Driver Test: Old vs. New
September 25th, 2012 | 
Author: 
Old vs New
My wife encouraged me to clean out the garage the other day and I happened upon an old driver I used in college. I still remember how cool this driver was – it was the latest and greatest and even had a titanium shaft! When was the last time you saw one of those? Just for kicks I placed it up alongside my current Titleist driver and was shocked at the massive difference between the two – the older club looked smaller than my current three wood! How could I have possibly played well with this mini club? This got me thinking about a TrackMan test.
For the record the smaller club was a TaylorMade Burner Plus 9.5 degree with a titanium X flex shaft and my current club is a Titleist D3 8.5 with a Motore F3 70 gram graphite S flex shaft. There is a fairly substantial 1.5 inch difference even though both clubs were standard length in their day. I am not sure about the weight or the true frequency/flex of each club as I did not have the appropriate equipment to check those measurements.
A 1.5 inch Difference
Titanium shaft vs Graphite
For the TrackMan test I hit 12 shots with each club and deleted the data for the two worst shots. I noted that the attack angle, club path, swing direction and plane were very similar from club to club.
The primary differences seemed to be:
- Club speed 99.7mph vs 101.8mph – I believed that this difference would be greater due to the large difference in length of shafts.
- Ball Speed 145.7mph vs 152.4mph – I put this down to the fact that the smaller head led to more off-center hits and thus a decreased average ball speed and smash factor.
- Point of contact – there was a noticeable tendency for me to strike the bigger club in the heel. This led to more shots missed to the right due to gear effect and an increase in the spin rate 2455rpm vs 2895rpm.
- Height – even though the smaller club launched the ball slightly higher the apex height was lower due to less spin and ball speed.
- Carry and total distance – the smaller club carried the ball almost 17yards shorter, but with less spin and a flatter land angle rolled further to only finish just over 10 yards short of the bigger club.
- Dispersion – the smaller club had more shots finish further from the center line due to a much smaller clubface and substantially lower MOI.
Here are the TrackMan generated dispersion charts (yellow is the smaller club) and averages:
(click to enlarge)
TrackMan Dispersion Chart
Comparison of Averages
The Current Driver numbers...
The Old Driver numbers...
I was amazed at how small the difference between the two drivers, total distance wise, there was. Going in to the test I would have thought that there would be a 15 yard difference at least. I expected the smaller club to spin the ball less and lower the apex which it did, but I was truly amazed at how little distance I lost with it. I did notice a much greater tendency to hit the ball outside the sweet spot with the smaller club and that led to some fairly aggressive gear effect draws and fades.
Driving is not my strong suit and I am always looking to keep the ball in play off the tee. Armed with this new knowledge I am going to try a shorter shaft in my current driver head and see what that does for my fairways hit statistic. I also plan on practicing with the older club – I think it is vital in improving ball striking to practice with smaller headed clubs.
I also think this test might also illustrate that the majority of the distance gains we see on the PGATour today are not equipment based, but primarily due to the ball…..your thoughts?
1990 vs 2010
Posted in Commentary, Equipment, Long Game | 
Tags: apex height, ball speed, ball striking, club speed, dispersion, driver, fairways hit statistic, gear effect, height, land angle, MOI, oversize clubhead, point of contact, shorter shaft, shorter shaft driver, smaller clubhead, spin rate, sweet spot, taylor made burner plus, titanium shaft, titleist d3, total distance, trackman
do you think your tendency to hit the heel with the bigger club was down to hitting a few shots with the smaller club (which the sweetspot is closer to the heel) and then that idea transferring over subconsciously. Or could it be more down to the fact the bigger club is going to be teed higher, so the club is going to raise up to meet the ball and get further away from you? Or was there another reason?
I love the idea about practicing with a smaller club. I recently got an old maxfli australian blade out to do the same. I think we should all be making practice more difficult – it is a big driving force in skill development. Guys have it too easy these days
That is what Jack Nicklaus has been saying for years. It is all about the ball. I don’t know if I hit the ball any longer but it sure seems like the pros do. Hitting a 600 yard Par 5 in two can you imagine Palmer, Nicklaus, Miller, etc doing that?
Adam – lately I’ve been hitting everything out the heel, so it was refreshing to actually hit a few ‘toe’ balls with the smaller club.
I would also suggest that physical conditioning and the learning curve also have an impact on how far the young guys hit it today. Back when you had the Taylor Made and older players like myself with persimmon, you could not “grip it and rip it” and still count on minimal dispersion. When those opportunities came along later you couldn’t just ramp it up without changing your entire approach to the golf swing. Whereas the young guys always could let it fly and have had the leg drive to make it work from an early age.
Hi Jeff,
While conditioning might play a small role I’m not sure it’s much. I do like your idea that with the larger club you can swing away without (as much) fear of missing the sweet spot and this contributes to the ‘advances’ in distance today.
Hope you guys are well!
Andrew
Andrew,
Thanks for doing this. I also enjoyed your mud ball test.
It’s funny though. I’ve felt the ball has been the biggest factor for distance gains. But a month back I hit a few drives with a Maxfli Revolution and was only 5-10 yards behind the Penta.
I’d like to see this test done with the golf ball. Say Tour Professionals vs Pro V1′s.
Andrew,
Thanks for sharing this. I got the bug this summer to drag out my retired Wood Bros. persimmons with DGS300 shafts one day for the usual Wed. game with the guys. I was surprised to hit more fairways and actually seem to not suffer much distance loss. I was even more surprised at the efficiency of the 3 wd. out of long rough. I would have never been able to hit today’s 3 wood out of that stuff. Heck, the only thing I really missed was using today’s hybrids.
This article answers a lot of questions for me.
Thanks again.
Jerry
Andrew,
Love your stuff I have to say. Non complicated and free from hype.
I have been using my R11 driver and R11s 3 wood at Golftec on their equipment and note that although my 3 wood is shorter, my swing speed is exactly the same (about 102mph). I was thinking the smaller head would have less frontal area therefore less drag, so one thing offsets the other (that being shaft length). No doubt the 3 wood hits it a lot straighter off the tee due to the shorter length and I would say lighter “feeling” head.
If good golfers can hit it off the sweet spot a lot, would it not make sense to make a lot smaller head say between a 3 wood and a 460cc driver and see what happens?
Keep up the good work.
Nick
Great post Andrew,
Love the idea of practicing with that small driver. I think that learning to hit a blade 2 iron and the old pt3wood helped me.
Also think there will be gains in ball speed gains from higher COR on the titleist and reduced energy losses from ball.
Great and interesting post as ever Andrew.
I am definitely not an expert in this, but I always thought distance increases were mainly due to: driver shafts being longer and lighter with technology improvements, faces being larger and therefore more forgiving, ‘trampoline effect’ thin faces which meant more face deformation instead of energy-sapping ball deformation at impact. I’m interested, as I guess I never used many of the ‘older balls’ why would you say the majority of the PGA Tour distance gains are primarily due to the ball?
Also, has the size of the newer golf drivers increased the ‘sweetspot’ area due to perimeter weighting? My club maker always used to say the sweetspot of the club was a fixed size and all of the marketing saying ‘increased sweet spot size’ was not true. He showed me that if I tapped on the face to see where the sweetspot actually was, and then tapped the face off-centre (leading to face twisting) the area of the sweetspot would be a similar size with all drivers. What do you think? Am I way off?!
I agree that the ball is the component that most afffects the difference in total yards but the shaft shouldn’t be discounted. The technologies in shaft design and fitting are miles ahead versus twenty years ago.
For those questioning just how much difference the ball made in the distance increases, search this website for the post entitled Evolution of the Golf Ball. I don’t know how to link to it or I would. Unless I missed something in this post, testing was done with the same swing, club, and conditions. The only variable was the ball. The testing showed that todays ball is over 30 yards longer (actually closer to 40) than previous versions. If this doesn’t convince you that the major influence, by far, in increased distances is the ball then nothing will.
Good point Johnny – here you go: http://www.andrewricegolf.com/2011/08/evolution-of-a-golf-ball/
About 5 months ago I decided to start practicing with my old magregor muirfields and cleveland clqssic persiommons
to see if it would improve my ball striking. Long story short i have pretty much been playing some of the best golf of my life. Last 5 rounds i have gamed these because it has been so much fun, completely different kind of golf.
I agree that the ball is mostly responsible for the distance gains. I find that i lose about 10 yards on well struck
hits but around 20 to 30 on off center hits, however i never seem to be that far off the fairway like a miss hit
with my callaway. I have owned these clubs since the late 80′s and my longest drives were around 275 back then.
I hit one 295 last round with a bridgestone 330 rxs and i’m 25 years older and weaker! Folks I think it’s the ball!
Oh, it’s the ball alright! I was teaching at Medinah in Chicago in 1986 when I got some Eye 2 beryllium irons. I was 26 years old and not far removed from competitive college golf. Game was still in good shape and I was considered long at the time. Fast forward to now…I am 51 with three kids and play infrequently. The Eye 2 has remained a part of my set. And no, there are no grooves left but that’s another story. I can hit it 13 yards longer today than I did 26 years ago. Nothing has changed in the makeup of the club and I am considerably weaker (I would venture to say there is a huge difference in how much strength a woman loses compared to a man in the same time span) yet I can hit it longer than I did when I was a good player. Jack, Arnie and Gary are correct in my opinion. The ball goes too far. There is absolutely no reason I should be able to hit it longer today than half a century ago. Name another sport where you get more powerful after 50 years of age? It’s unnatural.
I think I was a better player in the mid-90s than I am now. Maybe not. Maybe using the same irons and occasionally the same woods I’ve gained 15 yards on my 4-iron and 25 yards on my driver distance by improving swing efficiency and impact position. Sure that happened.