Dreamstime
Adjustable drivers are all the rage, but do we really need all those screws?
An excellent question, and one I put to driver specialists with some of the world’s top clubmakers.
After all, there are more individualized big bats and custom-fitting options than you can shake a 9-iron at, all taking dead aim at helping the everyday golfer boost club head speeds, square faces and smack power fades.
Those tantalizing, newfangled Rocketballz and RAZR Fits offer a variety of options for adjusting loft, weight, lie, and face angles with a quick turn of a wrench. Even if you’re not a born tinkerer, the ability to tailor a driver for optimum ball trajectory or even a bit more length off the tee has its appeal.
As a Callaway Golf rep told us during the PGA Merchandise Show in January, “Everybody likes toys.”
Adjust your own club, any time
At least 80 percent of TaylorMade R11 users have tweaked their drivers at least once, according to Tom Olsavsky, TaylorMade’s senior director of production creation. Some 10 percent to 15 percent continue fiddling with their clubs’ settings on a regular basis, he said.
Why bother, when you can go to someone else to find that perfect setting? Your golf pro, TaylorMade Performance Lab, or local Callaway Performance Center can give you a private fitting and be done with it: No muss, no fuss, no screwing around (heh!) with a tool.
For one thing, it’s free and easy to do it yourself. After watching the guy at my friendly golf shop deftly click a TaylorMade R11 into place, I decided to give it a try. And after a few quick twists with the user-friendly wrench that comes with your new trinket, I was able to click a RAZR Fit driver into the draw position and voila!
Turns out, most women want the club head closed and the swing weights toward the toe, the Callaway rep said. “You just adjust it once to fit your swing,” she said.
Adjust, practice, then practice some more
The ability to set the best setting for your swing is also a good teaching experience. “Golfers can learn what happens if they change the loft, and face angle,” Olsavsky said. “Adjustability lets them choose what’s best for them.”
More to the point, Olsavsky added, is the extra distance you may gain with a club you can fine-tune over one that comes with a one-size-fits-all standard setting. “In many cases it can be more than 10 yards,” he said.
And that, the TaylorMade exec noted, makes the game so much more enjoyable.
“Everyone wants to hit it farther,” he said. “That’s the fun part of it.
Of course, TaylorMade and Callaway are not the only manufacturers selling adjustable clubs. The Titleist 910 lets you shift the hosel to switch loft and lie, while Adams, Nike, and Cobra are also offering adjustable models.
Visit a custom fitter to help you determine which brand and model is best for you. The proper wrench or screwdriver will surely follow.
