Nextt Tetra XC Driver

The Nextt Tetra is another entry in the oddly shaped driver category. The downside is that its composed of an aluminum alloy. Not sure how well that’s going to work.

Cobra L4V-M Men’s Driver

Cobra’s new L4-V Driver uses an ultra lightweight carbon composite crown and sole, along with tungsten backweighting to maximize moment of intertia and launch. We’ve seen drivers with carbon crowns before, but this is the first I can recall that has the carbon sole. It looks to me as though it has a sole plate, much like the old “real” woods would have a brass sole plate inserted.

The driver is at the maximum size permitted by the USGA and features what Cobra calls a “Dual Rhombus Face Technology” that’s supposed to offer a consistent .830 COR across the entire face.

What I find most intriguing about the driver, though, is that it comes in “flavors”, designed specifically for people with high, low and medium swing speeds. This certainly is a better way of classifying things than the usual Stiff, Regular and Senior flex. Every guy thinks he can play a stiff flex, regardless of the actual truth of the matter. Then there’s the additional difficulty presented by the fact that stiff, regular and senior don’t really mean anything. One manufacturer’s stiff is another’s regular. Specifying the appropriate swing speeds may help people better select a correct driver.

Callaway Hyper X Tour Driver

Callaway Golf’s Hyper X Tour Driver offers a Hyperbolic Face Technology, which the company’s engineers say improves impact efficiency and offers the largest effective hitting area of any Callaway Golf driver. The club’s S2H2 design helps to move weight from the hosel to the perimeter of the clubead, which, combined with an optimized head shape increases the club’s moment of inertia (resistance to twisting). Best of all, they managed to do this without turning it into a weird triangular or rectangular shape; this one looks like a traditional club.

You can get it at Golfsmith

TAYLORMADE Lady r7 460 Draw Driver w/ Graphite Shaft

The ladies get their due with TaylorMade’s R7 460 Driver. Like its male sibling, its specifically designed to promote straighter drives for most players. The weights are positioned to promote a draw, solving the most common ball flight problem of higher handicap players. With a channel it the sole, weight has been repositioned to help turn a banana ball into a fade, and a chronic fade into a draw. Extra weight in the heel moves the center of gravity close rot he shaft, which speeds the rotation of the clubhead during the forward swing. Further, the large clubhead size helps to produce stability and increase the sweet spot.

Pursuit TC420

After their success in making and marketing clone golf clubs, it was only natural that GigaGolf should begin to products its own designs. That, after all, is what Dell did with their clone computers. Dell first produced computers based on others’ specifications and eventually began to write the specs themselves.

Giga’s first entry into the premium club market was the Pursuit TC 420, a 420 cc vacucast titanium driver. The two piece casting (body and face) allows GigaGolf to engineer a larger sweet spot, solid feel and nice tone at impact.

The face of the club is SP700 titanium that is plasma welded to the single piece body. GigaGolf says that the weld is so tight that the joint is barely detectable. The body is finished with four coats of hardened enamel for a lasting finish.

The main feature of the club, however, is the adjustable five weight system which permits the user to set the club for one of seven different ball flights. The two 10- and three 2- gram tungsten alloy weights allow you to reposition 26 grams to your liking. It’s not an original thought, but lots of golf manufacturers now are following TaylorMade’s lead.

I’ve liked the GigaGolf products that I’ve used and wish them the best on this one. As one trained in free market economics, I am a firm believer that more competition can only be a good thing for golf.