Let’s start this brief journey with some clarification.
DS-ADAPT is COBRA’s home for its flagship drivers, fairway woods and game-improvement hybrids. The KING family is where consumers can find tour-inspired iron designs as well as hybrids for better players. And to clarify, better means hybrids that prioritize shot making and versatility as opposed to maximum stability and forgiveness. Or, if you want to think about it as hybrids that tend to behave more like irons than fairway woods, I suppose that works, too.
Let’s dig in.
It starts with FF33
If you’ve seen any of the DS-ADAPT coverage, FF33 (FutureFit33) is likely already a familiar term. If not, what you need to know is that this is COBRA’s new hosel adapter which offers 33 unique loft/lie settings. Of particular note is that FF33 allows loft and lie to be adjusted independently. Some golfers may see FF33 as overkill. For others, it’s a welcome invitation to tinker at a level you’ve never tinkered at before. My sense is that FF33 ultimately isn’t for the golfer; rather, it’s another tool for the skilled fitter. Beyond that, it’s not lost on me that, as with DS-ADAPT, leading with what amounts to a fitting platform is rare. It also reasonably suggests that improvements in fitting might be more impactful than year-over-year changes in materials and mass properties. Food for thought.
More “TEC” Details
The balance of the tech story is mostly a list of evolutionary, incremental changes that carry over from the DS-ADAPT launch in December.
A lightweight carbon crown frees up mass which is repositioned to shift the CG location where it can produce better ball speeds and more forgiveness, even though the overall shaping suggests a smaller address profile. When manufacturers have discretionary weight, a recent fairway wood and hybrid trend is to shrink the footprint while boosting MOI. It’s part of what allows for more separation between models in a given lineup.
COBRA’s variable-face geometry (H.O.T. Face) uses 15 individual “hot spots” on the face to optimize performance on off-center strikes. This works in concert with the forged PWRSHELL face insert to provide more flexibility across a larger percentage of the face.
(Side note: When we broach the topic of forgiveness, it starts with an understanding of an optimal result. In my world, anything that a club does to help get a result that approximates optimal is an element of forgiveness.)
Along with FF33, the new KING TEC hybrid features two adjustable weights (one 12 grams and one two grams) which can be positioned to help fine-tune trajectory and spin. As with other iron-like hybrids, the neutral setup is the 12-gram in the heel and the two-gram in the toe. Swapping the weights should produce more of a right flight bias (for right-handed golfers).
Finally, COBRA’s SMARTPAD sole geometry design ensures a square clubface at address regardless of the loft or lie setting.
The ONE Length Version
The KING TEC Hybrid is also available in a ONE Length option (stock 7-iron length of 37 ¼ inches). Compared to the standard KING TEC hybrid, the primary differences are shaping (ONE Length is slightly larger with a more rounded profile) and weighting (ONE Length has a fixed 12-gram weight in the rear to help promote higher launch and greater stability). Put differently, the ONE Length version is built on the same platform as the standard KING TEC hybrid but offers more game-improvement features likely suitable for the player with a set of ONE Length irons.
Pricing and Availability
The KING TEC Hybrid ($299) is available in 2H (17 degrees), 3H (19 degrees), 4H (22 degrees) and 5H (25 degrees), The KING TEC ONE Length Hybrid ($299) is available in 3H (19 degrees), 4H (21 degrees) and 5H (24 degrees).
Both will be available at retail March 13.
For more information, visit cobragolf.com
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Article Link: https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/first-look/whats-new-with-the-cobra-king-tec-and-tec-one-hybrids/