Graham Averill will turn 50 this year and he’s freaking out. Instead of buying a motorcycle or getting a tattoo, he’s decided to try to get really, really good at golf. He started this project in March as a 13 handicap attempting to reach scratch in a year. He is now a 10.7. Welcome to his midlife crisis.
Gear will not save your game.
Let me explain. I love gear. I think using the right gear is important. I review gear of all kinds for a variety of magazines so I know the role it plays in whatever sport or adventure you’re into but it’s not going to fix your problems. At least, I don’t think gear is going to fix mine. Not really.
Take the driver. I spend a lot of time obsessing over my driver swing. The set up, takeaway, weight shift, shoulder tilt …I’ve worked hard over the last few months to address every aspect of my drive. I doubt I’m the only golfer to spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over this one aspect of the game because golf isn’t much fun when you can’t get off the tee. Since picking up golf again, I’ve spent a lot of time struggling on that damn tee box.
Things improved after I got a coach and he helped me rebuild my swing. During the last couple of months of this project, my driver has evolved from a point of frustration to a borderline asset. I wasn’t hitting it very far but I managed to keep the ball in play and not incur the penalties off the tee that used to plague my game.
But I was reading through MyGolfSpy’s most recent roundup of the Best Drivers and I realized I’ve been using the absolute worst-rated driver for the last few months: the COBRA OPTM Max-D. Out of 100 clubs tested, this driver scored the overall lowest in distance, accuracy and forgiveness. It produced the lowest rate of straight shots of all drivers tested (just 33.85 percent) and scored towards the bottom overall in distance, averaging 229 yards of carry, more than 15 yards less than the longest club in the test.
And this driver has been my gamer for months. Awesome.
Honestly, I hit the COBRA fine. Not great. OK. I’d typically put it out there between 230 and 250 yards. Occasionally, I’d spit out a frustrating rope hook (it’s a draw-biased driver) but mostly I found the fairway or at least kept the ball in play. But reading the driver test got me thinking about gear. What would happen if I started using the highest-rated driver: TaylorMade’s Qi4D, the best in accuracy, distance and forgiveness?
Would I hit the ball further? Would I find more fairways? The siren call of better gear was too enticing to resist so I decided to make the switch and trade my worst-rated driver for the best-rated driver. I ordered the TaylorMade Qi4D, going through the brand’s new AI fitting tool and immediately put it into play.
The results were disastrous.
The Qi4D showed up the day before I left town for a golf trip. I took the plastic off the club in Florida, stepped onto the first tee on a Disney course and proceeded to shank the hell out of the ball. My big miss was embarrassing; I kept hitting the ground six inches before the ball. (It’s never good when you’re taking divots with your driver.)
But my poor play had nothing to do with the club. I switched the Qi4D out with the COBRA and continued to dig trenches with the big stick. After a couple of rounds of similar results with both drivers (yes, I was that guy carrying two drivers in my bag), I sent a video to my coach, Sam Hahn, who diagnosed the issue immediately. I was shifting my weight away from the ball on my takeaway and never getting that momentum back to my front foot. It’s a recipe for chunking, even if you’re swinging the winner of the latest MGS Best Drivers test.
I was tired from traveling and making bad decisions at night and I wasn’t making a good turn. My mechanics broke down. The results had nothing to do with the club in my hands.
Sam prescribed a drill to help with my balance and weight shift (essentially a one-footed swing where the majority of my weight stays on my front foot) and I flew home and got to work addressing the mechanical issues. Since then, I’ve had the chance to play four rounds with the new Qi4D and I’m beginning to question my theory about gear not fixing my problems.
During my most recent nine-hole round, I hit six out of seven fairways (I sailed one right and incurred a penalty) and averaged 260 yards with my driver. My longest drive of the day reached 295. Those results are consistent with every round I’ve played with the Qi4D since addressing the mechanical issues with my swing.
Of the last four rounds I’ve played with the Qi4D, I’m actually gaining strokes against scratch golfers off the tee. It’s just a half a stroke per round, and I give it up once I get close to the green, but I’m going to take the progress where I can find it. On average, I’m hitting fairways half the time, on par with the results I was finding with the COBRA, but I’ve gained about 25 yards on my typical tee shot. I’ll occasionally knock one out there 300 yards. I’m not swinging harder. My mechanics are the same with both clubs and there are still some things I want to address with my driver swing that I’m hoping will unlock more distance but it’s hard to argue with the results.
So better gear fixed my golf game, right? Not exactly.
Better gear enhanced my game but better swing mechanics are at the core of any success I’m having off the tee. And I know results are fleeting because it’s only a matter of time before I get tired and make bad decisions at night and my mechanics break down again.
Gear matters. But the swing matters more.
Dig deeper into one golfer’s struggle to get better at golf in middle age and read last week’s Scratch By 50 where Graham explores the importance of balls.
The post Scratch By 50: I Switched From The Worst-Rated Driver To The Best-Rated Driver appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
Article Link: https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/scratch-by-50-i-switched-from-the-worst-rated-driver-to-the-best-rated-driver/