We Tested The Last 3 TaylorMade 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 TaylorMade Qi35 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

golfers ask the same question every year what’s Tailor Made going to do next every manufacturer can innovate but Tailor Made always finds a way to buck the status quo there’s wide driver heads twist face speed slots i could keep going in 2022 they did something unconventional replacing the typical titanium face with 60 layers of carbon sheets the design was fast really fast punching the pedal initially led Tailor Made to dial in offcenter performance culminating with a Qi10 driver that blew us away last year it was so good from every area that we tested them again on the robot to ensure the numbers were legit they were with Qi35 entering the driver space this year the question becomes whether it can top the consistency of Qi10 and the speed of stealth too this is where having a swing robot comes in handy [Music] the swing robot has been delivering insights for 35 years and is used by the USGAA 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 the companies designing your equipment when we test clubs we run each 10 1/2°ree head at 95 mph which is a pretty common swing speed for most amateur golfers 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 tested the last 3 years of Tailor Made drivers on the robot when you’re already fast you don’t want to give up any ground to the competition and that’s exactly what we’re seeing from Tailor Made with a gradual bump in speed across nearly every model looking at the ball speed data what’s apparent is the Qi35 Core model has found a new gear you might be saying “Okay it’s only 2 mph faster than Qi 10 and Stealth 2 on the top end that’s only 6 yards.” But here’s where the data paints an interesting picture what you see from the data is a higher concentration of shots recorded on the high end of speed with Qi35 the numbers you see a fixed to each bar is the number of shots recorded at each speed across the nine different impact locations in this case that’s 15 shots between 141 and 143 mph with Qi35 versus just four shots at 141 mph with Qi 10 qi35 LS is a similar story with more shots at 143 although you could make a case Qi10 has better top-end speed consistency with 26 shots recorded between 141 and 142 mph that can be attributed to high toe misses gaining 4 yards versus losing 12 yards with Qi35 and for those who constantly crow about the new stuff always being faster look at Stealth 2 HD versus Qi35 Max and Qi 10 Max it was far and away the fastest and it was released in 2023 while the ball speed looks good on a launch monitor we’re going to show you why you need to be looking at more than pure speed remember those Stealth 2 HD numbers here’s why speed without consistent spin is meaningless check out this spin chart at the bottom you’ll see spins ranging from 2,00 to 4500 across the 54 shots we recorded with Stealth 2 HD that’s wildly inconsistent you might get a knuckle ball with no spin on one miss you might get a floater with too much spin on another it’s a coin flip the Qi 10 Max has a similar spin rate wide and inconsistent on mish hits now compare that to the Qi35 Max where the delta was roughly 1,000 RPMs no recorded shots below 2500 or above 3600 that’s a tight consistent range that defines a good driver having the ability to swing and not have to worry about fluctuating spin rates will translate to more distance potential on misses and the ability to just swing it the Qi35 LS and Qi35 follow suit with tighter spin ranges they aren’t as noticeable as Qi35 Max but it’s still getting incrementally better that’s all you can ask for from a yearly driver release cadence so we’ve set the table by highlighting ball speed and spin numbers tight spins and ball speeds will produce rockets let’s start with Qi35 and Qi35 Max across the 54 shots Qi35 saw 52 of the 54 shots carry 215 to 230 yards it’s one of the tightest carry bar charts we saw during robotic testing it all but minimizes the possibility of the big miss which is ideal for golfers with inconsistent contact qi35 Max has an almost identical bar chart higher potential carry distances with a reduction in bad balls on the low end i’m going to sound like a broken record but consistency across the face generally translates to tighter dispersions after seeing dispersions concentrated left of center line the last two years all three Qi35s are giving off straighter drive vibes the core and max heads in particular that’s a good thing if you don’t have a specific shot shape but if you’re someone who struggles with the slice the heavier left bias we saw the last two years of product could come in handy so who should upgrade if your driver contact is inconsistent it’s difficult to poke holes in the data qi35 and Qi35 Max in particular saw significant performance improvements across the board the kind of improvements in speed and dispersion that would warrant throwing them into the testing conversation the Qi10 LS driver does something you rarely see from a low spin offering it gained distance four yards on high toe misses let me repeat that again it gained distance on a common miss qi35 wasn’t able to replicate those numbers so if you’re continually missing on the high toe you’d be hardressed to make a switch the carry and spin numbers are within a similar range to Qi10 and Stealth 2 Plus we’re not saying you shouldn’t switch but there are a lot of things going right for Qi 10 at the moment it remains a top low spin driver one year later Tailor Made found a way to make some meaningful improvements in one year and they did it on the heels of arguably their most complete lineup in QI10 i don’t think golfers realize how difficult that is to do if we were compiling a list of MVP candidates from our 95 mileph testing Qi35 and Qi35 Max would be in the running for hardware they do so many things well especially if you’re playing an older driver and want to upgrade to something that mitigates the big miss consistency is key in the driver design game and those two have it in spades