Acer XP 905 Ti

GigaGolf’s Acer 905 Ti is a 460 CC driver with a thin beta face technology. The club is designed with a deep profile and rounder face, which Giga says optimizes energy transfer to the ball. GigaGolf says that the coefficient of restitution (COR - trampoline effect) on this club equals the USGA’s limit.

Starting at just $88.50, this club is a real bargain for a titanium driver. As a clubmaker, I can’t make them that cheap.

Like all of Giga’s products, this club comes with GigaGolf’s playability guarantee.

TAYLORMADE r7 460 Draw Driver w/ Reax Shaft

TaylorMade’s latest is the R7 Draw Driver, which takes a 460cc head and concentrates weight on the heel, helping to close the face and encourage a draw. The clubface also features TaylorMade’s inverted cone technology, which is designed to expand the sweetspot for maximum forgiveness.

I am a big fan of the inverted cone tech. TaylorMade clubs are for me the most forgiving I have every played. Surprisingly, it even works on the R7 XD irons I play.

You can preorder this one from Golfsmith.

GOLFSMITH 1000cc Ti Driver Head

Ridiculous Golf Item Of The Week

Yonex Cyberstar Nanospeed Ti Driver

The Yonex Cyberstar driver combines a composite crown with a titanium face and sole.

The Nanospeed in the name refers to the manufacturing process, in which the individual carbon fibres are fused together, reducing the need for resin. Yonex says that this reduces by 20% the amount of weight in the crown—weight which is then redistributed to the perimeter. The same technology also is applied to the shaft, resulting in a lighter, and thus faster product. The company also apples nano technology to the titanium alloys in the club.

Yonex engineers also have reduced the weight at the butt end of the shaft and moved it toward the head. When combined with the tungsten sole weight, this should help accelerate the clubhead through the bottom of the arc like a pendulum.

The TaylorMade R5 XL line is made by TaylorMade exclusively for sale at Dick’s Sporting Goods. I saw these at my local DSG the other day and liked the look and feel. The main difference to me seems to be that the club faces in the line are larger than the regular TaylorMade clubs. There’s also a driver, fairway woods and iron sets.

TaylorMade r5 XL Hybrid

I was in Dick’s Sporting Goods today looking for a TaylorMade glove (no luck), but found something more interesting: a line of clubs called the TaylorMade R5 XL.

Did I miss this in the past somehow, or is this a new line? I can’t find them on the TaylorMade site either in the “new” section or in the “vintage clubs” section.

The drivers, fairways and hybrids look a lot like the R7 line, sans movable weights. There also was a set of R5 XL irons, which looked somewhat like the R7XD irons that I like so much.

UPDATE:

An executive at TaylorMade tells me that the R5 XL line is made by TaylorMade exclusively for Dick’s Sporting Goods in the US. The design is TaylorMade, the quality is TaylorMade. These are NOT knockoffs.

Here’s a link to the webpage at Dick’s with the irons:

TaylorMade r5 XL Irons - Dick’s Exclusive

Gigagolf’s Turbo Power XQ 460 Ti offers many of the features of the Nike Sasquatch driver at a third of the price.

With a 460cc footprint, the XQ460 Ti is huge, and nearly as deep as it is wide (USGA specifications actually require that it be wider than it is deep).  The result is a club with a very low center of gravity and a high moment of intertia that gets the ball up quickly and keeps it on line.

The best part of the club, though, is the price. Even with a UST Proforce 75 shaft, the cost is just over $100.

Repeat after me: Golf does NOT have to be expensive.

With the Gigagolf online fitting, you can customize the grips and grip size, shaft type, club length and lie to fit your swing. And Gigagolf offers a 30 day playability guarantee so there’s no risk for trying.

Turbo Power XQ 460 Ti