Head-to-Head Driver Test: Nike Vapor Fly Pro v. TaylorMade M1 460
Given the excitement around this year’s Masters, I wanted to do a head-to-head test of the drivers being used by two of the longest golfers at Augusta National this week, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy.
Jason Day, who currently occupies the No. 1 spot in the Official World Golf Rankings, uses a TaylorMade M1 460, while Rory McIlroy (No. 3 in the OWGR) uses Nike’s Vapor Fly Pro driver. I was fit for each driver, and tested them on my Foresight GC2 launch monitor with HMT.
In the video above, I offer in-depth analysis of the two different clubs, and the results are very interesting.
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19th Hole
Vincenzi’s 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview
The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.
TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.
Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.
However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.
Past Winners at TPC Louisiana
- 2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
- 2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
- 2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
- 2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
- 2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
- 2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)
2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks
Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)
Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.
This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.
McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.
Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)
Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.
Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.
Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)
Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.
NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.
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19th Hole
Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under
After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.
For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.
The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.
The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.
*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*
Past Winners at LIV Adelaide
- 2023: Talor Gooch (-19)
Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami
Green in Regulation
- Richard Bland
- Jon Rahm
- Paul Casey
Fairways Hit
- Abraham Ancer
- Graeme McDowell
- Henrik Stenson
Driving Distance
- Bryson DeChambeau
- Joaquin Niemann
- Dean Burmester
Putting
- Cameron Smith
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Matt Jones
2024 LIV Adelaide Picks
Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)
When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.
At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.
The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.
Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)
Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.
In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.
For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.
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Opinion & Analysis
The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1
Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.
Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.
But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.
To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.
Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.
If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.
In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.
Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.
While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.
So, what about grooves and face texture?
Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.
Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.
But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?
The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.
So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.
And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.
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MikePatron
Aug 6, 2016 at 7:00 am
He is comparing two different drivers in their stock set up. It’s not a club head review, it’s a driver review. Go work on your mulligans. Bunch of keyboard PGA Pro’s
Branden
Apr 12, 2016 at 10:53 pm
I’ve never seen 164 ball speed fly 303 in the air…
Robert
May 4, 2016 at 5:18 pm
I was thinking the same thing. Gotta love juicing up the GC2 numbers to make him look longer than he really is!
Joseph Dreitler
Apr 11, 2016 at 9:40 pm
Interesting. Thanks
fancy
Apr 10, 2016 at 8:33 am
What about testing both heads with the same shaft……..then we can get real result
Sreve
Apr 9, 2016 at 8:16 pm
Those spin rates are a problem when you are out side in the wind???? If you have a weak fad or weak draw which one of those is going to become more a weak slice or a weak hook off the fairways???? Higher spin rate right? I do not know how most of you feel but myself I can spend 30 minutes at Golf Smith hitting drivers and more often then not inside off a launch monitor I hit really straight and as much as 20 yards longer the outside with trees and houses in view???
Joe
Apr 9, 2016 at 8:24 pm
Sounds familiar, I would agree with some others who have posted, Pay and Play what you like, maybe try different flex shafts or lofts for you driver and maybe if your way beyond standard some lie adjustments for your irons other wise pick what appeals to you because if you want to play Ping and the fitter finds Adams are a better fit (inside on monitor) two months down the road your going to be ready to sell the Adams because they are not what you wanted to play….
Sam
Apr 9, 2016 at 4:33 am
Rick, now that there are shaft adapters that fit multiple brands of clubs, why not install one on your favourite shaft and then use the same shaft for all heads in the test?
Oskars
Apr 8, 2016 at 11:36 pm
All drivers in the same category really perform the same to each other now, I think it really just comes down to what shaft works for your swing, club head is irrelevant.
Pat
Apr 9, 2016 at 1:23 pm
Wrong. Certain club heads launch higher and spin more. Dispersion is also somewhat related to club head although it’s mostly the shaft.
Gibb Pete Ahchance
Apr 8, 2016 at 5:36 pm
It’s all about the same stuff these days.
Chris
Apr 8, 2016 at 4:09 pm
When you do an experiment you have to control your variables. In this case you are testing driver heads therefore you should not use different shafts. Why not isolate the shaft and see what head is better?
Brian
Apr 8, 2016 at 1:42 pm
Great stuff again Rick, proves again how much every manufacturer is pretty much maxed out within regulations and it’s really all about getting a shaft to fit your swing.
Would love it if you would do a comparison between older vs newer drivers i.e. TM R7 v M1, Ping G5 v G35, etc. That would really show what progress has been made in past 10 years.
Don
Apr 8, 2016 at 2:41 pm
Ditto What Brian said. It would be interesting to see the progress or lack there of. One thing is for sure the OEM’s have their advertising on point. Again, as many have mentioned though, if it were true, I would be having monster 460 yard drives right now. Ha. Ha. Ha.
mhendon
Apr 9, 2016 at 11:14 pm
I can answer that question. My club head speed hasn’t changed in 15 years the prov1 has been out that long and my driving distance is still the same. 15 years ago I was using a Titleist 975J and now I’m using a Nike vr pro limited. Not the latest and greatest driver but still about 12 years of supposed technology between the two.
Matt Heister
Apr 8, 2016 at 1:14 pm
I thought Nike ‘sucked’….
Goes to show that everyone is making quality products…
If you get fit , everyone can benefit from
Any ‘big 5 or 6’ OEM driver.
Tom
Apr 8, 2016 at 10:29 am
Interesting comparison and data. Next time lets see all out swing.
RosePalmer
Apr 8, 2016 at 8:27 am
Well done! Thank you!