Kirkland Signature Driver Review

Well it’s finally here. Costco has released not only their long anticipated irons, but a driver as well. In this video I review the looks, sound and feel. I also compare the performance to my gamer driver, a Callaway Epic Speed. I think you’ll find the results very interesting!

I’m really looking forward to hitting this guys after 4 months away from YouTube I’m back with another video on the Kirkland Signature driver for those of you that reached out during my family’s health crisis I really appreciate all the well wishes at the end of this video I’m going to talk about

What the future of the channel holds so stick around if you want to learn more about what’s going on with the future of the Golf Nerd channel guys in my hands is the most controversial product for 2024 this is the Kirkland Signature Driver it was released last week

And it sold out in about four hours now if you’re wondering why in the world would a supermarket chain have a golf club that would sell out in a few hours well you have to remember the history of how we got to this point in time with Kirkland so 2016 Kirkland

Put their toe in the water of the golf market so to speak and they release a four piece golf ball and that golf ball actually outperformed the Pro V1 at that time it became a internet lore it went on eBay the prices that these balls were selling for were ridiculous

There was just a huge viral hit associated with that Kirkland product fast forward they released a three piece ball spun too much the cover wasn’t great they’ve had multiple iterations now they have a version now after several tries that is better and is closing the gap to premium products

And oh by the way it sells for about a buck of ball I use that ball I use the Kirkland gloves another really great product then they came out with wedges the wedges were really solid they’re shaped like a tightless Vokey wedge they perform very well they feel good they’re insanely cheap

You buy a set of three wedges for basically the cost of one Vokey you start to see Kirkland having these successes one after another and it’s easy to see why the brand is building some credibility within the golfing community so first things first the looks on this driver

I really think they did a nice job with the appearance of this driver the bottom with the graphics that they’ve got going on to me it looks a lot like a Titleist driver from the bottom the the the TRS2 for instance just the way that they’ve got these angular lines going

It just reminds me of of the Titleist aesthetic and it’s very classy there’s there’s no issues with the way that this driver looks until you get to the logo now I’ve complained about the logo on every one of my videos I think the logo is hideous I understand why they stick with it

It’s their attempt at branding and getting their name recognition out there I really don’t think they need to worry about that I’d really just like to see them develop a signature logo for their golf products something a little bit more minimal and if you’ve ever seen the golf gloves they’re great gloves

But they are the ugliest gloves ever the logo is just hideous and again the logo here on this club it’s tastefully done but it’s still too big too brash and if you’re playing a Kirkland club chances are you’re not wanting to advertise it it’s not like you want that to be the focus

So for me I think they’re just missing an opportunity and they really need to clean this up now having said that the color way you’ve got this really pretty metallic finish on the bottom along with this angler area which is like a silver matte on top of a gloss black very pretty

The top you can see a lot of the carbon fiber showing through the crown there is a bit of a gradient it’s a little blacker on the front and around the edge but really it’s a nice looking club I don’t have any issues with the appearance of it all

The one issue I will point out on the top of the crown their ball marker is right here it’s about an eighth of an inch or 2 to 3 millimeters in diameter it is very small is not very bright and what I’ve noticed is when I address a ball with this club

You can’t even see the ball marker now that may be different outside and broad daylight but I’m not a big fan of the ball marker I’d rather just seen it eliminated um or come up with something a little bit more interesting than a 3 millimeter dot this is an adjustable driver

Stock 10 and half degree that’s the only option you can either get a right hand regular ten and a half degree head or you can get a right hand stiff ten and a half degree head the adjustment sleeve allows you to go up plus minus 1 degree

So you can go from nine and half degrees to 11 and a half degrees and then there’s a final setting of a ten and half degree draw setting which will close the face the neck sleeve is a bit of a head scratcher for me I don’t know why if you’re Costco

You would go through all the trouble of producing a club like this but limit the neck sleeve to only 4 different settings neck sleeves have been around for a very long time I can’t believe this would be a major cost driver to the final product

And why they would choose to go with a neck sleeve that only offers 4 settings just doesn’t make sense to me uh so I certainly would take away some points just because of that the shaft used is a even flow riptide this is a stiff shaft they offer a regular shaft as well

And also the even flow riptide that is the only shaft option finally when we’re talking about the looks we have to talk about the head cover this is a really pretty head cover I really like it I like the color way the black the red the white no issues

But this huge Kirkland signature brand hate it hate it there is nobody on the planet that says let me advertise to everybody at the golf course that I’m playing Kirkland clubs I just don’t believe that that’s the case you may not care about using Kirkland clubs

I use a Kirkland wedge in my bag the 60 degree in my bag is a Kirkland wedge I really like it and I think it’s funny that I’m pulling a Kirkland club out of my bag to play but when it comes to the driver and something that you’re advertising like this

This is ridiculous again Kirkland has to do something about their logoing this is just really bad it’s not good something more subtle or something unique to their golf brand maybe called ksig that’s what a lot of folks have abbreviated their product to anyway ksig you know

You could do something a lot more tasteful but as far as a head cover goes it’s well made no issues it feels a little vinyly a little cheap but I mean most head covers do but really quite honestly it looks really nice other than the god awful logoing

For the purposes of the comparison I’m gonna compare the Kirkland to my gamer driver this is a Callaway Epic speed it has been shortened it plays around forty four and half inches long it’s just been a real Fairway finder for me and that’s why I wanted to compare it

So now I’m gonna take my very first shot ever with this particular driver uh right off the bat because of the fact that my Callaway is shortened down and this is a standard length I haven’t yet measured it I will measure it before the end of the video

And I’ll give you some specs on both the length and the swing weight right off the bat I can tell that there’s less weight in the head I’ve obviously had to add a lot of weight to that Callaway driver because I shortened it by so much

Um so it’ll be interesting to see how this feels it is currently set to just the 10 and a half degree standard setting just to give you my first thought on the the shot and how it feels so behind the ball it looks really good it does look closed at address

So I’m most likely going to lower the loft to slightly open the face a little I have a tendency to either block or hook so the idea of seeing a closed face at a dress is a bit of a concern for me in terms of the shape

You know the shape here along the bottom is reminiscent to me of what you might see on the current Taylormade or Callaway designs like the paradym or the stealth how you have a flat plate that comes along that makes it very easy to ground also helps get that weight low and back

It is stretched out more so than I thought it was looking at the pictures on their website but when I first looked at this driver I thought it looked like it had a real pear shape but when I put it right next to the Callaway it’s obvious that the

Driver itself is quite a bit deeper than the epic speed it is not as big as say a Ping G425 or G430 or some of the really forgiving Cobra models were really flattened down and pushed out the back quite a bit it’s not that big of a head

But it’s certainly not that classic pear shape so it’s kind of in the middle what I would say you’ve got what looks like a friendly appearance other than the fact that it looks a little closed at address but we’ll see how the first shot goes and I’ll give you my

First impressions on sound and feel first impression it felt very similar to the Callaway I thought the sound was similar and I do want to make a point that I’ve got some very high end equipment in here in terms of recording sound so what you’re hearing is probably about as good a recording

As you’re gonna find anywhere on YouTube so if you like the sound that you hear that’s gonna be indicative of what it sounds like in a enclosed environment like this uh but you’re gonna get a very representative sound that first strike in the high center right in this area oh

So there you guys go there’s a series of shots hit with the Kirkland driver and compared to the Callaway driver as far as sound and feel boy it sounds a lot like the Callaway and feels like it in this room anyway uh so it it’s a solid feeling club

It doesn’t feel penalizing on miss hits so the technology that that Kirkland is using seems to be uh pretty standard with the the other drivers on the marketplace you know drivers are just so much more forgiving now than they used to be um but the performance was pretty solid

So I’ll show you now the differences on the screen the differences between my Callaway Epic speed and this Kirkland driver right now so the first thing I’ll point out is the club head speed for the two clubs I was swinging the Callaway slightly faster half a mile an hour

That’s just my own variation that has nothing to do with the with the Kirkland or Callaway in terms of ball speed the Callaway edged out the Kirkland by 2.3 miles per hour of ball speed now in terms of ball speed and smash factor because the Callaway is a slightly shorter club

I had to add a significant amount of weight to the head in order to get the swing weight right and there’s gonna be a slight advantage to the Callaway if you will just because when you increase the amount of mass in the head it’s easier to get higher

Smash factors and higher ball speeds so 2.3 miles an hour is just that’s not a lot of difference but there’s a there’s a small difference there I would assume it has to do with smash factor and that that smash factor has to do with the weight that I added to the head

So in terms of smash factor the Callaway edges the Kirkland 1.48 to 1.46 in terms of backspin the Callaway came in at a low backspin of 2216 RPM and the Kirkland was slightly higher than that at 2600 on average um I was able to close the club face

And hit some pretty nasty hooks with the Kirkland again that’s my miss that’s not the driver and the spin plummeted so again a lot of this can do with with strike location now in terms of strike location as I’m looking at the face I’m basically living just around the center I’d say plus

Minus the center point of the club face by about maybe half a ball width on either side of center so I was living in about this area right here launch angle the Callaway averaged 11 degrees of launch and the Kirkland average 13 degrees of launch in terms of carry distance

The Kirkland edged out the Callaway by 6 yards now for my speeds I am not a high speed high speed player at all and you can tell that from my videos um but the fact that this is launching slightly higher slightly higher spin is actually putting me closer to my ideal numbers

In terms of if you look at like a track man chart or something like that and you see the uh optimum situation for your given club head speed or ball speed a little more launch a little more launch and a little bit more spin actually helps my result your results may vary

But in this case the the carry was better on the Kirkland by 6 uh finally the offline amount not overly uh helpful information really I’m I biased a little bit to the uh left of my target line with the Callaway about 3 yards on average to the left

And then the curtain was like three three and a half yards on average to the right uh but again with my block and hook kind of misses uh it really just means that I just kind of center in on on my target line um but neither uh had a bad um

Distribution of shots so I would say they were equally forgiving uh performed very similarly in my hands so um I would certainly not fault the Kirkland or the Callaway for my swing so guys there you have it that’s the the review that’s my thoughts that’s the performance numbers

I think for the very first time that Kirkland has brought a product to to the marketplace this driver it’s a good driver um the numbers were very competitive with the Callaway the sound and the feel I think are quite good and they remind me a lot of the Callaway so no issues there

I think they’ve produced something from a look standpoint at address I think it’s really pretty uh from the bottom I think it’s really pretty as well if it wasn’t for this damn Kirkland logo right here I’d feel a lot better about it but they actually they’ve made a really pretty product

The fact that they put a real shaft in it and a decent grip great the head cover and that God awful logo on the head cover is still a sore spot for me uh I would change out that that head cover uh I might put it on my Callaway just as a gag

I don’t know that might be kinda fun um but yeah I think they brought out a great product now the question is this is $200 Last year I bought a previous years model driver it was the Mizuno and I did a video on it for $200

Do I think this is better than the Mizuno it’s probably about equivalent you know it’s so hard when you’re talking about drivers these days that the differences in performance from one driver to another is so small it’s all in the margins it’s all in the rounding error um so if

If you see this and you’re curious and you wanna try it what I’ll tell you is you’re not gonna waste your money well first off you can always take something back to Costco which is one of the wonderful things about their business but you’re not gonna waste your money

This is a solid product it performs well thank you does it justify spending $200 versus a couple year old Callaway you know the used Callaway website or buying something secondhand I guess that’s a decision you guys have to make if it was me

And it was my $200 and I was making a decision on a driver say I’m on a budget or something I’m probably gonna buy the the used Ping or the used Callaway or Taylormade or something along those lines I’m gonna feel more comfortable having that in my bag especially if I’m a beginner

Someone who’s who’s still you know learning the game um so I can definitely see why somebody wouldn’t put this in their bag if you see it and you’re curious yeah pick it up it’s solid I don’t have any issues with this club at all

In fact I’d be willing to put it in my bag and go play a round the golf right this moment once again I think Costco has done a a a good job of bringing a product to market that is cost effective and seems to be pretty high quality and provides some good results

I’d be more enthusiastic about this product if it was being sold for $180 or $170 and I am at $200 and I know that sounds you know you’re only talking 20 30 dollars it’s not that big of a deal right but because you can buy those used

Clubs for around $200 all the time it just makes me feel like they’re not gonna get much market penetration at a 200 dollar price point and they need to lower it a little bit more I mean right now it’s Christmas season depending on when you’re watching this

And PXG is running a sale on their driver they’re Gen 5 driver and they’re blowing it out for 200 dollars that was a 550 600 dollar driver MSRP when it came out last year and and those types of deals happen every year because the equipment manufacturers redesign come out with a new product

That they mark down the old ones so I feel like if they really wanted to try to disrupt the marketplace with this product a little more they would lower that price and put it more in that 170 to 180 dollar range to make it that much more attractive over the the name brands

Older models used models etcetera so I’d be really curious to hear what your thoughts are in the comments and like always guys and this is not lip service if you look at any of my comment sections anyone that comments positive or not I will respond to your comment um

If you get too negative I’ll just block it and remove it from the chat but um but honest to god I do look and interact and it’s one of the things that in these past 4 months while I’ve not been making videos I’ve really enjoyed keeping up with

With many of you who’ve watched some of my videos so I appreciate you reaching out and I really would like to hear what you think about this at $200 would you buy it or would you buy a secondhand or older model from one of the name brands

I mentioned at the beginning of the video that at the end of the video I would provide you an update on the future of the channel the last 4 months have not been easy for my family and I um my dad has advanced dementia and he had a very serious episode

At the end of the summer it’s a little ironic because I released a short video on YouTube of him using my lab putter and it was only a few weeks after that that he had this episode um and it it’s been trying for the family it’s been really tough

We’re doing the best that we can to care for him and the good news is he’s made a lot of progress he has advanced dementia and there’s only so much that can be done and the most you can do is just try to be there for him because of that

And because of the priorities I have going on in my life right now my goal is to put out one good video a month um my goal has always been to identify topics that if I was on YouTube I would wanna watch uh that’s still my goal

I don’t wanna just flood you with videos of reviewing all kinds of random stuff and coming up with different ideas I I really wanna try to provide you a good video that you enjoy watching and I hope that this Costco video was a um an example of that thank you but going forward

You can expect one video a month is is really where I’m landing at this point in time uh hopefully you’re not disappointed and hopefully I don’t lose any subscribers but if I do I completely understand I’m not doing this to to make a lot of money

I’m just doing this because I find it fun and and interesting engaging I like interacting with all of you so that’s the reason I’m doing it um and I hope that some of the information I share like I said that you find it useful it helps you make better decisions

Maybe saved you from spending some money that you uh that you didn’t need to spend that kind of thing uh but as this journey continues um really what’s important to me is just the value of friendships and interaction so I know I talk about the comment section and how I really appreciate

People reaching out to me in the comment section you guys don’t really understand how much value I get out of that uh so I certainly do appreciate it when you do reach out and ask questions and if I’m able to help it gives me a sense of fulfillment

And I find that to be very gratifying so hopefully we can continue to grow the channel just at a slower pace and hopefully I can provide you some information that you find useful and helpful but but that’s my situation for now and I hope each and every one of you

That have made it this far in the video I hope you all have a fantastic holiday season and I wish you nothing but the best and and good health and a prosperous next year 2024 so that’s it from the golf nerd hit up long and straight I’ll see you next time