ALL ACCESS: Tommy Fleetwood Tests the R7 Mini Driver

Follow along as our senior tour manager Adrian Rietveld works alongside Tommy Fleetwood to dial in the new R7 Quad Mini Driver.

Working at the RBC Heritage, Adrian and Tommy spend time hitting the new club over two days in preparation for the peak of golf season. Tommy is known for having a Mini Driver in at the top of his bag, and Rietveld is able to match up the launch and spin numbers that the superstar is accustomed to seeing.

Rietveld gives us a behind the scenes look at how an elite player works with the TaylorMade Tour team week in and week out to get their clubs dialed for competition play.

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R seven mini quad. The like nostalgia is crazy, right? Anyone who’s come on to the truck has been like, “Oh, and they all get like a feeling about it.” Well, it’s it’s the starting point. Yeah. On your spec. It might have a little more loft cuz it’s on the Yours is on the lowest setting. I mean, it would be a little flatter on the setting. Feels like it’s sitting really flat. Okay, hold on. Let me change it. Let’s get the feel right. that better. Yeah. I got to get that turning over. Move that weight. I just don’t think it’s turning for you enough at the moment. And that’s where that’s not quite sitting too upright enough. Don’t know. Okay. Something about it that I look down. I’m not quite. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll get that right cuz I can do with any with the sleeve and with the waiting. We’ll get that right first. Hit this one. Cuz if I It’s now on the lower setting in a one and a half sleeve. But if I put it in a one and a two degree sleeve just you can you fixed you fix just just lie angle when we hit hit this one. Let’s just see what this does for for ball flight. Just keep putting your same swings on it, bud. Good. I’m just experimenting here, mate. to just more interested in what what the feedback looks like from the look rather than how much it spins. Okay, let me put it on the other setting. That was that strike. Yeah, that’s fine. This So that that that face angle at half a degree more lie angle. That’s what I need to do. [Music] That was pretty valuable initial testing with Tommy. Um what was what was quite interesting what came out of it was that when he looks at his gamer which he’s obviously been playing for I mean we’re going to talk about nearly 3 4 years now he he even even though the lie angles are the same when we measure them he he’s seen the one lie angle a little more the visual looks a little more flatter the movable weight in this mini driver I mean it’s I think it’s 100% more then than what he’s So, I can I can dial in the ball flight with that, but I just have to get the visual right for him. Uh, so what I’m going to do to do that is I’ve got to make this one probably a degree more upright than his gamer. So, that’s perfect now cuz that one works. So, that’s at 60. But now I’ve got to get it in the right setting. So, that’s in a 1 and 12° sleeve. set two notches towards lower on the upright side. I needed to get it in a two° sleeve. Set one notch. So, I’ll get the same loft but a more upright lie angle. Easily done. One degree sleeve. There’s a 1 and 1/2° sleeve. And there’s a two° sleeve. So, I’m going to get this one on there. Get some glue here. Upright side of the sleeve. One, one notch towards lower. Turn that. Just make sure the grip’s all good. Start the timer. Ready to go. Looking at this now. So that was the setting that we finished on. And now on the two degree sleeve, I’m going to move it just to that one. I’ll just double check the loft and lie. Perfect. We are ready to go. Okay, we’re back for day two on the range with Tommy Fleetwood with his R seven quad mini driver testing. Let’s go see if the changes we made worked out. I could have as a driver. It looks like it’s got no loft on it. Looks like it’s got no loft on it. Like I know it has, but it looks more like a I mean, where how far did that go then? Cuz that Yeah, that went miles. Yeah, that was Yeah. Go on. Let me put this one back in there. Let’s have a look at that one. 91. Okay, let’s see what that spins like. It’s better. That was very good. Yeah, that was right on 280. Little bit hot or downwind. I mean, it’s 27. So, I can The weights are forward though, you know what I mean? So, that’s seems much better. So, two° sleeve. Yeah. Two° sleeve upright, one lower. So, it’s the same face angle. Yeah. But except it’s on an upright. And it it’s funny you’ve all everyone’s kind of said that as well. So it’s not very good. Let’s see if I can get it turning a little more. That was a good swing. Nice. Beauty. Here we go. That one. That’s straight enough. Awesome. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you, Tommy. So, take that whole motor up basically. Please, mate. And then Yeah. See you in a few weeks. We just just give me give me the reps in Dubai. Please. That went great. Yeah. So, even like what I was thinking like just just while we’re here. So, you see how we got the 13 there and the 13 there. So, I would if if we wanted like a hotter mini, then I’d put a 10 there and put a six there. We just edge that spin down if you wanted to or get an 11 head set on regular with those weights. And I’ll have R seven, R seven in bike. Double 7, R14, double 7, 007, double 07. [Laughter] That was our Wednesday session with Tommy in the new R seven mini driver. Um we yesterday we were getting good ball flight, but the look for him was looking a little bit flatter than what he’s used to. So we we just we just changed it to a two° sleeve. We got the look right for him. And the joy of that is I could get the look right for him because we’ve got so much weight to move around. Uh so check that box. He hit a few. uh his mini driver, his gamer mini driver was drawing a little bit more than the R seven. So, we wanted to try and match that up. Uh so, what I was able to do is take the 13 g weight from the front and move it into the back heel. Uh and that gave it the shot shape that we were looking for. uh the look that he was looking for visually and uh the strike was you know came came you know he was very impressed with the strike and the way the ball flight was coming out. Basically the art of fitting is is is you know your your CG location and when you can give a player something that they feel comfortable and confident looking at then you can use the weight to optimize the ball flight. So so those are your two kind of key things in in in fitting. And when you look at like where the mini drivers come, we’re talking about a 13 gram weight and a, you know, one and a half gram weight in the original mini driver. And now, you know, Tommy’s Tommy’s head’s got two 13 g and two 5 g. So that’s, you know, 36 g of weight. Um, which is monumental, right, in terms of CG movement and making the ball flight draw fade or spin more or spin less. Um, great great piece of kit.