Drivers - an introduction

The driver is the club designed to hit a golf ball furthest. It’s also likely to be the most expensive club in your bag. And it’s certainly the one with the largest clubhead, because that’s where manufacturers stuff all the clever technology needed to improve your chances of hitting a long, accurate shot.

Whenever you read about a new driver, you’ll find the marketing folks waxing lyrical about specific clubhead characteristics, like coefficient of restitution or center of gravity.

If you want to learn more about these and how they affect the performance of a driver or other golf club, then read the articles in the beginner’s section.

Wood versus steel versus titanium

Traditionally, drivers were made of wood. Then in 1979, a chap called Gary Adams persuaded two PGA Tour professionals to try out a new driver, built from metal. Metal woods (as they’re called) were not new, but this was the first time they’d seen prominent action.

They proved a rapid hit: metal’s strength and consistent structure made it easier for golfers to hit the ball further and more reliably. By the end of the 1990s, the only people using wooden drivers were traditionalists and those looking for the “original” golf experience.

Oh, and Mr.Adams founded TaylorMade Golf, now one of the largest and best-known brands in golf.

The early metal woods used steel. Now various forms of titanium are more common. Titanium is both stronger and lighter than typical steel-based materials. That gives engineers more flexibility when it comes to designing drivers.

Manufacturers continue to search for light yet strong metals, alloys and composites to use in the driver’s clubhead. The less weight you need to achieve some design goal (like reinforce the front of the club), the more you have spare to put elsewhere in the clubhead, where it can be used to improve such things as how easy it is to get the golf ball up into the air.

Large versus small

In recent years, a major trend is the one toward bigger clubheads. When Gary Adams first produced those metal clubs, the clubhead was around 125cc in size. Today, most drivers are around 460cc in size (that’s as big as the rulemakers will let them be).

Lighter materials allow designers to increase clubhead size without having to worry about making them too heavy to wield accurately. And bigger clubheads are good for golfers, because it means there’s more to aim at.

If you miss the center of the clubface when you hit the ball with a 125cc club, chances are you’re skewing a mishit (if you hit the ball at all). If you hit off-center with a 460cc club, then the chances are higher that you’ll get some club on the ball. And the modern design means the loss of power and accuracy with off-center hits gets less and less with each new development.

New technologies

The emergence of titanium was the last huge innovation in driver technology. But each year brings new developments.

For example, TaylorMade (them again) brought out the R7 Quad in 2004. Put simply, the club was built with hollow ports in it, which the golfer can fill (or not) with plugs of various weight. The result is that you can custom balance your clubhead to fit the peculiarities of your own swing. These movable weights are now found in many clubs, including clones like the Command Q4.

In another example, Wilson Golf began to use carbon composite nanotechnology to again reduce the weight of the clubface and give them more freedom to adjust clubhead properties like the center of gravity. And carbon composites are now found in the top of many driver clubheads. See, for example, the C9 driver.

Most recently, manufacturers have altered the basic shape of the clubhead. These new square drivers distribute even more weight around the edge of the clubhead, making it even more stable should you fail to hit the ball with the middle of the club. One example is the Ozzy Moto.

Prices

All this innovation comes at a price of course. In a typical golf store, a top of the range driver might set you back as much as $700. Most brand drivers cost between $300 and $400, while a quality generic clone driver is normally around $100 to $150.