Are the new drivers definitively better than they’ve ever been? Well, technically, they’re better in the only way that matters: They’re better, sometimes infinitely so, at fitting you and your needs perfectly. Some like TaylorMade are taking that weight-saving advantage even to the face, previously the heaviest single element of a clubhead. And yes, the amount of carbon composite material making up heads continues to increase to provide more room for these specially designed models. A hot new idea is marrying forward centers of gravity for low spin with perimeter weighting for upper level forgiveness. Less widely known, perhaps, than the clubs of some other makers who have.
That’s increasingly possible as companies continue to save more weight to be distributed in distinct ways to meet the diverse needs of different golfers. Most golfers have three or four different drivers, and many golfers change. The one explicitly tethered to your performance needs and preferences.
But all those options really reveal one thing: the right number of drivers is of course one. For TaylorMade’s Stealth lineup, since one model has a sliding weight, the number of potential drivers is technically infinite. For Titleist TSi, the settings allow for 480 distinct head arrangements. How many drivers is the right number? Thanks to adjustability, Callaway’s Rogue ST lineup includes four different heads that when multiplied by the different lofts and its adjustable hosels, transform into 80 different combinations-not counting shafts.