TaylorMade Tour Burner Driver

TaylorMade Tour Burner 2008 Men’s Driver

I’ve been somewhat dissatisfied lately with the driver that I’m playing. I hit it high, hard and straight, but the ball tends to hit the apex of its flight quickly, and then drop out of the sky. My playing partners always make comments like “I thought it was going to go a lot farther than that.” Not exactly what you want to hear.

So when TaylorMade held a demo day at a local pro shop over the weekend, I spent some time trying out the various drivers. Thinking that the issue was too much loft, I asked the rep for a 9.5 degree, stiff.

The R7 Quad he gave me drove the ball much lower, but still without much distance.

“It’s not high enough,” he said. When I told him that I thought I needed to keep it down for less carry and more roll, he shook his head.

“This is the midwest,” he said. “That might be true in Arizona, but here you need all the carry you can get.”

He watched me hit some more balls with different drivers. “Too much spin,” he concluded. Then he handed me a Tour Burner, 10.5 degrees, regular flex. “This will cut the spin,” he said.

I hit it, and immediately noticed a difference. With the Tour Burner, the ball still caught a lot of air, but it stayed up, and kept going. I hit ball after ball, watching them fly straight and far into the distance. He pointed out that even my mishits were pretty good.

It’s $399, though. And that, frankly, is more than this teacher can afford to spend on a golf club.