WHAT MAKES A GOOD DRIVER?

By GRAHAM DALLAS As a Clubmaker I know what is important about a driver. A shaft to match the player's swing speed, fitted so that the spine is aligned down the line, grip that fits the player's hand size and any head that weighs around 208 grams. This is consistent and has been for a long time but consistency doesn’t make you buy a new driver every year and if you don’t buy a new driver every year then the major manufacturers don’t sell the volumes they need to satisfy their shareholders. Cynical? Sure but let’s look at the marketing over the years.
In my early days in golf the throughbore club arrived: a driver with no hozel. Clubmakers pointed out that this was a weakness and shafts would break but we were told this wouldn’t happen. We would get more feel with throughbore. Well, I saw many clubs with broken shafts over the next few years and I’ve yet to meet a player who says they get more feel from throughbore clubs.
Next came a revolution in the graphite shaft, the bubble. Much was made of it. It was the new way forward for several years before we reverted back to standard shafts. It was followed by the fat shaft but it too has faded in the last few years.
Then we have tungsten weights on the sole of the club, 25% of the total club weight. Can’t remember the reasons for this but I heard the Tour players hated it and it was gone in about one year.
Then the big one. If the adverts were to be believed, the golf industry had rewritten the laws of physics - drivers with 27 sweetspots. Now the sweet spot is determined by the centre of gravity and it is logical to assume that if there is one centre of gravity, then there will be one sweet spot.
Newton and Einstein must have been turning in their graves. I note these claims have now been dropped.
Once the manufacturers could not go on increasing the size of the head the problem of what can we do next was solved by the shape of the head. The square-headed driver, and increased MOI. We were told it would be very difficult to hit these clubs off line. Right! Let’s leave it there.
Then we were getting movable weights on the clubs and told we could change the flight of ball by moving the weights. I note they never told us how many degrees we could expect from different configurations and I haven’t met a golfer who changed the shape of his shot by changing the weights.
Recently the big boys have been forced to offer top brand shafts as alternatives to their own brands as customers have become more aware of the shaft's importance and the shafts used by the best players. The shafts used by the top players are extortionate.
There is one currently on the market that I can’t buy for less than £200, I have to mark that up and then fit it. We are looking at £300 fitted to the head. Yet it is being sold on a current driver, complete with the head, for under £150. Or is it?
One thing I can say for certain is the shafts they use are not the same as the ones I have to pay so much for and that I am told are fitted in the tour players' clubs.
How do I know this? Well if you look closely at the shafts, they say designed exclusively for so and so (the manufacturer's name). So if the shaft is exclusive to them, then it is not the same shaft as that being promoted by the shaft manufacturers and sold to me.
So where does this leave us? For me we are no further on that we were 10 years ago. What makes a good club is one that you can feel the head when you swing, has a shaft that kicks for your swing speed (that is properly fitted) and a grip which matches your hand size.
What this will give you is a club you can grip properly, feel when you swing and kicks at impact. The goalposts haven’t moved, just as your handicap doesn’t fall every time you buy a new driver.
There’s no easy way to get better. Properly-fitted equipment will give you the best chance to improve but hard work and good counsel is the cheapest, best and most satisfying way to improve your game.

Graham Dallas
Dundee Golf Shop
Golfsmith’s Scottish Clubmaker of the year 2004