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Drivers; Distance vs Forgiveness

SuperStroke
I'm still searching for a driver that has dispersion within 15 yards of my Callaway 2 wood and is also 20 yards longer. The quest continues......
 
I think in today's age of drivers you can find both.

I look for what is consistently the longest and if is not as long as my current driver I'm not interested.
 
Both draw me in but claims of distance will make me want to hit it more. That doesnt always work out well but at least ill know lol
 
I'd like a driver that stays in the galaxy...

So my vote goes to forgiveness.

I can give up some distance if it stays in the fairway every time

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
 
Fun topic for sure.

I look for distance, and I look for it via a driver that gives me the best ball speeds while maximising my swing through good launch and spin numbers. If I miss-hit a ball towards the heel or toe I'm not too upset if it carries 20 yards shorter.
I've also learned that most of my misses are due to coming through with a wide open face. NO driver is going to send that ball on a straight line.
 
Good distance first, forgiveness second. I can normally figure out how to hit a driver straight so I want one that had good ball speed stats.
 
Accuracy is the first thing I look for. I feel I can score better in the long run hitting the 2nd shot from the fairway even if giving up 10 or so yards with less balls in the fairway. Plus the course where I play 95% of my rounds rewards accuracy with it's narrow fairways and not a lot of rough before you enter the trees. I don't really think accuracy and forgiveness are necessarily the same thing so I'm not directly answering the question posed in the OP. Forgiveness to me deals not only with limiting the gear effect on off-center strikes, but also with minimizing the distance loss on mishits. I am more interested in a club I can swing most consistently with the highest rate of center contact to limit the side to side dispersion.
 
I've learned to value hitting the sweet spot. When you do the ball goes farther, hits the fairway more often and runs out more. For me it absolutely started with making hitting the sweet spot a priority. That of course leads to working on a smooth, balanced swing. That in turn gives you the potential to maximize swing speed. Given that it won't surprise you to hear I'm looking for the distance club when it comes to selecting a driver. My big dog is an adjustible driver with the weight moved around to give maximum distance at the sweet spot.
 
My last driver would hit it out around 280 on a good hit.
During a round, if I hit it 12 times, 4 of those would be off of the planet, and 3 or 4 would be in a bad lie or behind something.

I have a driver that came in last week.
This past weekend I played and it was different.
The new driver would hit a good shot about 265-270.
A bad hit off of heel or toe was 240.
My bad-crooked shots were hooks, but still playable.
Maybe 10-12 foot off the fairway.
I lost some distance. The club doesn't go POW!!

It is easier to score when you don't go over in the other fairway, hoping you're not behind a tree or worse!!!

Everything is a compromise.

I gave up 15 yards, but I can find my ball easier now.
 
For all the posters saying accuracy, why not just move up one or two tee boxes and play hybrid off of every tee?
 
Drivers; Distance vs Forgiveness

blugold said:
For all the posters saying accuracy, why not just move up one or two tee boxes and play hybrid off of every tee?
Click to expand...

Because I want to hit driver.

Also, the M2 haunts me with the heel miss. Give me accuracy and decent distance and I'm good To go. My game suffers when I miss off the tee.
 
blugold said:
For all the posters saying accuracy, why not just move up one or two tee boxes and play hybrid off of every tee?
Click to expand...

For those wanting distance, why not move up a few tee boxes and drive every green?

Works both ways.
 
War Eagle said:
For those wanting distance, why not move up a few tee boxes and drive every green?

Works both ways.
Click to expand...
Played 9 holes from 2,100 on Sunday with Mrs. Blugold. Hit driver often.
 
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War Eagle said:
It's time to get a new driver, when looking at your options, which are you more likely to go with...

Distance- Are you looking purely for the longest driver you can hit?

or

Forgiveness- Are you looking for a driver that gives you the most forgiveness even with a miss across the face?

For me, I look for forgiveness, I want to be in play off the tee every time. Obviously, I still need some distance, so I look for the most forgiving driver combined with distance that I can game. Looking at my rounds this year, I can always point to a few holes that I missed scoring chances because I had to reload on the tee or I was not in a good spot off the tee.

What do you look for in a new driver?
Click to expand...

I'm with you on forgiveness. I have enough distance to be happy, just need it in the fairway.
 
I'm looking for the best combination of both. I think I may have already had it, but traded it for a few more yds. Big mistake.
 
I've come to discover that even with a driver made for forgiveness, I can still catch one where I get great distance from it. Even my current driver, though pretty distance oriented, is still not set up for max distance.

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For me it's a combination of both. I don't hit the ball very far but am usually in play which is very important but I give up some accuracy so that I'm not hitting hybrids into every par 4.
 
The driver that is the longest combined with best dispersion. I hit the M1/2 on more than one occasion and they were slightly longer that my XR16 but I was all over the place. When you typically turn a 500 yard hole into a 600 yard hole, straightness is a premium.
 
I can hit anything OB. My swing evidently sucks, but I don't really find that forgiving drivers are any more accurate unless they have considerably more loft and a shorter shaft. At that point I may as well hit FW.

At this point I look for something within +\- 5 yards of my gamer, but with repeatable ball flight. That can be 20 yards left of target as long as I'm pretty consistently 20 yards left.

The second factor is looks, sound and feel. We are consumers and these are luxury goods. I think this plays into it a lot more than people want to admit.
 
I'm thinking distance. Isnt that what everyone is chasing? Even on wilson's new show the guys that were trying to come up with something that was straight and in the fairway Tim Clarke said people want distance.
 
Drivers; Distance vs Forgiveness

War Eagle said:
Because I want to hit driver.

Also, the M2 haunts me with the heel miss. Give me accuracy and decent distance and I'm good To go. My game suffers when I miss off the tee.
Click to expand...

Funny how the world turns,
I'm working on a review for my Golf Coach on what I want to work on over the winter for 2017

I found this bar graph in my "The Grint" app where I have been keeping my stats for the last couple of years.
Now I know that I'm a "HH" so I'll say that up front
This is by percentages for the year of the rounds I recorded:


439e788a2bc781aea098133ec5802129.jpg


We all know that we score better when we play from the fairway, however to see it that plainly put was a surprise to me.

**10% more "Birdies and Par" when I hit the Fairway**
**10% more "+DB" or more when I MISS the Fairway**
 
For me it's a combination of both but dispersion is going to be the overall deciding factor. If I hit a club 5 yards shorter but the dispersion is significantly tighter I'll probably lean toward the tighter dispersion.
 
blugold said:
For all the posters saying accuracy, why not just move up one or two tee boxes and play hybrid off of every tee?
Click to expand...

War Eagle said:
Because I want to hit driver.

Also, the M2 haunts me with the heel miss. Give me accuracy and decent distance and I'm good To go. My game suffers when I miss off the tee.
Click to expand...

War Eagle said:
For those wanting distance, why not move up a few tee boxes and drive every green?

Works both ways.
Click to expand...

The best female player in the world and most of the LPGA players break par from 6300+ yds and most only hit the ball in the 250 range. That's about where my carry numbers are so if I can find the short grass or keep the ball just off the fairway on every hole I will take that over long and usually wrong.
 
War Eagle said:
For me, I look for forgiveness, I want to be in play off the tee every time. Obviously, I still need some distance, so I look for the most forgiving driver combined with distance that I can game. Looking at my rounds this year, I can always point to a few holes that I missed scoring chances because I had to reload on the tee or I was not in a good spot off the tee.
Click to expand...

^^^^^ this is me exactly, best lateral forgiveness off the face is Cobra for me
 
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