiber here on the crown that’s in this bowling ball style pattern. Very reminiscent of the Paradigm series if you remember that one from Callaway. There’s titanium here in the face. And this face in itself is really interesting, but we’ll get back to that. And then you’ve got lightweight aluminum here at the bottom with these wings. So, three different materials being used. As I mentioned, that face, that is a very interesting pattern there. And if you look very closely, there’s actually some coordinates. I’m hoping it’s a geocache for an unlimited supply of vice golf balls, but more than likely it’s probably the coordinates to their offices back in Germany. Someone knows, let me know down below. But very cool little touch there on the face. It also says laser grid there, and that is the pattern that they have laser etched into the face of this driver. There’s all sorts of little touches around this one. So, you’ve got the Vice logo there. You’ve also got it as your alignment marker there at the top of the club. You’ve also got it in the big tungsten weight here at the back. Now, that shape and that look to me is very similar to the Titalist line of drivers. So, they’ve taken the best of a lot of drivers, it seems like, to build this one. Now, let’s talk about this shaft. This shaft is interesting in and of itself as well. Now, the pattern is that topographical map we saw there on the irons. The color scheme is like a Miami blue type of thing. We’ll call it like very Florida vibes there. I like that. The shaft I’ve got on here is called a Whiz and it’s 65 g. It does not say who makes this shaft. So, this could be a proprietary shaft from Vice. It could be one of the big shaft makers that this is now white labeled. I am not sure, but I will say this shaft absolutely stands out. And in terms of the grip, they’ve also got a Vice branded grip on here in kind of a Lamkin crossline look, although it’s a rubberized feel. And all in all, again, just a very unique package. Haven’t seen a direct to consumer driver like this. We’ll see if it actually performs there out on course. It’s time to head out there right now. All right, first test here. We’re going to just see what we get out of this driver. Now, looking down at it, this is going to be a polarizing driver, especially with that carbon fiber up top. The shape of this driver is beautiful. I don’t know what I feel like just yet, but I’ll tell you by the end of this video. I just want to get a feel for this driver first, though. Wow. Feel fantastic. Result looked fantastic as well. I was fairly middle of the club face according to the GC quad there. My club head speed was 101. The ball speed was 145. The smash was 143. The estimated carry was 233. I would like to see just a little bit more peak height here. I think we can squeak out some more yards. So, I’m going to tee it up just a bit higher, but man, for the first shot, fairly impressive. Now, that one I came across it a little bit. So, it’s it’s cooking pretty hard left. Club speed was 102. The ball speed was 145, the smash was 142, and the carry was 216. So, we definitely lost some yards there, at least in the air on that particular swing. I’ll tell you one thing though, I’m seeing though, is the spin numbers look real good with this driver. I’m consistently around 22 to 2400 RPM. It looks like that one was a little lower, 1874. But having used this driver for quite a bit, for me, at least in my swing, that’s a really good spin number. All right, shot three. Ah yeah, that was ripped. It felt great. Nice draw carving out the outline of this hole. According to the GC quad, it was actually a little low on the club face, but it felt really good. My club head speed there was 101. The ball speed was 145. The smash was 1.43 and the carry was 238. Again, my spin number really nice there. 2224. I really like that number. I’m going to hit one more here and then we’re going to go measure these shots and see exactly how far they went. There we go. That one’s got a little bit more right to left movement on it, but looked really good in the air. That had some more peak height. The club speed I got up there to 104. Ball speed was 147. Smash 141. Slightly low, slightly heel side. The carry estimation there was 241. Again, spin number spot on where I like to be. 2234. So, initial impressions very good. Let’s find out how far these shots went, though. All right, so we’ve got one ball here in the rough. This was my third shot that just wasn’t well struck. And we’ve got three in a pretty close little pattern up there in the middle of the fairway. So 230 is the number out here in the rough. And again, for an offc center hit in extremely wet, dewy conditions here early in the morning. Honestly, not a bad number. And hitting the rough as well. These balls are considerably better. Two of them are pretty much on top of each other. And then we’ve got one that’s a little more right center here. All right. So 253 is the number here on the right side of the fairway. This one’s at 252. And walking up here, this one is at 257. All right. So distance-wise, again, under these conditions, we had an absolutely torrential downpour yesterday where this course is actually a little spongy. Between that, you can see on the ball all the debris I’m picking up, and this also being in the morning where we’re going to lose a little bit of distance. I’m actually really happy with that number. So, let’s talk sound and feel of this driver. I’ve used this in my simulator. I’ve used it out on the range and now I’m using it out here on the course. And I will say the best of the best in terms of a direct to consumer driver when it comes to sound and feel. They really got this right. This feels like an OEM driver. That is tough to do for whatever reason. Direct to consumer brands do really well in the iron department. I feel like they can go toe-to-toe with the big dogs and offer them at half the price or a third of the price. We’ve looked at so many good ones here on the channel, but drivers consistently come up short. Not talking about distance-wise because a lot of times they can kind of hang almost, but certainly from aesthetics perspective, it’s a big big difference. This one is absolutely by far and away the best sounding and best feeling. It’s got a nice thud to it. It’s not that tiny sound or that plasticky sound that kind of signifies at least a cheap sounding driver. Some of the better drivers actually have that sound, too. But this one sounds great. Let’s go to test number two. All right. In this next test, we’re going to be more of a workability test. So, I’m going to go against my prevailing shot shape, the draw here, and hit more of a fade. We’re going to see how this driver reacts. Really nice high trajectory. It’s gently cutting there. It actually seemed to go a really long way. And just if you’re curious, ball speed was 141, the carry was 230, and my spin’s up there. That type of shot for me is going to be a much higher spinning shot. So, 2884 was the number there. All right, shot two. Oh, I really like that. That is just a little gentle butter cut. Close to the center of the club face that time. Ball speed was 144. Carry was 233. The spin was a nice number there at 2239. Love that. The smash was 144. Like I said, pretty close to the center of that club face. Try to do a bit more of a gentle cut. And that’s exactly what I got there. Now, I’m going to really try to exaggerate it. So, I’m actually going to be aiming over at these palm trees on the lefth hand side, and we’re going to see if we can just generate max fade spin on this one. Look at that. Almost like a banana. So, very workable driver, it looks like to me. Let’s head on to the next test. All right, this next test here is going to be a forgiveness test. So, because I’ve got these little dots placed around the club face here on the vice driver, I’m actually able with my GC quad to see where I hit it on the club face. I’m going to try to exaggerate some offc center contact just to see how this driver performs when you’re not swinging at your best. So, first thing I’m going to try is a little toe contact, which is my normal miss. So, I’m always interested in how a driver does on that. In order to again really exaggerate it, I’m going to stand back a little further here. That was dead toe. Honestly, not too bad. It’s kind of near the cart path. You can see that’s what a dead toe strike looks like. Look at the smash number. Still not horrible. 138. My club speed was down cuz again I was really trying to concentrate on where I’m hitting it. But the ball speed 134 is also not too bad. And 229 carry on a tow hit not so bad. And the spin number at 2014 looking really good. This is one place where we saw the Tacomao driver for instance really struggle on offc center contact. I was losing tons of spin. The other thing that I noticed was that the direction on a shot like that could very often be hooking and that one didn’t. It had a like a slight little draw to it. So, honestly, I kind of saw that shot as a real win. Now, we’re going to do the opposite here. I’m going to try to go for some heel contact. So, I’m going to get up on the ball a little closer. And again, pretty much on the line I was aiming on this dog leg, right? You can see that was a little more heel side. It wasn’t completely heel side, but it was definitely heel side. The smash number again, not so bad. 141 97 mph club speed generated 137 ball speed and 244 carry. The spin was down a little bit there at 1809, but all in all, I’d say again fairly forgiving result, especially again when you look at the shot shape there. I really like what I saw. All right, now the next thing I’m going to test is low contact. I’m teeing this one way, way down. And that was just a straight down the middle bullet. That was really good. Looked like a 3-wood trajectory. So, as you can see here, again, kind of hit it a little lower on the club face. Look at the smash number there. 143. Club head speed was 98.4. The ball speed was 141. Again, didn’t carry as far cuz it didn’t get at that peak height, but I bet it probably finished pretty good because carried 227. Total spin 2199. Again, very consistent spin numbers. That’s really, really nice to see here with this driver. I’m going to try one more. We’re going to try to hit it off the top of the club head. So, I’m going to tee it as high as I possibly can. Like that. I did almost feel the club face twist a little in my hands, which is to be expected. The numbers still aren’t bad. You can see where I hit it there. My smash 138. So, we haven’t gone past that. That’s the lowest we’ve gone, it looks like. Again, club head speed 97, ball speed 134, and carried 236. Now, the spin was lower there, 1699. And like I said, I felt that face kind of twist a little bit as it made contact, which probably took a little spin off that ball as well. All in all, from a forgiveness perspective, that’s really good. And again, the most impressive number for me is how it holds spin much more consistent than some of its competitors. And again, just so you see it, you know, I had this one, this was that low shot that was straight down the middle. And these balls over here on the right, not in bad shape either. So, this is driver is going to penalize you considerably less on offc center contact than other drivers out there. Let’s talk about the state of the driver market right now and pricing. I remember the Callaway Epic was the first new driver I ever spent my own money on new. All right. Now, I believe it was $299, which I thought was close to being outrageous. This driver is $3.99 and OEM drivers right now are easily in the 600. 600, 650 is not uncommon. It’s getting out of hand, honestly. I get we’ve had inflation. I get we’ve got other factors economically that are affecting sales prices, but it feels to me like we’re just getting a massive money grab from the big names. When they saw the influx of golfers after CO, it was like, how much can we charge? And they just keep every year adding another $50. We went from $499 drivers to they tested the market at $550, then 600. Now we’re up to 650. And again, that’s before you even put a decent shaft on these. We’re talking stock shafts. So, it’s crazy. 399 looks a lot better when you’re staring 650 in the face. But it also begs the question for I think a lot of people, do you go with a brand new driver or do you go for a used driver or maybe even something like a SIM 2 which I think you could get for about the same price right now and it’s a new driver from Tailor Made that’s now four or five years old but still definitely holds its own. In fact, you should go back and watch my driver test. I’ll leave the link for it uh here where I literally tested every driver I’ve ever had on this show. And the SIM 2 was pretty pretty close to the top if not at the top after all these years, which is amazing. So, it’s something that everyone’s got to weigh right now. One of the pros of getting a used driver is you’ve got a known name. Especially if you buy it new, even a year old, you still may get a warranty potentially from the manufacturer. So, those are definitely pros. I guess the other pro would be it gives you some confidence. I mean, people put confidence in brands for a reason. And I will tell you from experience, you’ve got to be confident when you’re playing golf or you’re not going to play your best golf. So, it’s definitely a thing. Now, there’s some potential negatives or pitfalls to buying a used driver specifically. Number one, there’s a lot of fakes out there, especially if you’re on eBay or if you’re buying on some of these auction sites, things like that. Even the Facebook marketplace, there’s so many fakes out there. So, you can potentially not be getting the product that you’re paying for. And the second potential pitfall when buying used, you just don’t know how the first owner treated that club. Were they rough with it? Is there damage internally that maybe you don’t see on the outside? Is there some sort of structural integrity issue? Whatever the case may be, even if a driver looks good on the outside, there could be some other things behind it. So, there’s definitely some negatives to buying a used driver. So $3.99 is that price point that definitely makes you think if you can get all of the benefits of a brand new driver, which the one thing about new drivers is they’ve gotten better on offc center contact hits. They all seem to fly about the same distance from year to year, but definitely you’re getting more forgiveness as driver technology improves. If an direct to consumer driver or a cheaper driver can do that, then we’ve got a winner. So, for me, this is potentially we got more testing to do, but potentially the first driver where I can actually see that you’re paying a price of something you might pay for a used or a couple year old brand new OEM driver, but you’re still getting that performance of a new driver where you’re getting that forgiveness. You’re getting that distance on offc center contact. Let’s go to the next test. All right, now that I am good, loose, and limber, it is time for the max distance test. So, I’m going to take my full power swing here. If I really want to get home in two on a par five or something like that, this is the type of swing I’m going to use when I’ve got a wide fairway like this one. Going to see if we can generate max club head speed and max distance. Super high ball flight there. It may not have as much roll because it’s coming down at kind of a steep angle, but the numbers look great. Club head speed was 102. Ball speed was 145. The smash was 142. Estimated carry here on the GC Quad 259. And actually that one, interestingly enough, was a little lower spin. It was 1790. All right, shot two here. [Music] I think I got about all I could get out of a driver right there. Clubhead speed was 104. Ball speed was 147. So, we got a couple extra mile an hour there. The smash was 141. The estimated carry 265. Wow. If it’s anywhere near that, I’ll be very happy. I’m going to take one more. really get my hips through this one. See if we can get it up just a little higher. Oh, I just kind of missed it. But I’ll tell you what, for a high toe shot, excellent result. Right side of the middle fairway there. My club head speed was up there, 106. The ball speed was 148. Smash was lower because it was hit up here on the club face, 140. The estimated carry 259. So, that one’s definitely not going to be the furthest. I think that second one is going to be it’s gonna give us a real idea of what this driver can do with how wet and spongy it is down here. I think 265 anything around that number would be really nice to see. Let’s find out. All right, two balls that are easily visible here. One is hiding. I’m going to show you this cuz it’s kind of funny. This drive here, we are at 258. No roll out on these drives. This is so spongy out here. So that definitely hurt the distance. 253 here. And look at this. I actually ended in a hole. I don’t know how on earth that is in the middle of this fairway, but that’s where my ball ended at 257. And you can’t tell me that on a firm and fast fairway that wouldn’t have gone 275 easy. It literally got no roll at all. I thought it disappeared when I saw it. It actually hit the fairway, which is crazy. Strange stuff happens out here. But I think I’ve got all the information I need right now to make our rankings here for this driver. Between what I’ve seen out here on course as well as what we’ve done in the studio, I’m ready to rank this driver. So, first criteria is going to be distance. I rank everything on a scale of 1 to five and I would rank this driver a four and a half out of five for distance. It is very, very long on different parts of that club face. Really great performer. Now, when it comes to forgiveness, forgiveness, I’m also going to rank it four and a half out of five. Extremely tight dispersion out of this driver. Does so well on offc center contact and I really enjoyed the results when I just didn’t quite hit it where I wanted it. Now, third category is workability. And this is surprising because so many drivers, if they’re really forgiving, they’re not very workable. But I was able to shape the shots here today as good as any driver I’ve had out here on course. Maybe a couple stand out. The old TSR line I thought was extremely workable. There’s been a couple over the years, but this is right up there. And in terms of at least this year in 2025, I’m going to also give it a 4 and a half out of five. So really strong in the workability category as well. When it comes to aesthetics, looks, feel, and sound. This is always one of the more subjective categories. I think using this driver and on course, I actually like the looks of it. I think it’s unique. All right, we all want something unique in the back of our bags, something our friends are going to ask us about, that sort of thing. This driver will certainly do that. But beyond just the looks, the feel of it, and the sound of it, top of class when it comes to the direct to consumer market. So, I’m going to give this actually a full five out of five. And it’s the first time I’ve ever done that with a DTC driver. Again, I do think it could be polarizing. Some people are not going to like the looks of this driver. I happen to actually like them after having used it. The last category here is going to be value. We had a big discussion here early in the episode on value. For me, $399 sits in a really sweet spot in this market right now. You’ve got very few drivers at this price point, and at this price point, none of them perform like this one. The shaft, I’d love to know a little bit more about. And if you’ve got information, please let me know in the comments. But it seems to be a really good performer. I think you’re getting a good shaft from what I can tell. All in all, gosh, I think it’s got to be a five. I mean, performance to what you’re paying for a brand new driver in today’s market. I think it’s a five for me. So, here on your screen is the score. By far the one direct to consumer driver I can really truly wholeheartedly recommend to you. I think it is worth you diving deeper on. I know it’s hard to test these types of drivers. You’re not going to be able to walk into a golf supertore and give it a shot, but I think if you want to take a chance on a brand in the direct to consumer market, I think there’s no better brand than this one right now. I think it does it better than all of them. So, really happy I got to test this one finally. Thanks to all the folks who begged me to review this Vice Golf equipment. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. I liked it a whole heck of a lot more than I did. I’m also going to leave the link to the VGIO2 irons here that if you’re in the iron market, these are the Vice versions of the irons that you should take a look at as well. Please do hit subscribe. It helps the show more than know. And I’ll catch you back here next time on another edition of Let’s Play Through.

On course review of the Vice VGD01 Driver.

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