Ping G430 Max 10K - Unofficial Member Review

[Rearviewmirror]

Introduction

Driving. The part of the game that amateur golfers either love or hate. I’ve been playing golf since I was 13 years old, but got back into the game after about a 15 year layoff in Summer 2023.

As a kid, the driver was by far the worst club in the bag for me. Banana slices into the trees were my bread and butter, and I’d usually aim at the next fairway over and play for a 200 yard “cut” back into the hole I was playing.

Fast forward to last year, when I decided to do my first ever club fitting. I went through 2nd Swing, and was lucky to work with Kevin Kraft. This was both my first ever time on TrackMan, and also the first time I’d ever been fit for any club in the bag (this turned out to be a very fun but expensive six months working with Kevin…)

Much to my surprise, I ended up in a stiff shaft (Alta CB) and a gently loved Ping G425 Max in 12º cranked down to 10.5º. I had heard rumors Ping might have something new in the works, and honestly hit the G425 a lot better than the regular G430 Max.

Simply put, I went from hating everything about tee boxes to being excited to step onto one and blast the ball down the fairway. Fast forward to early January of 2024.
 

Enter the G430 Max 10K

Around November of 2023, I heard rumors that Ping might be bringing something new out that took the best of the G425 and added the distance of the 430 LST. 

I had been working on some top of the bag adjustments with Kevin (dialing in gapping across hybrids/fairway woods) and it just so happened that I was in store the day the demo model 10K arrived.

I decided (against my wallet’s protests) to give it a shot. In short, it was amazing. 

I left the store doing quick mental math on how much I could sell my G425 Max for, and decided if I could get a buyer I would go ahead and do a proper G430 10K test with the different available shaft options.

Testing the G430 Max 10K

I had been using The Stack system for about 2 months by this stage, and felt like my driver swing was really well grooved and ready to rock. It turns out that showing up with your best swing can cause problems… But more on that later.

The fitting was phenomenal but the problem was that I hit almost every shaft really well. The three that quickly rose to the top were the Hzrdous RDX Red, Ping Tour Chrome 2.0, and Ping Tour Black.

In the fitting, the Black felt the most stable and I liked how connected it felt. We quickly honed in on the 10.5º head with 1º additional loft and off the order went to Ping HQ.

These aren’t the balls you’re looking for

After what felt like a pretty interminable wait, my shiny new G430 Max 10K showed up with its pretty Darth Vader Tour Black shaft.

I took it down to the range, and was a bit surprised that everything just felt like hard work. Remember, this was the club I was hitting effortlessly in my first ever fitting and had been bombing in the fitting. I chalked it up to a bad range day, and decided to head out to a new course to give it a real test. And oh boy, was it a test.

Suddenly I couldn’t hit the ball over 212 yards (!). Every shot was coming out as a dead divebomb hook left, and barely making it to the fairway from the White Tees. For a golfer whose driving game had felt bulletproof, this was a brutal day on the course. I quickly followed this up with some range time, and another couple of rounds, but the dead short hook persisted.

Putting Darth Vader to bed

Deciding to swallow my pride, I headed back to see Kevin and figure out what the heck was going wrong. And proceeded to have one of the worst fitting days of my life. 

Everything was coming out as a screaming fade, bringing me back to the worst of my youth golf days. I’m guessing I had grooved something to try to overcome the board stiff Tour Black, but boy oh boy did it make figuring out this problem really hard. I was somehow consistently spinning everything over 3,000rpm. Not great for a mid/low spinning head!

We tried various shafts and hosel settings, but it became a battle of picking “the least bad” combination, not the best. 

The best performer seemed to be the Hzrdous Red, with again the Tour Chrome 2.0 coming very close to pipping it. The balance of the driver still didn’t seem quite right to me (like swinging a brick on an elastic band) But, dispersion seemed tighter with fewer right misses and so we did a switch for the Hzrdous Red and I walked out with this as my new setup (including a lower 22g headweight).

The first few rounds were a lot better, but given I was now playing in the flat + setting, I started to see some right misses (again, childhood slice trauma returns). I did start to see normal elevated ball flights again, but I couldn’t keep the ball on the planet as even if I aimed dead center of the fairway, I wasn’t sure if the ball would come out right or left.

 

Getting the shaft

Not immune from continuing to tinker I decided to spend $30 on the alternative headweights from Ping - including the stock 28g and slightly lighter 25g.

I did some driving range testing with the various weights/hosel settings and it seemed like the 28g weight produced the most consistent launch conditions (high and explosive, and dead straight on middle strikes). I also switched from the flat setting to the regular +1º setting, which quieted the right misses by some margin.

This became my setup for about 5 rounds, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right compared to the very first time I hit the 10K. Could it be that the Tour Chrome was the right choice all along?

Unfortunately Ping don’t let you buy their OEM shafts directly, so I started to cruise Ebay, looking to see if anyone was offloading a shaft pull. Luckily the shafts for the G430 are identical to the 10K, and so there were a good number of shafts. So after some near misses, I picked up a stiff Tour Chrome 2.0 for a princely $100.

I took my driver down to the range, and hit some benchmark shots with the RDX Red, already itching to try the new shaft. I loaded in the Chrome 2.0 and it immediately brought me back to that first demo day.

Ball flight was a tight draw, and the ball soared off the face. Once again I started to see my driver accuracy numbers getting back to where they were with the G425 Max, and started to feel confidence rising again.

This became my setup for another 5-6 rounds, and I got to what I would consider steady state of “maybe slightly better than the G425 Max but not by much”.

Edited April 30 by Rearviewmirror

[Rearviewmirror]

Weighting around

After a round where I felt a bit steery and tentative with the driver, I decided to do a bit of work at the range on sweetspot (sponsored by Dr Scholl’s footspray) and realized I was in fact consistently finding the center of the face. But for whatever reason I still couldn’t consistently square up the face.

Like a bolt of lightning, I suddenly remembered I still had the alternate headweights. I fired up the Rapsodo MLM, and created random clubs types to be able to A/B test the performance of the different headweights (god help me if I ever need to play a 7 hybrid or 9 wood).

It’s worth noting at this point that the range balls I was using were definitely on the trashier side, with even perfect strikes averaging 1.41 smash factor.

With that said, the ball flight and dispersion of the 25g headweight in the Tour Chrome very quickly rose to the top (so much so that I started just hitting it for fun).

A marriage made in heaven

Since that range day, I’ve been out on course twice and it has been absolutely phenomenal. I’ve hit a career best 286 yard drive (no wind, slightly uphill) and have managed to keep an amazing degree of accuracy.

What this means for you…

As I reflect on this ~4 month journey, a few key takeaways:

• If something feels off, it is. I’ve been playing golf so long now that I can adjust to most clubs, but I can always feel if I’m fighting something. It was unbelievably obvious to know the Tour Black wasn’t working, but I am not sure I would have known to push beyond the RDX Red if I hadn’t seen what the G425 Max could do, and remember the swing feel of my initial test of the 10K.
• A great fitter can’t fit a bad swing. It was somewhat brutal that my follow up driver check in was on a day when my swing was hot garbage. But that happens. Moving to the RDX Red was an improvement, but I could probably have saved myself $100 by going back another day. Kevin is one of the very best fitters, as has been evidenced by the rest of my bag getting dialed in, but even he couldn’t save me from myself.
• Tinker if you want to, but data makes a difference. I’m a huge Lou Stagner disciple, and don’t think I would have felt comfortable playing around with weights/shafts/hosel settings if I hadn’t had an MLM, access to a TopTracer range, and Arccos to validate my feels with reals. I am now consistently seeing what I think I’m capable of, and absent going to a shaft which improved dispersion and distance (looking at you TPT/Autoflex/Ventus Blue 2024) the main way I improve now is upping my swing speed and mentals.
• The Ping G430 Max 10K is one heck of a driver. Hype is very real in golf these days, but I genuinely believe that this driver (and LAB putters) deserve the hype. At the very least I would encourage anyone struggling with consistency, distance, or accuracy to give this club a test drive with a fitter. You never know, it just might turn driving into your favorite part of the game.

My hypothesis is that the 10K is so forgiving that it can actually be a little trickier to know you’re getting your absolute best head/shaft combo with this golf club. If you’re hitting your 10K “OK” I would highly recommend you try some alternate head weight, hosel setting, or shaft combos to get it to “amazing”. I’ve learned a lot about my own swing, gear, and “feels” throughout this process, but damn, now I’m just excited to get out there and split some fairways.

Happy to answer any questions, or share anything else about my 10K experience.

 

Edited April 30 by Rearviewmirror

[JY56]

Good read and review.  I recently did a fitting with the local Ping rep/fitter and tried various shaft/head combinations. My SS was 100 each time with ball speeds in 146-151 range. My final recommendation was the Max 10K 9* with a small + which was to reduce my fade a little. I think the spin was better for me with the 9 vs the 10 but not sure how that works. Shaft was the Chrome 2.0 65S.  I also demo'd a couple of other brands and TM fitter finally fit me in their QI10 Max head at 8.25 with a Black Tensei 65S that felt really good and performed well.  The Ping was still nagging as the best I had hit, so I went to my local course to try their demo.  They didn't have the Chrome shaft but had the Black 65S.  Head was a 10.5 so I left it and tried it.  The shaft felt so stable and every bit as good as the Tensei.  I went back to the Ping guy to see if he could let me try Chrome and Black back to back. I told him about the Tensei Black and he said it would be similar to the Tour Black but not available through Ping.  He also said Black shafts were typically lower launching, lower spinning. I met him at the end of a fitting day after I had practiced and played 18 and he said it would be a good test as I would be more tired than when fresh.  The Black felt so much more stable to me and we were outdoors so I could see the dispersion was tighter.  He said the Black was actually a better fit for me and although a slightly lower launch, all the numbers were very good.  Turned out he didn't have the Black shaft the day I did my original fitting.  Did try the Kai'li but he said it wasn't the right shaft for my swing and it didn't feel that good either.  Hopefully when mine shows up the shaft works as well as it did at the fitting. I'm also getting a 3W but sticking to the Chrome recommendation in that as my driver swing is positive and fitter said the launch was excellent and Black would be too low.