Mizuno ST MAX 230 Driver, Fairway Wood, Hybrid | The Swing Report

The Mizuno ST Max 230 driver, fairway wood, and hybrid represent a new group of metals from Mizuno in the ST family. The Mizuno ST Max 230 products are designed to provide maximum forgiveness through a series of new technologies while keeping the fast ball speeds golfers are used to from Mizuno ST drivers, fairway woods, and hybrids.

0:00 Intro
4:45 Testing (Mizuno ST Max 230 Driver)
12:29 Testing (Mizuno ST Max 230 fairway wood)
20:10 Testing (Mizuno ST Max 230 hybrid)
28:36 Final Thoughts

In this episode of The Swing Report, 2nd Swing’s Drew Mahowald is joined by Mizuno R&D team members Chris Voshall and John Freeman at the PGA Show to discuss the new Mizuno ST Max driver, fairway wood, and hybrid. Then, Drew is joined by master fitter Kevin Kraft in the tour van to test and review the Mizuno ST Max woods.

Schedule a Tour Van wedge fitting to get fit for Mizuno ST-Max: https://fitting.2ndswing.com/schedule-now/

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Hey golfers I’m drew mahol the second Swing Golf here at the PJ show well the PJ show demo day here in Orlando we are at the mauno booth with two of the uh Second To None experts in golf clubs here so I’ve got chrisell and I’ve got

John Freeman they’re on the R&D team here at Muno and we’ve got the new St Max Woods in this video today with the singer report so um the St Max kind of almost is it an addition to the St kind of series that you guys have had for the

Last few years yeah it’s definitely a line extension our stz and our STX 230 have both been really really well well received great performers do great in the hitting Bay and a lot of tour usage with them as well Keith Mitchell led the tour in total driving last year with it

Which that says something a lot of people don’t think of that with mauno just got a win a couple weeks ago with Sony Open with the STX so both of them in play on tour added the STG to the lineup for super low spin end of last

Year and now the St Max really rounds that family out the max being the most forgiving of the clubs yeah so so John you got the driver there so talk to me about U I guess what’s different with the St Max maybe versus you know the stz

STX that we’ve seen the last couple years yeah so the biggest difference we can start with the face material we’ve got a new face material Thai lfs so stands for lighter faster stronger what that allowed us to do was create I guess to date I think the highest Moi driver

That mizuno’s ever made wow um so combine that highi with the new face technology that’s going to give us uh industry leader in terms of ball speed retention across the f um lot of carbon um expansion of the CCH chamber so we’ve got the CCH chamber but

Extended more into the heel so it’s centered up on that face um head shape wise the St Max is more lower profile bigger head uh still 460c so maximizing that total volume for the highest IMO I had sure so you still kind of see that ball speed in the new the new face

Material still you guys had that beta titanium type of stuff over the past few years clearly some spring effect there off of the whole face and now you’re kind of adding the the highi element you know that that chase fori is sort of a the hot Trend right now in see you guys

Go after it is is really cool too to have another product there and that’s why it’s so nice as it being like a compliment to the other clubs cuz it’s like we still have the performance and the ultra low spin if you need it but having the ultra forgiveness on there

It’s it’s just for that player who looks for it now we’ve got that option as well and the the quick switch hle is still the same same adjustments right throughout as as the other drivers perfect um so now let’s go down to the ferwood here um Chris so St Max

Fairywood um what’s different with this one than compared to the other fairywood you know similar story to the driver the whole thing about the St Max was just making it more forgiving and making it a club that launches easy it’s okay to spin a little bit more and one’s going

To go up in the air really nicely so our stz continues on our STG is our super low spin the max allowed us to go larger on the footprint longer from front to back longer from toe to heel and like John said on the driver we took that

Ctech chamber and optimized it for this new head shape we moved it a little bit more towards the heel but actually centered it up on the face even better that means you can get a more consistent ball speed regardless of where you hit it there’s still some weight concentration forward with that

Stainless steel weight embedded within the corch chamber so again it’s not crazy high spin but it is going to launch really easily and give you a ton of ball speed all that in a package that looks very inviting yeah yeah and I can tell just by that too that’s very high

Launching type of Club it looks like a pretty relatively shallow face there yeah yeah so the head shape it compliment everything it’s supposed to do it looks easy to hit because it is yeah and I imagine the hybrid then too has similar properties then where you

Have again kind of a shallower face and you have those forgiving Max right type of properties that are going to deliver similar performan that’s exactly right the the stories behind the Fairway and the hybrid are very very similar again longer from front to back longer from toe to heel bigger profile flatter head

In terms of like closer to the ground everything pushed down a little bit more shallow and then again that cortech chamber got expanded as well so you get better ball speed better ball speed across the face easier to launch easier to spin and some higher Loft options

With a seven wood available in the F in the Fairway and a 28 degree available in the hybrid yeah that that’s what I was going to ask as well is all those options cuz on that type of Club a lot of players are looking to get the ball

In the air they might be struggling might be hitting a four iron or a five iron thinking I can’t get this thing in the air St Max ferwood or hybrid can be the problem solver for that that golfer so um chrisell and John Freeman here at

The PJ show thank you guys for your help on the new Muno St Max clubs we’re going to go do some testing now but um if you guys are interested in a new fairywood hybrid driver in 2024 Mao St Max might be a really good option for you so

Thanks guys for the information thanks you got it all right Mr Kevin Craft we are back here in the tour van the Zeno St Max um I know you know our last sort of um you know visit with the St Max clubs if you

Will was at the PGA show demo day we got to chat with Mr velle and John Freeman there and they kind of um introduced us to these new woods and it it seemed like it’s a it’s a good addition to their St line of of woods because St z230 and STX

230 there’s there’s not really an Uber High Moi model between the two um you know the STX is sort of the draw bias but it’s not really a high Moi draw bias like so many other manufactur so um curious to see actually how this one performs and what we think of it yeah

It’s uh it’s a nice looking driver it’s very shiny so I’m getting a little bit of the you know the reflection on the lights yeah sure um I’m I’m not having a big problem with fingerprints today so we’ll call we’ll call that a win good um

But it’s a nice shape it looks good I’m I’m one of those guys that doesn’t like to see a whole lot of Club face yeah right so even though I it seems like I’m going to have to start lofting up a little bit to get my numbers so I’m

Going to have to start looking at a little more face but this looks it’s a good it’s a really good shape um you know the face doesn’t look you know really squashed so it’s not you know for some of the higher Moi models they tend to look kind of like a stepped on

Flattened out this this doesn’t look like that it just looks it looks good and solid um you know there is a pretty distinct difference between the you know the the black leading portion and then then the carbon fiber um you know it’s not offensive at all uh it’s looks good

Looks good sure yeah so um yeah let’s see what this thing sure looks you know sounds and feels so today we’ll we’ll hit you know some driver some also St Max fa woods and then St Max hybrids as well we’ll kind of just uh get your feed

Back on all three of them then down the line as well we’ll do some testing comparing to other Mao Woods as well but cool um all right so let’s get trackman here set up I should track be a good thing I didn’t wow very straight ball flight to

Start yeah you curved that one a whole four feet all right nice good first shot feels good stable yeah right a good you know High moi we want it to feel stable sounds good too yeah I thought it was pretty it’s not I don’t think it’s

Like on any end of the spectrum it’s just no sounds how a driver should sound in 2024 exctly which is a good thing yeah indeed one of the things I’m liking about this right off the bat is it’s certainly not biased toward draw yeah right sometimes we think about these these things as

Maybe being a little easier to turn over sure um and a lot of them are I mean that’s how they’re a lot of them are built with added weight in the heel there might be a there might be a touch of that in this driver but it’s not you

Know a quote unquote draw bias that you see from other manufacturers yeah I’ve got it on the standard setting 95 and and standard so feels really good though there you go there’s your draw yep huge draw about six yard draw oh okay yeah I like I like that draw I can

Live with I love with that one all day that one was a little toey let’s see what happens here a little toey hm okay I mean just kind of stayed right there yeah the uh gear effect didn’t really turn it over or anything no I like that

Yeah it definitely was a little toey here yeah but that seems like a pretty good result from that yeah yeah yeah oh wow again this is what they four or five swings so far and I I know this is as in terms of the actual ball flight this is

As straight as it’s I’ve seen from you hitting one like obviously a lot of times you’re hitting that draw that turns over a little bit but the actual ball flight that’s as much draw as we’ve really seen right there yeah no that’s that’s that’s good that was a little bit of a

Miss could have fooled me I mean good doesn’t look like a Miss to me okay oh yeah it was yeah I mean this is the part that I think we’re most concerned about is where the ball goes yeah that’s I like that it looks good okay we’ve got numbers okay I like

Those numbers so we got um I like the spin is just over 2,000 I know that’s actually probably a little bit low for being a Max High Moi driver but um the ball flight was great you hit it about 100 feet in the air um you’re carrying

It about just under 270 just under 300 total smash Factor down a little bit I did I I did notice that um I mean it did it feel like you were you know not Ming these ones or I had I had two shots they had the toey one and that last one that

I could tell that one came off a little High yeah that weren’t cost solid but the rest rest of that one for sure 142 makes sense based on what I’m looking at here if we go through and sort of go through on these you know most of them yeah okay okay so there

Was I’m all over the face well shocking right this is who I am as a golfer right so this is not meant to you know no call out Kevin Craft no no but it’s it’s it’s true I’m not you know some days I’m really dialed in and I’m going to hit in

The same spot all the time and some days I’m not so today I wasn’t the good news is this was not a great smash Factor number but look at the performance numbers yeah that’s really good I mean I hit it kind of all over the face we had

A low one we had a couple toe ones we had a high one and spin rate 192 RPM variation okay pretty darn good and averaging two 69 carry and 297 if I if that’s my not my best day right dude I’m going to be I’m going to be happy right

That’s be look how consistent the dispers yeah that’s pretty darn good this is good yeah like this is really good it feels good it looks good it sounds solid and from those numbers if you’re you know that’s what you get that’s that’s good yeah I think uh that that’s really

Really good testing to see the impact locations and see that the ball’s still flying pretty similar distance on you know you hit a couple that were kind of towards the center really good swings had a couple that were you know up high towards the toe he had actually one low

Below the face or below the center line and to see the carry distance vary by only 1.7 yards on those is is really impressive by the zuno so just imagine what would happen if you actually hit in the middle yeah yeah you might maybe it won’t change might be really good yeah

Yeah uh okay so very good on the St Max driver I think we have a pretty good grade for that one so um fairywood time now sure let’s do the fa this was good what do you see when you put the St Max down looks like a small version of the

Driver yeah it does I mean shapewise it looks almost identical it just looks like somebody shot it with a shrink ray and made it smaller all right that’s probably exactly what Muno is is wanting to hear I’m sure yeah I’m sure I’m sure that’s what they do too right they they they

Put a driver in a little little box and they shoot it with a shrink right and get it to you I know there’s super computers being used golf to design clubs I don’t know if there’s shrink Rays yet but maybe at some point there will be yeah it looks good the driver look

Good this looks good not much more I can say about it really perfect yeah yeah let’s see some swings here I’m curious I we can if we want to also we can maybe try a few off off of a little tea as well yeah I can probably let me

See if I can push this thing down and get it all the way down otherwise we probably have a different way of teting it up well like a this is this is is really the best way if I can get it pushed far enough down that’s pretty close we’ll

See those the red portions of those te’s get a little they get a little weak and wobbly when they’ve been whacked so many times and so the new you put a new one in there you can push the red all the way down to the bottom with no problem but we’ll see what

Happens that was a little Healy Healy yeah I can see that yeah also in warm-ups I was hitting it hanging it out to the right so I might have tried to I squared that one up a little bit that one looked a little better it should be a little bit better

Yeah yeah still peeled off to the right I don’t know what my don’t know what my three-wood problem is this morning maybe a slight Miss there slight still went out there though yep just kind of a knuckler yeah feel like that one’s going to hang just a little bit

Yep happier to see the hanger than I am the one going left yeah I suppose so and we should chat a little bit about of uh three wood spin because it’s a I feel like it’s a you know I know your your thoughts on it are maybe a little bit

Different than than most not really anymore okay because for me if I’m carrying a three-wood now it is a into the green Club it’s not really an off the club I’ve got another club for for that driver replacement so I don’t have to think about that anymore um for me

Three-wood is going to be it’s either going to be a three-wood or a two hybrid okay in the bag can’t carry both can’t have 15 clubs dumb rule totally dumb rule yeah absolutely um and certainly something that the usj is never going to give into no considering they don’t want

To make things easier they want to make golf harder um so yeah um trajectory is a big deal yeah lightning angle still a big deal if we were on this range at Titleist TPI they would be talking about Landing angle Landing angle Landing angle so any club

That we’re going to hit coming into the greens we want to have a good Landing angle yeah yeah and I’m I’m beginning to think I need to Loft up on everything because I mean well 102 is not bad uh yeah that one’s High about granted those

Are you know some kind of high Fades but but yeah which you know I mean with three-wood yeah I will say though with a three-wood you want that attack angle to be as as neutral as you can get close to it I definitely tend to be well actually

When we were at tital list last time the guy was that was working with me is like dude hit down on it I’m like really that’s just not what I do like I’m a sweeper I’ve always been a sweeper I play I play my three-wood where I play a

Driver right so uh I can create some trajectory but I’m not I’m not hitting down on it like yeah apparently he wanted me to yeah so that that inherently though is going to a lower spin compared to maybe others that are steep yeah if you’re if you’re hitting

Down on it you’re going to create more spin for sure so uh I’m just not a a particularly High spin guy with with Woods yeah hybrids May bit but yeah I think we got a couple more yeah oh yeah yeah let’s let’s make a couple more swings here I haven’t I haven’t probably

Done this club Justice yet I have no idea where that one’s going to go I mean it looks pretty hey okay I have no idea where it’s going to go he says it’s about as straight as a golf shot can be couldn’t tell I couldn’t

Tell I had the other one that went away off to the right I thought it hit pretty good so now if I were going to say I would say that one was pretty good yeah you’d be correct okay there we go those last two are look like the same

Golf shot that one felt a little bit farther yeah yeah that one felt a little bit better jeez we took a little break and you hit every single one I might I might have redeemed myself a little bit there we took a little break to chat comes back hits three perfect golf shots

Okay glad to know it’s still in there so this is that first one that you definitely hit off the heel we we axe that one um then we’ve got okay these ones here yep couple that you hung out to the right a little bit okay you know

Nothing no big deal there here’s a 138 smash that you may have missed a little bit yeah that was maybe great but uh here’s our kind of numbers with the three-wood those three at their last three shots here it’s just this one could not be more dead center so it’s

Perfect um 240 Carry On average two basically 260 total um thoughts on the e3w um good it feels very similar like I said it looks so much like the the driver it actually feels a lot like the driver as well um maybe I had a little bit hard time figuring

Out exactly where it was coming off the face oh yeah because I didn’t you did say you were kind of guessing you didn’t yeah I really didn’t I really didn’t know um so that’s just maybe a little bit of function of feel you know we talked yesterday a little bit about a

Um an iron feeling a little more like a fairway wood this feels a little more maybe a touch more iron like it doesn’t really doesn’t have that quite have that smushing the face and then you know yeah ejecting it back out kind of kind of feel so maybe a little firmer off the

Off the head which is fine I mean there’s there’s certainly nothing wrong with that um we have good adjustability in this thing so it’s it’s you we can do a lot with it height wise was okay um yeah I would I like to see about 245 Okay carry out of out of three-wood

For me but I mean we’re just a couple yards short there so yeah I mean granted these last couple that you did hit were you got one3 242 so yeah you’re getting there it’s yeah um user error well I I’m not going to call those shots user error

By any means you can call those shots user error that’s fair I’m not going to that would be that’d be false information for the viewers I think um all right spin rate was good too you know we’re we’re yeah I mean it is kind of funny that your driver dispersion was

So good that it’s better than the three-wood dispersion um now the hybrid now let’s see what the hybrid dispersion looks like if it’s going to be match the driver okay so what hybrid do we have your four hybrid this is the 22 degree does not

Have a number on it other than the well the 230 and the St Max but 22 on the Loft yeah so the yep okay so probably a four hybrid is that’s what I’m just I assigned that on track man so yeah for hybrid um okay so kind of looks like a

Larger head from here for hybrid it’s not really no no no it’s pretty standard I think if you put it up against the you know the two different Callaway models it maybe Falls in between them either in between are certainly leaning a little more toward the smaller version

It doesn’t it doesn’t look big at all I think it’s pretty clean okay actually nice um nice looking hybrid it’s got a good shape a little bit of a pointy toe but again that’s me being insane and picking on every little thing on the Aesthetics of golf clubs goly I wish I

Wasn’t that like that but uh I’m like shallow how for golf clubs you ever see that movie no I haven’t did you see the movie okay Sean I can always count on you man seriously here Drew is just not reliable when I when it comes to references music references movie references the fact

That you keep trying to make these references as as if I’m going to get them is is I feel like I’m not totally at fault here is what I’m saying I’m just not accepting of the fact that you don’t know any of this stuff clearly clearly

Okay all right it was Jack Black with Gwyneth ptro and he’s a he’s a very I will say Jack Black already has me intrigued it’s a Jack Black movie he’s he’s a very shallow individual judging everything based on Aesthetics women especially yeah and he

Gets a lesson in in who he is and why maybe he shouldn’t necessarily be that way okay so uh maybe that’s that’s that’s where I’m at with this stuff okay okay anyway back to the back to the golf um yeah so it looks good felt okay again 145 not seeing the not seeing

That smash Factor quite I mean that that smash factor is what you had with the driver I don’t know yeah I know I was curious on that spin that seemed like a lot of spin the last time but maybe I’m okay that one was a little

Healy every time I see Healey say Healey I think of Roadhouse and yet another movie that you don’t know yep Patrick swizy that was it well wow wow you’re turning this thing over very consistent High draw yeah High draw too much draw okay let me see if I can let’s talk

For just a second so I can I can work work my way out of this reset your swing a little bit all right well let me just just for the fun I’m fun of it I’m going to get the dispersion up here yeah okay looks pretty good well show me the

Impact locations I’m thinking it’s a little toward the heel you think it’s toward the heel let me see here I’m I think it’s a little easier to tell with this one sorry I’m clicking the wrong buttons okay so you’ve got yeah that one’s a little low heel and low heel okay okay

Thus th me shutting the face down and and usually if I’m going to hit it off the heel I’m probably shutting the face down and pulling it okay well let’s uh here I’ll give you the right screen that you want to look at here okay let’s see

If I can make this go the way I would like it to go that might be the winner Still Still turning though still is turning so one thing about hybrids for some people they have tended to to want to you to want to turn this one definitely

Seems to want to turn a little B now again so far if you are a player that struggles missing right yeah that St Max Hybrid might be a really good option for you let me see Bas on what we’re seeing so far let me see if I can work my way out of

This now that one was to the toe so this could even hang out to the right hey okay I can tell what’s going on with this one I had a hard time with the three-wood but I can definitely tell what in terms of the feel like you know what’s happening at

Impact let’s give this a couple more wax and okay more well you have no problems with trajectory on this club that’s for sure good that was a little more better in terms of direction that sounded and I just laid the saw over it and hit it into whatever

Pond is in front of the green okay a good finish I’m glad we got that let’s uh let’s take a drop okay and uh try that again oh then just smokes the next one yeah smoked it left though not really a little left it’s fine okay so okay I think uh

We got this one we could take out that’s the one you just but really the rest of them are I mean again we got we we moov some a little bit left in there yeah but um it’s interesting that really this is the this is a different kind of this oh

This was the tow strike wasn’t it that’s what that was yes all right so look how consistent that spin is now we took out obviously a couple of Misses in there but um I I like there’s a lot of spin there you know which is a good thing for

Players that are going to use this to attack greens attack the pin um but also the landing angle and height over 114 on average 48 degrees for the landing angle that’s pretty darn good so it’s really good um if you’re a player that struggles with hybrids getting them up

Into the air maybe they even move to the right on you I mean I think St Max is a pretty good pretty high spin rate though it is it’s it’s a high spin rate it is high spin rate um which can be good and bad right if you are player that spins

At Art a lot already that could be concerned yeah it definitely took away a bit of distance right I want I kind of want this club to be like a 215 Club MH um and we’re we’re lagging back just and it could be you know the shaft too I

Mean there’s other things here we’re using just kind of this one should be pretty good though stock stiff shafts kind of what we’re using I’ve tended to like the links pretty well and it’s a 75 G stiff Lex so yeah the weird part of on all three of these though is the smash

Factors like those just seem low to me um you numbers are fine but smash Factor seems low so whether that was me or whether that was golf club or I know it was pretty consistent all the way through yeah and I think the of all three of them the consistency is pretty

Good I would say um and there’s also a lot of forgiveness especially talked about the driver how consist or forgiving that was on some of the hit locations um and then I think the high hybrid is going to play really well for players that either don’t have a lot of

Spin need to get the ball up in the air or maybe the player that struggles with it yeah it definitely did seem to have a little bit of of left side bias and trajectory was definitely not an issue and and spin was good so look with all

The golf clubs that are out there that have been designed to spin less spin less spin less yeah uh you get into that foron you’re not gonna want to have a four iron right you’re definitely going to want to have the four hybrid this could be a really good option for that

Guy that it wants a little bit of draw but still gets good trajectory and good spin so yeah sure nice all right so uh let’s let’s wrap her up here in the final thoughts for these all right Mr craft testing complete um it’s kind of a fun video

Because we started this video in Florida and uh now we’re back in Minnesota yes uh so that’s uh some time traveling happening weather was slightly better in Florida but agree it’s not bad now either um it’s okay here it’s okay no complaints um t-x we did we tested the

Driver we tested the fairywood we tested the hybrid um I know you had some pretty good Impressions overall on them there was uh mostly really good performance in the testing a lot of forgiveness and consistency so I want to start with the driver we kind of go over the players

That you think after you know what you know about the club and and testing it the type of club or excuse me the type of player that would fit into this club yeah um anybody there you go yeah this is the year of Max right we’ve had Max in the

Past but this is really the year of of Max the year of Max the Year ofi yes and this this driver anybody could play this um it did not have in our testing it didn’t have any particular draw bias it also didn’t really have any particular

Fade bias what this is going to be designed to do is be really forgiving and really stable to try and give you as much you know straight line as you can get and I was very I was very impressed with with this club overall yeah yeah there was you know it’s very forgiving

Across the face clearly um I also like that they maintain with actually all these clubs that the quick switch hle is still there you know a lot of times you get these Max clubs and they keep them bonded especially you get down to Fairwood and hybrid but give me that

Adjust still have the adjustability with this so um all right the ferwood now um we had some testing there I think you know it took a little bit maybe to kind of get that thing squared but then you but then you hit three that were like

Perfect so it was it was my my fault I wasn’t I wasn’t putting the best swings on it when when we started so well you eventually got there and it delivered little tiny bit of redemption good thing yeah um yeah again anybody can play this it’s um it’s kind of Falls in between

It’s not a shallow face it’s not a really deep face uh we did produce reasonably good trajectory with this um I felt like if anything the the face felt maybe just a little bit harder okay um little firmer little firmer feel right and that’s the player preference

Thing exactly exactly um but again we got good tuneability right so we we can we can make this do pretty much whatever we want to do yeah sure and then uh lastly uh where I think maybe some of the testing was perhaps a little bit different in some ways compared to the

Three-wood and the driver is the St Max Hybrid in it yeah the hybrid was was a was definitely a little bit more interesting because this had a little more of that left side bias that uh you know some people have complained about with hybrids but yet some other people

Might actually want in right so uh if you’re looking for something that maybe is going to help keep that right side out this one seems to to have that you know that playability also we saw good spin numbers and and good trajectory so if you’re looking to replace a four iron

With something that does go up in the air nicely this one definitely did that for us yeah it was very high launching and definitely something that you could attack a green with and keep the ball in the green it was very uh the directory like you mentioned was really high and

Really good for for golfers so there you have it the mauno St Max 230 driver uh fairywood and hybrid um really good remarks here from Kevin on the testing um this is could be a big big year for Mizuno I think they got the really good obviously the pro irons and then they’ve

Got a nice little addition to their St lineup with the woods um bazo is one to not sleep on when you get to the fitting sure don’t and don’t forget the 923 jpx line correct it’s in there it’s it’s second season now but it’s still really

Good still a a favorite among golfers so go get fit for Muno today the St Max Woods or any of their their brilliant iron models out there and someone like Kevin will take care of you in the bay so Kevin thanks for our help and insight today Absolutely N