how long are drivers supposed to last?

[ninjacobra]

i am really afraid of using my driver at the driving range because range balls are hard. some times i hit a drive and when caught flush i can hear sounds from inside the head at the finish. i wonder how many range balls i can hit before the inverted cone in the driver will crack or maybe damage the head or the hosel bit of the shaft

 

my driver atm is the best performer ive got so i dont want it to die on me before the next one gets released.

 

are my worries uncalled for? or am i degrading the life of my driver significantly by practicing shots at the driving range. my head speed is between 106-110 depending on how fast i fire my hips.

[RoverRick]

I used a Titleist 905R minimum of 4 times a week for 5 years. I know a guy that just replaced his titleist 975 with a RBZ. So use it up. I even hit mine off the deck. Get your money's worth out of it. Chances are the resale value goes to crap anyway. You break it you can buy another used. To me it is mostly about the shaft.

[Shambles]

It would be a pretty badly made club if it can be worn out or destroyed by normal swings. In truth there have been Drivers that I know of that got a cracked face in normal use. I own one, a TM R7 460. Apparently it was just bad luck for me. The supplier of TM's Titanium faces was inconsistent with quality and I happened to get one of the few. The local supplier disowned it as a US sale and it was too much trouble to send it back so I just pulled the shaft for future use and stopped buying TM.

 

It happens but it's rare and as you are in the States, you should be able to ask for a replacement if it's a manufacturing defect without a lot of trouble. I'm just too far away to be bothered.

 

I'm of the opinion that too many players do not use their clubs enough and change too often. Get to know your clubs and use them thoroughly. They can last longer than you live but you are more likely to change them after a few years anyway. It's what people do.

 

 

Shambles

[JMiller]

i am really afraid of using my driver at the driving range because range balls are hard. some times i hit a drive and when caught flush i can hear sounds from inside the head at the finish. i wonder how many range balls i can hit before the inverted cone in the driver will crack or maybe damage the head or the hosel bit of the shaft

 

my driver atm is the best performer ive got so i dont want it to die on me before the next one gets released.

 

are my worries uncalled for? or am i degrading the life of my driver significantly by practicing shots at the driving range. my head speed is between 106-110 depending on how fast i fire my hips.

 

I lived in Ohio growing up and through college, there was a driving range that had industrial heaters in their hitting bays outside for the winter so you could still hit balls.

 

I had a TM 460 Super Quad at the time and well ended up crushing the face about 1" down from the crown, caved it in literally not a hair line fracture. It has taken me a long time to get another driver that has worked well in my swing that I like a lot since crushing that one.

 

In cold weather the ball can become like a pure stone and not compress, if the metal is also very cold it will contract and not take impact as well if cold enough it will shatter if something hits it hard enough. I don't know how many people I have seen hairline fracture and cave in faces on drivers hitting in the winter with frozen range balls and cold driver head that has been sitting in the car over night.

 

In the winter and summer you want to bring your clubs into the house or a room that is temperature controlled as much as possible. Cold weather then make metal / graphite contract and more brittle. In the summer the heat can actually loosen the epoxy bond between the hosel and shaft, you likely to have a head go flying off eventually if the clubs sit in the car all day long in 90* or higher weather outside, it can get up to 120* or more in a car that is closed off including the trunk.

 

There are some real fears about weather effecting equipment, but if you are hitting range balls in warm weather then I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[fozcycle]

Great advice Jmiller065!

 

I live in the Tampa, FL area and know that you cannot leave your clubs in the car.

 

The heat builds up so quickly that you can literally get burned when you touch the metal. If it gets that hot (and it does) then the glue can surely come undone.

[ninjacobra]

the crack in the head is exactly what i am afraid of. as the R11 is superseded it would be hard to find the exact head that has been working so well for me this season.

 

I am in australia and i work at a golf store and yes we do ship stuff back to manufacturer for repair but if my head is in repair or if it is beyond repair i am stuck with the on loan R11s or a replacement R11s. everyone at works been telling me to be careful with range balls but i do want to practice to keep the driving good like it is now.

 

but anyway why i was concerned is that the sound that comes from the inside the head doesn sound like its a normal sound. it literally sounds like the insides of the driver were crushed in and then it is expanding back out.the ball flight is still good. I knw its not lk i have long drive head speed but i do belive i hit it slightly better than the average golfer hitting around 270yards on average so that s why ive been concerned abt the insides of the head as the drivers now have incredibly thin faces.

 

but by the looks of it everyone here has been pounding the s*** out of their drivers and ill probably do that too from now

[RookieBlue7]

You're not going to damage your club anymore by hitting range balls than you would by hitting any other ball. But, don't take my word for it, here's what Tom Wishon has to say on the subject:

 

Titanium Driver Face Fatigue - Fact or Fiction?

TWGT receives numerous emails from regular golfers through our consumer web site (www.twgolftech.com) asking questions about golf equipment. We make it a point to always answer because it gives us a chance to also advise golfers of the benefits of professional clubfitting as well as to point them to the Clubmaker Locator pages on our web site to find a Clubmaker near them with whom they can work to be custom fit.

 

 

Recently a golfer contacted us to ask if it was possible for the face of a titanium driver to fatigue over time and experience a drop in the COR of the face. In addition, we have also heard the stories of long drive competitors "wearing out the face" of their drivers. Since we felt this was an interesting question related to clubhead performance, we wanted to use this topic in an article in this month's TWGT ETECHreport newsletter.

 

 

Metal fatigue is a weakened condition in which repeated stress causes the strength of a metal part to drop below the normal designed stress threshold of the part. Micro-fractures begin to form from a high level of repeated stress which upon further stress become larger and more populated until the yield strength drops well below the level of the stress being induced on the part.

 

 

It is highly unlikely a driver could ever be hit so many times that the titanium face could develop metal fatigue. The face is simply not flexed in and out far enough to create such a condition. In addition, few drivers are ever hit more than a few thousand times in their lifetime, with a high percentage of those impacts occurring off the center of the face. It is true that much higher clubhead speeds will push the impact stress higher on the face, but again, the face is simply not flexed in and out dimensionally to a point that fatigue could occur.

 

 

From previous Finite Element Analysis projects commissioned by TWGT, at a clubhead speed of 110mph, the face of a typical 0.830 COR titanium driver flexes inward approximately 1/16" for an on-center hit. For clubhead speeds below this level, the face flexes less and for impact speeds above 110mph, it flexes inward a little more. It is however possible that the COR and resulting smash factor could drop from other factors that can change in a driver head over repeated use which are not related to any form of metal fatigue.

 

 

Chief among the factors which can drop the COR and ball speed of a driver from repeated hits to falsely give the impression that metal fatigue has set in is a permanent change of the horizontal bulge and vertical roll radii on the face. If the clubhead speed is high enough, if the face thickness is less than its designed specification, and if the head is subjected to enough impacts, the bulge and roll radii can begin to flatten after repeated hits.

 

 

One of the regular and routine tests performed on any new driver head design before production is approved is an air cannon durability test. When TWGT designs a new titanium driver, or any thin face, high COR clubhead model, final clubhead prototypes with the face thickness, bulge and roll verified to be on spec are subjected to air cannon durability tests. One of the tests typically involves firing 5,000 shots at 120mph at the center of the face. After each 500 shots, the bulge and roll radii are checked to determine if they have changed. If the face radii flatten by up to 1 inch after 5,000 hits, the head is considered to pass. However, if the face radii flatten by 1.5" or more, the head is deemed to have failed. If that happens, an analysis of the face is done to determine the cause of the failure from which adjustments of the face thickness or the heat treatment of the face material may need to be done before new prototypes are made and re tested.

 

 

Face flattening can happen with production driver heads made after all durability testing is performed if a clubhead happens to be on the minus side of the +/- tolerances for factors such as the face thickness or the bulge/roll radii, and such heads randomly end up being played by a golfer with a very high clubhead speed. The very best face thickness tolerance that can be had in the clubhead production industry is +/- 0.1mm (+/- 0.004"). Only the very best of the best of the clubhead foundries can manufacture clubheads with a face thickness tolerance of that precision. Many foundries deliver a face thickness tolerance in the area of +/-0.2mm.

 

 

If a driver head is designed such that its threshold for bulge/roll flattening is 120mph, were a golfer with a 125mph clubhead speed to happen to use a driver which comes out of production 0.1mm thinner than the face thickness design specification, within 200 hits the face radii on that head would start to flatten. Upon repeated center face hits it would continue to flatten out until very likely at around 400-500 hits, the head would no longer perform properly.

 

 

Driver and wood faces will continue to perform perfectly well when the face radius is only slightly flattened from repeated hitting. If the face radii change substantially, the face will no longer perform properly – the ball speed will drop, distance will drop and the feeling of impact becomes more "dead" – all factors which can make a golfer believe the fatigue has set into the face.

 

 

Excessive flattening of the bulge or roll is the number one reason long drive competitors experience a drop in the performance of a driver head. While some drivers built for these players with clubhead speeds as high as 150mph are made with a thicker face to begin with, some of the long drive players do not want the face thickness of their drivers increased too much because they know this drops the COR of the head and can rob them of getting the most distance possible in a competition. In those cases the competitors use a driver with a normal production face thickness and simply live with the fact their incredibly high impact speeds will most definitely flatten out the face and require replacing the head on a frequent basis.

 

 

The other way a titanium driver can give the golfer the impression the face has fatigued is when micro-fractures begin to form on the welding lines that secure the face to the body of the head which are not yet visible on the outside of the edges of the face to the eye. This can happen for several reasons – a welding defect or repeated high speed impacts near the welding lines on the face are the two predominant reasons for the beginning of a welding line failure which can affect the face performance enough to drop the COR and distance of the shot.

 

So the bottom line is metal fatigue in the face of a driver is highly unlikely, but most definitely changes in the bulge, roll and welding lines can happen occasionally from very high speed impacts which can reduce the performance of the driver.

 

Clubs are designed to be hit, and be hit often and a bunch before they wear out. Lots of golfers will never fatigue their clubs to the breaking point (lots as in 98% or more). Lots aren't going to keep their clubs long enough to fatigue them. Besides that, there is a manufacturer warranty on every club out there, so if it fails because of tolerance issues, manufacturer defects (such as investment casting and plasma welding the faces on from the outside then smoothing over and finishing (weaker design out there for some companies)), etc. If it fails, they will replace it, and failure is going to happen with every manufacturer because that's the law of averages.

[Tyk]

I cracked the face on an Adams driver once, it was used when I got it and I played it for 2 seasons so no big deal.

 

I don't really worry about breaking one practicing, and if I did. . .well, what are my options? Not practice with the club I'm playing? What good is that? If it breaks, it breaks. Hopefully in that case the manufacturers will take care of it for me.

[RoverRick]

There are 542 R11 TP Drivers on ebay right this second. Swing away. Add more money for freight.

[ninjacobra]

AWESOME

 

thanks a lot guys. really feeling the support from this community

[Lambo]

The only time I've seen or heard of a driver cracking was when I played in a night golf tournament. One of the guys driver, which had a composite head, came apart. Not sure if it was from the night golf balls, which are harder then a range ball. He sent it back to the OEM, and they replaced it for him.

[dooboo]

This is just like a car...it will break eventually, we just don't know when.

 

 

I think if you take care of it, it will last. Sometime, you might catch a small rock which may cause damage, however, it should last.

 

If you break it, well, you have a excuse to go out and get a new gear or newer technology at lower price, if you buy used.

 

Just like a car...if it breaks down, I get a new vehicle. LOL

 

have fun practicing.

[Dave]

AWESOME

 

thanks a lot guys. really feeling the support from this community

 

Where abouts in Aus, I'm in Perth.

[revkev]

Great read - especially appreciated the stuff from Wishon - Seems like I don't have to worry about a thing with my driver other than my back not tolerating all of those hits.

 

I'm wondering if someone has ever done a study on how many shots our bodies can withstand before they give out. I'm guessing the clubs do better than the body parts.

[ninjacobra]

Where abouts in Aus, I'm in Perth.

 

im in sydney mate, ud feel my pain abt how expensive golf equipment is here

[Dave]

I've only been here 3 weeks. Didn't even bring my clubs with me. I'm from New Zealand.

 

Yeah stuff is pretty dear, golfbox looks the cheapest that I've looked at. I'll probably place a US order when I get around to getting some new sticks.

[ninjacobra]

I've only been here 3 weeks. Didn't even bring my clubs with me. I'm from New Zealand.

 

Yeah stuff is pretty dear, golfbox looks the cheapest that I've looked at. I'll probably place a US order when I get around to getting some new sticks.

even at cost price it aint cheap

[Shambles]

im in sydney mate, ud feel my pain abt how expensive golf equipment is here

 

Interesting. I've spent a fair amount of time envious of the cost of clubs and other golf equipment everywhere except Japan.

 

 

Shambles