A golf club company makes the most noise, especially when they release a new driver. Modern manufacturers of today spend vast amounts of money developing driver technology, and the various marketing campaigns that go behind each of them are worth noticing! These generally make it to the headlines too, and they keep coming up with different innovative new ways to make their products go further and straight out.
But there is one burning question in most golfers’ minds, which is, how long do these golf drivers last in the hands of an average golfer. And what are the things that you should be looking out for when you need a new golf driver? Several golfers think that golf drivers lose their pop after a certain period of period.
Many have theorized about several possible causes, such as loss of trampoline effect due to metal fatigue or the shaft losing its flexibility. Thus, another question pops up if you should necessarily expect a driver to lose distance over about a few years, considering the golfer’s swing hasn’t changed.
This article addresses some of the main things and specifics about golf drivers.
Starting with the first issue, if you should expect a golf driver to lose its touch after a couple of years. The thing that matters here is that if you are using one of the biggest BIGIR17XQuin Sasquit Ti/Comp golf drivers or even one of the standard versions that have been in the market for a few years now, you will not have to worried about the driver losing its pop.
These modern golf drivers are all designed to the limit of COR, I.e., trampoline effect, and if your swing is between the normal range to high range of about 85 mph to 105 mph, Then you seriously have nothing to be concerned about it.
If the head of your club and shaft are not production anomalies that should have rejected at the very beginning right on their way through the quality control department, then your driver should last quite a long time. If you have bought it from a renowned manufacturer, it should last comfortably for at least five years under heavy use.
Heavy use implies playing 30 to 40 rounds of golf a year and going to the driving range about once every week. The driver’s face, which is its resilience or ability to spring back during impact, will not lose any of its glory. You do not need to take tension or think or worry about the shaft losing its flexibility gradually, either.
When a graphite shaft fails, it is more of a catastrophic failure that generally ends up with the grip still in your hands and the head being somewhere far away into the bushes or down the fairway. The fatigue properties that a shaft has been perfect. Even steel shafts which are made of high-strength steel do not lose their pop.
How to check if your golf driver is starting to collapse?
You could always test to see if your golf driver is starting to collapse. You will need to place the straight edge of credit or a business against the face of the driver. The look must have a noticeable budge and a roll; that is, it should be convex. If you see that the face is flat and a little concave, you do have a potential problem. Though it is an infrequent exception nowadays, it was not so in the early days when titanium golf drivers were available.
So, you probably have understood by now that you need to do a little more profound self-examination of your swings if you think that your clubs are not working as well as you hoped after you changed your efforts. A golf driver works amazingly for the first several weeks and even months, depending on how much you have paid for it.
Generally, people find that a new golf club improves their game right up until it slowly starts to interfere with their swing. It is a genuine phenomenon known as the Placebo effect, experienced by even the very best players. But, it is fairer to say that the club or the shaft does not lose their pop; instead, you might be experiencing foul play due to the depletion of literally, magic powers that new golf drivers have designed into them.
Do golf drivers have a shelf life?
Another general question is if golf drivers have a shelf life, and you bet it does. Nowadays, golf drivers have quite a shorter shelf life span if you are a tour professional like Cameron Champ, known for his fastest wing on the PGA Tour last year at 128 miles per hour.
The central fact here is that metal, even one as strong as titanium, does suffer fatigue, significantly when thinned to the level of a driver’s face. Gradually with time, repeated hits can cause the driver face to change to a point where what was once conforming becomes nonconforming and eventually cracks.
That could be an issue for the high swing-speed tour players; it takes quite a bit longer for this to happen to everyone else. It is quite challenging for an average golfer to wear out his driver enough, to the point that it will crack. For the golf driver to seriously get damaged, you need to be at least at a speed of 105 to 110 miles per hour and play quite a lot of golf and practice.
The bottom line is although drivers do have a shelf life, it is most probable that you will end up getting a new one before your current driver fails on you. If you have a 90 mile per hour swing speed, you have nothing to worry about now. Tour golf players only end up busting their golf drivers as they have an enormous swing speed, and they play all the time and practice endlessly.
Does the club fitting in golf drivers work?
Often, a question is asked. There is no real difference in getting fitted for clubs at places like Club Champion with thousands of options. And you are getting provided by the professional at a nearby club. There’s quite a bit of comprehensive study on club fitting at Club Champion. There are some great fitters there that even make it to some of 100 Best Club fitter lists. So it will turn into a bit of a cost-benefit analysis thing for you, and it is generally different for everyone.
If you are hitting better with your fitted golf driver, it will serve as personal evidence that club fitting does work. But you may think that the improvement you see is not worth the investment to you.
On the contrary, you could also be pleased with your fitted driver. Thus, this answer would change with every individual. Any person could be impressed by the Club Champion process’s thoroughness, from a pre-session interview to the resistance to just fit into the golf iron, which lasts the longest. At the same time, another person could argue that the fitted driver is no competition to his present driver.
And thus, not many fitters would admit that and walk away from a potential sale. Though Club Champion does offer a broader extent of club heads and shafts for fitting and increasing your chances of getting meaningful benefits, it is also true that the price tag that comes with the benefits might not suit each and everybody.
Conclusion:
If you are wishing and thinking of investing in a new driver and wonder if the driver technology nowadays is better than when you bought your current driver, rest assured that it is better. Most people, who think about improvements in golf equipment, tend to forget that most of those are not necessarily in-your-face enhancements.
Significant benefits to average golfers can put into drivers and other such golf equipment during the manufacturing process or in using better materials such as carbon crowns, which reduce weight and allow it to be positioned somewhere else in the club, thus creating a playing boost.
Besides that, designers also learn from each iteration of golf equipment that they design. For example, since the 915D2 and 915D3, Titleist, the manufacturing company, has produced the 917 and TS Lines. Expanding on its enhancements and capabilities with each one.
Another instance is that the TS line had four models to better target players when the 915 had only two models. Not only Titleist but other companies have brought in a lot of enhancements as well. Moreover, it is also not just about the performance on the center hit.
Though every golf player loves to see crush one and see extra yards pop up on the launch monitor, tremendous improvement has been made in the off-center hits as well. In short, it is safe to say that if you are planning to invest in a new golf driver, go for it and rest assured it will last pretty long.
