We Tested The Last 3 Ping Drivers On A Robot, Should You Upgrade? | Robo Report

Golf Digest equipment experts Jonathan Wall and Gene Parente dive into the mountain of data gathered by the Golf Laboratories swing robot to reveal how the newest Ping G440 drivers stack up against their older models. Should you upgrade?

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Hosts: Jonathan Wall and Gene Parente
Producer: Will Fullerton
Video Editor: Alex Franklin
Executive Producer: Christian Iooss

ping’s G440 is something special and when I say special I mean it could wind up being one of the most complete lineups we’ve ever seen in the company’s storied history yeah it’s that good ping has ranked near the top in offcenter performance for decades one of the most important driver attributes for the average weekend golfer no one wants an unforgiving driver but forgiveness generally comes at a cost i like to think about each performance attribute as a lever if you pull down hard on the offc center forgiveness lever you need to ease up on speed however we’ve started to see a massive paradigm shift in the last several years as companies started to pull hard on several levers without having to sacrifice speed forgiveness or consistency sound too good to be true the Golf Laboratory Swing Robot might have something to say about that [Music] the swing robot has been delivering insights for 35 years and is used by the USGA RNA and nearly every major manufacturer in the industry for club testing and it often discovers pretty unexpected results when it comes to comparing new models and older models we are going to bring you data and visuals that have previously only been accessible to companies designing your equipment when we test clubs we run each 10 1/2 degree head at 95 mph which is a pretty typical swing speed for an average amateur golfer this lets us gather a ton of useful data from spin rate and dispersion to ball speed and carry distance across nine different impact locations on the face we also use the same shaft to create a true applesto apples comparison we’re able to acquire meaningful data points for 90% of the face so practically every kind of miss is accounted for here’s what we found when we put the last three ping drivers through robot testing let’s start with the area where pings made a killing since its inception offcenter forgiveness as we’ve said before offc center forgiveness is tied to a couple of different metrics the most important being launch and spin if you can make a heel or toe shot perform closer to one coming out of the middle of the face you’re on to something looking at the spin rate data across all nine points it’s apparent ping is trending lower in spin lowering spin is one way to gain distance but as we’ve seen before it can come at the expense of forgiveness which we’ll get to with G440 LST we’re getting back to G425 LST spin rates on the low end and 425 was one hell of a driver we see a larger concentration of spins around 2600 to 2,800 RPMs which is a playable spin rate for most golfers compare that to the 425 LST where the highest spin counts were at 2600 to 3200 so we’re seeing spin consistency tighten especially on the top end this means you’ll see less distance killing high spin rates if you typically impact low on the face that translates to more yards off the tea g440 Max follows a similar trend lower spin overall with fewer shots getting over 3100 RPMs g440 SFTP is even more impressive with an incredibly tight spin band that ranges from just 2900 to 3700 and it’s important to note this is taking into account spin rates from all 54 shots across the entire face visuals like these confirm your misses will look a lot closer to your best balls and it all starts with spin the G440 is consistent in the spin department but it’s important to verify if the dispersion pattern matches the metrics looking at our offline dispersion box plots you can see the shot shape has changed somewhat as Jwell mentioned G440 and G425 LST had similar spin profiles and that continues with the dispersion pattern g440 LST has a similarly tight pattern that’s a bit more fade bias this time around for better players who swing it around 95 mph and don’t like to see a left miss this is exciting news g430 had a noticeable left bias pattern on the robot so this is a literal flip-flop in the shot shape even G440 SFT the most draw bias product in the lineup tended to shade more towards the middle with a less pronounced left bias if you really struggle with the slice and play the G430 SFT this is the kind of information you want to know in advance of testing as for G440 Max it produces straight balls in its sleep the G425 Max had a nice tight dispersion but G440 Max takes it to another level the Max products are always a draw for golfers with inconsistent contact so you want to see a dispersion pattern with a high concentration of shots winding up just left and right of the center line i don’t want you to be fixed on ball speed yes it is a nice to have but if ball speed doesn’t come with reliable launch and spin rates it means absolutely nothing that said it’s still important to see what’s going on looking at the data from the last 3 years you can see a larger concentration of ball speeds on the upper end for G440 LST which tells you even the mishits are retaining speed compare that to the G425 LST where ball speed ranged from 128 to 140 mph every 1 m an hour equals 3 yards of carry so that means you could lose 36 yds of carry in some instances versus 27 yd that could be the difference between carrying a bunker or burying one in the face that’s the good news what might be concerning to some golfers is the ball speed range for G440 Max which is actually wider than G430 Max and you could probably say the same for G440 SFT it’s fairly similar to the G430 now here’s why you shouldn’t fixate on ball speed ping’s carry visual might be the most impressive chart we’ve seen the consistent spin rates and dispersions we saw from all three models translate to better distance numbers regardless of where you’re hitting it on the face i’d argue the G440 LST Ping’s low spin driver is also their most forgiving that’s unusual because typically you’re having to sacrifice offc center forgiveness for lower spin and distance but that isn’t the case with this driver when comparing a center strike to the other eight m hits on the face LST registered a carry loss delta of just 6.3 yards that’s better than the max SFT and the ultra stable G430 Max 10K drilling deeper into the numbers high toe misses lost 1.8 yards while misses low on the face lost less than 10 yards no doubt about it G440 LST is an incredibly special driver all of that information shows up in the carry data all but three of the 54 shots registered a carry distance between 215 and 235 yards the tighter you can keep the carry numbers regardless of where it’s impacting on the face the better and remember the wider G440 Max spin rate that doesn’t show up in the carry data the latest Max and SFT have equally tight carry ranges they register a higher concentration of longer carry distances without a single ball strain from the four bar carry band if Ping was going to sell you on why you should play their drivers just slap this chart on the wall and let the numbers speak for themselves so who should upgrade i’d say anyone playing G430 LSD would be crazy not to spend some time testing G440 LSD it’s more forgiving than the Max driver it’s more forgiving than a 10K driver it protects high toe misses it has speed for days if you like the generous shape of the Max head but don’t find the G430 Max to be nearly as straight the G440 version has the potential to put that straight ball in your life both of those drivers according to the robot are a must try in the hitting bay i think the G440 SFT presents an interesting conundrum the spin rates and carry numbers are an upgrade from G425 and G430 but the dispersion data gives me pause the last two years saw ping increases the amount of shots that ended up left of center line which is a recipe for a slice killing shot shape now we’re seeing the bias go in the other direction it’s still a left bias but it’s not nearly as pronounced for someone who struggles mightily with the slice removing the heavier left bias found in the G430 might not be a good thing ping’s G440 lineup is a reminder that we haven’t reached the driver performance ceiling in some ways we might be entering a world where Ping drivers are no longer just stable but stable and fast that’s great news for recreational golfers and a warning shot to the competition when we said at the outset Ping had something special cooking we meant it g440 deserves your attention