I just bought one of these last Friday at an Edwinn Watts tent sale. For $80 I couldn't resist! It's a 10.5 NVG2 460 Draw, stiff shaft. Couldn't make it to the range that afternoon, and had a round set up first thing Saturday AM. The course we played didn't have a range, just a net to hit into, so I went into the round playing this club "blind".
I used the driver off 4 of the first 5 holes (other is a par 3), and each time the draw was almost a hook it was so strong. So different from my usual fade, on one hole after hitting OB I opened the face a bit to try to compensate and ended up hitting a slice. It was on that hole that my friend noticed I was using a new driver, and that it was the same kind he has! He said he had similar issues the first few times he hit his, but once he got used to it he started just banging the
out of the ball and loving it.
Well, I decided to bag the driver until I had a chance to practice with it. I used my 3.5 wood on the next few long holes, which are all pretty tight, either between houses or next to major roads. When we came to the 16th, the longest par 5, slight dogleg right, I decided to try the MacTec again. This fairway on this hole was plenty wide, and theres a lot of room left (another fairway) and to the right is playable. I'm not sure what I did different from earlier (maybe I was just warmed up and more relaxed by the 16th), but I cranked a nice light draw about 290-300 yards up the middle! Had some wind at my back that helped the distance, but it was one of the best drives I've ever hit on that hole. It was a good 5-10 yards past the spot where a fellow had won a long drive contest a few weeks prior during a charity scramble, which they measured at 285 yards.
The next hole is a 280yard par 4, with a very narrow green surrounded by bunkers. This time the wind is a little left-to-right, mostly in our face. I hit my drive a little off the toe, but it started down the right side where I had aimed, hoping to draw it back into the wind. Too bad it found the edge of an oak tree before it could come around. But contact was good even off the toe, and the shot wasn't really that bad. So we go to the last hole. Number 18 is technically a dogleg right, but the way it sets up is weird. The tee boxes are set up on one side of a big waste area hazard (used to be wet and marshy, now it's all dried out), and the fairway is across the hazard, running at about 30* angle away from the tee boxes. I think the hole is about 360 from the blues, but if you can get up and over some houses and avoid a couple of oaks, the green is just under 300 yards away, but it's a blind shot. So I chose to aim for the farthest right part of the fairway I could see, which is about 65 yards from the green. That way if I hit a draw, I'd still be back in the fairway. Well, I cranked another one, right where I aimed, driving it across to the far side of the fairway and about 5yards up a large mound. Laser put it at about 280 yards (used a nearby tree to sight on).
So, first impression - this might have been a waste of $80. Overall impression - this driver has a
LOT of potential, and when it is hit well it puts it out there with the best of them! My driver SS is 100-104mph, so anything 265-270 plus and I ain't complaining. Main thing for me is can I keep it in the fairway? Since I don't know that for sure yet, I gave it a 4 star rating. But so far I've really only hit 7 drives with it - 2 great, 1 good, 2 mediocre and 2 bad. Funny thing, though - those 2 great drives was all it took for me to know this driver can perform well if the monkey holding it can do his part! I hope to get to the range this week and give it a better test, and I also have a new hybrid I need to get used to, so once I've got a few more hits under my belt with it, I'll update this thread.
02-05-2007, 06:39 AM
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