When Jason Dufner showed up to the 2022 American Express for his Monday practice round session, he came with a new club in the bag: an unreleased Cobra LTDx driver.

Recently, three new Cobra “LTDx” drivers popped up on the USGA Conforming List, including a Cobra LTDx, an LTDx Max and an LTDx LS. With so many driver options hitting the list, it seems inevitable that a new family of drivers is coming soon to replace the company’s RadSpeed drivers from last year. Yet, that remains to be confirmed.

At the 2022 Sentry Tournament of Champions, Bryson DeChambeau was photographed using what appears to be the LTDx LS model, based on the sole weights. Being that GolfWRX didn’t have boots on the ground in Maui, however, we weren’t able to capture in-hand photos of the new driver design.

Thanks to Dufner’s driver of choice this week in Palm Desert, though, we’re now able to catch our first in-hand glance at an LTDx driver.

Check out more in-hand photos here.

In addition to the photos, I was also able to catch up with Dufner on Monday about his personal experience with the new driver design, even though Cobra hasn’t yet revealed any details about the technology.

“One thing I have been seeing is the strikes have been really consistent off the middle of the face,” Dufner told GolfWRX. “People don’t believe this, but sometimes the driver can droop in different ways. The last couple models I had, I felt like I had been making good swings but was catching it on the toe a little bit. So these have been really consistent off the middle. I’ve seen really good launch windows to my eye, good spin windows to my eye, but I haven’t tested it on Trackman yet.”

Based on the photos, Cobra is going with a weight-back design in the LTDx head, likely to move center of gravity (CG) rearward into a more forgiving position. That could be why Dufner is able to find the center of the face more consistently.

As Dufner explains further below, the last few driver models he used in recent years had a more weight-forward design that were intended to lower spin. The back-weighted design of the LTDx, however, has allowed Dufner to find better windows, find the center of the face more often, and have better overall control.

“They’ve got three different heads now, so it gives me more options…my particular model has the weight is back, and we put a little more weight in the back so it changes the CG a little bit for me,” Dufner said. “It makes it launch a little bit higher and spin a little more, which is kind of what I need. I want to have a certain amount of loft so I can get more ball speed. The more loft you have, the less ball speed you’ll have, because it’s not as flat a surface. So I should see some speed gains…I like it so far. It feels great. I just played 9 holes and didn’t miss a fairway.”

Even though Dufner says he hasn’t captured his performance with the LTDx yet on a launch monitor, the driver is checking all the right boxes in terms of ball flight.

“For me, with a driver, the most important thing is that when I feel like I make a good swing and hit it off the center, does it do what I want it to do? And I’ve seen that very consistently through the 4-5 days that I’ve had it,” Dufner said. “I don’t worry about the mishits as much, because the mishits are mishits. But if you can tighten dispersion a little bit with those, great. It gets a little weird for us when we make a good swing and it goes off the center and it’s left or right or whatever. So I’ve been happy with it and I plan on playing with it. We’ll see how it goes.”

Although it seems set in stone based on his comments, it’s not yet certain that Dufner will use the LTDx come competition time on Thursday. What’s absolutely guaranteed, though, is that he will have his longtime Titleist 915F 7-wood in the bag.

Dufner has used the 915F 21-degree fairway wood since 2014 when the club first launched, and it’s not leaving the bag anytime soon.

“That’s not going anywhere until it breaks,” Dufner told GolfWRX.

Even if something drastic happens in the meantime (knock on wood), Dufner has a backup.

“I have that head, which is the original, and I’ve got another head that I haven’t hit yet,” Dufner said. “So I’ve got at least six more years if this one goes.”

When I asked Dufner if he’s tested any other 7-woods recently to capitalize on newer technologies, Dufner’s answer was simple and matter-of-fact: “No.”

It’s safe to say Dufner isn’t changing out that 915F 7-wood, which is smart, because it looks like he’s missed the center of the face with it no more than two or three times in the last eight years.

To see the rest of the clubs that Dufner has in the bag for 2022, check out the forum link here.