While you can’t actually see performance, or even center of gravity locations, frankly, it’s just kinda cool to peel back the hood (or the crown) and take a look inside a driver. Today we’re giving you a chance to do just that in the most literal sense possible.
Featured below are 9 of the top selling drivers of 2016. The crowns are off, the insides exposed. It’s your chance to look around and see what’s really going on under the lid.
What to look for
Here are a few things to consider as you look through the photos – and remember, you can click on any image to view the larger version:
Internal Structures – Structures are present to support face technologies like Callaway’s R*MOTO and TaylorMade’s Inverted Cone. A significant amount of structure is necessary to enable movable weight systems. Structure is required to support adjustable hosel designs, and sometimes elaborate ribbed structures are used for acoustic tuning purposes (most commonly in composite models).
Face Welds – many of you are aware, like the crown, a driver’s face is a separate piece that must be welded, brazed, or otherwise attached to the body. Some manufacturers and models, as you’ll see, have cleaner welds than others.
Hot Melt (the blob of goo you see in some of the heads) – Holt melt was fairly common in the days of bonded hosels where it was used to catch any bits of epoxy or other debris that might come loose and would otherwise have rattled around in the head. Hot melt is still used for that purpose, but it’s also used to help heads make weight if they come up a little light. Finally hot melt is used to tune the acoustics in otherwise unpleasant sounding heads.
While hot melt can serve many purposes, its downside is that it’s hard to control exactly where it ends up, and that can lead to inconsistent mass properties (CG location) from sample to sample.
Please Note:
- The metal shavings shown stuck to the hot melt in the Callaway Great Big Bertha and PING G heads show below are byproducts of crown removal. When you cut metal, shavings get left behind. While these heads do contain hot melt, they don’t actually contain metal shavings.
- Not all of the titanium crowns were cut in exactly the same place, material lost to cutting may vary, and of course heads are different sizes and shapes. For all of those reasons, crown weights should be treated as approximations.
Let’s take a truly inside look at some of the most popular driver designs on the market right now.
Callaway Alpha 816 DBD
Total Head Weight: 204.5g
Crown Weight: 18.9g
Crown Material: Composite
Callaway Great Big Bertha
Total Head Weight: 202.1g
Crown Weight: 15.8g
Crown Material: Composite
Callaway XR
Total Head Weight: 196.9g
Crown Weight: 28.4g
Crown Material: Titanium
Cobra KING F6
Total Head Weight: 204.8g
Crown Weight: 29.0g
Crown Material: Titanium
Cobra KING F6+
Head Weight: 206.1g
Crown Weight: 13.2g
Crown Material: Composite
Cobra KING Ltd.
Head Weight: 207g
Crown Weight: 11.3g
Crown Material: Composite
TaylorMade M1
Head Weight: 203.9g
Crown Weight: 12.5g
Crown Material: Composite
TaylorMade M2
Head Weight: 199.7g
Crown Weight: 13.1g
Crown Material: Composite
PING G
Head Weight: 200.3g
Crown Weight: 24.2g
Crown Material: Titanium
What Do You See?
What do you notice? What design features stand out most to you?
M P
7 years agoWhy are the hosels for the M1 and M2 shown different from the ones that I have? Aren’t the stock hosel adapters with +/- 2* instead of the shown 1.5*?
John
7 years agoSeems like all of the drivers with composite crowns have a lot of titanium structure to support the crown. It’s where they glue on the composite section of the crown to the rest of the crown. If your comparing crown weights, it would only be fair to cut out that section and weigh it too. Otherwise the crown weight comparisons are not very accurate.
Christopher Doyle
7 years agoExplain why TITLEIST was not involved. Please.
Fons
6 years agoMy driver 915 D2 has some damage in the clubhead but it can’t be repaired acc. to titleist. Something sounds like sand and it moves in the swing. is this fixable ? foam injecting ? ( not the swingweight)
eric
7 years agoAs the heads come off the assembly line they weigh 199, 201, 200.5, 199.5, etc…
…the hotmelt can be added at this point to bring them all up to an even 203g or whatever the MFG has decided will be the final head weight.
Jim Colleran
7 years agoWhat about Titleist?
Deb Farmer
7 years agoIf you guys want a well built driver get a Wishon.Wishon golf.Tom Wishon
jw
7 years agoWhat i see is a lot of glue inside those driverheads. That glue/hot melt is everywhere… this means per driver there is a different balance… because the hot glue is not always in the same place…. strikes me
Troy Vayanos
7 years agoInteresting to see inside my driver the Cobra KING Ltd. So hollow inside and there doesn’t seem to be much going on inside.
Kenny V
7 years agoGreat read. The addition of Hot melt begs the question of clubs left in the trunk of a car in extreme heat. Is it possible the hot melt will “melt” and move causing an imbalance?
Joe Golfer
6 years agoIt’s a type of epoxy that would essentially require a propane torch to loosen.
consider that your shaft is also epoxied into place into the hosel or the adaptor. Leaving it in your trunk hasn’t loosened the epoxy.
This technique has been used for decades. I’ve built clubs myself in the past. Occasionally on a cheap club, the section at very bottom of hosel breaks off on shaft removal, falling into club head and causing a rattle. Some companies that sell component equipment even call this type of stuff “Rattle Stop”.
But like the article says, you can’t tell where the hot melt will end up if you drop it in via the hosel. It simply catches the loose piece of metal and hardens wherever.
Joshua Lee
7 years agoSweet read. Now when are you doing a thing on the 917 driver ? Most of the boys were using them on weekend including longest drive
Bob Gomavitz
7 years agoHead based on with the sleeve or without it? Very interesting article
Matt Langford
7 years agoYes I would be interested to know as well. The King LTD head is on the heavier side
Kerry Cole
7 years agoSo, now that you cut the crud out of the heads… can you glue them back up and sell them at a heck of a discount? Let me know as I would like another Callaway..
Mike
7 years agoWhere’s the Titleist 915? I play the 915 and was hoping to get a peak under the hood. Great article otherwise. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Travis
7 years agoDoes the listed weight include the shaft adapter?
Tony Covey
7 years agoYes. Head weight shown includes the adapter, and basically everything else (moving parts, retention screws, etc.).
Travis Inouye
7 years agoF6 junior head spec without adaptor is 195 and ladies is 193g. Any ideas where they shave that weight from the men’s version? Do you suspect the hot melt in the pics equals 4-6 grams plus the adapter mass?
CTguy
7 years agoVery informative I was surprised by the relative sizes of the “sweet” spot in different models and manufacturers. Not quite as large as some would lead you to believe.
George P.
7 years agoCool article. Impressed with the look and tech of the Cobra King LTD. Surprised there’s no face-cup technology anymore. I play a TM M2, and it’s a beast! Interested to see what a King LTD would do for me.
Sharkhark
7 years agoFace cup? Wasn’t that Callaway? Cobra has been big on what they call e9 technology & this model continues that (where they claim all zones of face benefit in forgiveness)
Dana
7 years agoI noticed the Ping G and the Callaway XR have smaller titanium face inserts. I would think that would limit distance as it would reduce the trampoline effect and the welds would act as stiffeners? I will have to see how these drivers are rated. Very interesting though.
Doug L
7 years agoThe back of the M2 face appears to be machined. Is it? That would be interesting if it is since that would be an expensive additional step to that would improve tolerance and therfore allow them to get closer to the USGA limit.
ryan
7 years agoSurprised to see so much hot melt still being used. I understand such a small amount may not change the playing characteristics dramatically but given what is possible in manufacturing these days… still disappointing. It also shows what a superb job Cobra did with the LTD…No way they are putting hot melt inside a head that they know consumers will take a look at….
Thank you for this article, very interesting
Tony Covey
7 years agoWith the LTD, the design itself eliminated the need for hot melt. It’s important to remember that hot melt is often used as the backup plan in case anything comes loose. Obviously it was a bigger concern in the day of bonded hosels, but you still need to consider that bits of poorly finished welds can sometimes come free. In a normal driver the hot melt grabs it (as it did with the metal shavings) and there’s no rattle. If it were to happen with the LTD you simply open the space port, shake it out, and you’re rattle free and good to go.
Kenny B
7 years agoWhatever happened to the cup face technology that was supposed to be so great years ago, and has now shown up in irons?
chemclub
7 years agoGood point. I wonder if it is more expensive to manufacture? It likely takes a lot of precision to align the thin titanium crown sole and cup face over a much larger area than with an iron. The cup face irons can be made with much thicker steel components and any mis-alignments can be buffed away. Just my theory though.
Does anyone make a cup face driver (besides Wishon)?
Kenny B
7 years agoMacGregor did back about 10 years ago, and Tour Edge did up until a few years ago. I think they stopped. Wonder why?
Callaway touts their “hot” cup face on their fairway wood, but don’t use it on their driver. Again why?
Fozcycle
6 years agoI wondered the same and read where the Cup Face Technology went by the wayside and Variable Face Thickness came into being.
Jay
7 years agoAwesome to see the tech. cleaniliness of internals says a lot about the quality. I’m guessing the glue has a lot to due with weeding out tour drivers from retail. Look for the best 1% of production for consistency and save them for the guys on TV…..
Tony Covey
7 years agoMy guess is you’re much more likely to encounter hot melt inside tour drivers where everything is customized to the nth degree. Consider the TaylorMade SLDR. A good number of TaylorMade’s staffers removed the weight and used rearwardly-placed hot melt to make up the difference. Some also add hot melt for the acoustic (sound-dampening) properties.
RAT
7 years agoCould you do this cut away on some of the better older models , Tm R5, Cobra ZL, etc.?
RAT
7 years agoGreat to see the insides of drivers . Very interesting on the support structures and the quality of welds. I noticed the different size faces and shapes . Looks like the metal shaving is not by design but poor workmanship.
Tony Covey
7 years agoAs noted in the article, the metal shavings have nothing to do with design or workmanship, but rather result from the process of cutting the crowns off. Just as cutting wood leaves sawdust behind, cutting metal leaves metal dust behind. The hot melt is quite sticky, so once those metal shavings make contact with it, there’s not getting it off.
Count Tyrone Rugan
7 years agoMost OEM’s require hot melt to be “shot” into specific areas as to not disturb weight distribution as much. the min usually is .5g to a max of 2g.
In the past the some mfg added hot melt in the club assembly to dial in SW, but now since mostly they are added during head manufacturing to dial in head weight.
Rob
7 years agoNo Nike Vapor Fly heads to cut open?
Guanto
7 years agoUm I believe those drivers with hot melt were done by the individual owner who wanted to add weight, not the manufacturers.
Tony Covey
7 years agoThat is incorrect.
Hot Melt is added for a number of reasons (as referenced in the article). These cutaways are from retail samples. In the cases where hot melt is present, it was added by the manufacturer.
Uhit
7 years agoWell done!
The best driver strip show I have ever seen so far…
…nothing better than close up’s from the inside!
If every driver had a space port, or a translucent crown, or smth similar,
one could perform a quality control with ease…
Thanks for exposing the inside!
…hmm, well, there are other (expensive) driver on the market…
…where the inside is still unknown… 😉
InternetGuy
7 years agoThe inside of the M2 looks like mostly hot melt.
Fozcycle
7 years agoThe inside of the Cobra King LTD is very clean…..
Dan
7 years agoAre there any models without hot melt? I don’t like the idea of buying a driver not knowing where the glue ended up and messing with the weight distribution.
chemclub
7 years agoFun idea! Any chance you can hit some balls with them now? With safety glasses of course.
leon
7 years agoNice work! Really hate the hot melt glue or metal power inside the head. It will mess up all the weight distribution (draw or fade) and CG locations. And make it very inconsistent among different samples.
Eric Davis
7 years agoThere is no metal powder in the head. Its metals filings from MGS cutting open the head – and the filings/shavings fall into the hot melt, which is sticky.
and you DEFINITELY want the mfg adding hutment. Otherwise there would be no consistency of head weight. It’s how they even out the inconsistency of mfg intolerance.