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How does your driver handle misses?

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obedt

obedt

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Before THP I thought all drivers were pretty much maxed out and performance was fairly similar, but now that I'm learning about forgiveness vis a vis MOI but also CG, bulge and roll, etc I've become a little more curious.

As I've been paying more attention to my contact and how different drivers react, thought it may be useful for the forum to chime in with their experiences. Maybe we start seeing trends, and that could aid others looking for a driver to tame a particular miss. Feel free to post user opinions since not very many of us have launch monitors to perform detailed testing... no wrong or right, as it's just all our experiences


Rogue - In my opinion low on the face this is industry leading. Retains decent amount of ball speed and spin doesn't spike up as much as others I've tested.
Toe side is also as good as anything imo, with a prevalent amount of gear effect.
Heel side ball speed is retained but left to right is accentuated.

2017 M1 (stock settings) - high heel results in a pull with little gear effect.
Significant toe strike results in extreme loss of spin and duck hook.
 
The G400 LST is pretty true to what you swing and where you hit it. It doesnt seem to favor any miss, but it doesnt make any of them worse either.
 
obedt said:
Before THP I thought all drivers were pretty much maxed out and performance was fairly similar, but now that I'm learning about forgiveness vis a vis MOI but also CG, bulge and roll, etc I've become a little more curious.

As I've been paying more attention to my contact and how different drivers react, thought it may be useful for the forum to chime in with their experiences. Maybe we start seeing trends, and that could aid others looking for a driver to tame a particular miss. Feel free to post user opinions since not very many of us have launch monitors to perform detailed testing... no wrong or right, as it's just all our experiences


Rogue - In my opinion low on the face this is industry leading. Retains decent amount of ball speed and spin doesn't spike up as much as others I've tested.
Toe side is also as good as anything imo, with a prevalent amount of gear effect.
Heel side ball speed is retained but left to right is accentuated.

2017 M1 (stock settings) - high heel results in a pull with little gear effect.
Significant toe strike results in extreme loss of spin and duck hook.
Click to expand...

Interesting question.
I've never thought much about "driver miss" tendencies.
My policy is to choose a driver with which I most consistently strike straight shots. If a driver misses left or right for me, I take it out of the bag and find one which I can hit consistently straight.
 
I play the Epic and it handles misses pretty well.
Center-High is the sweet spot - quick launch and low spin.
Low is serviceable and doesn't seem to spin up as much as some other drivers when I blade one.
Heel and Toe are both surprisingly stable. Some loss of speed and a little left/right spin but nothing that will force me to reach into the bag for another ball.
 
Really depends on the miss. Across the face the XR16 is fantastic. Way out on the toe there's considerable gear effect for sure, but it's not to the point where it's unplayable.

But my problem tends to be face to path, so no driver is really going to help there.
 
I have two Drivers:

Ping G400 SFT 11*

Toe to high on the face is outstanding and I see very little distance loss. Heel which is rare and low across the bottom is where I see the most distance loss but generally still playable

Cobra F8 Thriver 14*

Lateral and vertical forgiveness is superb - my biggest issue with this one is squaring the club face on impact - the general miss is a significanly open face at impact which causes a huge slice and lost ball
 
I have found the Rogue to be more forgiving high and towards the toe, but I seem to loose a lot when I hit lower and towards the heel. This is especially evident towards the heel on the Draw.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 
I like the G400 Max I play.
Low shots will get out there but won't lose as much because they will roll out a long way.
High toe shots will go but you will lose just a bit, shorter than low.
Heel shots are probably the bad of this driver, doesn't sound good and will be short.
 
I've found my F8 handles most reasonable misses pretty well. If anything it doesn't like high or low heel misses the most.

Having been fit for the correct shaft in this head has also seemed to lessen the impact of my miss in general. I suppose that goes to say the tendencies may as much be related to the shaft for a given swing as the head itself.
 
Playing the Z745 in 8.5 loft. If I’m not near the centre the distance loss is very noticeable.
 
Bio Cell +
It doesn't handles misses well. It tends to sulk and become uncooperative for the rest of the round. I try to talk to it but it doesn't listen.
 
My driver handles misses just fine. The guy holding it? Not so good.
 
I have an Epic and Rogue SZ. Both handle my occasional mis-hit toward the toe very well, nearly seamlessly.

Played the Epic much longer, heel hits lose more distance than toe contact but direction is just fine.

Through maybe 6 or 7 rounds, I hadn't contacted toward the heel on the Rogue SZ. Both clubs' sweet-spot is center/high.

My previous (older) Cobra drivers, ZL, S3, ZL Encore, contact a bit too far toward the toe resulted in weak yet massive hooks. Heel contact was fine.

XR was an upgrade over the Cobras for me but off-center toward the toe contact still turned appreciably left on me.

Epic was a golfing revelation.
 
I play a rogue. Find it is very forgiving of mis-hits when compared to all the TM drivers I played previously. High on the face is my typical miss and it isn't very penal. The drop in spin hurts my distance as my ball speed needs that optimal spin for distance that come with center face strikes.
 
GBB handles misses pretty well IME.
 
How does your driver handle misses?

DG_1234 said:
Interesting question.
I've never thought much about "driver miss" tendencies.
My policy is to choose a driver with which I most consistently strike straight shots. If a driver misses left or right for me, I take it out of the bag and find one which I can hit consistently straight.
Click to expand...

I hadn't either tbh. As I've been comparing the M1 to the Rogue I noticed different flight tendencies, especially on misses. Have been struggling with heel shots throughout a portion of the bag recently and starting looking up vids on fixes. Among the videos Mark Crossfield had one and he mentioned Paul Broadhurst getting by just fine with a heel strike, to the point where it isn't a miss for him. His driver - an M1. This holds true to what I'm seeing as well, so that's kind of where the inspiration for the thread came about. I guess the theory is that different heads react differently due to several factors above my pay grade, and wanted to see everyone's experiences as well.

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