Knuth High Heat Driver Preview
It's a good combination for sure!
- Moderator
- #128
The sound is definitely intense, but man.. You catch it and fly by your drives with your gamer, it makes you wonder if you can get past it. Not surprised Hawk liked it. He has good taste in equipment, so I heard.
Frankly, I'm amazed you haven't bought this thing yet. Looking forward to getting a chance to take a few swings with this someday.
If this driver had a better looking sole on it and a "known name", you would lose your hearing walking into every store from the people demo'ing it.
Get past the look, get past the sound (or just love it for what it is), and this driver absolutely puts a hurt on the ball.
I played 36 holes with Hawk and he played 27 holes with it in the bag..... and was itching to get it back in the bag when we switched it out. Thats how good it was!
Get past the look, get past the sound (or just love it for what it is), and this driver absolutely puts a hurt on the ball.
I played 36 holes with Hawk and he played 27 holes with it in the bag..... and was itching to get it back in the bag when we switched it out. Thats how good it was!
erock9174
Well-known member
Question.
Is it pronounced Nooth or Ka-Nooth ?
Is it pronounced Nooth or Ka-Nooth ?
- Staff
- #135
I call it Ka-Nooth, but I don't think that's correct. I just like it.
erock9174
Well-known member
Cool thanks. I always wondered the same thing about the Niblick. Is it pronounced Ni-blick or Nib-Blick
- Thread starter
- Admin
- #139
Nib-Blick
- Staff
- #140
At this point, I've spent some time on the GC2 and played three rounds with the High Heat and have a few thoughts. One round was a wash, but the others gave me some valuable feedback.
-I haven't hit anything next to it on the monitor, so can't comment on more/less ball speed, but I can say numbers are exactly where I'd expect from a modern driver and very consistent across the face (aka forgiveness is there).
-Launch angle is on the high side, but spin is mid to mid-low for me. I'm not putting a power move on the ball though, so your results may vary of course.
-Stock ball flight is mid-high to high on well struck balls. The occasional mid height ball here and there. I wouldn't call it the driver I currently hit the highest.
-Toe balls are dropping spin quite a bit (not an unusual thing). What is interesting is that I'm not seeing a lot of lateral movement from these shots. Just a funky, dying knuckle ball flight. Alternative flights that I'll see there depending on the driver can range from straight push, big swooping push hook, moderate hook back to center, low smother hook, etc. Not a typical toe miss for me so much directionally. This isn't a bad thing in my mind, as long as I am playing somewhere firm enough to capitalize on the roll that such a low spinning shot will produce.
-Knuth talks about shots low on the face being pretty forgiving with this driver and I'll say from a ball speed perspective he's probably right. The product of these shots is rather low, but they are just bullets/line drives that run out almost yard for yard with what a shot with a better impact location would produce. Again, this is going to be location dependent as far as whether or not it's a good thing, but I've hit what looked like some real stinkers that didn't hurt me much at all from a distance perspective.
-I won't give you the tired old, "it just wants to hit ball high and straight" line. It does produce balls that go sideways if you are prone to sideways balls. Just like every driver. Does seem to want to square up nicely in most scenarios though and I've found reasonably good success with accuracy, with my second round last Sunday being an exception. I didn't hit any club well that round though, minus a few shots I got lucky on. Yesterday and the day before seemed to working with a fade at times, sometimes most of the time. It's an unusual ball flight for me, but won't attribute it to the driver. It was really consistent though. After hitting two, I just started playing for it and hit a good number of fairways.
-The mirror finish on the face is neat. It really lets you see where you hit the face, as long as you wipe it off between shots.
- I do not like the way it looks in really any way that I can think of. I guess the overall shape (outline) at address is fine. The rest though needs a lot of work. I do realize that some of the visual features are the technology appearing outward though (i.e. the aerodynamic crown). The alignment aid is pretty good though.
-I do not like the way it sounds in any way either. I'm not going to sugar coat it. It sounds very loud and very un-modern to me. With the emphasis we see on acoustics in OEM offerings, this one shows that either the designer really likes an aluminum bat sound, or it was an afterthought. I will say that I would play the driver though. I may get a little embarassed at the range, especially if it causes people to watch me swing a golf club, but I hit it well enough that I'm willing to let it go. I'd like to consider experimenting with some cotton balls at some point to mitigate it.
-The grip is a Crossline. A driver like this deserves a better grip. One that looks better and is more modern. Worked fine in light rain though.
-The Fuji shaft is a winner. Those that like really stiff shafts may think it's too soft though.
-I haven't hit anything next to it on the monitor, so can't comment on more/less ball speed, but I can say numbers are exactly where I'd expect from a modern driver and very consistent across the face (aka forgiveness is there).
-Launch angle is on the high side, but spin is mid to mid-low for me. I'm not putting a power move on the ball though, so your results may vary of course.
-Stock ball flight is mid-high to high on well struck balls. The occasional mid height ball here and there. I wouldn't call it the driver I currently hit the highest.
-Toe balls are dropping spin quite a bit (not an unusual thing). What is interesting is that I'm not seeing a lot of lateral movement from these shots. Just a funky, dying knuckle ball flight. Alternative flights that I'll see there depending on the driver can range from straight push, big swooping push hook, moderate hook back to center, low smother hook, etc. Not a typical toe miss for me so much directionally. This isn't a bad thing in my mind, as long as I am playing somewhere firm enough to capitalize on the roll that such a low spinning shot will produce.
-Knuth talks about shots low on the face being pretty forgiving with this driver and I'll say from a ball speed perspective he's probably right. The product of these shots is rather low, but they are just bullets/line drives that run out almost yard for yard with what a shot with a better impact location would produce. Again, this is going to be location dependent as far as whether or not it's a good thing, but I've hit what looked like some real stinkers that didn't hurt me much at all from a distance perspective.
-I won't give you the tired old, "it just wants to hit ball high and straight" line. It does produce balls that go sideways if you are prone to sideways balls. Just like every driver. Does seem to want to square up nicely in most scenarios though and I've found reasonably good success with accuracy, with my second round last Sunday being an exception. I didn't hit any club well that round though, minus a few shots I got lucky on. Yesterday and the day before seemed to working with a fade at times, sometimes most of the time. It's an unusual ball flight for me, but won't attribute it to the driver. It was really consistent though. After hitting two, I just started playing for it and hit a good number of fairways.
-The mirror finish on the face is neat. It really lets you see where you hit the face, as long as you wipe it off between shots.
- I do not like the way it looks in really any way that I can think of. I guess the overall shape (outline) at address is fine. The rest though needs a lot of work. I do realize that some of the visual features are the technology appearing outward though (i.e. the aerodynamic crown). The alignment aid is pretty good though.
-I do not like the way it sounds in any way either. I'm not going to sugar coat it. It sounds very loud and very un-modern to me. With the emphasis we see on acoustics in OEM offerings, this one shows that either the designer really likes an aluminum bat sound, or it was an afterthought. I will say that I would play the driver though. I may get a little embarassed at the range, especially if it causes people to watch me swing a golf club, but I hit it well enough that I'm willing to let it go. I'd like to consider experimenting with some cotton balls at some point to mitigate it.
-The grip is a Crossline. A driver like this deserves a better grip. One that looks better and is more modern. Worked fine in light rain though.
-The Fuji shaft is a winner. Those that like really stiff shafts may think it's too soft though.
- Staff
- #141
I had a great driver round with the High Heat Sunday, minus a few wayward shots. None of which actually ended up hurting me. It's definitely capapable of sending balls offline, but you really have to do something stupid. Other than that, I saw very good distance for me and good dispersion. Had a shorter iron or wedge in hand than normal in many instances, having played this course probably 100 times. Continue to see a mid-high ball flight, with a solid combination of carry and roll, which is what I'd call optimal for around here.
That said, I saw something somewhat interesting yesterday with the GC2 on the range.
I warmed up for awhile and once I started hitting the ball well I started paying attention to numbers. I hit a couple that I thought were about as good as I can swing a driver and then for curiosity's sake I grabbed my V-Series, which I've been sort of blah feeling about lately. I saw a jump of 4-5 mph in ball speed from this to the V series and it was repeated a few times in a row. Distance was obviously affected. Knuth seems to spin less, so the difference wasn't as big as it could have been.
My logical and skeptical brain tells me this was just coincidence, because though my swing tends to perform the same in terms of metrics, the constant variable will always be impact. It's not unusual to see changes in ball speed with the same club on a day to day basis. Not always that common to see changes so rapidly in a single range session though. I will say I nutted the V Series shots, but I felt like I'd done the same with the High Heat.
No conclusions based on that small sampling, but I will definitely try to see if I can recreated it on my next range session and I thought it was worth mentioning. Doesn't chagne the fact that it performed extremely well for me during my Sunday round.
That said, I saw something somewhat interesting yesterday with the GC2 on the range.
I warmed up for awhile and once I started hitting the ball well I started paying attention to numbers. I hit a couple that I thought were about as good as I can swing a driver and then for curiosity's sake I grabbed my V-Series, which I've been sort of blah feeling about lately. I saw a jump of 4-5 mph in ball speed from this to the V series and it was repeated a few times in a row. Distance was obviously affected. Knuth seems to spin less, so the difference wasn't as big as it could have been.
My logical and skeptical brain tells me this was just coincidence, because though my swing tends to perform the same in terms of metrics, the constant variable will always be impact. It's not unusual to see changes in ball speed with the same club on a day to day basis. Not always that common to see changes so rapidly in a single range session though. I will say I nutted the V Series shots, but I felt like I'd done the same with the High Heat.
No conclusions based on that small sampling, but I will definitely try to see if I can recreated it on my next range session and I thought it was worth mentioning. Doesn't chagne the fact that it performed extremely well for me during my Sunday round.
It's always interesting to see how performance (distance) reacts to changes in ball speed. I remember at The Grandaddy I saw 3-4MPH more ball speed with the standard Big Bertha when compared to the BBA, but the BBA gave me 12 yards more carry due to better spin numbers.
- Staff
- #143
I wish I remembered the exact numbers, but I spaced. I don't recall a huge difference though. Then, in my area you should be taking roll into consideration.
erock9174
Well-known member
Hawk. Isn't the V series a much lighter package than the Knuth ?
- Staff
- #145
Not mine. It's got a Tour Blue 65 in it and was swing weighted back to normal. A normal one though, yes.
- Staff
- #146
I tried to recreate Monday's ball speed results yesterday on the range and failed. I purposely saved 8 'real' balls I found out of the range bucket to get a look at some more realistic numbers. The normal range balls at this place are LF and basically garbage due to age. I hit the V Series on the screws a couple times and missed a couple across the face. Missed all the High Heat swings - trying to force the issue and failed. Will try again of course.
I will say that misses with both were virtually identical in ball speed.
I will say that misses with both were virtually identical in ball speed.
I've enjoyed reading your thoughts, Hawk. The Knuth has been in the back of my mind since hitting it a few months ago. It's a fun club to hit.
- Staff
- #148
Yea it is. I have had some success on course with it too, which makes it even more fun.
So...I bit and purchased this to compete with my XR and XTD...if I put a good swing on this it is as long as my XTD but more forgiving...I hit it a little longer than the XR but I can't be sure which one is more forgiving...a couple of my drives plugged today (odd since SC hasn't had rain in about a week)
I like this driver...I just don't know which one will make the trip with me to Columbus
Even bad swings stayed in play...I will have to get some more time with it before I know if it is for me
Knuth does have a 30 day money back guarantee but if I continue to hit this as well as I did today, it will beat out the XR and XTD
I like this driver...I just don't know which one will make the trip with me to Columbus
Even bad swings stayed in play...I will have to get some more time with it before I know if it is for me
Knuth does have a 30 day money back guarantee but if I continue to hit this as well as I did today, it will beat out the XR and XTD
- Staff
- #150
How's it going with the High Heat?
I've had it in play for a little over a month now, and other than a short time I cheated on it, it's been stuck in the bag. Based on my typical feelings about bad sounding drivers, I guess that says some good things about how it performs. Agree that it's very forgiving, though I can miss big with it if I really throw a stinker swing out there.
Impressed that it seems to give me a solid mix of launch angle and low-ish spin. Around here that's a good combo since the ball rolls unless it's soaking wet.