Since 2003, when the current .830 C.O.R. limit went into effect, club manufacturers have been trying to help golfers add distance with a driver without making the face any hotter. In past years they experimented with making the faces stronger and thinner to get more of a trampoline effect, but the USGA put a stop to future development in this area when they restricted energy transfer to a defined value. Since then most of the improvements have been focused on attempting to enlarge the sweet spot of the driver face, thereby, minimizing distance lost due to off-center hits.
With the introduction of radically lighter components, the latest attempt to increase distance in 2011 involves experimenting with drivers as much as 60 grams lighter. Considering the overall weight of a traditional driver is about 310-320 grams, this reduction is significant. The question is: Can these ultralight clubs work for you?
I’m currently experimenting with driver heads as light as 175 grams, which is about 15% lighter than normal. When paired with a 50 gram shaft and 25 gram grip the result is a club in the 250 gram range. Well below those currently being marketed by others. The primary difference, however, is that these companies are using traditional weight clubheads with reduced shaft and grip weights, which results in a heavier head feel or higher than average swingweights. While this may work for stronger players, my belief is that golfers with average swing speeds and below can benefit from using lighter clubheads in the driver.
Using bowling equipment as an analogy, balls range in weight from 6 to 16 pounds. And many in the bowling industry recommend using the heaviest ball one can comfortably throw. This means that although the strongest of the players might use a 16 pounder, everyone else is better off with something lighter. For example, a 14 pound ball at 16 mph delivers more energy to the pins than a 16 pound ball at 14 mph. If we translate this into selecting the optimal weight of a driver head, many golfers could benefit from a lighter than average weight. We don’t really know since the golf industry has traditionally kept driver head weights at around 200 grams so that the swingweight of a finished club stays around D0.
Doing the math, it appears that a 175 gram driver head needs to yield about 7% more clubhead speed than a 200 gram head to break even with regards to energy transfer. That’s about 4-6 mph depending on your existing swing speed. If my initial launch monitor tests hold steady with regards to results, this shouldn’t be a problem. Combined with the results from the range and golf course, everyone that has tried one of these clubs so far has had good success. There’s still some fine-tuning to be done, especially in the fitting process, but that will be resolved shortly.
The chief beneficiary of the lighter driver heads should be slower swingers or golfers with smooth swings that can more easily control these ultralight clubs. Big hitters, especially those with fast tempos and transitions to the downswing, are likely better suited to traditional weight clubs. When you consider, however, that most golfers don’t bomb the ball 300 yards, that leaves an enormous number of golfers that could potentially benefit from all of the new lightweight components recently introduced to the market.
So, if you fit the mold and are looking to gain some additional or lost yardage these ultralight drivers might do the trick. Testing is easy. Simply book some time, take a few swings, and let the launch monitors do their job. Follow that up by watching some balls fly at the range with a demo club and compare the results against balls hit with your current club. If the winner is a new driver, then enjoy the extra yardage.
