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bsbmike5's Driver War

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bsbmike5

bsbmike5

2024 Victory Cup with Mizuno #TeamVosh
Albatross 2024 Club
Joined
Oct 7, 2011
Messages
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Location
Warwick, Rhode Island
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It's time for a good ol' fashioned driver war!
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For those who have followed along with my Road to the Victory Cup thread, you know I've struggled mightily with the driver this year to date. But we have to change that mindset and get something in that slot that I feel like I can rip everywhere. I've played with too many good players who use driver as a weapon and I know it can lead to me scoring better and breaking through.

I've been working with my teacher on some fundamental changes which have helped mightily, and I've decided to pair that with an equipment update as well. I've tried a ton of drivers in various retailers, and I am down to 2 options that I have ordered and are ready to go through full testing to decide a winner. I considered everything for this test, but these 2 were the ones I felt best with.

The Challengers

Callaway Paradym AI Smoke Triple Diamond vs. Mizuno ST-G 440

Why These Two
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I love the look of both of these drivers. Most importantly to me they both look tall in the face when I address them which plays into my miss (low impact). These 2 drivers were the ones I have gotten along best with in fitting bays, and felt like I could get the forgiveness I need while also satisfying launch numbers. I'm a higher spin player and these allowed me to dial down that spin off the face. I've too often chased a great launch monitor driver that I have bad luck with on course. In my original testing before ordering I focused more on accuracy, with numbers being important, but not the most important thing.

The Testing
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There will be 3 aspects to this testing to decide what I game on my 2024 Road to the Victory Cup.

1. Range Testing - I will start by hitting these both at the range without any launch monitor. I can use my feel and what I see to start to dial in these drivers to their best set up (check out my first hits with the ST-G in my signature). Once I feel like these are in a comfortable spot for me we will move on to step 2...

2. Launch Monitor Numbers - After I feel like these are both in a good set up for me to find lots of fairways and have confidence, we will see how the raw data shakes out. If it comes down to one being way faster or way longer, that might help it's case. Especially after I am figuring out accuracy first at the range.

3. On Course - Finally I will take these both to the course and put them through their paces. Overall, this is the most important step. When there are trees and hazards in the way and tight looking tee shots, things change! So we will see based on steps 1 and 2 which one shows up best here.


I hope you're as excited as I am to see which driver reigns supreme!
 
Interested to see what you end up with.
 
ttucliffhanger said:
Interested to see what you end up with.
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Me too! Going to be a fun test! I have an event I'm playing in on June 26th so we'll have a winner by then
 
This will be a fun one to follow along! Got a thorough testing plan in place.
 
Looking forward to this battle!
 
This will be a fun follow.
 
Looking foward to following your journey to find the new driver!
 
Got a notification the TD is arriving today. That means tomorrow will be range day to dial that one in!

I’ll post some side by side pics and then tomorrow will get the Callaway dialed in so we can get ready for stage 2!
 
Great to follow as I have an Mizuno STx from a couple of years ago but also really like the Callaway Paradym 3 and 5 woods
 
It's going to be fun seeing where you end up.
I'm in.
 
Looking forward to the follow. What shaft will you play?
 
Parrot said:
Looking forward to the follow. What shaft will you play?
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Went with 2 different shafts in each one. Just what worked best when hitting them.

Mizuno has HZRDUS Green Smoke RDX 60X
Callaway has Denali Black 60X

I do have a Ventus Blue 6X with a callaway adapter that could possibly come into play. But I felt really good when trying everything with the Denali
 
bsbmike5 said:
Went with 2 different shafts in each one. Just what worked best when hitting them.

Mizuno has HZRDUS Green Smoke RDX 60X
Callaway has Denali Black 60X

I do have a Ventus Blue 6X with a callaway adapter that could possibly come into play. But I felt really good when trying everything with the Denali
Click to expand...
I’ll also add I got my Mizuno shaft from my numbers in the optimizer…it recommended the 70 gram but felt the 60 better when trying them
 
Weather is not looking promising for tomorrow. If I have a window I’ll be out there hitting some balls, but might be delayed till Friday. Pics coming later tonight!
 
Some side by side pics of the competitors! Wanted to highlight the 0.75” difference between the Mizuno (45”) and Callaway (45.75”). Not sure if or how that will make a difference in either accuracy or distance but we’ll find out!

IMG_5380.jpegIMG_5381.jpegIMG_5383.jpegIMG_5384.jpeg
 
Looks like there might be a window this afternoon between rain storms to get out and dial in the Triple Diamond...As long as the range opens up I'll be there! Otherwise, tomorrow will 100% be the day
 
To give a little background on the range where I practice, and how I try and measure accuracy there. There are two sets of yardage signs on the range, one down the left and one down the right. Using google earth I figured out the width is 40 yards wide. Most holes I will play will either have a 40 yard wide fairway, or 40 yards will leave my wide misses just getting into the rough. A lot of holes will be above 30 yards in width where my driver lands, and if not I'm probably going to be hesitant for other reasons not to hit driver.

1717676852726.png

So when I go here, I always get one of the 4-6 bays where I can center my target between these signs. If I can consistently land my driver between these sings, I'm going to have a lot of success on course. I'll have outliers and misses, but if I can hit it between these at a high rate, that gives me a whole lot of confidence.

1717677015942.png
 
I wanted to steal some of what I wrote in the ST-G driver thread about how I dialed in the settings with the ST-G on my first time at the range with it...that way all of the information can be in this thread. Here is how I dialed in my settings Tuesday:

Reminder: This is part of phase 1 where I am using my feel and eye to find the right launch window, and find settings that allow me to find accuracy as well.

I figured, based on how I typically launch drivers, I would need the two sliding weights all the way up right behind the face to lower spin as much as possible, so that's where I started them. I proceeded to have every ball fall out of the sky. Was hitting it solid, but balls were dropping due to lack of enough spin. Back the weights went....

I moved them about halfway-1/4 of the back and still found it wasn't carrying far enough...interesting and promising that I could help my forgiveness and still get some ideal launch/spin.

I settled with both of the weights 2 dots away from the back (see pic a few posts prior), and this thing felt really good. The ball came off hot, and my misses were definitely more manageable than my Darkspeed LS had been this season.

I really love the 440cc headshape. It sits on the ground so nicely, and the carbon fiber on top looks tremendous. I know I get caught up and forget how long some of these drivers can be, but 45" was giving me consistent contact and some deep bombs.
 
Break in the weather and the range is open! Heading out shortly to go dial in the Callaway. Will report back
 
I got out and was able to dial in the Callaway Paradym AI Smoke TD today, and similar to my feelings after walking away from dialing in the ST-G, I was surprised.

I started in a similar fashion to what happened with the ST-G. I had it in N/S (9 degrees) and had the heavy weight up front and the light weight in the back. The speed was there instantly, it felt hot off the face, and the flight did not fall out of the sky like the Mizuno did during it's first hits, but it did seem lower than what I wanted. Or maybe even, lower than what was optimal. It had some decent-ish looking carry, but I figured I could find more.

This AI Smoke TD driver already sits a little open to my eye in STD loft, so I wanted to avoid lowering it if possible. I decided to flip the weights to move the heavy one back. I didn't think this would be super successful, but just like moving the weights back in the ST-G, this made the driver really start the shine. The height changed significantly. I didn't have it on a launch monitor but I would guess a good 20-30 feet at least.

The best way I can describe the flight is powerful. Like once the ball hit the apex of the flight it would almost carry through it instead of increasing it's landing angle and falling. I hope this makes sense to readers, but it just felt like it kept going instead of dying out. Kind of like how a ball with topspin will hit and then accelerate forward. It looked like it kept accelerating through it's flight.

I did briefly try and take some loft off, but didn't love the way it set up or came off the face, even with the -1/D setting.

So the final setting for the Callaway was heavy weight back, light weight forward, N/S. Not at all what I expected, but this thing had some serious zip off the face. And I felt like the AI Smart Face had some credibility to it. I had some heel strikes that carried much further than I anticipated. To the point where I could feel it be a heel shot, but when I saw the landing spot, I'd look down at the face to see if I was wrong.

This is going to be an epic battle!!!!

I did hit 5 with each at the end. Going back and forth I could immediately feel the length difference. That will take some adjusting when going back and forth. This is going to come down to how good are the "bad" ones. They both have gorgeous feeling and flight on the centered ones. But which one allows me to maximize distance and accuracy especially on off center hits? We'll answer this over the next week or 2.

I will be back at the range tomorrow to try them both back to back for an extended amount of time. I will bring my BLP with me in case I want to capture numbers. But this may be just another feel test. Regardless, I plan on capturing numbers in a controlled setting with the same ball as to not have any bias. That will happen early next week.

Thanks for following and the battle continues!
 
fun follow!
 
Interesting follow. Shafts are very important in this kind of stuff. I would be interested to see how you did with similar length shafts in each club. Sometimes I hit a 45” driver consistently farther than a 45.5 or 46” driver.
 
Chef23 said:
Interesting follow. Shafts are very important in this kind of stuff. I would be interested to see how you did with similar length shafts in each club. Sometimes I hit a 45” driver consistently farther than a 45.5 or 46” driver.
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It might come into play at one point or another! Going to see how they both act at "std" length for both of them and see what sticks out
 
Back to the range today...both of these drivers feel dialed in the right settings for me. I don't anticipate any more tinkering unless something egregious sticks out in the numbers.

Today will be working with both of these and seeing what difference I see in flight and with feel. I hit them back to back briefly at the end of yesterday, but I want to dedicate more time to it today to provide you all with some commentary.

Monday I will be capturing numbers! I did bring my BLP with me today, but not sure if I'll fire it up. I'm in a controlled setting on Monday with my gamer ball and would rather wait than jump to conclusions with a slew of different balls.
 
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