Equipment
Driver vs. Driver: Can a GolfWRX Editor design a better driver than what’s on the market?
Designing your own driver is like running a race through a jungle that’s littered with booby traps. No matter how fast you are (or in this case, how good your idea is for a driver), you’ll need help navigating through the obstacles or you’ll never survive.
Myself and 18 contestants on Wilson Staff’s new TV show, which documents the driver design process in a competitive Shark Tank-esque format, found out just how many booby traps lay unseen in the jungle of driver design.
Golf Channel’s “Driver vs. Driver” reality show, sponsored by Wilson, airs October 4 at 10 p.m. EST and pits driver designs from novices against each other. Nearly 300 submissions were accepted from “bus drivers, engineers, college students who have never played golf… real people,” says Michael Vrska, Global Innovation Director at Wilson. The 18 contestants were a part of 11 different teams, and they worked with professional golf club designers from Wilson to refine their designs. The winner not only earns $500,000, but the distinction of having his or her driver brought to market for the golfing public to purchase.
Judging the driver designs on the show are former NFL linebacker Brian Urlacher, former USGA Technical Director Frank Thomas, Wilson Golf President Tim Clarke and PGA Tour player Kevin Streelman. The show host is Melanie Collins, who also co-hosts on Golf Channel’s Big Break.
As I learned — and I’m sure the contestants on the show did as well — the driver-design process has some serious and unexpected challenges. Personally, I needed major help along the way from Wilson’s design team to not only make an awesome driver, but make a legal driver. Below, I detail the process of my driver design from start to finish, including photos and real feedback from along the way.
GolfWRX Driver
My first challenge in designing a new driver was answering the question, “What hasn’t been done already?” Think about for a second. Not so easy, huh? And it’s especially difficult when you need to sketch something up, and send it to professional driver designers knowing the sketches will be on GolfWRX for the world to see.
No pressure.
Here’s what was going through my amateur-driver-designer brain during the design period.
The best-performing drivers have low CG and high MOI, right? So I’ll sketch up a driver that has extremely low and rearward CG. Duh.
So I slapped some carbon fiber on the crown to save some weight up top, and threw a rear extension low and back behind the club to drag weight all the back away from the face.
Looks good enough.
And we need some adjustability, too. Hmm… I got it! Let’s put the gear from GolfWRX’s Gear Trials logo, make that dual-weighted — half aluminum and half tungsten — and spinning that gear will allow golfers to shift CG.
There’s also some more room in the back of the sole. Might as well add some additional adjustability. And a speed channel behind the face, too, because… why not?
I figured the weights could be made of different materials of varying weights, and you’d interchange them depending on whether you wanted neutral, draw, fade, and could adjust head weight, too.
Brilliant!
OK, about a year’s worth of R&D done in 15 minutes. A great-looking, and probably awesome-performing driver. Maybe this really is easier than it looks.
So I sent my very amateur sketches off to Wilson and got some lunch. I may or may not have been thinking I’d have a new career in designing drivers when I came back.
A few days passed and I received an email with feedback from Wilson. It was much like checking an exam grade that you thought you absolutely knocked out of the park.
And… I failed. Miserably.
Initial Design Feedback Summary
- Little chance the carbon fiber inserts and face-to-skirt radii would pass durability.
- Front-to-back length must be less than heel-to-toe length, so the driver is non-conforming under USGA rules.
- Volume is 478cc, which is also non-conforming under USGA rules, which set 460cc as the mass limit.
- The gear is too large, and is estimated to be too heavy.
- The four weight inserts would likely add even more mass to the design, which already weighs too much.
I didn’t think about the USGA, nor did I consider mass, durability… and reality. The gear design and rear extension might work after all, though, even though the four weights probably wouldn’t. There just wasn’t enough weight to go around, especially when saving weight is the goal.
Here’s the second round of designs after a few back and forth conversations via email with the Wilson team.
Click to enlarge.
Round 2 Feedback Summary
- Club is now USGA conforming, with a shorter front-to-back dimension and 458cc volume.
- CG is 0.130 inches toe-ward.
- Overall head weight is still too high, and that’s before the hosel adaptor or interchangeable weights are added.
- The lip structure for the carbon crown will also add additional weight.
It was still too heavy, and CG was toe-ward, which is less than ideal. But at least it was USGA conforming!
Wilson’s team asked for my thoughts on how to reduce size, weight and reposition CG. I was stumped. Luckily I was invited to Wilson’s headquarters in Chicago to play lead driver designer for a day, and sat over the shoulders of design experts, helping making final decisions on every aspect of the design.
Truth being told, however, I was just along for the ride. Wilson’s team took what was an obviously amateur — and frankly, a non-commonsensical driver design — and turned it into something that looked really cool, and might perform decently in the real world if it actually went to production.
A special thanks to Mark Spencer, Mark Kerscher, Kevin Mayoux, Rich Hulock and Michael Vrska for all of the time and assistance!
Final Design
Finals stats:
- CG with gear weight max toe = 0.034 inches toe-ward
- CG with gear weight max heel = 0.038 inches heel-ward
- Total CG movement with gear weight = 0.072 inches
- CAD MOI = Over 4100 for all gear weight positions
According to Wilson, MOI would probably be about 4300-4400 if it were actually to be produced. Also, with the amount of CG shift, the gear design would likely be enough to make a real impact on ball flight. Saving weight from various portions of the head made that possible.
Would it be the best driver on the market? Definitely not. But having the final product be USGA legal, and not a complete disaster was a success.
Final Thoughts
It would be a drastic understatement to say I have a newfound respect for driver design.
So much goes into designing a driver that it’s frankly overwhelming. Not only do you have to worry about conformity, durability, cost and production, but you need to highlight technologies in order to have a marketable driver, attract your intended consumers, and obviously, build something that performs better than not only your company’s predecessors, but other drivers on the current market. Oh yeah, and you only have about a year to do it.
As GolfWRX Senior Editor, I think it’s best I stick to reviewing the newest equipment rather than designing it.
Enjoy the gallery below featuring all of the sketches, CAD designs, FEA tests, etc., and don’t forget to vote in the poll below!
Poll
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- Kevin Streelman what’s in the bag accurate as of the Zurich Classic.
Driver: Titleist TSR3 (10 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black 6 X
3-wood: Titleist TSR3 (15 degrees, A1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Blue 8 X
5-wood: Ping G (17.5 degrees)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 10 X
Irons: Wilson Staff Model CB (4-9)
Shafts: Project X 6.5
Wedges: Wilson Staff Model (48-08, 54-08), Titleist Vokey Design WedgeWorks (58-L @59)
Shafts: Project X 6.5 (48), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 (54, 58)
Putter: Scotty Cameron TourType SSS TG6
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet
Ball: Titleist Pro V1x
Check out more in-hand photos of Kevin Streelman’s clubs here.
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The year was 2012. Gangnam Style ruled supreme, its infectious beats and ludicrous horse-riding dance moves hypnotizing us with their stupidity. Everyone was talking about the Mayan calendar, convinced that the end of days was near. Superheroes soared on the silver screen, with the Avengers assembling in epic fashion. Katniss Everdeen survived The Hunger Games. And the memes! The memes abounded. Grumpy Cat triumphed. We kept calm and carried on.
In much the same way that automotive enthusiasts love classic cars, we at GolfWRX love taking a backward glance at some of the iconic designs of years past. Heck, we love taking iconic designs to the tee box in the present!
In that spirit, GolfWRX has been running a series inspired by arguably the greatest fighting game franchise of all time: Mortal Kombat. It’s not “choose your fighter” but rather “choose your driver.”
Check out some of the standout combatants of 2012 below.
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Nike VRS
Often harshly critiqued during its years releasing golf equipment (right, Phil Mickelson?), Nike’s tenure in the club-and-ball business gets a gloss of nostalgic varnish, with many of its iron and putter designs continuing to attract admirers. Among the company’s driver offerings, the 2012 VRS — or VR_S, if you will — drew high marks for its shaping and toned-down appearance. The multi-thickness, NexCOR face was no joke either.
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
Callaway RAZR Fit
Callaway’s first foray into moveable weight technology (married with its OptiFit hosel) did not disappoint. With a carbon fiber crown, aerodynamic attention to detail, and variable and hyperbolic face technologies, this club foreshadowed the tech-loaded, “story in every surface” Callaway drivers of the present, AI-informed design age.
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
Cleveland Classic 310
Truly a design that came out of left field. Cleveland said, “Give me a persimmon driver, but make it titanium…in 460cc.” Our 2012 reviewer, JokerUsn wrote, “I don’t need to elaborate on all the aesthetics of this club. You’ve seen tons of pics. You’ve all probably seen a bunch in the store and held them up close and gotten drool on them. From a playing perspective, the color is not distracting. It’s dark enough to stay unobtrusive in bright sunlight…Even my playing partners, who aren’t into clubs at all…commented on it saying it looks cool.” Long live!
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
Titleist 910
While there’s no disputing Titleist’s “Titleist Speed” era of drivers perform better than its 2010s offerings, sentimentality abounds, and there was something classically Titleist about these clubs, right down to the alignment aid, and the look is somewhere between 983 times and the present TS age. Representing a resurgence after a disappointing stretch of offerings (907, 909), The 910D2 was a fairly broadly appealing driver with its classic look at address and classic Titleist face shape.
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
TaylorMade RocketBallz
The white crown. The name. You either loved ‘em or you hated ‘em. TaylorMade’s 2012 offering from its RocketBallz Period boasted speed-enhancing aerodynamics and an Inverted Cone Technology in the club’s titanium face. Technology aside, it’s impossible to overstate what a departure from the norm a white-headed driver was in the world of golf equipment.
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
Ping i20
Long a quietly assertive player in the driver space, Ping’s i20 was more broadly appealing than the G20, despite being a lower-launch, lower-spin club. Ping drivers didn’t always have looks that golfer’s considered traditional or classic, but the i20 driver bucked that trend. Combining the classic look with Ping’s engineering created a driver that better players really gravitated toward. The i20 offered players lower launch and lower spin for more penetrating ball flight while the rear 20g tungsten weights kept the head stable. Sound and feel were great also, being one of the more muted driver sounds Ping had created up to that time.
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
GolfWRXers, let us know in the comments who “your fighter” is and why!
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Equipment
Coolest thing for sale in the GolfWRX Classifieds (4/29/24): Krank Formula Fire driver with AutoFlex SF505 shaft
At GolfWRX, we are a community of like-minded individuals that all experience and express our enjoyment of the game in many ways.
It’s that sense of community that drives day-to-day interactions in the forums on topics that range from best driver to what marker you use to mark your ball. It even allows us to share another thing we all love – buying and selling equipment.
Currently, in our GolfWRX buy/sell/trade (BST) forum, there is a listing for a Krank Formula fire driver with AutoFlex SF505 shaft.
From the seller: (@well01): “Krank formula fire 10.5 degree with AUtoflex SF505. $560 shipped.”
To check out the full listing in our BST forum, head through the link: Krank Formula Fire driver with AutoFlex SF505 shaft
This is the most impressive current listing from the GolfWRX BST, and if you are curious about the rules to participate in the BST Forum you can check them out here: GolfWRX BST Rules
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Dave Portnoy places monstrous outright bet for the 2024 Masters
John Daly stuns fans into silence with brutal opening tee shot on PGA Tour Champions
Justin Thomas on the equipment choice of Scottie Scheffler that he thinks is ‘weird’
Things got heated at the Houston Open between Tony Finau and Alejandro Tosti. Here’s why
Tiger Woods arrives at 2024 Masters equipped with a putter that may surprise you
‘Absolutely crazy’ – Major champ lays into Patrick Cantlay over his decision on final hole of RBC Heritage
Report: Tiger Woods has ‘eliminated sex’ in preparation for the 2024 Masters
Two star names reportedly blanked Jon Rahm all week at the Masters
2-time major champ announces shock retirement from the sport at age of 33
Report: LIV Golf identifies latest star name they hope to sign to breakaway tour
Kevin Streelman WITB 2024 (April)
Kevin Streelman what’s in the bag accurate as of the Zurich Classic. Driver: Titleist TSR3 (10 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)...
Team McIlowry (Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry) winning WITBs: 2024 Zurich Classic
Rory McIlroy WITB Driver: TaylorMade Qi10 (9 degrees @8.25) Buy here. Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X (45 inches) 3-wood:...
Steve Stricker WITB 2024 (April)
Steve Stricker WITB accurate as of the Zurich Classic. More photos from the event here. Driver: Titleist TSR3 (9 degrees, C4...
Alex Fitzpatrick WITB 2024 (April)
Alex Fitzpatrick what’s in the bag accurate as of the Zurich Classic. Driver: Ping G430 LST (10.5 degrees) Shaft: Fujikura...
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19th Hole3 weeks agoDave Portnoy places monstrous outright bet for the 2024 Masters
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19th Hole1 week agoJustin Thomas on the equipment choice of Scottie Scheffler that he thinks is ‘weird’
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19th Hole3 weeks agoTiger Woods arrives at 2024 Masters equipped with a putter that may surprise you
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19th Hole1 week ago‘Absolutely crazy’ – Major champ lays into Patrick Cantlay over his decision on final hole of RBC Heritage
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19th Hole2 weeks agoTwo star names reportedly blanked Jon Rahm all week at the Masters
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19th Hole2 weeks agoReport: LIV Golf identifies latest star name they hope to sign to breakaway tour
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19th Hole2 weeks agoNeal Shipley presser ends in awkward fashion after reporter claims Tiger handed him note on 8th fairway
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Jeremy
Oct 17, 2016 at 8:56 pm
The TV show is a trainwreck so far. None of the contestants really understand or seem to play golf. There is little drama. It’s not interesting-bad, but boring-bad.
Dave r
Oct 9, 2016 at 5:12 pm
Great article was going to pass right by it but glad I read it very interesting in deed .
RAT
Oct 6, 2016 at 12:16 pm
I like the idea of a contest on designing a driver and giving all that money away. This gets other ideas and involvement from people that just may have a great idea that is out of the box ! I bet there would be a lot more discussion if some other mfg. came up with this (Callaway )(TM)(Titleist) .It would be sooooo super and the greatest driver ever with 17 yards gained. But it isn’t and that’s the thorn in the side. At least it’s got people watching how designs are turned into a product. It’s certainly not easy and designs are so close to copying some others that one has to be very careful . I hope that it’s a great driver and a great show. Time will tell.
Z
Oct 6, 2016 at 2:40 am
Somebody squash this idiot like a bug
Wesley
Oct 5, 2016 at 10:45 pm
Thanks for an insightful article. Interesting look at how it really is to design a modern driver. It looks cool to me. Any driver that allows the user to have a ‘Fade’ position is a real win.
Ronnie
Oct 5, 2016 at 1:36 am
I like this show it was a break from BIG Break….Wilson is getting more and more back into golf, loosing Nike should help keep them around……Still remember when Wilson tossed out John Daly soon after he won the British Open with their odd looking driver….it was said they would never sell another driver after that….I think they are still trying to regain that part of the market…they should just re-sign Daly he is the longest on the Champions Tour now.
rymail00
Oct 4, 2016 at 11:20 pm
Andrew—-
Are you on the actual show? Or was your WRX design driver just looked over by the Wilson team to help promote the show (just curious, regardless enjoyed the this article a lot).
James
Oct 4, 2016 at 4:19 pm
Is Brian Urlacher an avid golfer? Maybe they trust a gritty Chicago opinion? I’m so confused why he is involved in this show?
VL
Oct 5, 2016 at 12:53 am
Because, doofus, he represents the 90% of hacker golfers in the world with a swing like his who seek a club helps them hit it long and straight. So him being a celebrity helps the show as well.
The Real Swanson
Oct 4, 2016 at 2:56 pm
Wilson should try and make a decent blade like they last did in the 80’s and early 90’s.
Stephen Tomlinson
Feb 13, 2019 at 10:47 am
#staff Proto is live! you were 18months ahead of the times
Rich
Oct 4, 2016 at 10:01 am
Looks absolutely crap!
CHip
Oct 4, 2016 at 8:48 am
The rear extension is very smart, so is the clicking gear to change weights around. If I had one request to new driver designer it would be to go the way of the R11 and make the lie angle adjustable. That adjustment plate was genius. Change the loft on the hosel, change the lie angle on the sole plate.
Matto
Oct 5, 2016 at 6:13 pm
Yeah………unless you hover your driver at address, which a lot of people do. And then it’s pointless. Which I believe was why that system was done away with.
Ti
Oct 4, 2016 at 2:20 am
Well Andrew, one idea to be able to make this heavier head work would be to use it on 43 or 44 inch shaft with a slightly heavier grip-end set up where you could use some counter weight or something to offset the heaviness, and make yours a better player driver (which it would be with all the adjustable tuning that lazy amateur high-handicappers don’t really want to deal with), with a heavier, stiffer, more tip-reinforced shaft. Might be interesting to try it
Adam
Oct 4, 2016 at 12:51 am
Based on the fact that the parameters for production are so strict, is there the real possibility that drivers could be made THAT much better if they were non-conforming? One of the biggest issues in golf today seems to be getting people interested in “having fun” aka hitting it like the pros. Personally, I could care less if your average weekend golfer used a non-conforming driver.
Based on your experience, Andrew, do you think the designers at the major club manufacturers could provide normal golfers with leaps and bounds performance enhancements if they weren’t constrained by the USGA regulations?
It makes sense to me that people should play with what they want. If you’re not even thinking of playing in anything competitive, who cares what you use? Enjoying the game is what matters most, and allowing players to hit it longer and/or straighter seems like it could help draw players to the game.
All that said, I love your design, and the gear is a masterful idea. Similar to the R1 a bit, but great use of the space available.
KK
Oct 3, 2016 at 9:30 pm
One of the best golf articles ever.
Sean Hoffman
Oct 3, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Why you walkin?
Kurren
Oct 3, 2016 at 6:56 pm
This is so cool! Really looking forward to this show. I’m curious to see if there will be a HiBore type design. I made a thread last year asking why that shape wasn’t ever used again. It seems to tick all the boxes, you are saving volume with the scoop, so you have more room to make the driver have a bigger footprint to push CG rearward. Also since the crown weight is lower, the CG would also be lower. Seems great to me?
Des
Oct 3, 2016 at 5:18 pm
i think it’s a very cool design concept. I would love to hit it. I hope it at least makes it to prototype so we get to see how it performs. I think you’re on a very good track with this
yMH
Oct 3, 2016 at 8:27 pm
yEAH yOUR mUM’S hEAD IS ON IT
Jake
Oct 3, 2016 at 4:52 pm
So once I saw this article and saw how overly complicated the process is and what is trying to be achieved through this show and what was designed here in by the author all I can think about is how about we just follow a couple of trends that are apparent across the OEMs producing top tier drivers.
1. Carbon gives you freedom to move weight around a little more freely
2. move able weight is a good thing when moved correctly….
3. Stick with a familiar shape… Like TM, Titleist and some of the Cally drivers. Weird shapes have came and gone already a few times. The market has already told these companies that doesn’t work.
Solution: Use a carbon crown that can easily be removed, you could use the same screw for the hosel loft adjustment. Maybe I’m not an engineer. Use hot melt for the move able weight. This is already a proven method of modifying weight dynamic and gives the driver better acoustics. Train fitters on where allocating the hot melt weight would best benefit the fitee. Doing this would increase the number of people buying at full retail and would encourage people to get fit to get the most out of the driver they are buying, do to restricted access to people able to hot melt.
There you have it a truly customized move able weight driver without all the ugly cosmetics of trying to find out how to move the weight around also cuts down on people like me and lots of golfwrxers who buy off ebay or other outlets to get the same driver at a discount.
G
Oct 3, 2016 at 5:12 pm
Why don’t you have a nice cup of STFU if you don’t know anything at all. You’re just clutching at straws like everybody other idiot pretending to know something they know nothing about.
Every metal wood and hybrid all have some amount of goop in them. Beyond that, having adjustable removable weights is the norm. The design on this page needs to have that component instead of having to hot metal anything at all.
Go play tennis, if you don’t want this stuff
Jnak97
Oct 3, 2016 at 3:19 pm
I would be interested to see what the tails does in a wind tunnel, but the top view is a little hard to look at. The gear is an interesting advent and pretty unique compared to other cg shifting techniques in the market now. So it would have a carbon fiber crown?
Sean
Oct 3, 2016 at 2:48 pm
Nicely done Andrew! I would certainly give it a “shot”. Good luck!
MIKEYP
Oct 3, 2016 at 2:30 pm
An honest question, if there was a way to make a driver better, wouldnt the R&D departments at all the large club manufactures have figured it out by now? I hit my 2005 Cleveland as straight and as far as my M2 with the same diamana shaft and golf pride grip.
Ummmm
Oct 3, 2016 at 3:45 pm
Yes – there is no more innovation left only cosmetics
Eej
Oct 3, 2016 at 3:50 pm
No.
Because you’re an eejit
Get air
Oct 3, 2016 at 12:42 pm
Great article, and I like your design. Already set the DVR for the show. What a great idea for Wilson. Hope this gets their name back out there again. Even my kids who aren’t really into golf yet are super interested in this show.
Matt
Oct 3, 2016 at 12:10 pm
That thing is hideous.
Phil
Oct 3, 2016 at 11:12 am
How many episodes did you just ruin by posting this? Do I even need to watch the show?
Mouldfan
Oct 3, 2016 at 11:36 am
Did you fail third grade reading comprehension? The article was about the author’s personal experience attempting to accomplish what the show’s contestants were being asked to do. It mentions nothing about the show other than noting its name, sponsor, air time, host, judges, and the ultimate reward. It reveals nothing about the show’s actual content, divulges nothing about specific episodes, and, therefore, in no way “ruins” anything. Do you really think the folks at Wilson and/or the Golf Channel would be that dumb to provide specific details about the show before it even airs? Please do us all a favor and step away from your computer and out of your mom’s basement.
Mike Honcho
Oct 3, 2016 at 12:36 pm
I thought you were too busy making snide remarks at the Ryder Cup to have time to come on here and do the same.
Boobsy McKiss
Oct 3, 2016 at 10:45 am
Telling story of the state of the golf industry when they are asking randoms to design the next gen gear?
the guy
Oct 3, 2016 at 2:16 pm
This article proves that what they are looking for is not a new golf club engineer, just a simple good idea. They took Andrew’s hideous and kind of silly idea and turned it into something sort of workable that looked like a driver you might see (that nobody would ever buy thanks to that tail).
The Wilson engineers are going to do the heavy lifting.
Ummmm
Oct 3, 2016 at 3:46 pm
Yeah because they have such a solid track record creating golf clubs that do well at retail 🙂
Every single one of them should be fired