Spin This: Drivers are Straighter Than Ever

New technology reduces golf ball spin rates, increases trajectory

Chris Duthie

I’ve never bought into that often-quoted and highly misleading golfer’s adage, “Drive for show, putt for dough.” In more rounds than not, it was a driver that got me into scoring position, or it was a driver that put my neck in a noose. A great tee shot was a psychological high; a poor one, a knife in the heart.

It’s always been the driver, dummy. Plain and simple.

That’s why it’s so titillating to learn that equipment manufacturers are engineering tee box and fairway metals that are continuing to reduce ball spin rates and increase bore trajectory. As most savvy golfers know, it’s spin that causes a golf ball to slice or hook (and encourages the slicer or hooker to utter a self-deprecating expletive or two).

Even shot-making wizard Phil Mickelson is celebrating the new technology. “This year I have the best driver I’ve ever hit that lowers my spin rate just like my 3-wood,” he said before this week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. “I drive it longer and straighter with my driver than I did with my 3-wood. It’s a whole different weapon in my arsenal now.”

“It” is an unnamed Callaway Big Bertha prototype that is giving Mickelson more accuracy and a 25-yard boost off the peg. “It” is also good news for Callaway, Mickelson’s longtime equipment sponsor, which received ill publicity last year when Lefty played a spin-decreasing TaylorMade SLDR driver at the 2013 Presidents Cup.

The increasingly straighter ball-flight engineering is also available from Ping, Titleist, Nike and other manufacturers who will strut their shiny new stuff at the PGA Merchandise Show later this month in Orlando, Fla. Adjustable hosels might be the Tinker Bell dust of 2014, but for my money—and apparently for Phil’s—fit me with a tee ball driver that consistently finds the center stripe.

Chris Duthie is a contributor to Colorado AvidGolfer, the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It publishes eight issues annually and proudly delivers daily content via www.coloradoavidgolfer.com.