• A very large majority of the measured Face Angles for the drivers measured are Very Open - often more than 3 degrees and even in the range of 8 degrees open!  This is bad news for golfers who want help from their driver to reduce the amount that they slice the ball.  Golfers who slice need Closed Face drivers, not Open Face drivers.

• Many of the measured driver lofts are more - often a lot more - than 1 degree different than the stated lofts for the OEM driver settings.  If you think you are hitting a 10.5 degree loft driver, you may in fact  be hitting one that has as much as 12.5 or more degrees of loft.  If you balloon your drives with one of these drivers, this could be the cause.

• Tom's results confirmed his expectations from the start (he in fact had developed an adjustable hosel driver design in 1995) - "... you simply cannot change the loft of a woodhead through a change in the angle of the shaft using such an adjustable hosel device."

• The design of the TaylorMade adjustable driver is actually different than the others - it has an adjustable sole protrusion piece on the sole that can in fact allow you to change loft and face angle at the same time.  For this driver there are 84 different settings that you can make for loft, face angle, and lie angle with this driver.  It is the one adjustable driver that can possibly be set up, in my opinion, to provide loft and face angle settings that can help a driver fitting.  However, you had better work with someone who Really understands what the settings will produce. 

Tom's report illustrates in detail the truth about Adjustable Hosel Driver Designs - in my view, at this time, buyer beware if you want a high-quality fitting with one of these designs!  At a minimum - know for SURE what the Loft and Face Angle settings are for the driver that you think you are able to hit well. 

 

There is a web site called MyGolfSpy that publishes some interesting testing results on golf equipment.  They have attempted to bite off a bit cookie - comparing driver performance results.  This weekend I learned that they would start sending out their results today - so why not provide these to you Hot Off The Press!

The first link is for a writeup noting the 17 drivers that were tested, shaft flexes used, and some preliminary information about the testing procedure:

     MyGolfSpy 2013 Driver Testing - The Contestants

The second link is to the results just made available today - rankings by what they call "Longest Driver:"

     MyGolfSpy Driver Testing - Longest Driver Results

There are a lot of ways to view these results - and until I can really understand the testing procedure used and evaluate if it makes sense, I will reserve judgement on if the results present any information truly of value in making decisions on choosing a driver for you.

Two comments now however I will say are justified:  a) with all of the variations in heads, shafts, lengths, shaft weights, etc. in the testing it is pretty amazing that there is only about 10 yards of variation in total driving distance as shown in the results; and b) the results are presented as though the Driver Head is King - but my first comment makes me wonder if that is a valid conclusion.

Still - worthwhile reading!  I hope you all go to their site and see the Accuracy results and Overall results that will be presented soon.  And I highly recommend subscribing to get MyGolfSpy messages delivered to your email.