Two Questions

So I played in a tournament yesterday, and gutted out a 97 in spite of having only an hour of sleep and not having touched my gamers for a couple of weeks.

Three things were evident. The Vokeys are strict pros, my pitches went AWOL till the last few holes. They're not easy to play with, but they're money when I was on.

My putts were wild. They were either way too short or too long, but fortunately I made a handful of long ones to save my skin, including a birdie from the collar.

My drives were short. I have a regular playing buddy whose drives I usually keep up with, but I wasn't happy with my driving distance.

Which brings me to my two questions.

1. One of my group was gaming an M1, and I'm thinking of getting one. I've been experimenting with around 4 bargain bin drivers the past year, and none of them came near the distance of my old Wishon. I figured that the M1 could be good, because it had a whole gamut of settings that could solve my drive that was too high and had too much spin. I was trying out drivers down to 8.5 degrees with a shaft an inch longer but they didn't perform any longer. Question - should I pull the trigger and buy the M1?

2. The only things the stock M1 cannot address ara a heavier swing weight and heavier overall weight. Question - from your experience, has the current wave of lighter drivers added to your driving distance?

Thanks in advance.

1.) Have you got a chance to actually see the numbers for the M1 compared to the others you have tried? It sounds like the others haven't stacked up well for you, so if I'm you, I'd take my current gamer with me to a store or club that has a launch monitor so I could see straight up, which one works the best. I'd adjust the club to a few positions that I think would be work with my game and see where it stacks up. Before I drop $499 on an M1.

2.) For me, the lighter drivers haven't increased my driving distance to the point where it's VERY noticeable, no. I had a Callaway Alpha 815 and moved to the Callaway XR, I saw a distance increase of a few yards and that was consistently there for me. Did I add 15+ yards? No.

I'm not sure these are going to be helpful, but I think the answers to those questions really depend on the specific individual.

1. On #1, the M1 might work, but it might not. It would probably help to know what bargain bin drivers have not worked for you and what shafts you had in them. Also, have you tried out the M1? If so, did you like it? The M1 is certainly adjustable, but so are a lot of other drivers. It's a really good driver, so I'm sure you could find worse options, but I'm not sure there's anyway to guess whether it might--and emphasis on the might--be a good fit for you without a little more info. In general, if you're struggling with the driver, I'm not sure adding an inch is going to be helpful, but again, that's highly individual. Some people do better with a longer driver. I agree with Agent Jay that testing it and comparing it is the way to go. If you can't do that, there are probably people here that can help you more than I can with recommendations for specific driver heads and shafts that might help, but info on what you've been playing and what you've been seeing with each driver is going to be key.

2. Personally, I have not loved lighter drivers, but plenty of people have. They are still plenty playable for me, but I don't seem to find the center of the club face quite as often with them.

1) buy it if you want it. but i'd try it first, even if that means buying a round of golf or a beer for somebody who lets you hit theirs a few times.

2) nope. i'm not usually a big fan of light drivers, and my big miss is usually most pronounced the lighter a driver gets. i did get on well with the xxio prime, though.

Some answers to some of your questions:

1. Sorry guys, I have no access to a reliable launch monitor in my country. The one in my range is old and hasn't been calibrated. I found out the performance of my old drivers the hard way - during games in golf courses. I try to remember the distances that the drivers go.

2. I've tried the 910d2, a couple of RBZ's, both US and Japanese, the Wishon, and a really old Big Bertha 460. I've gamed all of these on the course. I've also hit the Covert, the SLDR and a few older models on the range.

3. The M1 is "on sale" now, meaning the retailer is selling it for around 523 dollars. That's still great in my country considering the driver came all the way from China plus tax. To give you a price idea, the XXIO 9 retails here for a little under 800 dollars.

Buying a new club is always exciting, but thanks for the advice to test my old gamer with the M1 before pulling the trigger.

1. IMO the M1 is a great driver. It added distance for me personally 15yds over the 915 D3. It is not the most forgiving driver on the market though miles ahead of the SLDR. It is a low spinning head so that may help with your spin issues. It's really about finding a good shaft combo with the head. I would look into some low spinning shaft options they might have.

2. I don't think the lighter heads have added distance for me.

Get fit! Don't guess. Getting fit is easy today.

You haven't been playing much. You shot a 97. Buy one if you want but a new driver isn't going to solve your issues. Also, the price is only going to keep going lower.

My driving distance on mishits has gone up a bunch from drivers 4-7 years old. Overall they carry a bit farther but nothing huge. Even going from the SLDR to the R15 I gained a good 10-15 yards on terrible toe hits and 5 yards on heel hits with distance on flush hits about the same. Haven't hit M1 yet because I am afraid I would buy it. Going to wait for the price to drop by $200. Take it for what it is worth, sounds like you just hadn't played in a while so I don't think you should worry about it based off 1 round. That said the M1 won't suck

HoosierGolfer said:

Get fit! Don't guess. Getting fit is easy today.

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Thanks, but fitting options in my country are very limited. And the numbers and monitors they use are also limited. Fitting in my country today is what you guys had in, oh, 1995.

That's why I was thinking of the M1. With its bazillion combinations, I was hoping it could address fitting, save for a few outside factors, like swing weight, total weight and shaft.

Finally pulled the trigger yesterday and bought the M1. It's not a lock that it will give me back my driver distance with more consistency, but I think it's a step forward.

Also, the gamer driver I have has a head that's circa 2007. It's about time also I do something about it. Also, during selection, I picked up my 3w just to vary the shots and on the first try shot one somewhere near where my drives landed, which reminded me why I went through all these hassle in the first place.

On the first test I brought my wishon, and tested it against the M1, along with a 913 that was on sale and a 915 with a ding that they were trying to sell to me.

The 913 was okay, the 915 with the ding i didn't consider because I felt there was a hairline Crack in the ding. Distance-wise they were okay, like the 910 that I already owned. Now, the driving range net is set up at 200 yards, I could see some balls hitting the net so they carried about 220 to 210. The balls in the driving range were a bit old, so that distance was fine.

However what bothered me was the question, much like when I had the 910 - what do I do for too much spin with the titleists?

At first I couldn't hit the M1, it was like a different beast. However, when I got it, it was difficult to spray the thing. I tried hitting it at snap-my-bra speed and it went far enough with a 20 yard fade, no slice.

Distance with the M1 was not automatic, I had to focus on hitting the ball dead center with the clubhead. But i could see that these new clubs were a lot more forgiving than my wishon.

So finally I decided on the M1. Then came the second test. I got a 9.5 with a stiff shaft, I went through a test to determine which was better - the Fujikura or the Mitsubishi shaft. The Fujikura ended up being too whippy at the top and in the drive itself so I went with the Mitsubishi.

I kept all settings at default, except for the center weight I adjusted forward to kill the spin.

I'll be going back to the range today to check if the old solitary launch monitor in that range is worth the price, and see if I can use that to dial in the settings of the M1 a bit more.

HoosierGolfer said:

Get fit! Don't guess. Getting fit is easy today.

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I thought he got fit before?

Den60 said:

I thought he got fit before?

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Like I said, fitting facilities in my country aren't what they are in yours. This is the best I can do with facilities here. But thanks all. This is at least a little more scientific than guesswork.