Here's What Happened After Using This Callaway Driver All Year

Golf Monthly

In this video, Martin Hopley reveals the data behind his year with the Callaway Rogue ST Max driver.

Transcript

00:00 I'm here to talk you through my year with the Callaway Rogue ST Max driver.

00:04 Now on the Golf Monthly website there is a review of this driver already but I'm going to take

00:07 through the process I've been through this year in terms of getting fitted for it and then how it

00:11 helped me and benefit my game. Initially I've had a driver that was maybe a couple of generations

00:16 old it's about three or four year old model and whilst it was performing well I knew potentially

00:21 I could be doing a little bit better with all the advances that are going on in the world of golf

00:25 equipment these days. So I went along to an independent fitter in Scotland called Scott

00:29 Gooley Golf Technology and what they did is they were able to analyze my game and they have a wide

00:34 choice of heads from every single brand so they actually the Callaway driver almost chose me

00:38 rather than the other way around. Now the results of that fitting were that they promised me that I

00:44 could gain another 11 yards carry and also be about 20% more accurate which actually would

00:50 hopefully suit my game. So what I did was I've used this driver in competitions I've used it

00:55 in friendly games as well and I was using the Arcos shot tracking system in order to measure

01:00 the performance of both of these clubs because I was able to compare the two of them together.

01:04 You can actually track this data by creating accounts putting sensors in the end of the

01:09 golf clubs which I'm sure some of you may already be familiar with if you look at our review of the

01:14 Arcos Caddy and then you either record the information by having the phone in your pocket

01:19 using the link device on your belt buckle or as I've been doing using the Apple Watch.

01:24 So when I was fitted into the Callaway Rogue ST Max this was deemed to be the most forgiving head

01:30 for me and initially we started with a 10.5 degree loft driver and what the fitting enables the

01:36 fitter to do is to adjust this to suit your game. So for me they adjusted down the loft to

01:42 9.5 degrees by changing the hosel to -1 and then what that would do is slightly open the face so

01:48 in order to return the face to where it was originally they also used the draw setting as

01:52 well and for me that worked really well. I like seeing the face a little bit straighter and also

01:58 the extra face angle was hopefully going to give me a little bit more ball speed and hopefully a

02:03 bit more distance. Before we take it out on the course let's go into a little bit more detail

02:07 about the driver and what I liked about it. The Rogue range of drivers really is a forgiving model

02:13 there's no adjustability really in this apart from the hosel that I mentioned earlier it's just got

02:17 a quite a low deep center of gravity and this gold speed cartridge as they're calling it weighs about

02:24 26 grams and really what that does is draw the weight low and back you can see here that it's

02:28 kind of off the bottom of the sole and that really creates a deep center of gravity. There are a few

02:32 different heads in this there's an LS as a standard but this is the Max so this is the deepest head and

02:37 normally I probably wouldn't have gone for this but it doesn't feel too pulled back if you know

02:42 what I mean it's still quite a rounded head they've got quite a nice decal around it and I think

02:47 overall Caliwe's done a very good job of creating a driver which looks quite classy it's certainly a

02:52 little bit better than some of the Mavic model which it replaced. Let's give it a go and see how it feels

02:59 I don't know if you can hear that but I think the sound for this is certainly something that

03:08 really appealed to me it's a nice deep sort of solid sound you've got some carbon in the sole

03:12 here which combines with the titanium and the rest of the head and I think that is certainly

03:16 an improvement on the previous models that they've had. I think one of the things that

03:23 came to me with through my fitting was that this should be a lot more accurate driver

03:26 and that's just again not partly because of the shaft but also partly because of the head it was

03:32 going to be a lot more forgiving on off-center hits and certainly I found that to be the case

03:36 in most of the year I had a bit of a problem when I didn't quite connect my previous driver

03:41 when I went right it really went right whereas I've noticed with this when it I've hit it slightly

03:45 right it's probably stayed a little bit more in play. So now that I've talked about having it in

03:56 play let's go back and have a look at the Arccos stats for how this driver performed for me as I

04:01 played right through the year. So how did my new driver compare over the course of a whole season?

04:06 As I mentioned I was going to use Arccos to track not only the distance but also the accuracy

04:11 of the two drivers both my current one and the new Calorie. What I was able to see from this is

04:15 in terms of accuracy the drivers were broadly the same I was hitting about 40 percent of my fairways

04:20 and I was probably missing slightly less fairways to the right than I was missing to the left and

04:26 maybe a few percent more missing to the left which probably accounts for the fact that this driver

04:30 has a slightly draw bias in there they call it a semi-draw bias but that is fine with me I do

04:36 probably hit it straight have a little bit of a fade so it did straighten it up. I think

04:39 anecdotally I did feel that the big right miss was reduced with the new driver just because I think

04:45 it's a little bit more forgiving and again the fact because of that draw bias. However the really big

04:49 gain came for me in terms of distance in my fitting they said I would gain about 11 yards carry.

04:55 In practice the previous model went 256 yards but under with the Callaway it was going up to 269

05:04 yards. Now that is total distance so that's why it's a couple yards more than what the fitting

05:08 said but it's really pleasing to see that what I'd experienced in the fitting bay what I was told

05:12 would happen actually pretty much did happen when I was out on the course so that was great to see.

05:18 But what arkers can really do is really take it stats to the next level and show you how much

05:22 difference that actually means to your scores so they use something called stroke gained and that

05:27 allows you to benchmark your performance against other players of a similar handicap. So I'm a

05:32 three handicap and I was benchmarking myself against others and over the course of the season

05:37 I had over 100 shots with both clubs. Now with the previous model it was costing me

05:44 what minus 0.14 shots per time that I hit the club whereas with the Callaway it was gaining me

05:52 0.07. Now these don't sound like very big numbers however I was also to work out how many times I

05:58 hit the drivers. So the previous model I was hitting about eight times around but with the

06:03 Callaway I was hitting it actually 10 times around and I think that came more because of the confidence

06:08 I had with the club that I could use it more often. So when you put those two numbers together

06:14 if I'm using it 10 times around I'm gaining 0.7 shots around with the Callaway whereas with the

06:21 previous model if I use it eight times I'm losing 1.12 shots so when you take the difference between

06:27 those two you can see that's 1.8 shots per round that I'd be gaining by having been fitted for a

06:33 new driver which hopefully would suit my game a little bit better than it does today. Now that is

06:38 quite a significant amount and I think really the gain you can see there came from probably the

06:43 misses not being quite as big as they were before but also because I was actually that bit further

06:48 down the fairway so I could hit a shorter second shot into the particular green.

06:52 Well that's the end of another enjoyable round at the London Club here.

07:01 Certainly I've enjoyed using the Callaway driver here and actually throughout the whole of the

07:05 season and it's been great to have gone through the whole process where you've gone through a

07:09 fitting, you've actually been promised some results and then been able to track the performance on the

07:15 course throughout the whole year and see those results come to fruition. In terms of the club I

07:19 think the Rogue ST Max has been a very forgiving club it certainly worked for me. It's been able

07:24 to combine forgiveness with performance and probably I can see it suiting quite a lot of players.

07:31 If you feel you can improve your game then I recommend going for a fitting and getting

07:35 at the club that really suits your swing and hopefully it will lower your scores too.

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