Golf Drivers Buyers Guide

Driver Buying Guide

Loft

The loft is a crucial factor when choosing your Golf Driver and the loft of drivers vary from as low as 8 degrees up to as much as 15. Try and remember that loft is your friend and will often allow you to get more distance and it certainly aids accuracy. Years ago it seemed like lower handicaps and professionals would always choose a really low loft but now the average loft on tour is about 10.5 degrees. One of the great new developments in golf over recent years are the adjustable drivers and these allow you to dial in your loft and you can fine tune to suit your game.

Length

As club heads have got bigger so have the length of the driver and many years ago the standard length of a driver was 43 inches however the majority of drivers are now 46 inches in length. Ultimately you want control of the club and if you feel that the longer length causes you to lose control it may be wise to have a driver custom fit and made shorter. We do not recommend that you make any drivers longer in lengt even if you are very tall. When choosing a driver for kids be extra carefull as a club that is too long could cause them to inherit swing faults that may be hard to fix in the future.

Shaft Flex

The flex of the club is often attributed to how stiffness or flexibility of the shaft. If you have too much flex this could cause you to lose distance however a club shaft that is too rigid may cause a lack of flight and swing faults could be created. Shafts come in a huge array of different options (too many in our opinion) and there are lots of exotic shafts on the market to entice you.

Remember just because Rory Mcllroy uses a certain shaft does not mean this will work well for you (in fact Rory’s shaft would most definately hinder 99% of all golfers) The shaft that the manufactures use as standard are often the very best shaft for your game. They have tested this shaft with the head and found it to be the most successful.

The golf shafts on our website will generally range from a ladies shaft, then lite flex followed by a regular and then a stiff flex. As a guide if you have a swing speed of between 80 and 95 mph you should look towards a regular flex. Swing speeds above 95mph should certainly look towards a stiff flex and those under 80 mph would benefit from a lite or ladies flex.

Lie Angle

We do not feel that the lie angle of a driver is quite as crucial as it is with an iron club. The reason for this is that you are hitting the driver from a tee peg and also the majority of drivers have a rounded sole. This being said if you do need to alter the lie angle some of the new adjustable drivers will allow this and if this is the case the shorter/flatter swinger may well use a setting that has a flatter lie and the taller/upright swinger could benefit from a more upright lie.

Head Size

You do not get a huge choice of head sizes with the modern drivers and for the majority of players we believe that the bigger the head the better and the maximum size of head is 460cc and the vast majority are this size. Some lower handicaps and professionals prefer a smaller driver head as they feel this style of head allows them to shape the ball a little better and some of the top manufactures do create a slightly smaller sized driver head to accomodate this.

Offset

Now that we have the adjustable heads we do not se quite so many offset drivers however if you are a habitual slicer it can be of a huge benefit. The offset design encourages the club to close when you strike the ball and this can eliminate a lot of slice spin and will help cure the slice. Cobra are the best at making offset and would certainly look here first.

Adjustable Heads

We love the new adjustable drivers and feel they are certainly worth the extra investment. These heads can be tweaked slightly to give you the optimum drive and if you need to go slightly higher or lower or a bit to the left or right these can be dialed in. Once you have found your best setting you can then treat it as a fixed club head and if possible do not adjust too much as you may have just had an off day and continual adjustment can really cause some serious issues.

Headcover

We do get asked quite frequently if a headcover is really necessary to protect a metal head. Well it is not essential however we do recommend that you treat your club well as it is so much nicer looking down on a descent looking club and it also helps in the future if you ever want to sell it on. All drivers come with a headcover so we say “keep it covered”

Titanium or Steel

Drivers used to be made of wood (hence the term woods) but now they are made of metal. Initially the metal used was stainless steel and this was a great success however the weight of stainless steel restricted the size of the club head. Then drivers were made from titanium and this enabled engineers to make larger head sizes. This made the club much easier to hit because titanium is much lighter and the R & D teams for these large companies could work with this material in a better way. The downside of titanium is that it is more expensive but we would recommend this above the steel option every time.

Graphite or Steel

Because modern drivers are made from titanium they have to be fitted with graphite shafts and we would not recommend that you use steel shafts in any driver as it would make the club heavier and would slow your swing down.

More Golf Terms for a Driver

Big Dog 1 Wood The Big Stick Big Gun

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