Looking for a high-performance golf driver without spending $600+? In today’s video, we test and review the Tour Edge Exotics Max and Tour Edge Exotics LS drivers — some of the most affordable “10k” MOI (moment of inertia) drivers on the market.
🏌️♂️ Are they worth it?
🏌️♂️ How do they compare to premium drivers from TaylorMade, Callaway, and Ping?
🏌️♂️ Is this the best budget driver of 2025?
We break it all down with on-course testing, Full Swing data, and real feedback on distance, forgiveness, feel, sound, spin rates, and more.
About the channel:
Hello I’m Hannah Holden a +2 golfer from Yorkshire, England and this is my brand new YouTube channel Hannah Holden Golf.
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How does the cheapest 10k driver on the market perform? Let’s go find out. So, today I’m testing out the brand new Tour Edge Exotic drivers. We’ve got the LS and the Max model. And I’m specifically excited about the Max model here. And actually, they’re saying it’s surpassing that 10,000 mark in terms of MOI. So, hopefully we’re going to see a lot of forgiveness here and a lot of stability. Now, the reason they’ve managed to make this so forgiving is that they’ve really changed the construction. So, we’re at a nearly full carbon construction now, and we’re looking at 50 to 80% more carbon in the drivers than in the previous models. This allows them to really shift weight around in the club head, move it to the perimeter, and that’s what drives up that MOI and gives us added forgiveness. So, let’s go see just how easy this Max driver is to hit, and what the differences are between the two models. First up, I’m going to start with the Max because I’m just super excited to hit this if I honest. And I think this sits really nice behind the golf ball. What’s interesting, they’ve got something called 360 ridgeback technology in this driver, and that’s a titanium chassis that sits round the club head and locks everything together. This is designed to give more strength and also more face deflection at impact. So hopefully more energy and distance, but I think it actually really frames the club nicely and really kind of helps with alignment because we’ve got this strong alignment strip at the front because of that. Overall, I really like the shape in here. I like the fact it doesn’t sit too draw by us. Sometimes when we get more forgiving clubs, they can be very anti-right, and that’s not what everyone who wants more forgiveness wants. Now, it is important to note on this, there is a sliding weight on the back of here. So, you can move this to set up more draw or more fade bias depending on what you prefer to see. I also really like the matte finish, and I like the fact we’ve got a lot of engraving on the club face because it just feels like you see more of the club face because of that, and it feels like you’re going to have loft to hit the ball high in a long way. Let’s see if we can. In terms of setup, I’ve got a 9 degree club head here. And then we’ve got the future curventus blue shaft, and that’s in the 60 stiff. Okay, I pulled that tad, but it felt really nice off the club face. Solid 1.5 smash factor, which we do like to see. Now, obviously, it’s starting to get colder here in the UK. I’m at Donani Lynx today. Horse looks amazing, but I am layered up a little bit. So, currently swinging at 91.7 mph. It’s perhaps not my quickest ever club swing, but 220 carry from that 2,300 spin, which I like. Ball speed at 137, launch at 12°. Really impressed with the sound and feel of that. I think sometimes when we hear the word forgiving, we think, “Oh, maybe it won’t perform in other areas. Maybe I’ll lose the looks or the feel.” But so far I don’t feel like that at all. Oh, pure. That might get on the green. Oh, it hats. We like that. Club head speed back up to 95.5. I’ve warmed up everyone again. 220 carry. Might have expected a little bit more off that given the club speed has jumped up, but my spin’s also jumped up. So 2,448. Ball speed 138.8. Tell you what, that feels super stable. Really like that performance. I missed that. Honestly, I struck that so badly. Like, it felt terrible. And I’ve only lost 10 yards of carry distance. Like, I was thinking it was going to just plug in one of those bunkers up there and it still carried 210. Spin stayed at 2,400. For me, when we’re looking at like forgiveness, I love a driver where the spin stays pretty stable because that’s what’s going to help you keep the ball on line. I think there was a phase a few years ago where everyone was chasing quite low spin to maximize distance, but actually we’re trying to keep the ball on the planet, keep our dispersion down. Having consistent spin is your friend. So, I really like that there. Obviously, didn’t strike it well. Covered speed went down to 88. But to keep that carry distance up and to keep it pretty straight from a bad strike, I really like that. Obviously, the whole story here is forgiveness. So, it’s important to see what it does on bad strikes as well as just your good ones. So, in this new design, we have something called pyramid face technology. So, this is a new variable thickness face, and it basically boosts ball speed on offcenter strikes by having different thicknesses in different areas of the face. So that’s what’s going to help deliver that more consistent distance depending on where you strike it. Definitely seemed to help me there. Flush. That ball flight is so straight. Another one on the green. We love to see it. My greens in red is better than this than it is with my iron sometimes. Let’s just process that for a second. I am properly loving that 220 carry distance today. It’s extremely consistent at hitting that mark. 220.8 there, 2500 spin, 95 club head speed, 137 ball speed. I would say when I’m looking at my best performing drivers in terms of distance and speed, I can get my ball speed to like the low 140s. So, it is a little bit down in terms of that, but this isn’t the model in this range that’s designed to go the fur. This is designed to be the most forgiving. And I think for the majority of golfers, like five to 10 extra yards in distance is not going to outweigh hitting more fairways. But so far, what I’m really impressed with is the consistency of the ball flight, the stability, how much it’s helped me on off center strikes. I think sometimes we need to not focus on distance so much when we’re picking our driver. Did also hit those high ball speed numbers in Spain, not in Scotland. So conditions matter, too. Just pausing for a second to give you a chance to hit that subscribe button. Over 80% of people watching my videos aren’t currently subscribed. And actually having a bigger subscriber number really helps in terms of where I can go to film videos and what kit I can get my hands on to review for you. So really, it’s all in your best interest if you want better videos on the channel to watch. So please hit that subscribe button. And while you’re there, you might as well drop this video a like and drop us a comment about what else you want to see on the channel. Oh flush. I actually really love that ball flight. Another ball on the green. This is getting a bit ridiculous. 219.6 in terms of carry there. Again, 2580 spin, 92 clubheaded speed, 138 ball speed. Really, really consistent in terms of numbers, which I think is what we need and what we want if we want a forgiven driver. definitely deliver on that kind of 10k stability story currently money. Sorry, but I’ve hit four of those five shots on the green. Sometimes I stand on a tea box like this with driver and I’m worried about losing my golf ball. I just hit four out of five on the green. That is madness. Okay, let’s swap into the LS model now and see what the differences are. Okay, we have a slightly different shaft setup here. So, still in the future aventus, but we’ve got the red offer in here and this is still in the 60 stiff. Also, still a nine degree head. So, some consistency in terms of setup there. We can see on the sole there’s a lot of difference in terms of weight in here. There’s a big weight at the front that’s going to move the CG forward. That’s what’s going to drive that spin down and hopefully also help with more ball speed. does look a little more compact behind the golf ball and I think it sits really nicely but in terms of like the visual of the textures, the coloring, the shaping very similar. This is 440cc so it is a little smaller. I am very interested to see what the differences are going to be like here. Oh, very similar sound. Really solid ball flight. Did catch that of the tur though and it didn’t feel like it flew quite as far as the other one. No. So on my off center strike there, we’ve dropped down to 208.9, which is less than what I would have got definitely with the Max model. And the big difference is the drop down in spin here. So that’s at 1993. So a solid like 4 500 less RPM than I was seeing with the Max. Definitely not slightly lower. I can feel myself working to try add spin. like I’m consciously having to add loft and add launch angle because I’m trying to spin it more because I’m not a very high spin player. So, this probably wouldn’t be the model I’d pick for me. I think you do sometimes have to be conscious of that. Like a lot of us have the ability to adapt and tweak our swing when we change club when something’s not quite set up right for us. So, if you’re in a fitting and you kind of hit two, three shots and they’re not going well or they’re not going in the way you would normally hit them, that’s when you know you’re probably not in the model that’s right for you. That was a really nice strike. I actually managed to get my spin up to 2,600 there, but I’m adding about 2° more loft at impact than I was doing with the other driver to try and get that spin number up. I’m also not hitting it quite as hard. So 93 club bed speed there 213 carat. Okay, there we go. Back to 95 club head speed, 140 ball speed, which is more than what we saw with the max. 220 carry though cuz my spins at like 2,000. So I’m just not quite keeping the ball in the air long enough. This is where it’s really interesting testing clubs because humans are robots. So, if I put this in a robot and compared it to the Max and swung them both the same, presented the same loss swing at the same club head speed, you would see less spin from this, probably a little bit more distance. But, I’m kind of reacting to the club and not necessarily doing that. But, if you’re interested in these models and you want less spin, this is definitely offering that. I just love the stability of the Max, though. I don’t want to give that up. 22 1.4. My longest carry of the day. 2,264 spin, 94.8 cubed speed, 139.4 ball speed. I do seem to get a little bit more ball speed on this model on my good shot. Okay, so let’s do a little bit of a comparison between the two sets of data we’ve got there. In terms of carry distance, although the LS is in theory meant to be the longer model or the one to get the most distance, for me, I actually hit the max further. So 218.2 yards compared to 215.5 with the LS. I don’t think that’s a massive difference really, and you wouldn’t pick one over the other based on that. But purely for me, I think I just hit the max more consistently because I felt more comfortable with it. The spin was consistently good and I just love the ball flight. So felt easier for me to swing that consistently. I did however get my longest individual carry distance with the LS at 221.4. So the potential for the most distances there and we did see that on the ball speed numbers as well. So if we look at the average ball speed, I was 137.4 with the LS versus 136.5 with the max. I just wasn’t consistent enough in terms of my launch angle and my spin to convert that extra ball speed into more distance. Obviously, generally a low spin model is designed for more higher club head speed players as well. And in the like mid to low 90s, as I am today with a few jumpers on, I would definitely not categorize myself as a high club head speed player. Now, in terms of spin, obviously the LS is designed to be low spin. That’s the whole name. And it did spin about 200 RPM less on average here. The 2,446 in the Max compared to 2284 in the LS. So, I do think if you’re someone who is that higher club headed speed, you want lower spin. going to see that with this model. For me, I think the Max sat in a really nice range for spin, varied between 23 to 25, which was super consistent across variable different strikes and also just a nice number to hold the ball on line. I think you saw from the down the line shots like these shots were super consistent. It’s kind of a shame because one at the end I pushed I just left the club face open, but without that the dispersion was super tight and I really liked that. I also think you can see compared to the LS, my ball flight was much more consistent. It kind of came out in the same window every time where I felt like with the LS, it just wasn’t quite as consistent for me. Now, obviously, the LS is a slightly smaller club head, and because of that, my club head speed went up 2 mph. So, 94.8 versus 92.8 with the Max. So, that is also something to consider. Different club heads being different shapes, different sizes is going to affect how you move it through the air. And that’s going to change what your club head speed is and potentially what your distance and your spin and all your other factors are. So, always worth thinking about these things before you pick which model you want. Sure. I’m just going to hit one with my driver to see what the benchmark is for today’s conditions. That’s a lot. 3,100 for two 14 carry distance here. It’s interesting how like the shaft weight and balance point of each driver makes you hit it different cuz I’m hitting these way more on the heel whereas with the toe edge I was way near the toe. That’s obviously going to affect your spin numbers and your distance. Overall, I’m just super impressed with the performance here from Tor Edge. I would definitely say the LS is probably not the model for me, but I absolutely love the Max in terms of the stability, the consistency, how much the offc center strike still stayed online and didn’t really drop off in terms of distance cuz one of those shots I hit a lot out of the toe and it only lost 10 yards. And yes, it was like kind of 10 yards right of target, which was like 30 yards right of where my other ones were going, but it was still in the line of the fairway and very much safe and hitable for my next shot. At the end of the day, how often could you stand on a tea box and hit four out of five shots on the green with any club, let alone a driver? I think that speaks to the level of consistency we’ve got here. Now, this is obviously a 10K model, and I was doing a little Googling last night comparing to other 10K models on the market. Now, this is coming out at $499.99 in terms of US dollars, which is around like £375ish. So, compare that to other kind of leading drivers at the moment. You’re looking at £499 from Callaway, £449 from Ping, £529 from Tailor Made. So to get something that’s 10K delivering so much MOI stability, forgiveness, and consistency, and in some cases it’s well over 100 pounds cheaper than the other option. So, you’re getting really good performance, but also good value and saving yourself some
19 Comments
Very informative! Smaller companies are starting to figure it out and challenge the bigger OEMs. Also outfit is 🔥🔥🔥
Really interesting review double H! Might have to check this out…
Great information on the Tour Exotic drivers. Keep up the great informative videos.
Great review as always Hannah and really good to see you club reviewing I still believe you are one of the best at it
Great review. Very nice clubs. You look great also.
That was a really interesting review – I've never heard of that make before.
The results are quite impressive overall as is the pricing.
Cheers
I’ve been trying to get my wife to buy a new driver. This video might convince her.
Sound quality very poor on this video.
Good work!. Hitting your gamer at the end was a great added touch to your review.
I tried the E725 from last year and it performed on par with any of the more established brands and the sound/feel are pretty decent, but good £150 cheaper. To have a proper go at the UK market, Tour Edge have to ship these over quicker and not 6-8 months after launching in the US, which was the case with the 725.
Great work Hannah. Good review, well explained in a way we can all relate to. Thank you. That Max looks great.
Cold 🥶 layered up ? Still rocking the skirt ✔️
WOW, Hannah you really had me with the "cheapest 10K" driver. Idjit me thought 10k pounds for driver! I know drivers are getting crazy expensive, but I was thinking if that's low end cost, what's the ceiling? I figured you won your legal battle with James over at Professional Golf advisor for his gaming you and you had some extra coin. Waiting for the rematch where you crush him like a bug.
Is it just me, or so these drivers sound different than other drivers
Most of us wouldn't get a decent performance difference between this and an el cheapo driver. That said, I've bought a ping g430 sft so what's my opinion worth??
You have an upright swing Hannah, a bit like Greg Norman. Good Luck. 🏌️👍
Is this a par 3?.
Great news to see a Max driver perform better than the LS , I will go and test it out. Thank You Hannah 🏌
Hannah did you try the heavy weight at the back of the LS driver?