White the new black?

From a mere advertising prospective, you have to give TaylorMade Golf some credit.  You’ll know exactly who is playing a new R11 or Burner Superfast 2.0 driver on any golf broadcast on TV or at your local golf club.

TaylorMade has extended its “Ghost” from only putters in 2010, to include drivers, fairway woods and hybrids in 2011.  According to them, the distinctive white crown and black face make the new woods one of the easiest to align at address ever.  Read on for my thoughts on the woods, but I personally think the white on putters DOES help frame the golf ball for easy alignment.  A “Ghost” Corza putter ended the 2010 season in my bag. 

As mentioned previously, the 2011 line adds to its R and Burner series of woods.  The Burner series promotes “speed” and therefore distance through a lighter weight club.  The R series promotes distance and control through “optimization” of ball flight.  The R11 series allows you to adjust loft, face angle, center of gravity and shafts.  The R11 is the first driver that allows you to do all of this. Easily can be seen as overkill, but the ability to fit it exactly to ones swing is appealing.

These new products were released to the masses at midnight this morning.  Persuaded by giveaways or the product itself, people lined up for their first crack at these new products.  I however was able to see them in person last week at the PGA Show Demo Day.

The new white products were everywhere.  Not just at the TM area, but at every shaft manufacturer as well.   I expected to think these looked cheap, like a kids club where Snoopy was on the sole.  However only one fit that mold. 

I first came across the R11 at Oban's (shaft manufacturer) tent.  Great colorful shafts they really popped with the R11.  Here's some pictures with their purple Kiyoshi shaft.  Cool shaft!

The R11 is a traditional shape at address, at the white quickly grows on you.  The white does as TM adverstises make the club look bigger than its 440cc size.  I'm sure it's only a matter of time before TM releases a 460 cc model with more weights.  The crown graphics were subdued and hardly noticed at address, although I'm not quite sure why TM thought it was necessary to have them.

 After a few hits the driver certainly has some pop and the sound is very pleasing.  Not the most muted driver, but certainly not a loud tink either.  Pretty much what you could expect from a TM driver.  While I didn't have time for a thorough test of adjusting the driver and seeing how the ball flight was effected.  I did take a crack at the new ASP (Adjustable sole plate) technology.  Last year I struggled at times with too much of a cut.  Not a slice, but just a fade that would act up at times.  On the R11 I set the FCT (hosel) setting to a draw setting which closes the face.  I can't stand the look of a closed face, so I adjusted the ASP setting to Open.  The result was a draw biased driver with a neutral (square) face angle.  Looked great and this is what is really appealing to me about this driver.  Took a few swings with it and I was hitting a nice consistent tight draw.  Very nice!

At the TM tent, I found the new Superast 2.0 TP.  Last year's Superfast TP spent a lot of time in my bag this past season so I was excited for this one.  Unfortunately TM has ruined this club cosmetically.  They made the driver head a bit more triangular at address and it just looked odd.  While the graphics on the R11 are subdued at address, the graphics on the 2.0 are distracting and make the club look cheap.  The driver cetainly has a lot of pop and feels great just like last year's model, but I definitely can't get past the cosmetic changes TM has made with this model. 

One big concern I have is with the durability of the white finish.  My ghost putter showed wear quite quickly last year.  A chip or nick in the paint of a black club can quickly be masked by a black sharpie marker, but what do you do for a white club? 

Unfortunately it didn't take too long to find durability issues on several of their demo clubs.

Here are some additional pictures of fairway woods and hybrids.

Just like white belts on tour, these clubs certainly won't be for everyone.  While I believe the white finish does help with alignment on putters, I don't think it adds all that much on woods.  The R11 technology is very cool and the 2.0 line is dissapointing.  No doubt these will be all over golf courses this year and on TV.