Is It Time To Upgrade Your Driver? Here’s Your Sign …

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Now that Memorial Day has come and gone and summer season has unofficially commenced, it’s time to ask a relatively severe query.

Are you, expensive reader, able to upgrade your driver?

I’m not speaking to those that rushed out to get fitted earlier than the snow melted. I’m not speaking to you fortunate so-and-sos who reside the place you don’t get snow and suppose winter solely because the time of 12 months when you may’t put on shorts on the golf course.

I’m speaking to you hard-core, cynical readers who scoff at every year’s new driver choices with intelligent observations similar to, “Nothing new right here, transfer alongside.”

Or “Identical advertising and marketing BS.”

Or “A brand new driver gained’t repair your crappy swing.”

And my private favourite: “GET LESSONS!”

I do know you’re not the kind to take recommendation from a mere golf weblog. However because you’ve learn this far, we humbly invite you to speculate the subsequent 5 or 6 minutes and browse the remainder. On the very least you’ll be amused.

You would possibly discover a nugget or two that you could possibly use.

Or you could possibly inform us to take an aerial intercourse at a motivated piece of pastry.

Both manner, you win.

Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Signal #1

In case your driver was a baby, may you signal it up for kindergarten?

With apologies to Invoice Engvall, “Right here’s your signal.”

finding the proper location for movable weights is a critical element of driver fitting.

OEMs will inform you straight: year-to-year driver upgrades are pretty minimal with nearly no distinction in efficiency on a dead-center strike. However even the sport’s greatest will miss the middle extra typically than they’d like and that’s the place OEMs are making efficiency strides.

This 12 months is a little different. The PING, TaylorMade and PXG 10K revolution and Callaway’s new AI-designed face have flipped the script barely. However half a decade’s value of small enhancements can add as much as one thing you’ll discover on the course. It might be tighter dispersion, it might be straighter drives or it might be mishits that aren’t fairly as punishing.

Possibly new shall be higher for you. Possibly it gained’t. However you gained’t know till you undergo the method, ideally beneath the watchful eye of a talented fitter. However when it comes to driver know-how, 5 years is sufficient time to see some tangible variations.

Due to this fact, with apologies to that different Blue-Collar comic …

In case your final driver buy predates the worldwide stay-at-home celebration we fondly check with because the COVID-19 lockdown, you would possibly simply be a brand new driver shopper.

Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Signal #2

Quiz time!

Since you got your present driver, have you ever:

A: Grown older?
B: Grown older however gained velocity via exercises?
C: Grown older however improved your swing via teaching?

For those who answered “sure” to any of those, right here’s your signal. For those who answered “no” to any of those, we’ll ship you again to Engvall and he’ll offer you that different signal.

Tiger famously advised us that Father Time is undefeated. All of us get older and, whereas a few of us age like effective wine, others age like Memorial Day potato salad left within the scorching solar. Whereas instruments similar to Tremendous Pace Golf or The Stack System (decide a aspect and seize your popcorn) can preserve Father Time’s inevitable velocity loss at bay, we’ll all want to regulate.

For those who’ve gained velocity since your final driver becoming, congratulations! You’ve earned your self a brand new driver. Take satisfaction in going from a stiff shaft to an X-stiff shaft. Go get fitted and bomb the hell out of it. For those who’ve improved your approach via teaching and tamed that hook or slice, you, too, deserve a brand new driver.

If, nevertheless, you’ve misplaced some swing velocity, don’t fret. OEMs know we sexagenarians, whereas getting older gracefully, are an enormous market phase. They’re following XXIO’s lead and making lighter-weight, easier-to-swing drivers that, for lack of a greater time period, are the finders of misplaced yards.

Due to this fact, if you happen to’ve survived the final half decade or so and might nonetheless swing a membership, you would possibly simply be a brand new driver shopper.

Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Signal #3

While you take a look at your driver stats, do you discover that you simply hit fairways on the similar fee as Storm Troopers hit Skywalkers? In that case, right here’s your signal.

OK, you’re slicing the ball like Hannibal Lecter. Your launch monitor numbers verify an out-to-in swing path with an open membership face is providing you with spin numbers within the 4,000 rpm vary. Your swing is an issue however can the fitting driver assist?

A brand new driver gained’t “repair your crappy swing” (severely, test any social media submit on any new driver. It comes up each time) however the proper new driver can take a foul shot and make it higher.

“Drivers are getting much more forgiving,” says Steve Thomson, a fitter and teacher at Golftec in Danvers, Mass. “MOI is greater, CG is additional again. Increased lofts now produce extra spin so decreasing static loft helps lots. I see much more individuals becoming right into a nine- or a 9.5-degree driver head than I did 5 or 6 years in the past.”

Whereas we all the time advocate teaching, the fitting driver can assist mitigate that slice to the purpose the place you may have enjoyable on the course.

“These are essentially the most gratifying ones,” says Thomson. “Give a giant slicer a draw-type head that may scale back that slice by 10 or 15 yards? That may change somebody’s golf sport.”

In case your slice is the envy of any hibachi steakhouse chef, you would possibly simply be a brand new driver shopper.

Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Signal #4

This one would possibly rile up the lots, however what the hell …

It doesn’t matter what your handicap is, if you happen to love golf, play commonly and have by no means been fitted for a driver, right here’s your signal.

A standard false impression is that membership becoming on the whole and driver becoming particularly is just for the completed golfer.

“With no constant swing, driver becoming is a waste of cash,” say golf’s on-line illuminati. However any teacher value his licensed PGA standing will inform you a mid- to high-handicapper will profit extra from a driver becoming than a low-handicapper.

The low handicapper is a stick to the ability to adapt to nearly something and, whereas he gained’t play his greatest with an ill-fitted driver, he’ll handle. The mid-to-high-handicapper could not have a constantly good swing however he/she doubtless has sufficient tendencies for an excellent fitter to discover a sample and provide a useful answer.

Possibly it’s a draw-biased head. Possibly it’s a shorter shaft or perhaps it’s a better MOI. The underside line is regardless of your handicap, if you happen to’ve by no means been fitted for a driver, you would possibly simply be a driver shopper.

Is It Time To Improve Your Driver? Signal #5

For those who’re nonetheless not riled up, preserve studying.

We did cite 5 years as a driver benchmark. However the backside line is that this: For those who merely need a brand new driver, right here’s your signal.

Sure, we mentioned it. As a client, you earn your individual cash and might spend it any manner you need. If shopping for a brand new driver makes you content, what anybody else thinks is simply noise.

Will it magically rework your sport? Presumably, however provided that you exchange an off-the-rack, ill-fitting driver with one thing fitted to your swing. Will it make you a greater golfer? No, but it surely may show you how to play higher golf.

And, sure, there’s a distinction.

For those who’re gaming a 2022 Callaway Rogue or an unique TaylorMade Stealth and also you need to go full PING G430 MAX 10K, go for it.

Whilst you shouldn’t fall prey to any OEM’s mass advertising and marketing machine, additionally keep away from the rising anti-OEM mass advertising and marketing machine. It’s straightforward to dismiss every year’s choices with a cynical crack or two and cry “Get Classes!” Single classes are good however are typically Band-Aids at greatest. Teaching is long-term and that’s the place actual enchancment is made. Why you play golf and what you’re in search of will in the end show you how to resolve easy methods to spend your cash.

For many of us, golf is a sport. And video games are alleged to be enjoyable.