I have been searching for a new Driver for months now and I just can seem to find one. From name brand to clone, nothing seems to be a good fit.

Anyone have any suggestions or clubs they would give up their first born for?

Please let me know!

Happy,

Many courses allow you to try a club on the course or on the range.  Most either charge you a fee or just keep your drivers license until you return it.  I would use that system on my home course to test equipment.  Test as many as you can until you find one that you like.  But, word of warning, do not make your purchase based on use on the mats alone.  Many ranges are mats only.  That won't tell you anything at all.  If you have to hit from the mats, you may as well just stretch and play tiddlywinks for all the good it will do.  If you can't take a club out on the course, at least find somewhere that you can test it on a reasonable teeing ground using your own tee.  Good luck, and happy golfing.

The Titleist D1 is greatness!!I cant believe how it has begun to change my game, but you will have to have a good shaft in it. The stock shaft is no good!

If you really want to hammer the ball, throw a UST V2 or Grafalloy Epic in it, then boom!

It also depends on what kind of player you are happy, you can get an older first issue Redline from Adams with a decent Fujikura in it for like 140 bucks now and it is one super hot face.

Scoops is right, go to a good store or range and beat on them for a while and find the right mix of shaft and club!

Happy, the TaylorMade new Burner is a simple good looking driver with a ton of pop. Dont worry about buying the TP version, its over priced. Just buy the regular one but get a good shaft. You should be set, since I dont see a whole lot of other people ringing in.

The D1 is ok, I hit that as well, but the TaylorMade has a much better feel.

Has anyone tried the Callaway Big Bertha 460?  I don't "need" a new driver (I have a Ping G2 that I really like), but I've been moving towards more Callaway clubs and wondered if this would be worth looking at.

Friends of mine have currently have in their bags: Cleveland Hi-bore, Ping G5, Nike SQ, Titleist, and Adams.

I have the Adams redline with the Aldila VS shaft and couldn't be more happy.  I also have the old Taylor Made burner and have hit the new R7 425 tp.  Have to say that I'm hitting it longer and straighter with the Adams than those two.

Just my $.02

Thats some funny stuff right there chap!

I just bought an older Redline with a Fujikura shaft in it. Its a bomber, better than all the others I hit!

I am currently looking at SMT golf, they have some really nice heads, though you will have to have someone build the club for you. (I think SMT will do it for an extra fee)

The company has more Long Drive victories than is worth mentioning, and several world records. Plus the longest drive on any PGA tour with a drive of 428 or something like that. The reviews on them are exciting but I admit I have yet to hit one. I am working with a clubmaker to test some shortly though, I'll tell you how it goes.

Current driver is Ping G5, Pretty sweet thing itself. Better than My old Ignite 460 or my buddies Taylormade r7 Quad. I'm hoping one of the SMT drivers is even better yet.

Matt

Well, I just got my hands on an SMT 455 Deep Bore. It came with a 44.5 inch UST Harman Tour 65S shaft. The degree of loft on the driver is 11*. I went to the range and hit it about 30 times. I might need to re-shaft it because the ball flight was very low. I did try to hit up on it a little and it helped some, but I don't want to go adjusting my swing too much. I think I really just need a different bend point, maybe a low, I believe the guy said this was a mid bend shaft. Anyways, my mishits were rolling out to 270-280, and granted I was probably swinging a bit too hard to get a real sense of accuracy, I'd say it was no worse than my ping G5. I did have quite a few that carried 270-280 and ran a very long way. Well over 330. But again, It's dry out here and this thing was hitting low lazers. I was getting a legitamate 50 yards of roll. Maybe this is what the intention of the club is, I'm not sure. There are several places I play where the trajectory would be too low to hit over obstacles such as medium height trees while trying to cut a corner. I will write a more complete follow up after I have played it for several rounds out on the course. Also If I reshaft it for a higher ball flight i'll let you know how that goes.

Matt (8/17/2007)

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Well, I just got my hands on an SMT 455 Deep Bore. It came with a 44.5 inch UST Harman Tour 65S shaft. The degree of loft on the driver is 11*. I went to the range and hit it about 30 times. I might need to re-shaft it because the ball flight was very low. I did try to hit up on it a little and it helped some, but I don't want to go adjusting my swing too much. I think I really just need a different bend point, maybe a low, I believe the guy said this was a mid bend shaft. Anyways, my mishits were rolling out to 270-280, and granted I was probably swinging a bit too hard to get a real sense of accuracy, I'd say it was no worse than my ping G5. I did have quite a few that carried 270-280 and ran a very long way. Well over 330. But again, It's dry out here and this thing was hitting low lazers. I was getting a legitamate 50 yards of roll. Maybe this is what the intention of the club is, I'm not sure. There are several places I play where the trajectory would be too low to hit over obstacles such as medium height trees while trying to cut a corner. I will write a more complete follow up after I have played it for several rounds out on the course. Also If I reshaft it for a higher ball flight i'll let you know how that goes.

Matt, you must be near San Diego or something?  Where is SMT and how much did you pay for that Diamond in the Rough?  We could all look it up using Google, but if you tell us more?  I'm old and I had my R7 Quad copy roll to 317 on Tuesday on my home course.  But, I am always looking at new equipment.

I have a hard time looking at or even thinking about buying knock off material, I just don#%92t trust it when players better than me play name brands. Plus, I have been to some manufactures and have seen the process to make name brand quality equipment. I was hitting the D1 and then moved to the TP SuperQuad but I didn#%92t like the shaft. I love this site so I clicked through to UST from Tees2Greens and went through the process they have there and now this TP not only looks good but is set perfect for me. I wasn#%92t generating enough ball RPM#%92s so that had to change and the launch angle was way to low. After getting the new V2 shaft my RPM#%92s are right at 3100 and my launch angle went from around 9 to 11.5, I would like a bit more, because I like the idea of carrying it along way, especially since the ground has been so wet, the super roll your getting wont work here. You might try UST, I did it because I like this site, but it turned out to really be a fantastic shaft. Oh, and everyone is winning with the shaft so that helped!

My brother owns the real R7 Quad.  I tried it a couple of years ago and loved it.  But, at the time, I couldn't afford it.  So, I bought a knock-off and found that I could hit it just as well.  I hit it longer and straighter than my older driver.  I have had the knock-off now for almost 2 years.  It isn't the roll, but the carry that sold me.  I still use my brother's R7, when we get together, once in a while but always come to the conclusion that my own knock-off works for me just as well.  I now could afford the real thing if I wanted, but I don't feel the need.  Like I said, I am too old now to really think that distance is everything.  I usually beat my competition with accuracy rather than distance.

SMT definately isn't Knockoff Material. The name stands for Superior Metal Technologies. The owner was touring some long drive compatitions and found that many of the big hitters were going through Many clubheads per competition. By going through clubheads, I mean caving in the face. He took a handful of the best of them out to lunch and asked them what they would want to see as far as improvements to a driver head. He wrote notes down on napkins and after taking thier suggestion and inplementing them to the best of his ability he came up with the first series of SMT driver heads. They have cleaner welds than virtually all OEM clubs and due to no scoring of the face, are able to have a thinner yet stronger face. To back it up they give a lifetime warranty on all clubheads. To boot, I got it with the nice UST shaft for $135. The shaft alone would cost me $80 or so. I think for the price of the head and the reviews it has gotten it is well worth the investment even if it takes me a few tries with different shafts.

I live in upstate NY but do a lot of research online. I really really really wish I lived in San Diego. :w00t:

Well after my first time using this driver for a tournament I can say I will like it. It was a four man scrable format (capt & crew) and I was able to hit it quite a bit even though the course we were playing was short and narrow. I would have normally been hitting 4 iron off almost every green. As it turned out it was very windy and the lower ball flight was a big blessing. I was fairly consistent with it only missing 6 fairways with it, but again these fairways were short and narrow. I also won the long drive by putting it pin high on a par 4 - 340 yarder. It wasn't during the tournament so we did not get an eagle there. They do the long drive and closest to the pin after the event, everyone goes out to the hole and takes one whack. So even better that I did it in front of 80 guys.

So, you are saying that you hit it longer than the guys on the PGA Tour? 340? Looking back at some posts I see that you are consistently hitting the long ball in the 320+ range. Are you completely sure about that? I mean 330, 340 are you in the mountains doing this? That#%92s longer than Bubba, Tiger and Daley! You might check the distances again.

 

Distance Leader: Bubba Watson Avg.: 316.2
Rank	Player	Avg.
1	Bubba Watson  s="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">	316.2
2	J.B. Holmes  s="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">	312.4
3	John Daly	312.3
4	Robert Garrigus  s="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">	311.8
5	Scott Gutschewski  s="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">	306.5
Complete Driving Distance