I Didn't Expect This From Ben Hogan...

Ben Hogan is one of the greatest names in the history of the game. One of the best to ever play it. And for a while, some of the best irons you could get. Nowadays, no one really talks about Ben Hogan. They've shifted to a DTC model where they're creating all the same clubs for a fraction of the cost of the OEMs. So I've got one simple question to answer. Are Ben Hogan drivers any good? I've tested both heads, the PTX Max and PTX LST, and the results are not what I expected. I'm starting this test directly on the launch monitor. I didn't want to take these to the range first. I really wanted to see what a $380 driver can do performance-wise, data-wise, especially when you have a max forgiving head and a low spinning head. I wanted to see if the data aligned with what they're supposed to do. And speaking of that $380, they're $380. There are shaft options on Ben Hogan's site. A fair amount of them in different flexes. The extra stiff is actually like the least amount, but there's no upcharges other than one shaft, which is the Graphite Design Tour ID, which is like a super, super premium shaft. So to think you can get this $380 driver and kind of fit it if you have an idea of what shaft profile works for you at no real upcharge, that's impressive. That's a really good offering. And while we're on it, these heads are designed. These aren't just like generic DTC heads. Ben Hogan has a club designer on staff that designs their golf clubs and he used to work for Adams. And you can see that in this influence. This speed slot looks a lot like the old Adams Speedline driver from like 2009-10, which was a very, very popular driver. So taking them on the launch monitor, I did start with the max head. I wanted to see if, you know, it's as easy to hit as forgiving as all those other like 10K heads. And if I'm, if I'm honest, pretty underwhelming. Calling a spade a spade. 10 drives as it went and it was forgiving. It's a, it's a forgiving head. It's a max head. It felt fine. The ball flight wasn't like the same every time, which I often experience with like your Ping K heads, even the Cobra forgiving heads. The strike location was just a little inconsistent. You see that in the data, 168 miles of ball speed, 286 in the air. Forgiving heads aren't going to win any ball speed awards, but I would expect, I mean, the spin actually was pretty solid. I just look for more of a repeatable ball flight and peak height. And the peak height is kind of all over the place. And that's not what I experienced or what a lot of golfers experience in these max heads. Not a great start. If I'm being honest, that is fine, but it's not on par with the OEM forgiving driver heads in terms of ball flight repeatability. It certainly didn't deliver that. The dispersion is fine, but the big thing is that ball flight, the ball flight changed so much shot to shot. And this is a decent shaft for me. So we're not going to be, Oh, the shaft is no. So I didn't have the highest of expectations for LST. I'm being brutally honest. Like the max really underwhelmed me. I put LST in and holy cow. Talk about unexpected. Talk about impressive. If this was underwhelming, this was overwhelming because my gosh, for $380. This is freaking good. Like these numbers are as good as anything that I've experienced. Even my gamer, not quite as fast as the sub 70 3D printed one, which I actually did this on the same day. I did the sub 70 testing. Then I did these. So the divide between the sub 70 and this was like, golly, what is this going to do? This thing delivered for a low spinning head. It delivered forgiveness. If we look at the peak height, it's a little bit tighter, but the spin is tight. The ball speed is so tight between 172 and basically 169. That is amazing. The numbers on this thing are so good. And the dispersion for 10 drives, what more do you want for something that's like fast, well spinning, pretty dang good dispersion overlaying the two. You can kind of see this is the forgiving head. This is the low spin head. There's not a lot of difference in dispersion between these two drivers. And then if we really just, you know, overlay the data, you can see this doing exactly what it's billed to do. This thing's still fine. Low spinning for a forgiving head, but just a little bit underwhelming. You will, I did take it out to the golf course kind of reluctantly because I had such a incredible experience with that sub 70 driver that I wanted to continue to play with that and see if I could really just smack it because that was fast and really, really good. I went out for a round of golf last week and I took this and I bumped it down to eight degrees. This would try to bring the loft and the, or sorry, the launch and the spin down just a wee bit. I hit it on the first hole. Like it was in the bag, but I wasn't intending to play the full route. I wanted to keep testing this up. First drive was good. It was exactly where I would hit driver on that hole with a little bit of wind. It was like three 10 after after second hole. I hit both drivers. I hit both bad. Then I use the sub, the other, my other driver, sub 70 driver. Fine. Didn't hit it great. I was kind of towing it. Wasn't hitting it left. I tweaked it a bit too. I digress. Then I went on a par five and hit sub 70 driver. And then you're going to see, I hit this driver and they were like three yards apart, both struck roughly on the same part of the face, roughly the same ball fight that made me go, hmm, maybe I could play the rest of the round with this. I hit one more drive with sub 70 driver. Then I hit the Ben Hogan driver on the 10th hole. Then I hit the Ben Hogan driver for the remainder of the round. Didn't miss a beat. This thing was so good. The feel was awesome. That kind of hit like a squeezing cut with it. A little kisser out there. I was blown away. Everything is like, everything's turned on its head for this test because starting in the launch monitor with a mixed bag, if you will, and the driving rain or sorry, the round, impressive. Now we got to go to the driving range. And just hear them see the ball fight and give this a proper shake too. And see if out on the range, we get a little bit better strike and predictability of flights. You got to see if this can do that side. So let's go to the range. I mean, gosh, look at their head cover. It's kind of a classic head cover. I don't really talk too much about the looks, but it's just a very classic head shape and you couldn't really get the sound of it in the garage or out there on the, on a course, but I got the sound of it and my gosh, sound the flight, this LST head, you just got to see it yourself. That's just a slight heel shot. And look at that. It's just so impressive. The sound is just so solid. So solid. A total whiff. You see those three have all kind of been in the same vicinity of each other. Smack one more and then just see if, if max hangs out here in terms of sound and flight. Love it. One thing I'll give them some serious credit for with the max and LST is the head shape is pretty much the same. Basically looking at the same driver. I have this set to eight degrees, just like I did LST. Definitely a higher ball flight, but that's what you would want to expect with the weight in the back, a forgiving head, sound and feel not quite the same, but not far off. I mean, that thing should have gone there. So we saw some of the forgiveness there. Definitely feels a little less like meaty thuddy than the LST did. It's really good to look at. But I can tell it's just not quite as fast as, as poppy, if you will, as the LST head is it one more. I test a lot of golf clubs and almost always the golf clubs do exactly what I expect them to do. They live up to the marketing, the billing, whatever they say they're supposed to do, they do. It's not often that something I test is so unexpected. There's been the odd one that's been unexpected because it's just not good. But this driver right here is the most unexpected discovery that I've had in three plus years of testing clubs on YouTube for 380 bucks, this thing sounds as good as feels as good as looks as good as flies as good as the drivers on the market that are 550 to 650 bucks. Depending on the manufacturer. This thing is so freaking good. This 380 bucks, this thing's fine. I'm not gonna like throw the baby out with the bath water and say, ignore it. It's a fine forgiving head. Looks good. Feels good. Sounds good. But there's better forgiving heads out there. This thing is as good as any other low spinning driver on the market today. And it's crazy. Ben Hogan's doing some cool stuff and they're not just resting on a nostalgic name and serving you the golfer generic irons woods. They've got a club designer that's designing their gear. And you see that influence here and their performance speaks for itself. And that price tag is it's pretty baffling when you think about something that's almost $300 more is do you use Ben Hogan golf clubs? They've been kind of stacking up awards on my golf spot with their irons, their woods, their putters. This is the first time I've experienced them in this driver. So freaking good. Sound off in those comments. Do you use Ben Hogan golf clubs? Are you going to look into this? Because it's definitely worth your time and money. We'll see you in the next one.