Not unlike their drivers, Cobra has been confidently crafting some outstanding products in the fairway and hybrid lineups over the last couple release cycles. I remember back in the day with their LTD lineup, thinking it would be tough to top the idea of being able to audit the internals of a club, but as expected, they have taken steps forward to promote better and better, with a propensity for putting quality sound at the forefront of their deliverables.
What we have the opportunity to introduce to you today, is RADSPEED. Using the same radial weighting considerations that they have applied to their latest driver lineup, Cobra is strategically placing weight relative to the CG location to maximize performance between speed, control, and forgiveness. It sounds a bit loaded from the outside looking in, but golfers can actually see the weight configurations on each head in the lineup to understand where that weight is being featured, and with a bit of understanding on how weight placement works, recognize what Cobra is seeking to achieve.
It is probably worth considering how they got to this point, and much of that comes with better technology in weight saving techniques, like their thinply carbon crown, which is saving about six grams of weight from the crown. They also hollowed out their two rails that flow across the club head from face to back, once again finding ways to isolate that weight into better and more efficient locations. They have also found a significant improvement on the flexion properties by doing this, which means faster ball speeds for golfers.
While the rails have gotten hollow in the new design, the benefits remain the same. With a headshape like a fairway, we all as golfers need some quality turf interaction to promote a solid strike, and that has not changed for this release. Better flow through the grass means maximum ball speed, and that is something that I have loved about the Cobra fairway offerings over the last couple years. I personally have played the tour style head with complete confidence that I can get the head through the ball without battling the ground, and that is critical with a club at that distance.
One of the biggest stories out of Cobra recently was their infinity face, which has carried over into some of their fairway woods. For those seeking the benefits of the standard head or their draw head, the infinity face will be present to not only support serious consistency across the face, but act as a pretty fantastic safeguard against the dreaded pop fly skymark swing. When designing the latest version of the Big Tour and Tour heads, Cobra went with their regular CNC milling instead of the infinity CNC at the preference of their Tour staff.
The colors for RADSPEED are nothing short of spectacular. Transitioning slightly from their previous yellow, the new offering features “Turbo Yellow” and white accents off a matte black face for the regular and draw versions, with a slight tweak in the tour offerings having a gloss finish on the crown. For the regular RADSPEED head, Cobra has also introduced their ever (Puma) popular “Peacoat Blue” with white, red, and black accents that immediately caught my eye. I love that they took an incredibly popular blue and made it reality, making golfers almost feel like they have a limited edition driver in their bag after the last few US Open limited runs.
For RADSPEED Hybrids, Cobra has maintained that radial weighting perspective with one adjustable weight in the back, and two weights at the front of the head near the toe and the heel. Looking at the internals of the head, you can see just how much of the weight is present on the extremes to promote lower CG and spin, which in turn leads to faster ball speed (read: distance). They have a high strength forged face insert that has variable face thickness to maintain consistency, and are carrying over the hollow split rails to save on weight and isolate it to other regions. While Radial weighting is the big story for 2021, I still firmly believe that the rail system is critical for success in a head of this design. Promoting quality turf Cinteraction in a hybrid is paramount, and if history is any indicator of the performance aspects of Cobra’s design, this offering will not fall short on allowing golfers to swing with confidence from a variety of different lies.
As you would expect, they are offering their one length option in blue/white/red accents as we have seen in the past for that style of product (in 19, 21, and 24 degrees), and continuing their turbo yellow and white accents on the standard model (17, 19, 21, and 24 degrees). From a top line perspective, only subtle differences are openly present, which reflects the colorway for each head.
From driver to hybrid, Cobra has taken weight placement to the next level, focusing on what each individual golfer needs with a product that suits their game. With colorways that look absolutely spectacular in pictures, it is hard to fathom golfers will not fall in love with the presentation as soon as the product is in hand. For more information on the RADSPEED product offerings, visit www.CobraGolf.com.
The Details:
Available: January 29, 2021
Price: Fairway woods – $279, Hybrids – $229
I have thought about getting a 3 wood at 5 wood length but not sure on this particular club it would make that much difference with my strike pattern. How many head covers you going to have?
D, 3, 5, 7, 4H, Putter? I need the length. I play old man golf LOL!
I am looking at D, 3, 5 tour, and maybe the 7 wood as an experimental club. I would have never considered the purchase as well as I hit my present hybrids. I may dump the 3 wood for a standard 5 wood and get a OL 4H.
How many FW’s do you think you will want?
That part of the bag is so much personal preference and their are so many different ways to go it makes it hard to decide.
Hackers really are going to be #TeamHeadcover! I’ll be contributing at least 5, possibly 6…
Pondering the MC bag to slide in the 5 wood, and shift the rest to 4 hybrid, 5 iron. My old 5 wood, small head, forget the brand, was my favorite club back in the day
Did @JB put him on the wrong team? ?
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How many FW’s do you think you will want?
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probably 2, 3wd and 7wd. I like the height I get with woods over hybrids.
I go MB if you go MB. All the way to 3 iron… ?
Morgan Cup decision made.
RADSPEED 3w HZRDUS RDX Blue Stiff
RADSPEED 2H UST Recoil 480 ESX (F4) cut to 40.5"
Rad Speed XB motore f1 peacoat
Rad Speed 3,7 wood with motore f3 peacoat
King forged tec utility with catalyst
5-gw king MIM tour copper with black $taper
54 snakebite classic grind
58 snakebite versatile grind
That’s a sharp bag.
I don’t carry a fairway wood. My 3 wood replacement is a Mizuno 2H turned down to 15 degrees and it’s my go to club for a huge amount of shots.
I’ve thought about a 3 wood then Tour 5 wood setup but I’m not sure I would ever need both clubs. Is The 3 wood forgiveness much different than the 5 Tour?
Does 3 wood, 19 conventional hybrid (replacing Apex19) then a 7 wood or 21 degree OL hybrid make sense? Having trouble getting my hands on the demos to try. I play hybrids very well and the 7 wood would basically be an experimental club.
Open for Suggestions!
The rails on the 3w make it super easy to hit for me. I was surprised how easy the 3w was to hit. You have to try it out.
I had a different experience in the fitting today. The rails seemed to bounce the club and was catching a lot of items low. It was to the point where we started trying to get the Big Tour dialed in. Tried several shafts and it just wasn’t clicking today.
It might have been predominantly user error as we got the fairways after the irons and driver and to be fair, I was wiped. But when I snuck my gamer 3 wood in, an older Taylormade Burner, I was able to see gains.
The local rep is dropping off a utility iron for me to test those tomorrow or Friday. All the virtual bags I built for the MC was fairway wood heavy. Now, I am not so sure.
Just one day. Comfort in the longer woods off the deck is a very important thing. Did you see potential with some of the shots?
Did you hit off a mat? I have seen some of that bounce effect with fairway woods off of a mat but then it work great off of grass. The rails are suppose to help it glide through the grass and I could see that maybe it wouldn’t do that well on a mat. Just an idea…
Very true. It could have been an off day. I’m heading back today or tomorrow when I’ll be fresh. There was one big tour shot that was quite memorable….
Appreciate the thought as it was off the mat. There is a range by me that has a strong fitting studio and grass tees. I’ll probably ask to hit whichever one my fitter and I land on after my revisit, just to confirm comfort level.
Plan is to find a grass range and demo one of those two setups to evaluate turf interaction.
If not, I may go Big Tour and make my partners cross there fingers I center it during the Cup!
What length would you go? I would think maybe 42.5?
Hitting the railed FWs off the grass is so much different than hitting them off the tee IMO. Good luck, hope you find something that works!
Using the same shaft in the Big Tour and the FW I found that the Big Tour really popped off the face but was a low bullet. The fairway was tall majestic draws. I took both off the tee as well and was seeing the same thing. I could play the big tour but I think the FW launching higher would be a better suited club for more situations. My fitting was done outdoors on a range so the mat interaction was never a concern for me.
I tried to make everything match my F9 3 wood, which I was a little more experienced with than my 5w. That’s 43.5". However, in figuring out all the measurements and getting a bunch of new shafts trimmed, everything ended up at 43.25", splitting the difference between them. I think that’s now the stock 3w length anyways.
I also weighed the heads and swapped weights so all of my heads are the same weight (again matching 3w). All shafts tip trimmed for 3w as well. So everything is a 3 wood. The nice thing is that despite the 3w/5w/5 tour heads being different sizes, the hosels/faces are such that they all play the same length for the same shaft length. So I can swap shafts between heads and they still play the same. Between different shaft launch profiles and loft adjustments, that’s how I fine tune performance.
Yeah, blame me – Nice one.
I think that will be an awesome combo. The size of the Tour head makes it something more akin to a club like the Super Hybrid, at least to me.
I am going with both 3 wood and 7 wood at 42.75”(5 wood length) for my Morgan Cup bag!
It would be 42.5 without Cobra connect
I was surprised at the size of the RadSpeed – bigger than I thought it would be. But hits easy Off the deck. looks like this will work out well.
Seeing the 7 wood at address it is not off-putting to me. One might have to find it’s way to my bag if I fall in love with the 5 wood and have a tempestuous relationship with the hybrid.
Thanks for sharing the photos.
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Really hoping this 3W is one I can get along with. Always been driver, 5W and had a pretty big gap up top.
Me too, buts it’s one of the clubs I’m most nervous about getting along with. Of course given this is golf, by saying that I’ve now deemed it my favorite when all is said and done.
That is a MONSTER of a 3w
Come on out. I always feel a bit sheepish posting about distances, given the advantage of 4000 feet elevation. However, at a little over 40 degrees, compared to a nice 80 degree day at sea level, a chunk of that distance goes away. Even at sea level in equal temperatures, a 280 yard tee ball here is well over 250 at sea level. I will run with joy to the bank with a 250 yard 3 wood in my hands.
IIRC, you have played Cobra FT Black, Cobra King mb/cb combos, and Forged Tec hollow bodies. You have played F8, F9, and SpeedZone. This year, you can play Tour MIMs and RadSpeed. I am totally confident that it will be by far the best bag of Cobra equipment you will have played and the gap is fairly large, imo. I actually thought that for the first time in a few years, I would have almost no Cobra equipment in my bag and now, here I am, looking like I could be a Cobra staffer, LOL. It is really good stuff.
Main criterias for my new 3 wood,
During my self test it was clear that the Motore F1 wasn’t the best for me (F3 in Mizuno was working way better). Last years Hzrdus Smoke Yellow in the Big Tour felt way better. Anyway started off with the Motore F1 to get some base line numbers, took a few swings in order to adapt to shaft and the perceived weighting but saw a good base to work of. Fitter got me the Hzrdus Rdx Blue and boom the consistency was there immediately, was able to swing more freely and with less effort generating higher club speeds (104 F1 vs 106 Rdx Blue)
Only concern here was that we were seeing perhaps abit too low spin, 2700-2800ish, still okey since my AoA was around +2-3. Fitter changed loft to 15,5 and flight was a bit higher but still boring and with ‘better’ spin around 3100ish. Best of all it wasn’t going left on me, usually closing the head puts me off since I tend battle a hook. But even with the increase in loft the head didn’t look closed. Tested the regular Radspeed as well but with it’s more drawy setup I was sending the ball left, consistent results but to the left.
To summarize, the Mizuno was clearly the better option with off shelf specs but was spinning way too much. Indoor the distance was very close but outdoors today with a quite strong right to left, headwind the Mizuno was suffering, stalling in the wind, being 20 yards shorter than Cobra. Great to catch greens but not aligned with my 3w criterias.
With some great help and knowledge from the Cobra rep the Big Tour was fine tuned to perfection. Final order was Big Tour @ 15,5 with Hzrdus Smoke RDX Blue 70g 6.5, all at very good price
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No shadow to fall over Cobra though since it was ordered by as 60g from the retailer
Really excited to get my FW’s into play. The 7W particularly should be a better club for me than a hybrid on long par 3’s.
Couldn’t agree more. I think the 7w is going to be a lot of fun to use, may take a bit of getting used to but after hearing everyone talking about them last year I couldn’t resist.
I don’t carry a 3w now and am really excited to have the RadSpeed 3w in my bag!
Samsies, I have never carried a 3w, always driver 5w, when I tried the 3w though I found it real easy to hit. Hopefully carries over to the course.