Over the last 5 years drivers have been made bigger and bigger. The USGA put a limit on head size at 460cc. The reason for larger heads seems obvious. More sweet spot and more forgiveness. Amateur players have almost unanimously jumped ship to these giant club heads that sometimes look more like metal detectors coming out of a bag than they do golf clubs. All of the studies show that the larger head will decrease your misses. So we decided to get Scientific on you guys and take it to the streets. We went to our local club and used 3 different drivers, all of which were custom component heads and not name brand equipment. We had a 390cc, a 425cc, and a 460cc. All faces were covered with impact tape and given to players on the range. We had 18 people participate in hitting each driver 8 times. Here are the results.
1. Which club had the longest distance? the 460cc by 4.9 yards over the 425cc and 7.1 yards over the 390cc.
2. Which club was the straightest to middle of fairway? the 460cc driver was followed by the 425cc and then the 390cc. This test was the most telling in that the 460 driver was so much more straight it was scary.
3. Which club had the most on center hits? this one was kind of funny, because it went in the opposite order to the other drills. The 390cc driver was hit on the sweet spot 13% more often then the other clubs. Both the 425 and the 460 tied.
So what are our overall impressions? Absolutely none. We think it is all about preference. It seemed to be very close with everything we did. After all the hitting was done, we surveyed the golfers to find out preferences.
16 out of the 18 golfers would continue to play the 460cc driver based purely on the fact that they seemed more forgiving in the tests and a little longer. That concludes our little study. In the end, we learned not a whole lot, but it was a heck of a good time doing it. And atleast a little educational.
Till Next Time,
Josh B.
