As you all know I was at the LA golf show this last weekend and spent nearly all my time with the manufacturers rather than the booths. I was on a mission to find the newest products and get an idea of how the golf industry was progressing in the realm of technology. I was intrigued to find that most of the latest drivers being introduced focused on one of two aspects in design, aerodynamics or weighting.
At the forefront of the focus for aerodynamics were the Taylormade Burner “Superfast” and the Nike SQ “Machspeed”. In an upcoming post I will talk about the Nike but for now, the TM Superfast.
My motto has been, “To know the burner is to love the burner”. For the money, it was very hard to go wrong in the TM
TM Burner Superfast with Aero-Channels
line of drivers but particularly the Burner series. Designed for the game improvement category, the burners has been widely successful for Taylor Made, I don’t need to see any reports or metrics, I see them all over the course including in my own bag. When I heard of the new driver being introduced I was eager to see the latest developments from the TM engineering staff. I thought maybe composite head construction or face inserts like the Cobra’s, maybe a modified “pear” head like the Cleveland’s something to really make a difference in the driver design. I was actually a bit disappointed in the results. The head has been designed with some aerodynamic “channels” in the sole, the face made larger by about 14% and overall the golf club is lighter. Boasting a full 19 grams of difference in comparison from this year to last.
The design of the sole of the driver was meant to increase the airflow on the downswing and channel the air to assist the alignment of the face at impact. In other words, to help bring the toe around quicker. I assume that TM has done much research on this and it does help, I would be interested to get some data on this. This is not where I was disappointed in the driver though.
What I was most shocked to find out was about the lightening of the driver overall. 19 grams is indeed pretty stout number but how much of this is effective? Let me slip into engineering mode for a brief second, something to consider a gram is NOT a measurement of weight. It gets confused a lot but a true physics definition is that a gram is an SI measurement of mass in description of volume. A “weight” measurement is that of a force that is derived as a result of a mass and an acceleration, normally in terms of gravity. Since gravity is mostly consistent some consider mass and weight identical, a very picky determination but alas one that is present. Apologies, back to the post. So, 19 grams lighter overall how did they do it?
I asked about the breakdown of this reduction of mass in the club and this was the shocking part:
- 4 grams in the head
- 1 gram in the shaft
- 14 grams in the grip
Wait a second, 14 grams in the grip?! That is nearly 74% of the mass reduction in the grip, if you were to change the grip you would lose this advantage. To give you all an idea of the reduction of mass in the head, a single US dollar is also one gram. So, four dollars has the same mass as the reduction of the head.
Overall on the side of technology, I was not so impressed with the latest from Taylormade. I hit the driver and it felt great, just like my ‘07 but with a little more solid feel to it. For my money, I would invest about $40 more and go for the TM R9 460 which to me is quite the world of difference.
Do you have one yet? What are your thoughts on them?
