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TaylorMade R11 Driver & Fairway Wood Review Thread

SuperStroke
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R11 7 – Wood

I took the R11 7 – wood out for the first time today to get a feel for the club. First of all, I will say how much I appreciate THP & TaylorMade for this opportunity. I have to be honest as TaylorMade has not been my choice of equipment the last few years. I did buy the original R9 driver and played with it for a year which is a long time for me. The irons just never felt right for me personally. I was ultra loyal to another company and maybe that had some bearing on my choice. Ok so let’s get down to my thoughts on the new R11 7 - Wood.

I played today with a friend of mine who is a very good golfer. He is also a TaylorMade Brand loyal person. He plays TaylorMade irons, woods, and a Spider putter which I believe is a TM product.

He came to the first tee today and noticed my R11 (7 – Wood) in the bag. His eyes lit up like a June Bug ready to bond with a pine tree. You know he had to try it! My first few shots were big hooks. Frank draws the ball also so his shots had strong right to left flight. I did hit a couple of really of really nice high shots with it after aiming down the right side of the fairway.

My 7 – wood did not come with an adjustment wrench so we could not modify the setting. KellyBo came to the golf course after we had finished 18 and we met her on the practice range. She had a R9 wrench in her golf bag, which worked fine on the R11 club. After we changed it to the open setting both Frank I decided to play nine more holes with KellyBo, and use it off the tee. WOW this little sucker was long! Both of us were hitting nice baby draws with exceptional distance for a 7 – wood. It was fairway after fairway with short irons into the greens except for a few of the longer par 4 holes & par 5 holes. On # 8 Frank hit it off the tee and hand 249 to the center of the green. He hit it beside a trap which is just on the front right side of the green! Now I must admit, this par 5 is down hill with hard fairways so it had plenty of bounce and run out. The wind was also at our back which helped with the high flight of the 7 – wood, it flew like crazy!

Frank left us and said he had to run by Dick’s Sporting Goods in Macon on the way home. I knew he was up to something, so I sent him a text message. He replied back that he had bought an R 11 (5 – wood) and has the R11 driver on order.

I look forward to my next time out with this hot little 7 – wood and sharing my experience with all of you!
 
Nice job Gray, sounds like a winner. If its anything like the driver i know its good
 
Thanks for the write up Gray. Im glad to hear that adjusment was able to get that ball flight worked out for you. I am pleasently suprised to hear about the distance this club was providing since that was something I was very curious about seeing as this club had 22* of nuetral loft on in. Thanks again for the thoughts and feedback.
 
Good stuff OG!

I know it's early to tell but do you think that a club like this might sway you away from hybrids?
 
Hole~Out~1983 said:
Thanks for the write up Gray. Im glad to hear that adjusment was able to get that ball flight worked out for you. I am pleasently suprised to hear about the distance this club was providing since that was something I was very curious about seeing as this club had 22* of nuetral loft on in. Thanks again for the thoughts and feedback.
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TC said:
Good stuff OG!

I know it's early to tell but do you think that a club like this might sway you away from hybrids?
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TC -- I had put my Cobra Baffler 16 & 18 degree clubs back in the bag to fill a gap. I can honestly say that the R11 7 - wood (22 degree!) is as long, if not longer than my favorite hybrid of all time (16 degree Baffler!). For some reason that does not register so more testing with the 16 degree hybrid and 22 degree FW is on the horizon. The R11 7 - wood is sneaky long. It is so easy to get in the air and seems to carry farther than you would imagine. I look forward to my next time out with this club. Will it take over my hybrid love, time will tell but it certainly got off to a good start. Much better in fact, than I would have given any fairway wood credit for. It's just plain fun to hit :thumb:
 
Nice job OG, i cant wait to start testing mine out. Do you still find the hybrid easier to hit?
 
Nice write up Gray. Great start to your long term testing and I'm glad it worked out for you. Can't wait to hear more and compare my results with yours and others as well.
 
Gray, your buddy running out to buy his own says a lot. It must of been good!
 
Ole Gray said:
TC -- I had put my Cobra Baffler 16 & 18 degree clubs back in the bag to fill a gap. I can honestly say that the R11 7 - wood (22 degree!) is as long, if not longer than my favorite hybrid of all time (16 degree Baffler!). For some reason that does not register so more testing with the 16 degree hybrid and 22 degree FW is on the horizon. The R11 7 - wood is sneaky long. It is so easy to get in the air and seems to carry farther than you would imagine. I look forward to my next time out with this club. Will it take over my hybrid love, time will tell but it certainly got off to a good start. Much better in fact, than I would have given any fairway wood credit for. It's just plain fun to hit :thumb:
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Oh man! Reading that tells me that you have to be pondering other ones. After 9 holes on the course with the face angle on the right setting and you're seeing that kind of distance? That's awesome! Can't wait to read more of your findings.
 
10YardDraw said:
Nice job OG, i cant wait to start testing mine out. Do you still find the hybrid easier to hit?
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Good question. My comfort level with hybrids has always been much greater than fairway woods. It could be the shaft length, the way the club sits, or the overall performance factor. It took me a few swings with the 7 - wood to trust it. I had that doubt in my mind that no way should I betray my hybrid love. After a few solid contacts with the TM 7 - wood club appeared, my confidence in the club was born. The club sound is a solid "whack" and the ball explodes off the face. There is still much more testing to be done. Will the TaylorMade fairway replace one of my hybrids? It better be really good :snub:....
 
Ole Gray said:
Good question. My comfort level with hybrids has always been much greater than fairway woods. It could be the shaft length, the way the club sits, or the overall performance factor. It took me a few swings with the 7 - wood to trust it. I had that doubt in my mind that no way should I betray my hybrid love. After a few solid contacts with the TM 7 - wood club appeared, my confidence in the club was born. The club sound is a solid "whack" and the ball explodes off the face. There is still much more testing to be done. Will the TaylorMade fairway replace one of my hybrids? It better be really good :snub:....
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Thanks for the info, im the same way, i hit hybrids allot better for some reason and i dont even carry a FW
 
10YardDraw said:
Thanks for the info, im the same way, i hit hybrids allot better for some reason and i dont even carry a FW
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I have to say that I was exactly like you. I did not carry a FW, in fact I was pretty vocal about my dislike of the FW. But this FW is super easy to hit. They put a 14* dropped down to 13* in my hands and I was creaming that thing. It gets in the air like a charm and flies straight. This club is going in my bag.
 
Well I got out to play 18 today. Hit one shot with the R11 and something is definitely wrong with the head. It just sounded terrible. Even my playing partners were like WTF. But I do have to say the one shot was 250 and in the middle of the fairway. The difference in weight between the R11 and the 910 is incredible. The R11 is a heavy frikken club. Loved the Fubuki though. Well for the one swing anyway. Felt real smooth just like all the Diamana's.
 
Chunkylover77 said:
Well I got out to play 18 today. Hit one shot with the R11 and something is definitely wrong with the head. It just sounded terrible. Even my playing partners were like WTF. But I do have to say the one shot was 250 and in the middle of the fairway. The difference in weight between the R11 and the 910 is incredible. The R11 is a heavy frikken club. Loved the Fubuki though. Well for the one swing anyway. Felt real smooth just like all the Diamana's.
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was it rattling or what? the R11 def sounds different than other drivers. I dont find it heavy at all
 
I took the R11 out for a quick spin this morning. I ran to the range for a small bucket of balls before church. I first have to say how much confidence the white look has to it. I just like the new fresh look. I don't know why it makes me feel more confident, but I am going with it.
I started by warming up with one of the Cleveland CG16 Pay it forward 7 irons that came in yesterday too. I only hit about 9 balls with it, but I will post those results in another thread.

After warming up I moved over to the R11. Just a quick reminder, I have the R11 with the Fubuki Alpha 60 shaft. I left it at the factory settings for today's range session. Hopefully later this week I can have some time to mess around with it or get to a local TM fitter to adjust it.

Sound- The sound really got to me on this club. I don't know what about it, but I don't really like it right now. It sounds like a bad clank when you hit the ball. I know a few others have complained about this sound and I concur with them. It just doesn't sound like a normal driver. It almost sounds like I was hitting it off the hosel or something. I even to the R9 to compare with and it sounded so much better.

Swing weight- The driver just feels great on this aspect. It has just a smooth feel to it as you go after a ball. It almost seems effortless. I really like the way the Fubuki shaft feels and the nice head weight of the driver.

Performance- The driver was just great. I was just crushing them down the fairway. My only misses were to the left some. I think I can still get some more out of it too. As TC said you can see really easy on the face where the ball hit. I was hitting most all of my balls off the toe of the club. I am going to ask Andy over in the pro section how to correct this. I think if I started hitting it off the sweet spot more, the distance is going to go up some. The trajectory of the club was really nice. The ball had a nice penetrating flight that didn't get to high. I even had some that were line drives down the fairway. I think this driver is going to be great in the wind and should give some nice roll to the ball. Over all the performance was great for me hitting most of the balls of the toe of the club.

I really like the feeling of this club compared to my R9 and I think the sound factory is something I will have to get used to. I think performance over sound is the way to go. I hope to take the club to the course later this week and see what happens there.
 
It was just a flat out weird sound. I have never heard a driver make a sound like that. I'm going to take it into Golfsmith and see what the pro says. And mine is VERY heavy. Feels like a D8. My 910 is a lot lighter.
 
To anyone who has hit both does the R11 sound anything similar to the SF 2.0?
 
Hole~Out~1983 said:
To anyone who has hit both does the R11 sound anything similar to the SF 2.0?
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I thought they sounded different .. but don't ask me to explain how...lol
 
Now that I have been out with the R11 for four sessions, I thought I would give my thoughts. I will also share with you the results of a pal who used it for 2 sessions with me.

Looks: I really enjoy the looks of the club. The contrast on the bottom between the white, black and red is really appealing. And I really like the looks of the shaft with the head. Although I liked the look of the head, I wasn't sure how I would feel standing over and swinging a white head. In the end, I actually enjoyed swinging the white head. It probably took 5-7 swings for me to become completely accustomed to the color, but after a while I didn't even think about it anymore. Definitely OK playing a white driver.

Feel: The feel of the club in the hands is great. The weighting is good and, honestly, being able to adjust how the club rest on the ground (e.g., open) gives me incredible confidence when standing over the ball.

Sound: The sound is a bit unique to me. When hit well, the club sounds powerful and full, not hollow or dead. When hit off the heel, you definitely hear it. It is more like a whack sound on poor hits. It is quite different from the sound of the supertri.

X-factor: Everytime I took this club out, people asked about it. They all wanted to know how it hit, etc. This club definitely has the "it" factor.

Length and Accuracy: This is still a work in progress for me. I am still figuring out what shaft is the best combo for me. As some of you likely know, more often than not I need a driver that increases spin. Some others need drivers that reduce the spin. As compared to the supertri, I think this head reduces backspin. Thus, I am working to find a shaft that, combined with the R11 head, gets me to the most optimal numbers. Right now, with the Kaili, I am getting about the same distance I have with the supertri, but I am not as accurate. With my Miyazaki Black, I am even straighter than I am with the supertri, but I am a bit shorter. Thus, I am confident that I will find a shaft that will provide great length and good accuracy... It will just be a matter of trying out a few more shafts I have in mind.

Friend's results: One of my pals that I play with wanted to give this club a run. I am familiar with his current driver and his driving game. His current driver is another OEM. He LOVED this club. He was incredibly accurate; his best setting was 1 degree open and open on the plate. It allowed him to hit a nice fluid draw. He was about 15-20 yards longer and much, much more accurate. The Kaili shaft and R11 combo was great for him. I am pretty sure he will be picking one of these up soon.
 
I love the sound of my R11, its a different sound but in a good way. It just sounds solid
 
Dustin Johnson this week at Doral with his new R11 in the bag: 2nd in distance, 7th in accuracy.........Salty!
 
Nate said:
Dustin Johnson this week at Doral with his new R11 in the bag: 2nd in distance, 7th in accuracy.........Salty!
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Did anyone notice the shaft he had in his R11??? Looked to be black near the grip and white the rest of the way down to the head. Perhaps a Fubuki Alpha or Tour????
 
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