THIS WILL make you DUMP the DRIVER for good!

Right, welcome back to the channel. Average golfer inside at Chester North Wales Golf Academy. Trackman is switched on and I'm ready for another experiment. And these are often led by my own dilemas. I've been using a mini driver for quite some time, but I'm hitting the ball quite well. And I'm wondering, should I step back into the longer shafted 460cc proper driver if you like? So that's the experiment in today's video. longer shaft, same loft on two drivers, different size heads. Which one comes out on top? So, a huge rise in popularity of the Mini Driver in recent years. And I've been on that bandwagon. I like the fact that it's a shorter shaft. I like the smaller head profile. It gives me greater control. And in my mind, I'm not giving up a great deal of distance, but am I? And that's the big question really. What do you lose by going to a mini driver? Often people call this a strong lofted three-wood, a two-wood. They'll call it anything but a mini driver. Doesn't matter to me. It's the club that I use off the tea in my rounds of golf right now. But like I said, I'm questioning it. Do I want to go back to a 460cc head? Don't mind that. Bit big in my opinion, but gives you plenty of confidence when you're at a dress. The only other thing to debate is that extra couple of inches at a dress. I'm moving away from the ball. Well, that means I'm losing control in my opinion. I'd rather be a little bit closer, or at least I think I would. So, let's get hitting some balls on Trackman and see what the data tells us. So, let's kick things off with the with the big dog. We've hit one ball, as you can see. Uh, we've had a warm up. It's reasonable enough. Let's see what we can do on the old course at St. Andrews. Well, we can pull it left is what we can do with that. We got a 135 ball speed, 217 uh carry. And as I said, felt straight away like I pulled that one off the tea. So, let's hope that is not a sign of things to come because like I said, controlling that club head is all important to me. 91.6 club head speed. So, again, this channel is about the average golfer. That means average club head speeds. You're not going to see nothing on here with 100 mph plus club head speeds. You're going to see probably low 90s, maybe up to 95 if I manage to get a little bit of a warm up, but that's as fast as it gets. And I think it's in line with more golfers than there is with a pro doing this review. Seemed a better ball speed up a bit. Still a tad down that left. Changing swing of late. There's a new series coming. My shot shape has gone from a left to right fade into a uh right to left draw. And let's hope that doesn't become a hook. So, I'll carry on. I think I'll hit another ball cuz I'd like to get something that I feel is really out the middle, but I'd be happy with that 221 carry, 13 1/2 launch. Um, again, ball speed relative to club head speed. We'll perhaps stick a smash factor number on there as well to see how it's performing. And that spin number is what you would hope for. from driver maybe even a tad lower but we are using the max product it's Qi driver QI10 that is let's see if we can get one more the fear is at the moment is that the control element is gone um by using the longer shaft that became a bit more cuty but still that's a decent ball So concentration from my part on not shutting that club face down too much. Give us a bit of a straighter shot. But I certainly felt like it was open. 135 ball speed, but just better parameters in terms of launching a bit higher. Gave me that longer carry distance, but that higher spin means that the total overall is probably a little bit shorter. I'm going to carry on hitting balls with this. Um, dispersion will be uh of interest to me in this video because I am really concerned that like I said the longer shaft is the the appeal uh sorry the shorter shaft is the appeal for me in the uh in the mini driver. Is that a myth or is that something that is actually going to pan out? Well, we'll hit a few more with this thing and then I'll switch up into that mini driver. That's making its way back. First ball. We're going to switch on up into the mini driver. Now, like I said, why would you use mini driver? Well, it's the control element. I'm guessing I'm going to lose about 15 yards. That's my first thought. But that was first swing with the shorter shaft and switching from one to the other. My confidence grows hugely. But whether or not it's going to be detrimental in terms of performance, well, time will tell. That wasn't a great swing to be fair. 210 carry or thereabouts of 88 club head speed. Don't forget club head speed in theory should be down a little because we're swinging a shorter shaft. But the interesting number for me is that N1 that we've added into the equation, which is smash factor. And that's that ball speed performance relative to your club head speed. And already we're seeing 1.49. That's the bit I'm interested in. How efficient is this club? Am I getting it more out of the middle than the longer shafted sort of normal driver? And what would that ultimately mean in terms of uh well ball speed, carry distance, and overall performance. Few more balls to be hit with this. And it's a very simple and straightforward analysis of those two sets of numbers. Yeah. In and again just what's nice is second ball hit. Left the camera running for a bit there. Look at that efficiency smash factor 1.5. At the moment it looks like maybe 10 yards shorter, but I feel like we can get a bit more out of this. Um yeah, all them numbers are good. Guessing on Trackman that is guessing on the spin rate at the moment which I'm not too sure why 15 launch more ball speed 216 carry. So uh we're getting on up there again. Efficiency 1.49 three balls hit on camera. Three balls down. Not too far off center stripe to be honest with you. Um I don't know. Maybe I already know the answer to this before I carry on hitting any more balls on those first three. I'm already believing my own hype, which is that the shorter shaft gives me greater control and not a huge loss. But I won't jump to that conclusion too soon. I'll hit some more balls and let's see what the end result is. But at this stage, I think I'm sticking with mini driver. That could be a decent one. Yeah, shot shape and everything. 220. I wanted to switch this back on. Uh, not to report that because that's better than I expected. But more to talk about tea height. It's something that if you're going to choose mini driver, it's something that I think you're going to have to have a little bit of a mess around with. Uh, the reason I say that is because um I I've seen different people teed up very differently. And I think, like I said, to get your optimal performance, you're going to want to tweak around a little bit. Hopefully, you've seen the kind of little yellow tea that I'm using today. Um, I'll just bring that in. See if we can see if we can pick up on that. That's the tea height that I'm using. Um, and it's kind of works for me. But yet again, that's just uh well, in all honesty, that's the best ball with the mini driver 220 carry, a 1.51 smash factor. We'll do the numbers, but uh if you want to spoiler alert, I don't think you need to watch any further. Right, if I could stop for two seconds and just interject with I get a lot of questions at the minute both on Instagram and on recent YouTube videos about what am I wearing exactly in terms of a new brand and well the cap states it all really. It's Woolsey uh both head to toe really. Trousers are theirs, hoodie is theirs and obviously the cap is as well and it's a fairly small range uh within their sort of wardrobe their golf new golf range that is. So I'll put a link down in the description below. go and check it out and then I don't have to continually answer questions as to what it is I've got on. But I got to say I'm super impressed with it and it seems others are too. Right, let's make this one nice, straightforward and simple. Uh this is the uh the big driver if you like that uh Qi10 lofted uh at 11.5° which is the same as the mini driver. It was the R seven the mini driver. That's a dispersion chart if more honesty kind of this side in I'm kind of happy with me. four shots leaked over to the left hand side which uh potentially in some heavy rough. Um but not overly disappointed with the performance. 217 carry off 90 uh club head speed. Um what I can't see there is how do we get across? Here we go. Yeah, smash factor I was looking for 1.48 which is fairly efficient. Few variables in there 1446 148. Um, but overall not too bad. Peak height of 87 spinning 23. Good spin number, good launch, 16.1 and a kind of 217 carry off just under 91 mph club head speed. I think that's decent performance. Um, we'll then switch up into what we hit with the mini driver. And to be honest with you, I only hit half the amount of balls because I don't know, my mind was made up fairly quickly and the consistency was incredibly different. Uh apart from the first two balls which we were a little bit slow on in terms of club head speed, we then started to get into the 90 mph which then produced 216, 217 and 220 carry. That's what always confused me a little as well. Pretty much every experiment I've done internally with the mini driver, it produces the same club head speed that it that I do with a driver that is 2 in longer. And that's shouldn't happen. And I think it's largely due to the kind of the confidence factor that I start to just sort of go at it a little bit harder when I've got the mini driver in hand. I don't know the logical explanation, but it should be slower swing speeds with the shorter shaft. Anyway, that said, 214 carry even with the three two short balls at the beginning compared to 217. So, we lost just three yards in terms of distance. We were 134 ball speed as opposed to 133. So, we're getting more ball speed off the mini driver, and I believe that is down to the fact that we're finding the center of the club face more. 149 launch, 161. So, it was a lower launch, more penetrating ball flight with the um mini driver. And the trouble with this spin is when you see it in this kind of italics, that means essentially that um Trackman is guessing a little. So, we can't do a great deal with that in terms of a comparison, but it's 18 spin is what it's suggesting as opposed to 23. probably a little bit too low, I would think. Um, but it will have a very positive impact on the end result because it's going to say it rolled out for miles. So, you've got a a total yardage of 241 as a total yardage of 239. So, overall distance was longer with the mini driver than with a standard driver. But it's this end column that we added in early on that's really key. Smash factor. And that's that efficiency ball speed to club head speed. And you can see the consistency. 149, 150, 150, 149, 1.51. That to me is still the telltale sign as to why I would prefer to use the shorter shaft with the greater control because it's more efficient. I'm swinging a club harder. I'm getting greater control down fairway and just overall my confidence level. Even today, just bringing it into an environment where there's no out of bounds, there's no hazards, there's no nothing. We're just swinging freely. I'm still managed to control the mini driver far greater than I can that longer shaft alternative. I don't think my results really matter. The key point is what happens when it's in your hands. But I do think that hopefully this experiment sort of identifies that mini driver has its place for some golfers, not for all. But certainly worth trying out and considering if you're going to go into that market for a new driver. That's me done. Dry ball data. That's all it is. Trackman data. Hope it kind of give you some kind of steer. Thanks for watching.