Should I consider a driver upgrade?

[Ken_805]

Been following MyGolfSpy for quite a while but this is my first post.  I've been a hack golfer for many years (swinging clubs and having some beers) but within the past year I've been focusing on my game, taking a few lessons and upgraded my irons.  Right now I'm playing a 5y+r old Tommy Armour driver from an all-in-one bag.  Accuracy still needs some work but fairways hit is averaging 235yrds.  My swing speed is on the lower end 90-95mph (38yr old) so I am trying to work on increasing those numbers.

So upgrading the driver is inevitable and I'll be going to a local PGA Tour Superstore for basic fitting.  But is it smart to go for it now to get some more distance and maybe knock a few points off, or wait a while to see if I can actually increase my swing speed which might change up the ideal driver?

[Kanoito]

I assume 235 total distance?
According to Trackman, with 95mph SS with optimal launch conditions you could be touching 256 yards.
On the other hand, with 90mph you are pretty much maxing out at 235-240, so a new driver might just bring better dispersion, but not more distance.

[Nic]

I would get fitted for the new driver now.  During the fitting, you should discuss your SS development.  By the end of your session you'll have an idea of just how much a fitted new driver will positively impact your game.

[CHoyle14]

Take your current driver with you to the fitting.  Hit it along with the new Drivers on the market and compare the numbers.  This will give you the answer you are looking for.  

[Nateyeight]

I upgraded my Driver from my first Strata set, first thing I upgraded. Got fitted and noticed the difference instantly. I purchased a second hand driver a few years old, but it had all the same tech as the new ones that are out now. 

[Ken_805]

17 hours ago, Kanoito said:

I assume 235 total distance?
According to Trackman, with 95mph SS with optimal launch conditions you could be touching 256 yards.
On the other hand, with 90mph you are pretty much maxing out at 235-240, so a new driver might just bring better dispersion, but not more distance.

Correct, total distance.  A few MPH to increase 10+ yards is motivation to keep working on it.

[Ken_805]

Thank you all for the feedback.  I'll definitely bring my current driver in when I go shopping

[revkev]

I upgraded my Driver from my first Strata set, first thing I upgraded. Got fitted and noticed the difference instantly. I purchased a second hand driver a few years old, but it had all the same tech as the new ones that are out now. 

This is a good suggestion to consider as well. For example the Ping G400 was the Most Wanted driver here a few years ago. Many big box places would still have some in their inventory.

You could walk out with a driver like that for around $300 rather than $500. Also with today’s adjustability it’s easy enough to get a driver that fits today and can tweaked for swing speed or swing changes tomorrow with the turn of a wrench or the purchase of a different shaft.

Good luck


Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

[Badams69]

Find you a used driver for now.  I'd avoid dropping anything over $150

You can find great drivers for $50-$150 all over the place.  Just get some idea what shaft you may need.

I'd bet a ProjectX 5.5 Red in an M2  would do you quite nicely.

[Buffly]

On 7/26/2020 at 11:27 PM, Ken_805 said:

Been following MyGolfSpy for quite a while but this is my first post.  I've been a hack golfer for many years (swinging clubs and having some beers) but within the past year I've been focusing on my game, taking a few lessons and upgraded my irons.  Right now I'm playing a 5y+r old Tommy Armour driver from an all-in-one bag.  Accuracy still needs some work but fairways hit is averaging 235yrds.  My swing speed is on the lower end 90-95mph (38yr old) so I am trying to work on increasing those numbers.

So upgrading the driver is inevitable and I'll be going to a local PGA Tour Superstore for basic fitting.  But is it smart to go for it now to get some more distance and maybe knock a few points off, or wait a while to see if I can actually increase my swing speed which might change up the ideal driver?

Since you posted the topic it is safe to assume you are already thinking about getting a better driver. 

I would encourage you to do just that.

When you look into it you may be amazed or disappointed.  Amazed if you hit it better and disappointed if there are no gains.

Hitting more fairways is an improvement. 

Hitting farther and less fairways isn't. 

[cnosil]

Hitting more fairways is an improvement. 
Hitting farther and less fairways isn't. 

Definitely debatable statements you have made. Data analytics shows that the farther you can hit the ball the better you will score. The question becomes how much farther warrants less dispersion. It is also sometimes better to aim into the rough to avoid trouble in a different direction.

[THEZIPR23]

1 hour ago, Buffly said:

Hitting more fairways is an improvement. 

Hitting farther and less fairways isn't. 

I would say this if not patently false is a huge stretch at the least. 

[Buffly]

I should have stated marginal distance improvements and less fairways is not an improvement.

As always, one sentence can have many interpretations and without supporting information to make a conclusion both of your judgements of my statement are equivocally incorrect in the same way my statement is incorrect.

Two wrongs don't make you right. 

1 hour ago, cnosil said:

Definitely debatable statements you have made. Data analytics shows that the farther you can hit the ball the better you will score. The question becomes how much farther warrants less dispersion. It is also sometimes better to aim into the rough to avoid trouble in a different direction.

 

19 minutes ago, THEZIPR23 said:

I would say this if not patently false is a huge stretch at the least. 

 

[cnosil]

I should have stated marginal distance improvements and less fairways is not an improvement.
As always, one sentence can have many interpretations and without supporting information to make a conclusion both of your judgements of my statement are equivocally incorrect in the same way my statement is incorrect.
Two wrongs don't make you right. 
 

I never qualified anything in my response and said it was a debatable topic. There is a point where distance gains outweighs being in the fairway. Also aiming at the rough based on normal shot dispersion patterns can be the correct play. Those are simple facts that are proven via stroke gained metrics.

[THEZIPR23]

6 minutes ago, Buffly said:

I should have stated marginal distance improvements and less fairways is not an improvement.

As always, one sentence can have many interpretations and without supporting information to make a conclusion both of your judgements of my statement are equivocally incorrect in the same way my statement is incorrect.

Two wrongs don't make you right. 

 

 

Hitting more fairways is an improvement

Hitting farther and less fairways isn't

 

Very little to interpret from your statement. You can add any context you want to it after the fact, but as stated it is simply not a fact. 

[Buffly]

5 minutes ago, THEZIPR23 said:

Hitting more fairways is an improvement

Hitting farther and less fairways isn't

 

Very little to interpret from your statement. You can add any context you want to it after the fact, but as stated it is simply not a fact. 

The context of the original post, to which I was responding, makes more sense. If you really are a 0.9 handicap then you live in another mindset than the original poster. I can see how you would fail to see it from any other perspective than your own. Instead of pigeonholing everything it would be nice to try and find common ground and build on the conversation. 

For instance, how much of a yardage gain would negate hitting more fairways at a similar yardage to the current driver? 10, 20, 40 yards before it would be a good purchase?

 

[Buffly]

15 minutes ago, cnosil said:

I never qualified anything in my response and said it was a debatable topic. There is a point where distance gains outweighs being in the fairway. Also aiming at the rough based on normal shot dispersion patterns can be the correct play. Those are simple facts that are proven via stroke gained metrics.

That's a great point. What is that point where distance gains outweigh fairways hit?

There was no clarification from the original poster as to how far from the fairway it is missed. 5-10 yards is much different than 20-30 yards in the rough. More questions arise than answers. 

Instead of taking my purposely very vague statements apart you could try to add to the conversation by adding useful information. 

How much offline is an acceptable miss with a driver?

How much yardage gain would negate offline misses by how many yards?

The original poster stated missing and my response was to encourage looking at a good fitting driver being a bit straighter and not only distance. Sometimes distance comes with trusting the driver to go close to where you aim. A two way miss will create doubt and a golfer might take a bit off to find more fairways. 

I agree, very debatable and always more can be said accurately depending on the information supplied. 

[Buffly]

Seems fitting

[THEZIPR23]

52 minutes ago, Buffly said:

The context of the original post, to which I was responding, makes more sense. If you really are a 0.9 handicap then you live in another mindset than the original poster. I can see how you would fail to see it from any other perspective than your own. Instead of pigeonholing everything it would be nice to try and find common ground and build on the conversation. 

For instance, how much of a yardage gain would negate hitting more fairways at a similar yardage to the current driver? 10, 20, 40 yards before it would be a good purchase?

 

Yes I truly am a .9 and while I may have a different mindset it is based on statistics and data. I would say that anyone that isn't using that can improve overnight without changing their swing.

As far as how much yardage, depends on a lot of factors but rough vs fw is approx .24 SG difference. so somewhere in the 10-15 yard range. 

All that being said more than likely a club switch is not going to increase your fw percentage drastically. (caveats of course). It takes roughly a 7 point increase on percentage to hit one more fairway. 

 

[Firebird]

I would go for it now as the tech in the latest drivers is amazing. Plus if you need to you can always buy another shaft. I have 3 for my Callaway.

I bought a Callaway BB Fusion Driver when I was forced (illness) to upgrade my clubs back in 2016. I hit the then Epic and did not like it. Earlier this year the Fusion got a crack in the head. I tried the Epic Flash and was surprised at the difference between it and the older Epic and also the Fusion. I also hit the Cobra F9 and was going to try the SZ Extreme but then all demo days were cancelled due to COVID. At the same time, the on course Pro Shop had the Flash on special for $349 AUD so I bit the bullet and bought one. So happy I did as it feels amazing and boy you can feel the technology working when you miss the centre of the club face. With the Fusion I would loose 30-50m and would fade allot more. With the Flash I am loosing 10-15M but hardly any change to the flight path. 

[Stuka44]

I have to go with Buffly on this one.  I would say there are very few people looking at this site, myself included who are not going to benefit much more from staying in the fairway, as opposed to getting 10 or even 20 more yards if it sacrifices accuracy off the tee, and gets them into more trouble.     I would even go so far as to suggest that on short 320-360 yard par 4's, that to improve his score that he sacrifice even a little more distance off the tee, and hit a long iron, or hybrid or 3 wood, if he can more likely keep that in the fairway, as opposed to his driver.   If the result of this will be he is hitting 7 iron from the fairway, as opposed to 9 iron from the rough, or underneath trees.

[null]

The strokes gained statistics don't lie.  A small increase in accuracy is not worth sacrificing distance.

https://golfanalytics.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/is-distance-or-accuracy-preferable-off-the-tee/

 

[cnosil]

I have to go with Buffly on this one.  I would say there are very few people looking at this site, myself included who are not going to benefit much more from staying in the fairway, as opposed to getting 10 or even 20 more yards if it sacrifices accuracy off the tee, and gets them into more trouble.     I would even go so far as to suggest that on short 320-360 yard par 4's, that to improve his score that he sacrifice even a little more distance off the tee, and hit a long iron, or hybrid or 3 wood, if he can more likely keep that in the fairway, as opposed to his driver.   If the result of this will be he is hitting 7 iron from the fairway, as opposed to 9 iron from the rough, or underneath trees.

My only suggestion would be that you look up information about strokes gained and systems such as Decade. Actual performance data shows this approach Isn’t the best. There are other ways that can enable you to shoot lower scores but due to biases people don’t follow the proven strategies.

[dlow206]

I think there is some nuance here. I think when we are talking about distance over accuracy, you may have a greater range of dispersion, but that does not mean you will all of a sudden be hitting all of your drives OB or into the trees.

If there was a driver that existed that would give you a 20 yard increase but increased your chance of hitting OB from 5% to 50%, yes of course you should not buy that. But that is an extreme example. 

[Stuka44]

I watched some of each of the video's which were posted.  First of all I observe guys who are hitting purposeful cuts, and not drivers off the tee pretending to be their drivers.  I understand the concept of the videos perfectly.  Now if the original poster is someone who with 10- 30 added yards  is going to be within 15- 20 feet of the fairway(on 90% of his missed fairways) or just into the rough, then absolutely he should buy a new driver immediately and take the extra yardage.  I also saw a course where the trees lining the fairways were only 10-15 feet high(mostly, and not a course, like many I play which are lined with old growth forest trees 75 feet high or more.  If the original poster not infrequently  ends up having to punch out of the trees, or hits trees because he is trying to get back to the fairway, then I'm not sure how much of those strokes gained(because of 20 extra yards) will be lost, if he ends up in real "trouble" twice more a round because he still  can't control the added distance with the driver, and its now  its  going farther offline, and into even worse trouble.  Most of the courses I play when you are as far off line as I saw the guy in the video a couple of times, there is no going over or around, its only punch it back to the fairway, there is NO ADVANCING IT TOWARD THE GREEN!

If the original posters "accuracy" problem  is he hits 50% of fairways, and the other 50% of the time he is in the first cut or rough, and not wayward to the point of being OB or off underneath some old growth trees, where you can't advance the ball toward the green, then absolutely take the added yards, he'll learn to cope.  But if on the 4-5 of the other 7 driver holes he is already ending up in "real" trouble, then I don't think being 20 yards further into that trouble is going to help him.  If he is taking 7 or 8's because he's playing from the trees, I still think he would be better served by playing those holes from  30 yards farther back from the fairway, and maybe getting out of there with a 6.

I understand your point.  I would probably be better served by retiring my old Nike VR Pro driver(which I won in an outing), if I could find something that I could hit 20 yards farther off the tee.  I however rarely end up off underneath the trees, or where I have to punch back to the fairway, because I literally have no way to advance the ball.   I am just to lazy and cheap to go by one.  I really think it more depends on just what his "accuracy" problem actually is.

[cnosil]

I watched some of each of the video's which were posted.  First of all I observe guys who are hitting purposeful cuts, and not drivers off the tee pretending to be their drivers.  I understand the concept of the videos perfectly.  Now if the original poster is someone who with 10- 30 added yards  is going to be within 15- 20 feet of the fairway(on 90% of his missed fairways) or just into the rough, then absolutely he should buy a new driver immediately and take the extra yardage.  I also saw a course where the trees lining the fairways were only 10-15 feet high(mostly, and not a course, like many I play which are lined with old growth forest trees 75 feet high or more.  If the original poster not infrequently  ends up having to punch out of the trees, or hits trees because he is trying to get back to the fairway, then I'm not sure how much of those strokes gained(because of 20 extra yards) will be lost, if he ends up in real "trouble" twice more a round because he still  can't control the added distance with the driver, and its now  its  going farther offline, and into even worse trouble.  Most of the courses I play when you are as far off line as I saw the guy in the video a couple of times, there is no going over or around, its only punch it back to the fairway, there is NO ADVANCING IT TOWARD THE GREEN!
If the original posters "accuracy" problem  is he hits 50% of fairways, and the other 50% of the time he is in the first cut or rough, and not wayward to the point of being OB or off underneath some old growth trees, where you can't advance the ball toward the green, then absolutely take the added yards, he'll learn to cope.  But if on the 4-5 of the other 7 driver holes he is already ending up in "real" trouble, then I don't think being 20 yards further into that trouble is going to help him.  If he is taking 7 or 8's because he's playing from the trees, I still think he would be better served by playing those holes from  30 yards farther back from the fairway, and maybe getting out of there with a 6.
I understand your point.  I would probably be better served by retiring my old Nike VR Pro driver(which I won in an outing), if I could find something that I could hit 20 yards farther off the tee.  I however rarely end up off underneath the trees, or where I have to punch back to the fairway, because I literally have no way to advance the ball.   I am just to lazy and cheap to go by one.  I really think it more depends on just what his "accuracy" problem actually is.

I understand you points and yes,
If your dispersion patterns is wide enough that you end up in trouble then you should hit a different club. While we ideally want to be in the fairway since that provides the best opportunity for scoring better; we also need to be prepared to aim at and be happy to be in the rough. The whole strategy concept about aiming toward the rough is trouble avoidance. It isn’t about choosing the club that hits the fairway it is about choosing clubs that put you in the best position to score. You lose too much by laying back and targeting the fairway. Give up 20 yards and you are potentially giving up strokes. If you have set yourself up so that you miss pattern puts you deep into the woods then you have chosen the wrong aim point. If you have chosen the right aimpoint and hit an outlier type shot that was just a bad swing.

From a club fitting perspective the goal is to narrow the dispersion cone and/or gain distance. You can chose one or both. If I go for distance only, my dispersion patterns increases in size because a 1* miss at 250 is wider than at 225. You may choose to stay at 225 and narrow the dispersion pattern which gives you more chances to hit the driver.

This is why we say strategies like pick the club that puts you in the fairway is a bad strategy move. This doesn’t just apply to low handicaps, this applies to all golfers.

There are strategies that also target fairways, but you are playing the game quite a bit differently. There are some posts on here about that strategy but it would take some time to find and it wouldn’t be easy on a phone.

Hopefully that explains why we don’t agree with the “you reed to hit the fairway strategy”

[Stuka44]

I'll accept that.  Well said.  Don't agree with it completely, but your point is sound if you are not someone who is slicing regularly into the forest, then yes I agree having 8 iron into the green is preferable to 6, and pitching wedge instead of 9 into par 5's on 3rd shot is preferable.