The best driver of the year? A complete breakdown of our robot testing data

On this week’s episode of Fully Equipped, GOLF’s Jonathan Wall and Ryan Barath are joined by Gene Parente of Golf Laboratories and True Spec Golf’s Kris McCormack to breakdown all of our robot testing data and reveal which drivers impressed us the most.

RobotTesting Article Hub: https://golf.com/robotest/
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And welcome back to fully equipped jwall RB Uncle Jean zero killing H Cru here boys everybody’s been waiting for this episode so I won’t belabor the point this is the robot Insight podcast for fully this is this is the week that the rest of us get to

Just kick our feet up and yep and let the voice of reason rant yes he’s saving his voice right now because he is going to be doing a lot of talking but Uncle Jean is going to be leading the charge this week with all of the insights from robotic testing and

Just a reminder for I I gotta imagine everybody listening to this podcast knows we are doing robotic testing with golf Laboratories and the the robot Jean can talk more I get I’ll let you speak more to kind of how we do testing but this week we’re going to do a deep dive on

Just on drivers and then based on the response we’re gonna most likely do Fairways and irons together but there’s just so much for drivers I I would just say save this podcast if you haven’t started doing testing with the new stuff yet um go back and listen to this one

Because there’s going to be I feel like it’s going to be a drinking from a fire hose as we as we offer up a lot of these robotic insights so anyway we’ll get to that in a minute but before we do that I’m not even going to ask you how you’re

Doing because you got to be excited ak’s coming back this week on the on the on the live tour are am I the only one who’s excited here anybody else interested to see how he plays no definitely looking forward to uh seeing him Tee It Up again he was he

Was one that I really enjoyed watching when he was out there mixing it up and 12 years ago is that is that right yes yeah yeah I I am a card carrying member of the of the AK fan club so this is something that I’ve I didn’t ever expect

That it was going to really happen you that people talk about him like he’s a Yeti you know he would show up I I remember hearing stories I I did a story years ago even before I I worked at golf and it was about a golf course in the

Dallas area and AK had a membership there and the the head pro at the time told me that AK showed up for like two weeks he had like just completely disappeared off the face of the Earth he shows up for two weeks straight with a coach hitting balls and then after

They’re like oh man he’s making a comeback and then after two weeks he just disappeared again so just and of course you see him on the range today he looks like one of the dudes who probably was outside the ropes who just stepped in was like yeah open range I’m just G

To just grab an iron here and just start whacking some ball he’s in Vans and white tea um it is interesting though they didn’t show any pictures of his face I I guess I didn’t realize that somebody on on social media said that there was a reason for that I can tell

You the reason is a neck tattoo and so I think maybe yeah May dude he he looks like he came from the skate park with with the Vans and in the whole get up I I can’t imagine that they’re GNA let him play in that come the first

Round but U anyway ARB you got to be excited too man I don’t think Uncle Jean cares I I Shar talking about the dude’s got belt buckles he’s pimpy are you out of your mind he’s right in my wheelhouse what are you talking about don’t you try

To Grandpa me no man I was an old AK guy a ak’s pimpy and he brought it way back in the day I didn’t know swaggy he’s totally swaggy I didn’t know he had ink running up his neck that makes him even more interesting but uh at least he

Didn’t go Mike Tyson face tattoo well least not that we know of I mean yeah yeah you’re right you you know at the end of the day he has color but but got to temper everything still got to shoot a low score you don’t shoot a low score nobody cares everybody cares

If you shoot a low score if you don’t it’s gonna he’s gonna fade real quickly I don’t think anybody’s GNA care week one I think they just are going to be no no no week one 100% but going you know yeah at some point you just you have to

Deliver he’s got and and for him to have relevance he’s got to play himself back into the ability or the position to be uh eligible to play in Majors you know I mean Liv just is not going to move the needle in the short term and so he’s got

To be able to do that and at 38 if you’re a betting man with all those years of rust I I you know I I’m not I I I really hope he does just for the game because I think he’s a great character but as a betting man I wouldn’t take that bet

Okay two like got like a million things and I don’t want to go along because I could say a lot but anyways one thing would be I’m a big AK fan I’ve shared the picture before I’ll share it again I don’t have hair in this photo it’s from like

2009 it was the first time I ever had a media badge for a PGA Tour event um at the RBC or at the bcan open at the time at St George’s Golf Club and it’s me in this like really bad Nike polo with AK and I have this white Puma belt and I

Love the photo uh I met I got photos with Samuel L Jackson and uh you know it’s probably inappropriate for meia at the time but I didn’t really give a crap I was like can I get a photo so AK and Samuel Jackson the same week it was a

Big week for Mr brth let me tell you that young guy was pretty pumped to go home and share those photos that he had to get developed at like some crappy um like whatever digital camera he had but anyways number two I am excited for it

I’m very curious like a lot of people um curious in like in a weird way about like what clubs he’s playing which I’m sure we’ll find we’ll be able to spot on like Getty Images at some point looks like maybe a paradigm driver just just the question I have before we get into

The robot stuff is because of Jee we’re talking about finishes if you had cuz I know so what 13 teams times uh um four over over under over under 40th Place let’s just say that does he I was GNA say 35 35 I was I was say okay over under 35 I would

Set the over under at like 35 and a half and to be honest I’m taking the like the better finish than 35 and a half because you got to remember you’re playing in Saudi Arabia there’s a b like honestly Westwood GMAC these guys I’m going over that’s fine I’m optimistic man and so

I’m going very optimistic over over a better finish than someone call that delusional that’s fine I’m the car member of the AK fan club RBS RB I trust me I want to see him succeed I really really do I really do but sure first competitive event in 12 years

No fans no fans no weird press conferences over in in jeda King of economic City whatever it is um and I just think that it’s going to be like pretty lowkey for him which is probably where they want to do it and then he comes over to whatever my I don’t know

If there’s two events I again I’m not familiar with the Liz schedule as you can tell I don’t really care I care about watching this or care about seeing what happens and if it’s this and then like comes to Miami like honestly if your first events in Miami or Vegas like

It’s going to be insane so like I think this for him is like a good opportunity to like get some get his feet wet and uh look there’s not a lot of things that I haven’t done in 12 years in front of a lot of people that I’d be like man

That’s pretty sick I going to get on my skateboard and go like drop into a halfpipe somewhere and but overall pretty pumped for this and I’m I’m excited to see what happens but I’m again cautiously optimistic but optimistic nonetheless yeah I guess if he what does

He playing he’s got three weeks is he three weeks on with Liv is that what they’re saying he’s got at least three weeks yeah his his third event would be Miami we we might actually have to we might actually have to make a trip to

Live to a live event is it before the players because then I could I might be able to make that happen but anyways uh no it’s it’s actually the week of the week it’s the week before the Masters okay all right so we’ll figure that out we’ll figure that off SC figure

Anyways but speaking speak actually you just mentioned the Masters and speaking of Majors I think this is really important actually had someone reach out the other um saying that we missed the uh we missed the weird transitions there so I’m going to take I’m going to take

Full hold of this one right now when we talk about majors and that is for anyone out there if you’ve been listening uh you’ve probably been aware of or maybe you haven’t nonetheless uh we have something at golf.com called inside golf where you get a ton of benefits like

Free dozen Cs on golf balls 20 bucks to spend at Fairway jockey and a subscription to Golf Magazine which also includes something very cool that I know I’ve shared in the past access to all of the back issues so we are talking back to the original issues

Of Golf Magazine you can go online you can go through the archives it is a blast to check all of that stuff out um but one of the other things that we are doing with inside golf is curating bucket list experiences and the the most recent one that we are doing is a

Three-day two night stay at Pinehurst two weeks before the US Open so you know you’re going to get to experience a lot of what’s going on in the town just leading up to the years so obviously the stands and all that stuff is going to be up and this experience includes rounds

On number eight and the newly opened 10 U it also you get to tour not going to play it but you get to tour number two with uh with the architect with like being able to go around that golf course and K get a behind the scenes look of

What’s going on with that event cuz I I mean look having been able to play it recently in the fall you know being able to stand on those greens and be like go back and then watch highlights this is actually kind of insane and you’re going to get

Access to all of that with inside golf the trip also includes a an exclusive tour of the newly open World Golf Hall of Fame USG Museum as well as the USGA for you fully equipped listeners you’re going to nerd out on this one Club testing center hey Jean do they got one

Of their robots over there you can tell me after I say like after I finish this bit because I’m really curious because I bet you they do um but anyways you can go to golf.com Pinehurst experience to book your spot book now get $1,000 off uh the original price and uh bring

Yourself along bring yourself a friend there trust me there’s a ton to do in Piner and again go to golf.com Piner experience check it all out there you can see the whole itinerary we have a lot of stuff going on so hopefully we’ll see you there hopefully you see both of us there

That’ be nice I can think of a few things I could do in that town that don’t involve Golf and doesn’t and doesn’t involve partying either don’t get me wrong there’s just there’s there’s a lot of really cool things to see uh down around in that area so you know fingers crossed you

Know I’ll get the Lite as well with everyone else yeah fingers crossed we’ll see all right well let’s get down to it this is a robot testing podcast always has been always will be uncle Jean we we did robot testing the end of last year you did it at your

Testing facility we ran all the drivers through testing but we had a little wrinkle this year that we didn’t have in the previous two years which was instead of just testing a 10 and a half degree driver for each one of the models and running a ninepoint test we tested all

The Lofts which I absolutely love because th this actually does something that we’ve been talking about which it highlights that in some cases at 95 with the attack angle and the way that we have this test set up sometimes different Lofts actually work better for you know for for some of these drivers

So let’s kick things off with the the why and the testing protocol because I think people are going to be listening to this wondering how exactly do we run the test what’s the robot doing so give us give us kind of the the reader digest version of what the heck we’re doing

With robotic testing sure so first off um here’s the way to think about it every they call them skews in the industry and so you could have like the um you know let’s just take for example the AI smoke Max it’s got three SKS it’s in 95 105 and 12 what’s interesting

About it and we’ve seen and I’ve talked to designers about it sometimes they will tweak a lower lofted or a higher lofted uh model or or skew in the same model to get a little bit of a difference performance Advantage so um the the reason that I bring that up is when we

Talk about this data we look at like an 8 degree dark speed LS differently than we look at a 9° dark speed LS we treat both of those as separate and by doing so we’re able to look within the family and see how the performance characteristics are but we’re also able

To compare that as an each individual Club in say the ls category in the overall performance category so um it expanded our universe pretty dramatically but in doing so I think we got a lot more insightful information than um than we have in years past now to kind of back up 36,000

Ft view everything’s at 95 mph everything is at a zero attack angle and you swing on an arc you swing down you square up at ideally at impact or right around there and then you swing up on the other side down is negative zero is at the bottom point and then up is

Positive afterwards the reason that we test at zero it’s a neutral setting and it allows us to do a complete comparative analysis of launch spin Direction um of all these products we tested nine points we test center tow heel High Center tow heel low Center toe

Heel and we do six shots so we get 54 shots per each um skew and in doing so we get a totality of data so it comes out and says this club launched at 9.5 and spun at 2400 but then we’re also able to mine the

Data deeper and say what did it do on the high toe what did it do on the low heel what did it do across the upper third versus the bottom third so it gives us a lot uh a lot a much more robust and richer database to analyze as

Opposed to just one or two maybe three points in which we’ll get an idea but we won’t get the totality and let’s face it even tour players but definitely amers we hit it all over the face so we’re going to be able to provide you and um

Uh jwall and RB are doing a great job in you know releasing this information but we have this wealth of information as to the performance characteristics and what uh what I’m going to recommend with you know what we’re going to discuss here is to think about your game if you haven’t had a

Chance either get fit or go on a launch monitor and find out what your Tendencies are and then you can relist to this and see which one of your Tendencies these clubs would potentially benefit because that’s the key is matching up your Tendencies and to be

Honest a lot of players don’t know their Tendencies and there there are there is information out there right now that can provide that what we’re going to do is hopefully give you a buyer guide kind of overview that allows you to go in and come in with some questions and then you

Know plug for Chris get fit go to go to someone who knows what they’re doing but it everybody you know I I often say in golf you know we don’t sell golf equipment we sell the elimination of buyer remorse and I know that’s a mouthful but the but the reality is

Nobody wants to walk out after having purchased a $600 driver and feel like they made a bad choice and so what we’re trying to provide you with is enough information so that when you go in you can be knowledgeable you can ask the right questions and you can also try

Products that you have heard about on this podcast or read through golf.com or Golf Magazine so that’s the reason we’re here that’s the reason we do what we do is we want to be your buyer guide we want to be able to present this data so

That being said let me jump in and what I’m going to do first is give an overview as I’ve been babbling on and on and on since the beginning of the year this is the year of the driver hands down um almost everything we saw had superlatives in it uh there’s really not

A bad product out there and better yet and the thing that I think and Chris can probably ATT test to this there is product differentiation they’re not all good in the same category they’re they’re they’re good in different categories and that really gives the buyer a lot of options um you know as

Far as getting a driver and fitting it to their game so let’s start with launch angle first and this is an O these are overall Trends in the industry that we saw um some of the lowest launching products were the pxg the tayor made and the Cobra all of those products had real

Low real uh and and this is um you know generally like as I look at this list of launch angle obviously the eights and the nines are um you know prominent but there’s also some 105s in the in the uh you know I kind of break off the top

Half and the bottom half and then on the other side some of the higher launching products and we’re going to get into this in minute were the callaways especially the AI smokes they were um and the uh Cobra dark speeds they were really high launching so if you’re

Looking for something low launching um the tailor Maids the pxg and uh the Cobra dark speed LS was another really low launching if you’re looking for some of the higher launching the Callaway especially the AI smoke Max the Ping g430 Max 10K um was up there as well as far as

Spin no big surprise lower launching generally is lower spinning the lowest spinning of them all hands down was a pxg followed by the tailor made but the Cobra insane by the way not to not to stop you because you’re on a roll but um no no no feel feel free to jump in

Anytime and and they um you know they they’re they’re looking for a market and that market is a pure distance Market but you need to bring probably over I’m going to say unless you’re you know in some of the real higher Lofts you need to bring

Over 98 miles an hour and you really have to have a positive attack angle to be able to maximize this cuz if you’re below 98 or 95 you’re going to probably struggle to get the ball in the air with with these clubs but if you if you’ve

Got enough Club head speed you really um can see some amazing distance and I know um RB during his testing out at Scottdale and what do you have RB like 106 Club head Speed come on come on Jean that’s low that’s insulting oh I I’m Sorry Miss I’ve been working I’ve been

Working very hard here uh you up to right now last time I hit golf balls I cruise around 111 I can get a little higher get a little lower mean in all fairness in all fairness when you went out there you were like 106 107 right I

Don’t know I have to look at the I don’t know all right I honestly Good’s got kids he doesn’t he doesn’t remember what he had for breakfast this morning yeah that’s that’s a fair point a lot of Pancakes John it’s a lot of Pancakes well but the the and the reason that I

Bring it up is I remember you know you talking about and I remember watching your video about how you saw exceptional distance and you’re you’re one of those Prime players you swing up on the ball and you’ve got a lot of Club head speed so let’s not get too far off the rails

On the pxg stuff because we’re going to get no no no no I’m just yep yep understood understood all right next category uh drop off in distance this is total drop off in distance so once again we’re Center hits and then taking the eight points around and look looking at

It um without a doubt Taylor Maid was up there and Cobra was up there they were exceptional I can’t wait to get to the tailor made stuff when we when we dive into it here in a little bit because yeah it’s some of their drivers one in particular was just absolutely like off

The charts impressive yes yes and then going to high toe just um as a as an example all tailor made for the first 1 2 3 4 5 6 six drivers and we’ll talk about that as far as uh exceptional upper third performance uh low heel Cobra and Callaway really were

Representative there um as far as performance um and then as far as tow hits were concerned tailor made Cobra Callaway and ping were kind of the leaders in uh there were models there that had less than one and a half yard drop off and distance and then on heel

Hits um kind of the same thing now that’s not a big shock because as I said we already looked at kind of the totality and we said well Taylor Made Cobra and ping so they’re going to be performing as far as um toe and heel hits are concerned so that’s kind of the

Overview now we’re going to go into each specific um OEM and what they provided and I’m going to start with Callaway and with Callaway this year there are a number of things that I noticed um number one they were some of the highest launching lowest spinning drivers so for example the AI smoke

Max it averaged approximately a degree to a degree and a half higher than almost everything else in that same Loft category if you compare it OEM to OEM but its spin rates were approximately 2 to 400 RPM less so it was higher launching and lower spinning in the AI

Smoke Max it was really really Exceptional from a high launch low spin so if you were a player that’s launching low and and spinning too much you definitely want want to look at this club and the um had good forgiveness overall in in performance and also I can

Say this versus last year’s Paradigm much improved as far as forgiveness so they figured something out in between that allowed them to increase launch lower Spin and also create a more forgiving driver in comparison the AI smoke Max D very high La before we get into the Max D with with triple diamond

I would say and you can again if if you don’t agree that’s totally fine but I think it was probably the most impressive um particularly Triple Diamond triple diamond yeah yeah I think I think it it it did a lot of things really well but one of the the ones

Again people always want to know like how do these how do these drivers perform compared to the previous product and you know I think for the most part we’re all cynics everybody thinks that there there can’t be be that much of an improvement from one year to the next

But like if you look atto misses with with the like previous year’s Paradigm Triple Diamond the the high toe on there was was losing and this is in relation to to the geometric Center strike but it was the Delta was 11 yards which is not terrible but it’s not great um that that

Number went all the way to to 4.8 with AI smoke and like like 4.8 is good like that’s what you would probably see on on you you know on a you know more of a Max forgiveness driver head so I think that’s we saw it on some other low spin

Products and we’ll get to that in this pod but yeah I I do I think that this is a it’s a great because everybody wants to try the low spin stuff that they see out on tour and this year you can you if you were you know worried about Paradigm

And the off-center numbers with last year’s product they’ve made big strides at this one well you you raised a really good point and we we saw this in the whole data set that um uh Max isn’t necessarily for game improvement anymore uh meaning that you know so for example

With these Max products they were higher launching lower spinning which is kind of um you know what the lower spinning products are doing now what’s what’s interesting between Paradigm Paradigm or the uh uh smoke Max uh triple diamond and the uh and or the smoke triple diamond and the smoke backx they had

Similar spin characteristics the triple diamond had a lower um lower launch uh was lower launch than the max but what was interesting is from a forgiveness standpoint they were very very similar so if you’re looking if you can get the ball in the air and you’re not looking

For added launch but you want a little less spin in and you want forgiving forgiving Club you can look at both the AI smoke Max and the triple diamond that’s what’s absolutely amazing about it and you know to to Jonathan’s point in years past when you would uh go to

Say a triple diamond or an LS you do sacrifice off-center hit drop off not the case this year with Callaway and what I was going to say just to kind of wrap a bow on Callaway uh their maxd had some of the greatest bias left it was also highest launching and I’d say

Medium spin medium to high spin which is generally what you will see in a um in a draw byas product but overall uh the clubs were um very uh they they they had differentiation in their performance characteristics but they also what made them so interesting is they were

Incredibly uh uh forgiving you know for um for their per for their overall performance one one insight and one question yes the Insight that I want to point out was um Max D and again I’ve been going through a lot of the the more of the superlatives here recently just

Kind of releasing those one by one but if you’re somebody who is uh heel Striker T tend to strike the ball towards the heel maxd was incredible um the the carry Delta on heel strikes was 6.3 and 7.6 yards on the 10 and a half the 12 degree heads um and we’re just

Like to kind of put that into perspective we saw some drivers during testing that were upwards to like 25 to 30 yards of distance loss on heel strikes so you know this that that’s a really impressive number the other thing that I did want to point out is is

Typically Triple Diamond heads are are on the lower spin side of that of that Spectrum but with with the triple diamond Jean were you surprised that the the spin for these was was a little bit more towards the middle of the pack uh you know we we you talked about the pxg

Stuff but uh the triple diamond this year for Callaway was more in that like 25 to 2900 RPMs at 95 miles an hour you know and it’s interesting I’ve talked to designers about this kind of year in and year out and they’re always tweaking one year they feel like they

Come in a little too low very rarely do they feel like they come in too high but on the low spin stuff uh it’s really interesting they’re they um they’re they’re always nervous about that floor and hitting it because of the you know if you don’t generate enough Club head

Speed that ball falls out of the air so I what was fascinating to me like I said was uh how similar the spin characteristics were between the Max and the triple Diamond I expected the triple diamond to be at least 200 RPM less and in some cases in some models it was uh

It was very very similar so um the engineers of Callaway have obviously looked at that and said okay um we we know where our sweet spot is as far as performance and we know that you know I tell people all the time especially with low spinning stuff it’s not your

Uh it’s not your your best hit that you should be concerned about it’s your Miss because your Miss with a low spinning Club can be really bad especially if you don’t get it in the air on your Miss and that’s the thing to be concerned about and they obviously are ering more

Towards that kind of low to mid as opposed to to to really low all right next we uh have bantered about this Cobra Cobra comes next Gene in the alphabet thank you we have bantered about this thanks for stepping on my line we’ve bantered about this for years the LTD X and how

Is Big go that’s that’s your free Square on the bingo card for for the for the Gear episode LTD and we we’ve talked about how it was a unicorn driver um the Aero jet unfortunately didn’t quite live up to that building but it was going to be

Hard to because it it it performs so well uh I can say without a doubt the um the ldx especially the max is back and um the numbers are really really close um from forgiveness standpoint to to the LTD x uh for the ls the ls is really

Really low spinning and you know I think I kind of talked about that um when I was doing the overall comparison um it was some of the some of the lower spinning uh products were the Cobra LS it also um is kind of a a low to mid

Launch so if you’re looking for a low to mid launch with low spinning you definitely want to look at the ls if you’re looking for forgiveness you definitely want to look at the max the max is exceptional and the um dark speed X is very very uh close

So uh I’m just trying to look here to see I would say with the X you are going to get kind of a midrange of launch whereas with the max you’re going to get a high launch um the X had a lower spin rate than the Max and obviously the ls

Had the floor so um overall uh very um very good performance in forgiveness and I want to say kind of a little bit more of a traditional launch and spin profile whereas Callaway kind of was surprising in you know some of their similarities between the triple diamond and the Max and really

Surprising in the high launch low spin on the max the ls is what you’d expect very low launching and very low spinning the max is kind of what you’d expect High launching and low to mid Spin and then the x is kind of in the middle um

Mid launch and you know mid mid to low spin but overall the the the key takeaways from Cobra more than anything else is they’re back to creating a very forgiving driver and their drivers were amazingly forgiving um they also had great um High uh Center and high heel uh performance there across

The board they were um really really good so uh good product placement uh good coverage from a performance standpoint yeah they’ve made a they’ve made some some strides the the numbers that I would point out um on kind of piggybacking off what you said you know again everybody wonders how how the

Numbers stack up to to aerojet as Jean mentioned you AET kind of regress to the mean after ldx and and look that was always going to happen that that driver was was incredible and it’s still as far as carry distance loss all eight points in relation to Center uh 3.4 yards and I

I don’t know they well we had one that came dangerously close to actually topping it this year but that that just basically means that you can hit it all over the face and you’re not going to see a massive drop off in distance no matter where you’re impacting it U spin

Numbers launch and spin uh dark speed in relation to AO jet were almost identical dark speed was at 11 .4 degrees at 2970 uh AO jet was 11.8 at 2977 and I again I think that just highlights the the internal improvements that were made uh really trying to retain ball speed

This year overall stability and just the the high toe numbers uh distance loss on on on these drivers like I think it was 6.4 yards and that was overall across all offs with dark speed so it as Gene mentioned they’re back I don’t want to

Steal is thunder but but he is he is bang on these drivers are are um noticebly noticeably better than Aero Jet and they are getting back to being closer towards that that LTD X product I think it’s an interesting story just very quickly on like the GE

Like the way geometry this is um I will not say which engineer from which OEM said this but I always thought it was like one of the most fascinating things that I could that I’ve ever heard from someone say and that is we love to use free technology

And when we talk about technology anything that goes into the club is a cost that means you know power bridge for Cobra or any other company that’s using Carbon on the top or an extra process that goes into the club face or using tungsten or something else within the head but

Geometry is something that they can control that doesn’t cost anything extra when it goes into the the design process and from aerojet just using Cobra as the example Arrow jet was generally a little bit shallower um whereas the the new dark speed has gotten little less from heel

To toe and a little bit deeper so that’s where you’re seeing there’s more mass behind those areas high toe and and low and I think that’s one of the most interesting elements of this whole thing when we talk about how drivers progress from design is that the geometry of

These different heads creates variables and if you look at Callaway as like the opposite example their geometry has stayed very similar in most cases but their face technology has progressed so they wouldn’t necessarily call it free technology from the Callaway usage but other companies are utilizing different

Methods of that and similar to like I know we’re going to get to it so I’ll shut up but the 10K in the in the tailor made they they chose to adopt a very different geometry for that club head which I think if you were to pick one up

And look down at it you would say that does not look like a tail made driver from the offset like from the onset of like just looking down at it but overall that geometry as well is with the construction you know the technology that costs a lot of money to create

That’s all of those things together create performance so that’s where when you look at different drivers like why is it shape like that versus like last year versus this year that’s your reason why all right moving on so next up we have mauno so mauno had two models STG forget

Cleveland oops I’m sorry my bad all right we had one Cleveland in the in the group it’s tough when you have one club because it is and I was I wasn’t going to like we could have done it at the end but but yeah let’s let’s let’s get I

Mean Cleveland did have something really cool with with theirs as far as the dispersion Gene yes yes as far as the dispersion was concerned uh with Cleveland they were incredibly accurate um and they they had good drop off on uh on uh tow hits their heel hits were

Decent but their tow hits were good and they they had a um a a little bit more uh kind of middle of the road on launch and I would have to say slightly low on spin so um overall a uh overall a a solid performing driver let’s just put

It that way the the the challenge was there was just one model so it was tough to do kind of a but they did have the best they did have the tightest dispersion and they did have the tightest dispersion hands down yes five 5.1 yards that’s really freaking

Impressive yes it was a very very straight driver without a doubt without a doubt and I think that’s that’s what everybody wants you know they want they want a driver you know sure you want distance but you want accuracy and you know five five yards off center line

That’s that’s really freaking good so no it is especially when most drivers you know on offc Center usually average you know 15 and 15 still is solid so you know 10 to 15’s kind of the industry Norm so yes yes you are right my apologies to Cleveland no uh no no uh disrespect

There but um so next up is mauno and as far as mauno is concerned uh very very solid um the um the STG was definitely lower launch and kind of medium spin as far as that’s concerned the max also was lower launch and kind of medium uh to low spin

Um I’m just kind of looking overall performance it did really well on performance I mean yes as far as consistency goes across the entire face on on distance loss it was it was in the within the top five yes without a doubt the um and it was really solid on the

All of the uh Munos were very solid on the upper third of the club phase without a doubt um the um the Maxes uh were uh just exceptional on High um Center I’m just looking you know High center for the s for the 9.5 was3 yards

Drop off high center for the 10.5 was 1.8 in and the um High Center was 3.3 on the 12 degre so exceptional um the um St Max had 7 and A2 and 69 for the 105 and and 12 so um overall that’s the one jean that’s the driver that I would say RB

Shaking his head too I think he would agree with me that that Max driver is the one where it it’s not I it’s I don’t I don’t know how close it gets to to 10K but the numbers that that that we saw on the robot I mean even even low heel and

Low toe Gene we saw Delta of 12 yards and again I was talking about like those are areas where like that’s death low low toe low heel on a driver like forget about it that you’re you’re losing some serious distance and to only lose like less than 13 yards on those areas and

That’s the worst that’s the worst of it I mean the the overall the overall Delta here across all eight points in relation to Center was 6.9 yards it’s it’s really good really consistent you can you can pretty much hit it all over the face on this one and and still get some strong

Numbers well and the other thing to remember is it average 8.4 yards off center so it was really straight too you know so uh we were just you know kind of gushing about the Cleveland at 5.1 three yards is not that much of a difference

So it was definitely in the in the top drivers um you know is from a uh from a straight standpoint as well um without a doubt okay so next uh next up is a really interesting addition and that was the Ping g430 Max 10K um what we saw with this uh product

Was I’m going to call it a mid to high launch with definitely a low spin um really really good drop off really solid all the way um across the board also very straight and consistent but the thing that jumped out at this and jayall you can give a PGA

Perspective on this because you had an interesting interview normally when we uh hit the ball on the high side we lose so high Center we lose three to 400 RPM of spin and we hit the ball on the low side we increase the spin by 3 to 400

RPM this increase and decrease was like 15020 it was almost half so the thei vertically created spin consistency that was really interesting now you have bulge on a driver so you’re still launching higher launching lower but your spin Delta was really minimized and Jonathan you can speak to that as far

Far as the the Tour player that you ran across that was commenting on that yeah exactly Cameron Champ was and he’s not using it he went back to the LST driver which I again I’m not really surprised about based on his speed but he was using it last year at

RSM and and he told me the same it pretty much it just confirmed what we saw in the robot which was low on the face he wasn’t seeing a lot of that increase in spin that he had in the past and as Gan mentioned I mean to basically

See on especially like a low Center to basically see no spin increase is is really cool and again people are probably wondering if if you’re not like nerding out on gear like we are like what is that what does that mean it basically means that if you’re

Able to maintain Spin and you’re not you’re not seeing a jump you know 3 or 400 RPMs that gives you a better chance at just seeing that that similar number to what you would get out of the center and that’s that’s again that’s what we’re going for Jean mentioned it at the top

Which is we’re not we’re not fixating as you as you probably have noticed how many times have we talked about ball speed so far on this podcast I mean I think time you mentioned it I think it’s the first time that I mentioned it on this pod and the reason

Being the for a lot of recreational golfers out there you’re looking for a driver that’s going to have uh I call it you know ball speed retention M hit protection whatever you those are just fancy names for just saying a forgiving driver you’re looking for forgiveness so

That when you miss the driver when you miss the face and you’re going to miss it out of the heel and the toe you’re looking for something that’s going to replicate whatever that carry number is when you just hit one dead nuts out of the center and the closer you can get to

That on your misses the the happier you’re going to be because you’re not going to have to worry about the big miss or you know 20 or 25 yards maybe even 30 yards of distance loss on a miss so that’s what we’re going for here that’s why we’re highlighting some of

The things that these drivers do well and again that’s what we’ve that’s what we saw from the the g430 max 10K is it’s just a super stable product um I I you know liking it to a tank you know you can basically throw everything you want

At it and that thing just takes it all and says give me more from a side note here and really quickly um because I think that is such an interesting point not just about like holistically like you know talking about why we do what we what we’re doing with

This like procedure but Chris when you are talking to Golfers or you’re looking at golfers in the fitting environment would you say the lower Miss with higher spin is more common with the average golfer versus the higher Miss low spin which I have found tends to be the better player

Miss yeah it’s it’s definitely that that high spin Miss for sure I the majority of people out there that are struggling I mean with impact position on the face or dispersion down range low on the face whether it be towards the toe or towards the heel generally starts to show up

More than anything high on the face which I mean you would almost think would be opposite since the majority of players out there are more steep through impact than they are creating a positive angle of attack but I mean we’ll see players especially that intermediate to higher

Handicap player that will just wear out the low heel of a driver and like we had talked about there’s uh there’s a couple drivers out there that really Excel for that Mis pattern but then there is you another group that if that is your Miss it’s about the worst piece of equipment

You could possibly put in your hands yeah I I I think the key to uh you know back to back to ball speed and Chris you can probably you know uh weigh in on this is fall speed is simply a function for the most part of being optimized from a fitting environment in

Other words it you know if you’re spinning too much or not launching high enough um it doesn’t matter what the ball speed is off high toe or low heel you’re just not going to hit it very far because you’re not optimizing that club and so so much of ball speed is related

To getting a club that is optimized for your specific swing so that you can maximize that energy transfer between Club head and ball yeah and that’s it’s it’s a conversation that we have pretty regularly as far as if you take just a round number 100 mph a club head speed

Should produce 150 mph a ball speed but depending upon the Dynamics and strike location you can get some very very different results so going back to kind of what RB was saying if that player is striking it low on the face with high spin versus somebody that’s striking it

High on the face with low spin like the overall carry and distance total the the threshold between the two is going to be a a pretty large Delta so the overachiever is going to be more in that category that misses you know if you’re looking at the face in quadrants

Slightly high toe versus the underachiever that is going to be striking it low heal so if you’re introducing the club at the same 100 miles an hour that high toe Striker is going to see closer to that 150 mph ball speed whereas that low heel Striker might see something in the neighborhood

Of 141 142 and then that’s presuming the face of square so there’s all kinds of different variables that go into it in addition to you strike location on the face and then also how these different products respond to those strike locations well said well said before we jump to the

Pxg uh you know again this is a Max product so everybody that’s playing a g430 Max is is obviously wondering like how does this driver compare do I need to upgrade to the 10K um if you look at like the distance decrease across all three Lofts I mean they were really I mean

Almost identical I think the 10K the distance loss was like eight yards and that was comparing like geometric Center to the eight other the other eight mishit locations versus like 8.7 for the g430 max so they’re very close again as we like to say within the noise but it

It really just comes down to it’s it’s a more consistent driver than the than the Max and when that’s going to come down to spin and just you know some of those other areas on the face I mean if you look at like the I mean just look at

Like the high toe numbers the the N degree Max 10K only lost 4.5 yards on tow strikes um that’s that’s a really that’s a really impressive number but then you’re going well where does it you know where is it falling short and it’s really not because it’s also really

Impressive when it comes to the heel strikes as well and the the you know for example like low heel was a drop off of just seven yards so again it’s just it’s a really stable product and that’s what you’re getting it’s it’s more consistent it’s still forgiving but it’s just

Tightening a lot of those you know launch and spin characteristics across the entire face and and that’s again if you’re somebody who doesn’t hit it out out of the middle that’s what these 10K drivers do is they just try to normalize a lot of those misses and make them make them more

Playable so one little tech nerd uh tidbit about the the 10K and also the qi1 max I we had kind of talked about this uh offline just when we were doing some testing with it the the conforming uh properties of those drivers is kind of an interesting topic

We we kind of go off on tangents with the the lead tape Chronicles and you know people that like to Tinker and Doctor you you can actually make your driver non-conforming by adding lead tape or altering the head weight of the driver in those 10K products so the the g430

And also the uh the qi1 max if you get into that 10K you are maxed out head weight is what it is so that’s something to keep in mind if you start to Tinker with these heads is if you’re playing anything competitive or if you are playing any sanctioned events and you’re

Somebody that likes to throw some lead tape on there or use a little tour sauce in the Hot Melt form uh that is a big no no with these guys now good news for the club Builders out there and the tinkerers at home uh the usgaa does not

Consider the shaft as the same part of the head so if you’re looking for swing weight and essentially swing weight only you can use tip weights uh if you are trying to get to a desired swing weight but as far as any type of addition of discretionary weight on those heads

Maxed out don’t do it non-conforming and uh yeah looking for uh looking for some bad news in a in a sanctioned event but if you’re a weekend warrior and want to want to go down the lead tape Chronicles I mean let’s go ahead and Max that thing out

Get it up to 11 12K why not I’m waiting for some dude to post a picture of like a a 10K tailor made just completely loaded up with lead tape yes I don’t care I’m just curious I know we’re off I and half in and then 20 grams of lead tape just

Caked around the perimeter of that thing let’s go I want to see this I want to see the T made 60,000 frames per second video of the golf ball being hit by a driver just caked in lead tape at 43 in and that thing just just stabilized like

A like a rocket hitting a building just okay it’s not moving it’s gonna keep going that’s it all right we’ve set we’ve set the we I want to see the video in I’ll go back on mute I I’ll sit back in my corner I that that that’s a real I’m I’m totally

GL I’m glad that we brought that up RB asked that question at the like the big tailor made Summit that we went to and I loved it he was the only guy there who was asking the hard-hitting questions everybody else like oh yeah that makes a

Lot of sense why don’t I think about that RB’s like Google in it it was cool I I did the same thing at ping and I I got a look kind of like what why why would you ask that like um cuz cuz we shut up we’ll sicko quiet peasant speak spoken

To all right let’s all right pxg Gan we good with pxg okay all right we are done with ping so pxg as we talked about in the top some of the lowest launching and definitely the lowest spinning uh the Black Ops give us some numbers there please spinning in relation to the like

Pack yeah so just to give you some numbers like the 8 n and 10.5 in the Black Ops were 9 and2 10 and 10.6 the tour same ones 7288 and 97 and and just for uh like comparative purposes let’s just take the LS which was you know fairly low launching it was

8895 and 118 so it’s it’s 105 um in the ls was 97 almost 3° higher than the Black Ops T just to give you you know a comparison and the ls spun at 3,000 which was a low spin rate for the 105 the 105 Black Ops tour spun at

2355 so these were these are rocket ships these are low launching low spinning rocket ships now here’s where it gets interesting normally when you have low la launching low spinning rocket ships you get big drop offs in distance you really they’re usually not very forgiving that was not the case with

These drivers um all of the drivers were under um uh uh but under 10 yards as far as total drop off but here’s where it was really interesting almost all of the drivers had less than 10 yards of dispersion sometimes less than seven and a half and we saw one driver the Black

Ops 2 or 8 degree had 4.6 yards of dispersion the 10.5 Black Ops had seven yards of dispersion so these drivers while they are low launching and low spinning they actually are medium to strong forgiveness and they’re straight so once again if you can generate the

Club head speed you can get a forgiving product that is going to go a mile and it’s going to go a mile straight so they um and one of the reasons that I love to highlight this and this is why I’m so excited about this year is their product

Line totally different than everybody else’s product line so if if you spend too much or you launch too high go take a look and and you’ve got some Club head speed and you want something that’s that’s accurate um from a dispersion standpoint and forgiving you definitely

Want to take a look at um either the Black Ops or the Black Ops tour and it’s it’s kind of like how much of a golfer are you you know if you’re if you’re that golfer think you are try the tour if you’re not try the Black Ops but

Either way you better be like RB and uh bring some uh bring some Club head speed to the party because um you’re you’re you’re going to need it to get these things in the air but if you can they’re they’re going to go a long

Way so the and Gan mentioned it just the the really small dispersion across most of the Lofts I I think you know and we I don’t want to talk too much about the the tech with these drivers because if you want to learn more about that go to

Golf.com we’ve done all the writeups on them or or go to the PG’s website in this case but I think as as you see these improvements in dispersion and and the improvements in offc Center forgiveness I I think this just further confirms that that pxg switch at least with the Black Ops from

From the the t412 titanium to the new the new AMF I I mean it’s paying off in a big way so you know these drivers are more expensive and I think people were like oh here we go again pxg jacking their prices around they were you know

One of the cheapest B now they’re going back to being one of the more expensive you get what you pay for I’ve said that before on this podcast but in this case you really do you get what you pay for these drivers are are really solid and

You’re seeing it not only again not only in the offc center numbers but the the dispersion numbers as well I know by the way RB tested them so I’m pretty sure he could uh attest to that this is this is the perfect example and I’ve already said it many times

Before getting fit and not just ordering to your spec and the reason I say that is because if I use pxg as my example the example that I can give right now at this moment in time when it came to the Gen 6 I used their lowest lofted driver

Head and I Ed the lowest lofted driver head to achieve the spin numbers and launch that that work best for me when I moved into the the Black Ops and I used I I tested both t one was the better fit for me I moved up a full

Almost 2° in Loft in the Club head and I still achieved almost the exact same spin numbers so just when we talk about why it is so important and look when people ask sometimes they’re like if I get last year’s driver and I get this

Year’s and I I get fit for last year’s driver and I want to save some money I buy last year driver instead there are many cases where that is a pretty good example and you can generally do a fairly decent job of finding something where you’re going to save a little bit

Of money and find a lot of performance if you were to be fit to the lowest lofted driver of the the Gen 6 and go to the low lofted driver of the T one you might find holy crap I can’t get this thing in the air so it’s it’s just one

Of those instances to keep in mind when we talk about differentiation among models year-to year why this is so important pxg is not the only one tmit is another example with their Max Head versus the max 10K there’s just all of these variations of these these designs and the differentiation and how

Companies have done that that where in many in some cases it’s okay to go back and you know save some money and do that but in other cases it is very very important to go through the fitting process because at the end of the day you’re going to find something where you

Might be shocked at the specs that you end up with but the numbers as they say ball don’t lie numbers don’t lie track man doesn’t lie just gives you the information and you can do with it what you want and in most cases when you work

With a fitter and you get those end results you’re focused on performance and not the Loft on the bottom of the club head there we go all right ready ready ready for the final yeah saving in this case I feel like saving the best for

Last in some ways it it it’s up there so you know we we’ve talked about on this pod it’s um it’s we’ve talked about about the the the history of Taylor Made um you know I’ve been fortunate to watch them for now 34 years and um they’ve always innovated they’ve always pushed the

Envelope and whether it was weights whether it was bubble shafts they’ve they’ve they’ve never rested on their Laurels they’ve always believed in um kind of you know kind of like apple they just believe in redesign sometimes you know not not continuing Legacy but just totally going a

Different direction and they did that uh two cycles ago with carbon and they went away from titanium and went to carbon it was a really bold move really risky move um yielded kind of mixed results uh had some performance characteristics that were admirable but also didn’t quite

Stick The Landing in a lot of respects and um there were there were some challenges there were some challenges from a durability standpoint there were some challenges from a performance standpoint there were some challenges from a consistency standpoint they were um they were creating a whole new

Category of clubs and doing so in a very very competitive environment and so we had the stealth and the stealth 2 which uh and we’ve talked about they had their attributes but overall um nothing Earth shattering and some inconsistencies along the way uh I can say without a

Doubt that that has changed dramatically with the qi1 series and the qi1 has brought Taylor Maid back to the four as far as being an industry leader um their technology uh was exceptional in one specific area that I’m going to start with and that’s drop off and distance

They had some of the best drop off in distance especially in relation to their Max and qi1 products of all of the products uh May ever in the history of in the history of of our I mean and we haven’t been doing this for for you know

Decades but in the years that we’ve done robot testing probably the best we’ve ever seen yeah yeah it was it it it was really good it also um there so once again remember we test center toe and heel which laterally are kind of in the middle upper Center toe and heel and

Lower so let’s just think of the the club faces kind of quadrants mid high and low as their upper performance if you buy a qi1 tee it high and Let It Fly because they drop off in distance some in some cases there um like the qi1 for example

High Center it was actually 2.7 yards longer on high Center than it was what you that to uh simply optimizing launch and spin so even though you had a slight decrease in ball velocity your launch and spin characteristics were such that um you had a longer overall distance uh

And we do see that but it’s it’s tough to do but what’s really interesting was across the board their um their upper third quadrant were uh exceptional and as I talked about in the beginning the top six half inch high 3/4 inch tow drop offs were all tailor maids and all of

Them were had a positive um number meaning that they didn’t lose any distance when you hit them up there which is just amazing and it is uh and and once again normally when you do that you go okay great but you’re really going to take a beating when you go low not necessarily

The case I mean they had decent numbers low but they weren’t uh you know some of the numbers that that we’ve seen low have been you know 15 20 25 yard s and their numbers were in the you know usually like 10 to 16 range lows so you

Weren’t getting much of a penalty low but you were definitely getting a um uh an exceptional Advantage hitting high they also were uh very very straight products as well we didn’t have um they were just consistent they weren’t the straightest but they definitely were some of the most forgiving but

That straightness combined with forgiveness really creates a solid solid family between the qi1 qi1 ls and the uh Max the one thing that I will say about the line overall that we saw in all of the products is there a little bit more on the lower launching side and a little

Bit more on the lower spinning side so in comparison for example let’s just take the max uh 10.5 uh AI smoke Max it was 12.4 and the um qi1 max was 9.9 so you know just to give you an idea and the um uh g430 Max was

11.9 so everything was a little bit on the lower side from a launch and spin uh perspective but incredibly forgiving and also pretty straight so so um a a a real uh a a real kind of really good coverage of the overall uh you know characteristics if you if you draw the

Ball you might want to look at the max but you know even that there’s a lot of tour players looking at the max because they like the uh they like the low boring and low spinning characteristics if you really want low spin the ls uh was right there with like the Black Ops

It wasn’t as low as the Black Ops tour but it was really really close it was I would say next to the Black Ops um and the Black Ops T it probably came in third so it was one of the lowest spinning uh products and the

Qi1 uh kind of lower launch and low to mid spin so um really really solid across the board from a forgiveness standpoint a directional standpoint and kind of a a boring trajectory those that seemed to be the theme for um for that family for

2024 yeah I think if you if you go back to last year with Taylor Maid um you know the elephant in the room is is the phase construction and the durability as it pertains to the durability you know from a lot I heard from a lot of golfers

Last year and I’m Chris I’m wondering if you if you heard the same um heard from a lot of golfers last year that said that they were going through some of them were going through two three um stealth two heads just because they were having issues with with with the face

Caving in on those drivers and you know some people were wondering if Taylor Maid was going to backtrack and go back to Titanium because like this this face there’s what’s going on with it why why can’t why can’t it just be durable enough for me to just have one driver

And if you look at what they’ve done with this driver they did make some improvements around the face to to help with that overall durability but man if you want to if you want to see an oem just like step up and say I mean you can’t really you can’t really complain

About this driver like in the years past people were you know people were talking about the carbon phase this this driver was in in my opinion and we’ll get to kind of which drivers impress us the most because I am curious to to hear from the crew but these these drivers

Were just they they blew me away when I saw the numbers and the one in particular and this is what I love about about what we did this year we tested all offs if you and I’m just looking at like the the 10 and a half degree qi1

Max the the average distance loss carry distance loss on the 10 and a half degree head was 7.9 yards pretty good but if you go to still at 95 using our our testing protocol it goes to 3.5 yards and that’s that’s when you start to get into that unicorn number because

As I mentioned the ldx that we’ve been raving about for years the the average the Delta there was 3.4 so it’s basically it it I mean 0.1 that’s the difference it’s right there as being that unicorn driver this year that qi1 Max in the 12 degre and oh

By the way it also from a dispersion standpoint was at 12 yards so it’s it’s really it’s got a tighter dispersion and it’s great all over the face I mean my gosh I I mean Jee did we even talk about on on high Center on that 12 degree head

Um I mean you gained you gained five yards yeah yeah it well it wasn’t it it wasn’t just that that it was uh it was the same thing on the max you gain five yards and and on on the 10 five and so um and on the nine you gained point one

Yard and on the uh 10.5 LS you gain 3.2 yards so it was what what was what was interesting what was interesting about Tay made for this product cycle is they definitely had a bias towards the upper third of the club face but you weren’t really sacrificing much on the lower

Third of the club face so that’s where I think they’ve finally figured it out how to maximize the carbon you you raise a really good point and it remains to be seen from a durability standpoint I’m I’m guessing that you know they’ve done some pretty robust testing to make sure

That you know they’re not returning the product but um yeah it’s uh it’s it’s definitely they’re they’re definitely worth putting in the mix and trying because they have a lot of amazing attributes this year and once again comparing those to the stealth but even the stealth too it was a Quantum Leap difference

They it’s not even a fair fight this year I I feel like um I mean I was just looking at the the ls product compared to the plus last year and just looking at middle and high toe middle and high toe distance loss on the stealth 2 plus

Was 12 yards an average of 12 yards on those two locations with the qi1 ls same 10 and 1 half degree loft it gained three and a half yards so I think I think Taylor Made made like you as you said made some Quantum leaps this year I

Mean Chris have you I mean what’s what’s been your experience so far with the qi1 stuff I mean we we’re talking about it and I mean basically gushing about it but have you been seeing something similar in in your testing experiences with the people that have been coming

Through to to try out the new qi1 I mean that’s that’s one thing that I do want to address is the the durability issue we uh we saw a number of drivers in the the stealth stealth 2 family that had some some bondage and breakage issues and I mean that was a

Question that was that was brought up in our PK session with tailor made was you know what have you guys done to address this cuz I mean talking about the elephant in the room and I the biggest thing that they did was they increased the the surface area for the bonds they

Softened up the chassis and if you look uh side by side at a stealth 2 and now qi1 the amount of bonding material around the face I and you can see that everything has been you essentially increased and from a performance perspective perspective I mean it was a huge leap in performance

Consistency and just downrange dispersion uh between what I saw with stealth 2 products stealth 2 plus and the HD and then now incorporating qi1 Max qi1 uh core head and then also the ls and I mean the the separation of the models is significantly bigger so now you have three definitively different

Heads that you can work with a variety of different player demographics with and I mean as far as most improved it’s Taylor Made hands down and I’ve got to give a a shout out to my my buddy Rick Phillips who uh is a tailor made rep

Over kind of in the the Midwest area and he he called me early on and he goes hey have you had a chance to hit this what are your thoughts wanted to pick my brain on it and I uh I was telling him man this is this is way better you guys

Are going to have a good year and he was just kind of love hearing that uh kind of reaction so now that uh that Taylor Made and the boys are getting a a shout out on the Pod and the the performance is there from robot to back it up I mean

It’s I’m going to Echo what I said to him months ago it’s it’s going to be a good year for tailor made yeah it most definitely is and and and I think again I think there’s there’s great products for every manufacturer but as we said the the

Company I would feel like and you guys do you agree made the biggest Quantum Leap this year Taylor Made oh without a doubt well it’s it’s not even close I I I would say I would say uh second would be Cobra because Cobra really bounce bounc back pretty pretty

Solid Cobra had one down year Taylor Made Pioneer to new technology and the fact that they stuck with it and figured out how to make that new technology that nobody else is doing yeah and work to a high level I mean I’m giving it to them

Yeah yeah yeah yeah I I I agree I think they win I just you know just as far as like year to year I think to your point Chris especially um when you look at um uh when you look at you know uh the history of Taylor Made You can

Definitely you know say that they U they they’ve had the biggest bounce back without a doubt yeah you know what it makes me think of and I maybe it’s because I’ve been watching like the drive to survive and like the way that cars have upgrades during the season is

That some companies they like to progress and they do they do thing like one after the other after the other and that’s like that’s great like there’s nothing wrong with that and like we do see this progression of Technology but there is still this like consistent

Desire to kind of stick to like what they know whereas I feel like Taylor Made In some cases are like one of those f1s are like listen guys screw it we’re throwing on this upgrade and we’re going to see what happens okay and in most

Cases and in a lot of cases there’s like there’s the there’s the step and then there’s they kind of like okay we got to figure this out again and then there’s this big step and I think this is one of those those instances where they’ve brought all of these different things

Together and they’ve made that step and it’s actually from a from an engineering from a consumer perspective it doesn’t mean stuff that before was bad they are still making steps they’re still making progress what the difference is is that now they’ve gotten to this point it’s like okay we’re bringing these things

Together we got one heck of a fast car maybe I’m just excited for the drive newest drive to survive here either way that’s how I look at it I and I love that you say that you know what I think about as you’re as you’re talking about

This RB is this is a a great way for tomo to go out you know Tomo bad for and a lot of people are like who the heck is that so so Toma oversees the the now known as the carbon wood division at Taylor Made and um

Little birdie told me that Tomo is stepping away from his role at Taylor Made and will be assuming a role over in Japan with Adidas so they’re gonna whoever takes on that role at tailor mid is gonna have some massive shoes to fill but I I love

The fact that in year three as Tomo this is this was kind of his his last one with with Taylor Made before he steps away that he nailed it like Qi 10’s great and we we’ve talked a lot thought about it compared in you know comparative to the other oems that we’ve

Discussed but again they made such a massive leap this year that you have to you have to give them their due 100% anyway 100% would agree with that yeah all right so to wrap a bow on robotic driver insights that was a lot of fun guys and we’re going to do it

Again with with the the fairways and the irons if you had to go through all the products that we talked about and pick one in particular that you want to say is and I I we’re not going to ever say the best because the the same that one club’s not

Going to work for everybody but what’s the one that impressed you the most what’s the one particular product Oh I absolutely hate this question it I mean man you’re the driver how do you pick one when all of them are good just pick one I I I’m put I’m putting

Everybody on the spot you gotta you got to pick one what’s what’s what’s the one’s the one that impress you the most I’m so torn between triple diamond and the qi1 core head I mean if if I absolutely had to pick one right now the the triple diamond just

From a quantity of sales perspective for truspec right now has the slightest Edge but both of them are so good man yeah that was actually I was thinking about going that direction which means that I’m going to Pivot um uncle Jean of course which one which one would you say

I’m gonna let RB go I’ll finish last okay if I had to say it’d be the PX Oprah PX opra I love it also known as this is why we do this podcast late at night because we get we get some dad jokes in there I it’s tough but picking one is very

Hard cuz as you know look it’s full it’s full disclosure like I’ve I’ve hit the Black Ops t i was fit for the Black Ops tour that thing is awesome I have not inhand gotten like a demo two test yet but I know it’s I know it’s literally probably somewhere in some plane

Somewhere on its way here to test the arrow Jet and I’ve I’ve hit it I’ve hit it outside I’ve tested it um it was fantastic um I I just know that I think for someone like myself and this is you know I’m using my own experience here if you are

One of those players that desires low spin the the Black Ops tour is very very hard to ignore um as a as a consumer product if I if I had if I had to pick one if I had to pick one consumer product that I think most golfers if you

Were going to go and pick something out off off the rack and say man I think this is going to be a really good driver I really really do think that it is the the Cobra the Cobra AO jet or sorry C Cobra dark speed the dark

Speed too many names there too many names way too many names we got we got to be it is the dark I do think he’s on East Coast time too it’s CL it’s coming in on midnight for that point and it’s Canada I mean you know Canada maybe they

Don’t even know about to dark speed yet who knows but I do think and that’s I mean so again adjustable weight here’s the deal adjustable waiting adjustable hosle and there is a lot of stuff that we’ve seen from the performance the robot insights to me that’s where I

Think a lot of golfers are really going to find that performance Advantage you know 1B you need low low spin it’s very hard to ignore that that pxg t or one I’m gonna I’m gonna uh I’m G to go against what I said with you got to just

Pick one and I’m going to I’m going to lump in the the 10K products this year you know this this is a big story as as manufacturers started to trot out the the marketing speak around the new drivers this magical 10K number 10K Moi and like sometimes these these you know

Stories fall flat and other times they actually live up to the hype and I think this is one of those times where the 10K story lives up to the hype if you look at the in particular the g430 max 10K and tailor mes qi1 Max those drivers were were really special during robotic

Testing and I think that they are worth the price that people are going to have to pay for them and that’s ultimately what everybody wants to know is is it really worth it and I think based on the numbers that we saw they are super stable products they are going to allow

You if you again if you’re somebody who’s just inconsistent with your contact it’s going to allow you to to have more fun out on the golf course so I do I think that while this is the year of the driver I think this is the year

Of the 10K driver and it lives up to the hype and it’s worth the money so there you go so I will you know my uh the thing that impressed me the most and you know once again there are a there are a wealth of choices here but the the one

That was exceptional to me was the AI smoke Max it was so high launching in comparison to everything else and so low spinning that I think it’s really it’s going to be an interesting club uh you know back to kind of what Chris was talking about especially you know those

Players that have negative angles attack and hit down on the ball and really need to get the ball up and reduce spin I think you’re going to see um some exceptional performance out of it uh you know and it’s it it had lower spin numbers or equal to the triple diamond

And you know the triple diamond was really a forgiving it would be a 1B for me but the AI smoke Max is is the one that really just kind of caught my eye from an overall um uh performance standpoint you know when we were getting ready to start this episode I was

Terrified that we were going to go three hours talking about drivers and just ramble on and on and somehow someway we figured out a way to keep it to 90 minutes that is that is amazing this again this episode was packed with insights big thanks to Gan for for leading the

Charge but this this was one of my favorite episodes and again if you’re getting ready to start making purchasing decisions go back and listen to this pod there’s just so much in there and if you have any questions make sure that you I would yeah you know typically I say like

Shoot me a DM shoot us an email but you know what instead why don’t you call and leave us a voicemail on the fully equipped hotline the phone number is 62935 4974 again that’s 602 935 4974 if you have any questions on these drivers we’re going to get to them in upcoming

Pods um I think next week do we what do we want to say do we want to go right back into it and do Fairways and irons next week boys we got to know how AK plays first right yeah we’ll see we might do it next week

We might do it the week after that um I’ll be at Bay Hill next week so um maybe we do we’ll find we’ll we’ll figure it out but anyway leave us a voicemail if you have any questions on the new drivers and we will we’ll answer them in a forthcoming episode uh with

That let’s wrap episode 230 of fully equipped as always if you want more gear goodness for check us out on our social channels we are at fully equi golf on our new YouTube page and on the Instagram and we are at fully equipped on Twitter because I will never call it X thanks

All for listening especially listening to us ramble about drivers for see you next week