By Madeline MacClurg
Recently, a few tour players have been experimenting with longer driver shafts in an attempt to increase their swing speed and distance off the tee. Dylan Frittelli, in the top five after 54 holes at the 2020 Masters, credited a longer driver for boosting his speed over the past couple of months.

Of course, Bryson DeChambeau declared his desire to put a 48-inch driver in play, and Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott made the switch for Augusta National.

Everyone wants to hit it farther, so whenever we see equipment trends like this, it always begs the question, should amateurs try it, too?

We asked Jordan Dempsey, one of Golf Digest’s Best Young Teachers, and Golf Digest equipment experts Mike Johnson and Mike Stachura, whether it’s a switch golfers should consider.

“We’ve done several “longer” driver tests over the years. The results consistently showed the longest distances come from the longest shafts, but they don’t come that often.” Stachura says.

Lengthening your driver shaft might sound like a quick and easy way to add 20 yards to your tee ball, but it’s generally a bad idea for average golfers.

“Shaft length is personal, very much swing-type related.” Stachura explains, “Look at the number of LPGA players whose more languid, flowing swing tempos can take advantage of longer shafts and produce more clubhead speed.” However, most golfers are quick from the top, so using a longer shaft would actually make it more difficult to find the centre of the clubface and have consistent contact.

That’s why Stachura suggests a club fitting to find your optimal specs.

“A good fitter will see at what length you’re hitting the centre of the face most often. That’s where smash factor is very important (the ratio of ball speed to clubhead speed).” Stachura says.

JD Cuban

Sometimes, a slower swing speed produces more distance because you’re impacting the area around the centre of the face more often and taking advantage of the most powerful part of the driver. “In other words, the clubhead speed you might be able to gain from a longer shaft only matters if you’re generating the maximum possible ball speed.” he explains.

Dempsey agrees that a longer shaft is not the way to go for most golfers because it’s harder to control, and average golfers will struggle to make consistent contact.

Instead of trying to find a quick fix, he says to focus on your contact because most players don’t utilise the centre of the clubface and miss out on distance because of it.

“Better contact will not only help you hit it further off the tee, but you’ll also have more accuracy and control.” Dempsey explains.

The post Should average golfers consider a longer driver shaft? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Try my keys to launch your best tee shots this season

By Rory McIlroy
Editor’s Note: In the June print edition of Golf Digest Middle East we celebrate the 70th anniversary of our mother publication. As part of the diamond birthday issue, Golf Digest has published one timeless tip from a star in each of the seven decades of the title’s existence. Here we share the 2010s instruction feature from current world No.1 Rory McIlroy.

It’s important to have swing thoughts on the tee. They help take your mind off all the bad things that can happen and put your focus on what you need to do to put one in the fairway— way down the fairway. But just as important as mechanical thoughts is making sure you’re swinging with good tempo, particularly with the driver. You could have amazing technique, but if you can’t put it all together with the right rhythm, you won’t hit your best tee shots. So let’s start there as we try to make this your driving consistently good.

You might notice I’m wearing in-ear headphones. I like to listen to music when I practise to help improve my rhythm. I tend to get a little quick in the transition from backswing to downswing, especially as it gets closer to Sunday in tournaments and I’ve got a chance to win. Listening to music helps throttle back my tempo. I’m not talking about upbeat hip-hop or some Celtic metal band. I need something a little more mellow when I hit balls: acoustic stuff like Coldplay’s older music, Ed Sheeran, Bon Iver.

My first tip for you is to find the rhythm that produces good, solid strikes over and over. It’s probably less violent than the swing you’d instinctively make. Keep rehearsing with the driver until you feel smooth from start to finish. Then, go back to the swing thoughts that click for you. I’ll share some of the things I’m working on with my driver. If you want this to be your Year of the Driver, I think they can help. —With Ron Kaspriske

[divider] [/divider]

CREATE YOUR FOUNDATION
Stability is important in any athletic movement, but it’s absolutely critical when you want to swing your driver with more power. There’s never a point in my swing when I feel like I’m losing control of my body. Even when I’m swinging my fastest and really firing into the ball, I know I’m going to stay in balance. Watch my swing, and you’ll see how quiet I am at the finish.

It starts with getting into a comfortable, tension-free position at address (right), but one where you feel free to swing the club with some speed. That delicate blend of being relaxed and ready to move at high speeds is something to focus on when practising. The stance is key. If there’s too much weight out on your toes or back on your heels, you’re starting from an unstable position. Feel that your legs are solidly under you.

“My swing should stop when my left shoulder is tucked under my chin.”

[divider] [/divider]

MAINTAIN YOUR HEIGHT
One of the big things I’ve been working on since the end of last year is keeping my head from dipping as I take the club back. A lot of amateurs have the opposite problem: They straighten up. Either fault moves the club off the ideal plane to hit your tee shot long and straight. Keep your head height and you won’t have to make any split-second adjustments on the downswing to get the club back on plane.

I pay attention to one other thing here: If unchecked, my backswing can get long, making it difficult to time squaring the clubface at impact. Some golfers fight their swings getting too short, but either way, it’s important to maintain a consistent top-of-backswing position. I know my swing should stop when my left shoulder is tucked under my chin (left). Once I hit that position, I’m ready to start my move into the ball.

2017 Driving Distance: 317.2

[divider] [/divider]

ACTIVATE YOUR LOWER BODY
I use the ground to generate power more than a lot of guys do. That comes from what my legs are doing when I transition into the downswing. As I’m completing the backswing—and this is something my coach, Michael Bannon, taught me when I was a kid—I really brace against the inside of my right leg. I’m pushing into the ground, and I can feel my right leg resisting my upper-body turn. That stores a lot of power for the second half of the swing.

As I start the club down, I lead with my legs (left). I’m trying to get my left knee out of the way so the club can whip through the hitting area. You don’t want the left knee moving out toward the ball. You also don’t want to make a big slide to your front side. I think of it as a small shift toward the target, then the left knee starts turning left. From there, you can let everything go and sling the club through impact.

2015 Clubhead Speed: 121.6

“Is your mind filled with technical thoughts? Go back to the simplest goal: solid contact.”

[divider] [/divider]

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STRIKE
When you think about it, do things like tempo, backswing length or leg action matter if you aren’t making solid contact? Hitting it flush is my focus whenever I face a tough shot or a key moment in a round. If you can take the clutter out of your head and think about catching it in the middle of the face, you’d be surprised how many of the moves you’ve worked on just happen.

The simple things are often the most important when it comes to great ball-striking. The correct ball position (just inside the front heel for the driver) and good posture (feeling balanced and ready to be athletic) can do wonders. Point is, when you’re nervous or feeling like your brain is overloaded, go back to the most basic goal: hitting the ball solid. I think you’ll agree, that simple thought keeps you in the moment and helps you hit your best drive of the day, week or year.

2013 Ball Speed: 179.9

The post Rory McIlroy shows you how to launch your driver appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Mike Stachura
The Mizuno GT180 lineup of woods debuted Feb. 1 with an obvious emphasis on precision adjustability over the ST180 lineup. But the goal with the GT180 wasn’t just more options. It was also a fresh commitment to speed.

Hence, the new materials, new construction and even increased forgiveness for a driver and fairway wood lineup focused on better players.

The GT180 driver is the headliner, and like the ST180, its faster ball speeds start with the use of the high-strength titanium alloy SP-700 in the GT180’s face. SP-700 titanium in drivers has been around for some time, especially in high-end drivers. It was used in TaylorMade’s 300 series drivers back in 2000, and also in Titleist’s C16 limited edition C16 driver two years ago. It’s been eschewed in most mainstream drivers as an unnecessary cost because traditional 6-4 titanium can be manufactured to reach the spring-like effect limit set by the rules.  

But David Llewellyn, Mizuno’s director of research and development for golf, says the alloy changes design possibilities. With advanced forging and heat treating techniques, Mizuno’s team sees SP-700 creating more opportunities for off-center hit performance, Llewellyn said.

“It’s a property of that material called elongation, but what it’s allowing us to do is get the really complex geometries in the forged face,” he said, noting that the company’s multiple thickness face has greater varieties of thicknesses than they could get with the traditional 6-4 titanium used in the past. “You can get super-plastic behavior, which means you can deform it a lot more. It actually has a slightly higher repulsive force as it returns back to normal.”

That face material provides more heat to a driver that at its base is also about fitting specific ball flights to individual players. The GT180 driver is most notable for its adjustability, the most of any driver in company history. Two 6.5-gram weights move freely in center, heel and/or toe tracks to provide essentially an infinite number of combinations for lower spin, higher launch, draw- or fade-biased flights. But because the weight mechanism and tracks have been refashioned from the company’s previous adjustable driver, the JPX-900, it uses up less total weight that allows the head to reach 460 cubic centimeters for higher stability on off-center hits.

“We were able to make that head larger and more forgiving than it would be otherwise,” Llewellyn said, referencing the company’s past better-player focused drivers which checked in under the USGA size limit.

Only available in right-handed models, the GT180 driver makes use of Mizuno’s four-degree adjustable hosel that allows one head to produce lofts ranging from 7.5 to 11.5 degrees. A sliding chip on the sole allows the face to set up in a player’s preferred position (square, open, closed), regardless of which loft he fits into.

The company will offer a selection of 12 shaft options as part of the standard fitting setup, including Mitsubishi’s Kuro Kage as the stock selection, but the Mitsubishi Tensei (Blue, White, Orange) and Bassara shafts, as well. The standard length is 45 inches.  

The GT180 line also includes two fairway wood options, both in a more compact size than the ST180 fairway wood lineup. Like the ST180, each features a high-strength maraging steel face insert to boost ball speeds, enhanced by a wave structure on the sole to provide additional influence on the face flex. That structure also pushes the center of gravity lower and slightly forward for less spin.

Like the driver, it offers an adjustable sole weight. The 17-gram weight moves freely on a center track to adjust spin and launch preferences. As well, the four-degree adjustable hosel gives players a wide range of lofts in the two models. The 14-degree “tour spoon” adjusts from 12-16 degrees, while the 15-degree works for 13-17 degrees.

The post Mizuno GT180 driver, fairway wood mix hot face material with movable weight appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

While in many cases metalwood technology has trickled down to influence iron design (think thinner, hotter faces), the new PXG metalwoods collection borrows a key technology from its successful family of 0311 irons: Each of the new metalwoods incorporates the thermoplastic elastomer compound that coats the internal structure and supports the ultra-thin face of its hollow irons. Weighing 14 grams on the 0811X and eight grams on the 0811LX (a lighter head weight model designed for slower swing speeds), the TPE compound fills the base of each metalwood design and works with a carbon fiber crown to save weight, lower the center of gravity and reduce spin.

“As people have tried to push the levels of performance and really thin out all the geometry, especially extremely thin geometry, it creates a lot of harsh vibration,” said Brad Schweigert, chief product officer at PXG. “Some people have gone in and tried to create rib structures to try to mitigate that. We found a more efficient way and a better way by using TPE. We can save all that mass from putting it in extra structures, make the thicknesses as thin as possible and really put the mass where we want it, and create an even softer more unique sound than we could ever do with any internal structure.”

While the TPE pad uses a honeycomb structure to save even more mass, the even larger savings comes from the carbon-fiber crown design. On the new 0811X and 0811LX drivers, the crown saves almost 14 grams compared to the all-titanium crown on the original 0811, Schweigert said. It saves a similar amount of mass on the new 0341X fairway woods and approximately 10 grams on the new 0317X hybrids.

On the 0811X and 0811LX, the major intent was to reduce spin compared to PXG’s original drivers. Schweigert explained that the use of carbon fiber in the crown and TPE internally allowed the design to yield a center of gravity that’s some 3.75 millimeters lower than on the 0811 driver and below the club’s neutral axis (an imaginary line perpendicular to the loft and through the geometric center of the face) while maintaining a high moment of inertia measurement for stability on off-center hits. Schweigert said that stability is possible because the CG wasn’t moved closer to the face, something some other drivers have done to reduce spin.

Both drivers also utilize a revised variable thickness face design. The new face insert weighs less to help improve CG location and maintain MOI.

The new 0811X and 0811LX drivers reduce the number of trademark PXG weight ports from 16 to 10, but the combination of heavy (tungsten) and lightweight (titanium) screw weights still provide the ability to customize ball flight to mitigate slices and hooks or further reduce spin.

The new fairway woods (0341X) and hybrids (0317X) also are designed for lower spin compared to the current models through a lowered center of gravity.

“On the fairway woods, one of the things we wanted was to drive the CG down and forward,” Schweigert said. “Because you’re hitting the ball off the ground, we’ve got to get that CG more in line with the neutral axis to try to get the most energy out of it, generate a little higher ball speed and significantly lower spin.”

Schweigert noted that the 0341X fairway woods feature more mass in the heel and toe and as a result have a higher MOI compared to the original 0341. The mass is moved slightly forward in the 0317X hybrids, as well, to help lower the CG for reduced spin. The fairway woods feature a high-strength maraging HT1770M face insert to improve face flexibility. Both the fairway woods and hybrids also utilize PXG’s adjustable screw weights. There are nine ports on the fairway woods and seven on the hybrids.

According to PXG founder Bob Parsons, the new metalwoods reflect a fairly direct design mandate.

“There were four characteristics that we were concerned with in designing these clubs,” he said. “One is distance, but there are three more that are very important: dispersion, sound and feel.”

The latter two seem to especially resonate with the man in charge. “With most titanium drivers for most golfers, each drive you lose a teensy-tiny bit of hearing,” Parsons said, only slightly tongue-in-cheek. “I believe with this new process that we use we’re going to mitigate that effect.”

As for feel, Parsons was just as succinct with his directive.

“I’m 66 years old now,” he said, “and one thing I’ve learned in my life is that I tend to enjoy things that feel good.”

The 0811X and 0811LX drivers ($850) are offered in 9-, 10.5- and 12-degree lofts, each with an 8-way adjustable hosel (plus/minus 1.5 degrees).

The 0341X fairway woods ($650), which also feature the adjustable hosel, is available in 15-, 18- and 21-degree lofts, as well as a new 13-degree 2-wood that features a slightly taller face for improved ballspeed.

The 0317X hybrids ($550), also with the adjustable hosel, are available in 17-, 19-, 22-, 25- and 28-degree lofts. – By Mike Stachura

The post New PXG metalwoods—surprise—do something completely different and—no surprise—will cost you more appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The three models are the GBB Epic, GBB Epic Star and GBB Epic Sub Zero. From photos, it is difficult to see significant differences in the Epic and Epic Star as both feature “Jailbreak Technology.”

Callaway has patents that would indicate that these are two bars that run from the sole to the crown behind the face. Part of the sole also appears to be made from carbon composite and there is a weight track in the rear of the head to allow for ball-flight adjustments from a draw to a fade bias. Although the photo of the Epic clearly shows an adjustable hosel for loft and face angle, the photo of the Epic Star does not clearly reveal the hosel, leaving open the possibility that this version is a glued-in hosel for tour use.

The Sub Zero version has the Jailbreak Technology and also utilises carbon composite on the sole. Missing is the weight track, however there are two weight screws—one in the rear center and one forward center—that presumably can be exchanged to move the center of gravity either more rearward or forward. Previous Sub Zero models from the company have been designed to reduce spin for high swing speeds.

With Callaway staffers Emiliano Grillo, Patrick Reed and Henrik Stenson in the field at the Hero World Challenge it will be interesting to see if any of them puts the new driver in play. – Mike Johnson is an equipment editor for Golf Digest

(This story first appeared on GolfDigest.com November 28, 2016).

The post Callaway’s GBB Epic driver on USGA conforming list appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.