Gear Review: Titleist 910

Titleist's New 910 Driver, available Nov. 15

910 DriverTitleistGear Review:

What they say: 

•  Titleist 910D2 and 910D3 drivers feature the fastest, most stable head designs Titleist has ever created, as well as the new SureFit Tour (SFT) dual-angle hosel.  SFT is innovative, patented technology that allows the loft and lie to be independently adjusted and set.  
• Titleist 910 drivers are available in two models that provide distinct levels of forgiveness and shot control.  The 910D2 features a 460cc full-pear shaped head designed for maximum playability and forgiveness, promoting a straighter ball flight with higher launch and low-to-mid spin.  The 910D3 features a 445cc classic-pear shaped head design that produces a boring flight.  The 910D3 also promotes a straighter ball flight with low spin, and provides increased workability favored by many tour players.  Both the 910D2 and 910D3 utilize Titleist’s new SureFit Tour dual-angle hosel, a breakthrough in fitting technology inspired by the bending of metal woods on Tour to achieve more precise ball flight through the adjustment of loft and lie angle.
• The SFT hosel features a sleeve and a ring, each with four settings.  The sleeve settings are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 and the ring settings are lettered A, B, C, D.  This results in a matrix of 16 unique loft/lie combinations that allows the fitter or golfer to make left or right flight improvements (mostly via lie adjustment), and launch and spin improvements (mostly via loft adjustments).  The combination and interaction of the ring and sleeve provides the “dual angle” technology that makes independent loft and lie adjustability possible.  Current competitive adjustable hosel drivers feature only a single angle for dependent adjustability, meaning, every time the setting is changed, it alters both the loft and lie, which limits the ability to optimize ball flight.

What I say:Titleist isn’t exactly big on changing its gear. While other companies bring out several drivers a season, driving retailers crazy and confusing the market (at least to my way of thinking), Titleist stays pretty much on a two-year cycle. I’ve played a 909 D2 for the past two years and have found the driver to be predictable, with a lower, penetrating ball flight. It would take a lot to make me want to change.

Regardless, I was curious about the progress Titleist made with an adjustable driver. They seemed late to this party — every company appears to have an adjustable driver these days. Chad Cole, the MAN when it comes to club fitting with Titleist in Canada, started by suggesting with take some Track Man numbers using my existing driver. The numbers were pretty solid, a little cut which I typically hit between 270 and 280 yards, sliding about 10 yards to the right. We took about 20 swings with my driver before Cole handed me the 910.

Aesthetically, the 910 is a lovely club, quite traditional-looking from above, especially in comparison to my 909. The clubface is black, which makes the club look quite sexy. Cole had a pretty good sense of what we were going to try — it was mainly a shaft combination. After a couple of swings he’d either swap out the shaft or adjust the lie, monitoring the results on Trackman. It is a remarkably simple and quick process now — a few quick adjustments and you essentially have a different driver.

When I mentioned I usually gripped down on my driver by an inch of so, that seemed to get Cole thinking. He handed me another driver and suggested that I shouldn’t grip it down. The ball came off with a nice high flight, floating gently to the right, while feeling soft off the clubface, similar to my 909.  With that we were done — and Cole said he’d found a driver for me.

The fallacy of the “adjustable” driver is that I doubt many people adjust it after it is setup for them — at least if they have a swing that basically repeats. In that regard, I’ve always thought adjustable drivers are more about fitting the golfer properly with a straight-forward system. With that in mind, Titleist seems to take adjustability to its ultimate end — it is hard to see where a manufacturer would head from here.

The Score:Cole pulled me over to Trackman to see where we finished. The final driver had a shaft that was a half-inch shorter than standard, using the  Diamana ‘ahina 72 Stiff @ 44.5″. The result? Where my 909 drifted 10 yards to the right on average in my initial shots, the 910 with Cole’s adjustments was only 2.5 yards to the right, a significant difference. Essentially my fade ended up going straight, without giving up the feel I expect or having to fundamentally alter the aesthetics of the club. Otherwise the numbers weren’t dramatically different from my 909, though straighter is always better, I’d say.

I’m sold — if that’s all it took to straighten my fade, then Titleist are onto something with this one.

Note: Titleist says the 910 will be available on Nov. 15, and it is it at $449.