Tommy Heberer
January Article
Adjustable Drivers: Friend or Foe?
These days more and more companies are moving toward drivers with an adjustable hosel. These hosels allow players to open or shut a clubface, with some of the newer models even allowing the club to change the lie angle slightly. Sales of the new drivers have boomed and most of the major companies offer some variance of the adjustable hosel. The question though is, do the drivers help a golfer with a swing fault, or do they simply accentuate the problem further?
History:
The first driver to offer the new adjustable head was not made by one of the large companies, but rather by Versus Golf in 2007. This was because of a USGA rule forbidding such clubs until they amended that rule in January of 2008. The new rule states that adjustable clubs can be used as long as no adjusting in done during the round of golf. Taylormade was the first of the major companies to release the adjustable hosel with Taylormade R9 series driver that combined movable weight technology with an adjustable to hosel. More companies followed suit with Nike, Cobra, Adams and now Titleist all offering at least one driver model with an adjustable head.
Models:
Taylormade- R9, R9 Supertri, R9 Superdeep, and coming in 2011 the R11
Nike- VR STR8-FIT, SQ Machspeed, Machspeed Black, and VR Pro STR8-FIT
Titlesit- 910 D2, and 910 D3
Cobra- S2, and ZL
Adams- Speedline 9064LS DFS
How they Help:
By opening and closing the clubface a player is able to help take away their particular big miss. Players who have a tendency to hook the ball are able to open the clubface, and players who slice their drives can close the clubface. Also allows for a player to set up the club depending on the course they are about to play; examples being closing the clubface for a course that requires more draw tee shots or opening the clubface for a course favoring fades. This technology also helps golfers with physical limitations, who may not being able to swing a club correctly.
How they Hurt:
They do not correct swing faults, they only allow for a player to somewhat reduce the damage their swing creates. This in turn leads to players never truly improving their swing, and overall game. Also players tend to get in the mindset of “I keep hitting the ball to the right; I need to shut the clubface even more!” Player’s will also get fit for clubs this way and think they then don’t need to work on their game or receive lessons.
Conclusion:
The adjustable driver’s are good to an extent. They certainly help players with physical limitations and swing faults, but not to an extreme. Players need to find a “medium” where they are using the driver to help reduce their misses while at the same time work on the swing faults they currently have. The best example of this is for fitting a player: instead of shutting a face completely to take away a slice, shut it slightly and show them ways to work on the full body swing to help rid themselves of bad movement. Then as the player gets better with the swing you gradually move the clubface back to square.