OFFICIAL FORUM MEMBER REVIEW - COBRA F7/F7+ Drivers

[drewneddy]

@carolinagolfer2

 

That's funny you mentioned that because I compared it to a muted pop sound. I love the acoustics of the club.

 

In my thread I compared it to the old Cleveland Comp from a looks and sound perspective

 

 

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[DawgDaddy]

Rob, I haven't as yet played with moving the weights around. I did jack the loft up to 12° and that's it. I plan to hit the driving range soon and play around with them. Very easy for me to keep it in play with the standard weight setting. I imagine my SS now is down to the 80/85 range, not being able to exercise is really taking a toll.

 

Thanks for your input and questions.

[DawgDaddy]

Bumping

[DawgDaddy]

Time for a morning bump

[PAgolfer2017]

Hey Stan. First time caller, long time listener. Got question for you. Wanted to see how you felt about the new Cobra F7+ driver? I'm going to hang up now and listen. Enjoy the show”

 

Not sure about other parts of the country, but a monologue like the above sounds like nearly every caller into Pittsburgh Sports Talk radio.

 

My screenname is drewneddy, and I'm going to tell you in three stages how I feel about the Cobra F7+ driver. I've been selected by the fantastic people at MyGolfSpy to test this product. But first, let me tell you a little more about myself, my game, drewneddy WITB and my initial thoughts on the Cobra F7+ driver.

 

I'm 28 years old and currently a Commercial Lending Officer at a local bank. I enjoy my job and it does allow me some extra time to play golf either with customers or in corporate functions. The term “Bankers Hours” really doesn't apply anymore. Gone are the days where Pennsylvania towns use to close up shop at noon on Wednesdays and everyone would rush to the golf course in the summers. Some days I attribute this to population decline. Others I blame technology and our “plugged in society.” I can basically work off my phone which is really convenient. But it also means I'm always “on the clock.”

 

The game of golf has opened so many doors for me. Due to serious leg and knee injuries, contact sports were out of the question in high school. I had been playing golf since I was about 6 years old. But I enjoyed a variety of sports like basketball, volleyball, baseball, and tennis. I started to concentrate on golf in about 6th grade. The injuries to my right leg have given me a sort of “stack and tilt” motion in my swing. The kind of trendy swing back around 2010-ish that seemed to have fizzled out over the years. Maybe we will see a video in the later stages of testing.

 

I was four year MVP in high school. I played in regional and national junior events and put together enough of a resume to earn a NCAA Division 1 golf scholarship. Golf has given me an opportunity to meet people from all corners of this country and many from other countries; including two former teammates from Columbia.

 

Currently, I am a scratch golfer. After being busy the past two years getting married and having a beautiful baby girl last March, I'm finally ready to re-enter the competitive golf world. I was lucky to be able to play 60 rounds of golf last year and plan on playing about the same but practicing more this year. I'm excited to see what 2017 has in store for me.

 

My ball flight has always been predominately right to left. It's my go-to shot that holds up under pressure. My miss is almost always a pull to the left. I've been joked with before that my cut shot is actually a 2yd draw. I've been working on that this season in hopes I can rely on hitting it Left to Right when necessary.

 

Naturally, I'm a very competitive person. I love the game because I love competition and all the memories and friends I've made playing. I literally don't know if I can tee up a ball without anything on the line or anything to work towards. I'm a believer that you are only as good as your tournament scores. The ones where you have to putt everything out, count every shot. None of the gimmies and GHIN mandated double bogey MAX. To be brutally honest with myself, I'm not sure how good of a player I am right now because I have no barometer from the past two years.

 

My swing speed I estimate to be about 105 mph. With my driver I carry the ball roughly 265- 270 yds (edit: maybe I'm longer than I gave myself credit for. Thanks Cobra Connect w/ Arccos!) Driving has always been a strength of my game. Ball striking in general has carried me. Not to say my short game is bad, but you still need to roll the rock on the greens and get up and down when you make mistakes. This season I started chipping/pitching face on. It's a technique I saw from a top 100 instructor out of Tennessee. It's impossible to not make solid contact with the ball and very easy to control trajectory and spin. Anyone who has the chip y*ps or chunks should give it a try. Here is the article: http://www.golf.com/instruction/2017/03/29/new-way-chip-turn-bogeys-to-pars-birdies . While the season is still early, I think I've holed a chip shot every round and have minimized my mistakes. Trying to turn a weakness into a strength.

 

Did I mention I'm a statistics nerd? I have kept track of my stats from every round each of the past three summers. I hit 50.7% of fairways, 63.8% of GIR (DJ hits 75%!!!), and average 30.2 putts per round. Best score last year was a 65. Worst was 79 (+9 posted somewhere Away. The two courses I'm a member at are both par 72.) Only 22% of my fairway misses are to the right. That stat alone I think paints a pretty good visual of my ball flight.

 

Any cool statistic apps out there? I'm always looking for something to try that might be able to provide me some better feedback. I use the GRINT for now. Have used Nike360 and some generic iTunes app before.

 

My bag setup is as follows:

 

Driver – Cobra F7+

3 Wood – Taylor Made SLDR 15 degree

2H & 4H – Cobra T-Rail hybrids

5 through PW – Bridgestone J15DPF

Wedges: 50, 54, 58 – Callaway Mack Daddy 3 black nickel

Ball – Bridgestone B330 tour

 

Why I enjoy this site also attributes to what's in the bag. I've read MGS for a long time for product testing and reviews. I am not brand loyal. I want the best performance and best feedback. That's' why I have loved reading previous MGS project reviews. I feel like I don't choose my equipment, my equipment chooses me. Like my irons for instance. I was playing Titleist AP2 then my dad brought home the Bridgestone set he won at an outing. I hit them on the range and swapped them out before he could put them in his bag. I liked the increased distance without sacrificing trajectory, spin or most importantly FEEL!! I loved the feel coming off the club face. It really opened my eyes to Bridgestone equipment and got me converted to their B330 tour ball from the ProV1X.

 

I'm really excited to put this driver to the test. All of the reviews I've read so far have been great. I was and still am planning on trying out the Callaway Epic and Taylor Made M1/M2 drivers. The Cobra Connect with Arccos app pairing for tracking shot distance is something that fascinates me. In the future, I'm thinking we are looking back at the Cobra F7/F7+ as a game changer in the industry. I believe we will see other manufacturers piggy back off of this technology. Hopefully they improve on it. Something that has turned me off from the Arccos is the fact your phone needs to be in your pocket at all times. I don't play like that and don't think I could since I have a bulky Otter Box case on my iPhone 6.

 

Finally… the long awaited delivery day. My wife text me at 3pm that a delivery driver had just dropped off a box that said Cobra. I immediately called her to confirm, left work and raced home. I spent some time with the family, cooked dinner, and shot off to the course for a quick 9.

 

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Initial thoughts: The packaging was standard golf club packaging. Tall and skinny brown box that said “Cobra.” The club was neatly secured inside with a cardboard flap. A nice black leather Cobra KING head cover and wrench with instruction manual were packaged separately inside. I immediately pulled the Arccos tab off the top of the grip and got my phone out for pairing. I had already downloaded the Arccos app in anticipation of this day. The pairing could not have been simpler. I did not even need the instructions for pairing. Just turned on my Bluetooth and gave permission to Arccos to use my microphone and that was it!! Even the most technological challenged person could pair the driver with their phone.

 

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The driver itself can be set anywhere from 8 to 11 degrees. This club also incorporates Cobra MyFly and Smartpad technology so you can adjust the loft and lie angle with little to no impact on the angle of the clubface at the address position. The stock shaft option was the Fujikura Pro XLR8. My two previous drivers have been both Taylor Made. For this review, I swapped out the Aeroburner TP with diamana blue shaft. Before that I played the RBZ Tour. One of my cons with that club was whenever you adjusted loft it would made the club more open/closed at address depending if you increased or decreased loft. I typically play around 9.5 of loft so I did not move the loft or any weights to get ready for the course.

 

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If it were any other driver my first move would have been a standard range session; start with wedges and move up to the big stick. But I was just as anxious to try out the Cobra Connect with Arccos technology on my course as I was to hit the Cobra F7+ driver. (Spoiler Alert! Cobra Connect is better than I ever imagined. Arccos might have landed a new customer. Very impressed with the ease of the system. Set it / play it / review it. Reviewing your stats after the round is a fun mental exercise so I really enjoyed this. And their yardages are down to +/- 2yds from what I can tell which is incredible for a course in the middle of Pennsylvania.)

 

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Quick observations: I love the compact look of this club. Right out of the package and into my hands, the black matte finish is beautiful compared to the white headed drivers I've been playing. The compact look will fit the eye of better players. It looks like it comes in different color options including a Rickie Fowler OSU Orange and Royal Blue color. Myself, I prefer something simple looking and the black matte fitted my eyes the best.

 

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This Cobra driver implores 3 movable weights that are positioned on the bottom of the club head. One 12g weight and two 2g weights fill up the three weight ports. No more weight track that was on the older Cobra model. It looks to me like there are a couple settings for this club. Low spin – 12g weight middle and forward. Higher spin – 12g weight back. And a draw setting which I will not be messing with. Nothing for wanting the left to right ball flights which is actually a good idea since I thought I heard somewhere > 80% of players hit a cut/slice. I don't know the percentage of what better players hit, but I'd guess that number is significantly towards the mean for single digit handicaps.

 

I played two rounds over the first weekend of reviewing the club at each of my home courses. Both are tree lined as you can see by the Arccos screen shots. The weather was about 55-60 each day and overcast with a light breeze. Again, I live in the middle of Pennsylvania. It has not been a good spring for golf. I've only played 10 rounds because of cold and wet weather. The yardages listed are all carry yardages as we received rain 5 of the past 7 days leading up to my first test weekend. I'm excited seeing numbers > 280 because I know once June comes the ball is going to be bouncing and rolling. It could be I have picked up some distance in the off-season. Time will tell if I continue this trend or come back to my average carry distance.

 

The driver itself is very light. The look and feel reminds me of the Cleveland Composite driver. I really have to give Cobra credit for the acoustics. The sound really matches the feel if you know what I mean? There is no more aluminum baseball bat sound like previous Cobra models had. Shots in the center of the clubface have more of a “pop” sound compared to a loud and echoing “Ting”. I dig the noise. I dig the feel of the Fujikura Pro XLR8. And after one range session and two 18 hole rounds I am digging the trajectory. The ball flight for me is a high launching and long carrying tight draw – or dare I say Straight?!?!. I missed more fairways to the right than I think I did all of last summer. In the coming weeks this is something I think I can compensate for once I learn to trust the flight and pattern and stop aiming at the right cut expecting it to peel off to the left like my typical ball flight does.

 

With that said, I am anxious to see what the next few weeks has in store for the test. I need to commit to carrying this club in my bag by the end of the month because I have a couple qualifiers in June. I also have a bachelor party the last weekend in June which will be competitive as all hell versus my old teammates. I'm out for blood at this BP. Nothing worse than losing to your best friends and old teammates.

 

What's your ultimate performance goal for drivers? Long and accurate, right? High launch and low spin?! I'm not looking for distance as much as I'm looking for control and workability. It's time to put this baby in the bag and see how it performs over a longer period of time in advance of my stage two of the review process.

 

Let's keep the discussion ongoing leading up to my stage 2 review. I'm leaning on you the MGS community to help me through this review. Any questions, comments, concerns, please post. This is my first review and obviously this is new to me. So if there is anything specific you want to see, please post it. Any suggestions how to make stage 2 or 3 better, please post. Keep posting and I'll keep checking back to make sure every comment has been read.

 

And to my old teammates on this forum – please do not post Greg's 54 hole bachelor party results in the event one of you beats me. I'm not about public shaming.

 

Thank you MyGolfSpy and let the games BEGIN!!!

 

- DrewNeddy

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Great review! Look forward to reading more about the driver! Also great to see a Stan Savran reference thrown in there? I agree though. Very much like all of the Pittsburgh sports radio callers. Stan, DK and Mark Madden....haha. Every single one is the same!

[ole gray]

Rob, I haven't as yet played with moving the weights around. I did jack the loft up to 12° and that's it. I plan to hit the driving range soon and play around with them. Very easy for me to keep it in play with the standard weight setting. I imagine my SS now is down to the 80/85 range, not being able to exercise is really taking a toll.

 

Thanks for your input and questions.

 

Hey Dawg I know you like midsize grips so if you change grips, does that mess with the tracking system built in?

[TSauer]

Hey Dawg I know you like midsize grips so if you change grips, does that mess with the tracking system built in?

Not Dawg, but since the Arccos unit is built into the grip, once you remove the grip you remove the tracking system. I have the F7+ myself, and I removed the grip upon receiving it so I could put on my gamers. If you wanted to keep the tracking, you could always use a tape buildup to get that midsize feel.

[ole gray]

Not Dawg, but since the Arccos unit is built into the grip, once you remove the grip you remove the tracking system. I have the F7+ myself, and I removed the grip upon receiving it so I could put on my gamers. If you wanted to keep the tracking, you could always use a tape buildup to get that midsize feel.

 

Thanks TSauer.  Yea I was wondering about that so if you wanted a midsize are jumbo size you would have to special order it from Cobra. Pending you wanted to keep the tracking system.

[TSauer]

Thanks TSauer. Yea I was wondering about that so if you wanted a midsize are jumbo size you would have to special order it from Cobra. Pending you wanted to keep the tracking system.

Yep. You can even order it without the Cobra Connect, but lets be honest, who doesn't want to track their driving accuracy? Haha.

[DawgDaddy]

Yep, I am playing it standard and I would really like a couple of wraps under it.  Not too bad but as I am testing it "off the rack" I don't plan to mess with anything until the testing is completed. 

[Shankster]

How does the stock Shaft work for you Gents vs. your old gamer?

 

 

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[Camcmart]

Reviews are sounding stellar guys! Can't wait to hear more good news about this driver

 

 

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[DawgDaddy]

For me the Stock F7 is very comparable to the GBB I have been playing, I feel that the GBB launches slightly higher, it is a 10.5° set to 12.5° now and I have the F7 set to 12°.  The GBB has an Aldila ATX55 so it is slightly lighter than the Fujikura Pro 60 but I believe both shafts are designed for higher launch.  I will be doing a H2H comparison in my stage 2 review.   Thanks for the question Shankster. 

[drewneddy]

I don't like that the Connect is basically one and done. I change grips every year so looks like 2018 I wouldn't be on Cobra Connect anymore.

 

The flip side of that, I might be a full bag arccos customer by then. So they got me!!!

 

 

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[mtisdale]

Great start on your review, question on the app, there are 2 #'s showing for the ball path and then another # on the upper left? what is the difference with these two #'s?? 

 

I think this is a great added value to these drivers and a way to get younger players interested in golf. 

 

Look forward to reading more about the performance of the driver.

[DawgDaddy]

Great start on your review, question on the app, there are 2 #'s showing for the ball path and then another # on the upper left? what is the difference with these two #'s?? 

 

I think this is a great added value to these drivers and a way to get younger players interested in golf. 

 

Look forward to reading more about the performance of the driver.

If I follow your question the number in the upper left hand is for the King of the Hole feature, Arccos will save and compile data for several people playing together and track the KotH for them.  In the example I pulled from the net the King had a 278 yard drive and then the player currently playing the hole had a 218 yard drive.  That is my understanding but I have yet to play with others playing with a Cobra Connected driver so I have not tried this feature.

 

Also I am not sure if this is a saved feature from round to round or is simply used "live"  to compare with others at that particular time.  

 

[DawgDaddy]

Afternoon bump. 

[drewneddy]

 

From this a.m round. Im not entirely sure how the king or the hole works. Because I've beat a few and even hit the fairways and it doesn't show me as KING.

 

I think Arccos is a great tool for casual players as this King of the Hole gives them a game within their game.

 

As far as the question regarding stock shafts... I have been fitted for each of my past 3 driver shafts. This one being stock seems to fit me pretty well. I do feel like I'm leaving distance out there. But I'm playing for control and fairways not trying to exceed the 300yd threshold.

 

I hit the M1 yesterday and hated it. Couldn't get around on it and the head seemed jumbo compared to the F7+. It had a similar

 

 

 

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[mtisdale]

If I follow your question the number in the upper left hand is for the King of the Hole feature, Arccos will save and compile data for several people playing together and track the KotH for them.  In the example I pulled from the net the King had a 278 yard drive and then the player currently playing the hole had a 218 yard drive.  That is my understanding but I have yet to play with others playing with a Cobra Connected driver so I have not tried this feature.

 

Also I am not sure if this is a saved feature from round to round or is simply used "live"  to compare with others at that particular time.  

 

 

It would be really cool if the app works like 4squares app where it kept it all the info online that way when you went to a course you could "challenge" the King of that course. That would be very cool. 

[DawgDaddy]

Morning bump

[drewneddy]

The Arccos would be cool if it logged all the data over the course of season into a plot map or something on the hole. Like they show on tour every week.

 

It would just be neat to see the data overlay like that.

 

 

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[Sparksjr]

Well this thread has me quite interested in the arccos grip.

 

 

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[Shankster]

I'm looking to get that Arccos set up too. With the caddy feature. I'm already interested in the driver. I demoed the F7+ and loved it. Can't wait for the rest of these reviews!

 

 

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[ole gray]

I'm loving my Cobra F6 so I'm looking forward to Dawg and I teeing it up to compare the F7 with it!

[drewneddy]

Since the sensor is right in the grip, I'm shocked they didn't just send a driver plug with the club similar to Arccos on the rest of club.

 

Maybe the sensor in the grip is a glimpse into the future?

 

So far I'm liking the F7+. My misses have been more towards the heel than usual. Maybe the club being lighter or maybe me with my swing thoughts

 

 

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[DawgDaddy]

I'm loving my Cobra F6 so I'm looking forward to Dawg and I teeing it up to compare the F7 with it!

We will try to get that done next week, how about Monday just you and I and the F6 and F7 on the course comparing them and sharing our thoughts?  

[ole gray]

We will try to get that done next week, how about Monday just you and I and the F6 and F7 on the course comparing them and sharing our thoughts?  

 

Sounds like a great idea to me! Send me a text for what time you want to go off and I'll get us a tee time.

[DawgDaddy]

Bumpity!

[GolfSpy_APH]

Great reviews so far! Looking forward to the rest as I've played cobra drivers a lot over the past. Very interested in Arccos feature now. I knew it was good, but seems like an amazing feature. Have either of you used the game golf? I know the review is about driver and arccos is a feature of it, but would love to know how it compares to game golf even if it's just one club.

Good luck with the rest of your testing!

 

 

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[DawgDaddy]

I have not  used Game Golf.   But I will say with Arcoss you don't have to remember to tap the club to a unit on your belt like you do in GG.  It is very easy to use and truly works in the background.