00:00This is the new PING G430 Max 10K driver.
00:06Now I'm really excited about this one,
00:08so let's just get on with it.
00:15So what do PING say they've delivered here?
00:17Well, to start with, they say it's their most stable
00:20and forgiving driver ever.
00:23And that's where it's gotten its name from,
00:24the 10K part at least.
00:2610,000 is the measurement of its moment of inertia
00:28or stability within the club head.
00:31And that's pretty significant
00:32because most drivers in the modern era
00:34have plateaued around the 8,000 MOI mark.
00:40How has PING achieved this 10K measurement?
00:43Well, to start with,
00:44they've drastically changed the profile of the head.
00:46They've stretched the heel and toe
00:48and the front to back measurements
00:50as far as the rules will permit
00:52while still staying within that 460cc overall dimension.
00:56And I have to say, I love the look of it.
01:08The super rounded stretched head shape
01:11and extra real estate behind the ball
01:13really suit my eye
01:15and inspire a lot of confidence at address.
01:17Now because they've stretched this head so much,
01:20that allows them to place the internal weight
01:22even further away from the face,
01:24which is where the huge jump in MOI comes from.
01:26In the max 10K,
01:28this stability takes the form of an internal 28 gram weight
01:31which is positioned lower and deeper,
01:33not only for stability but also for spin control too.
01:37And this is something I'm keen to explore
01:39because in my experience,
01:41dragging weight back and increasing MOI
01:43usually goes hand in hand
01:45with creating more spin or excessive spin.
01:47And for a high speed player like me,
01:49quite frankly, that's not much use.
01:51So I'm really keen to see how that pans out.
01:56So before getting into the data,
01:58I just wanted to talk about
01:59some of the unquantifiable things
02:00that you don't get from a launch monitor
02:02like sound and feel.
02:04And in terms of the sound,
02:05I think they really nailed it here.
02:07Other drivers within the PING range,
02:08historically I'm thinking specifically about the G425
02:11which was a brilliant driver,
02:13but I felt it let itself down a little bit
02:15with the acoustic
02:15and a lot of people felt that sort of high pitched ting
02:18was a little bit annoying.
02:20Now PING, to their credit,
02:21addressed this in the G430 range
02:22and the LS Tech
02:23and the other models within this family
02:25are a lot more muted and duller.
02:27And this is a touch livelier.
02:28It sits somewhere between those two.
02:30And for me, it hits all the right notes.
02:37Going hand in hand with that sound
02:39is the feel from the club face.
02:45And wow, the feel.
02:46I can honestly say
02:48I don't think I've ever hit anything as stable
02:50as the Max 10K.
02:51Wherever I hit this thing on the face,
02:53it's resistance to twisting is sensational.
02:57It really took me by surprise, this element of it.
02:59I mean, I've heard the marketing,
03:01but until you see it yourself and you experience it,
03:03you can all be a little skeptical, right?
03:05But I have to say,
03:07in terms of stability and feel,
03:08this delivers in bucket loads.
03:10So what do the numbers say?
03:12Well, this is where I started to get really excited.
03:15Obviously I've mentioned during testing
03:16I could feel the stability
03:18and the really tight dispersion,
03:20but as I also mentioned,
03:21this has historically come off
03:22with a bit of a trade-off for me
03:23in terms of excessive spin.
03:25But not this time.
03:40So from an average clubbing speed
03:42of around my standard 120 miles per hour mark,
03:44I was getting a really solid 174 miles an hour of ball speed,
03:48which from a driver as safe as this thing is exceptional.
03:52I was launching exactly where I'd want to,
03:54around the 11 degree mark,
03:56and the all-important spin number
03:57that I was eagerly anticipating was,
04:00was just under 2,500 revs per minute,
04:03which from a club head with this level of MOI,
04:06is frankly astonishing.
04:08Now this all added up to an average carry for me
04:10of 293 yards and a total of 316.
04:19Another big part of this story is the dispersion.
04:23How I noticed through my testing,
04:24and I'm not known as a particularly straight driver
04:26of the golf ball if I'm honest,
04:28but my left to right and even my front to back dispersion
04:31with the Ping Max 10K was ludicrously tight.
04:34So I wanted to test it against
04:36some of the other models within the range.
04:38I've got the LST and I've got the Max Head,
04:41because I wanted to see where it stacked up
04:43from a dispersion point of view.
04:44So starting with the Max model,
04:47as you can see from the graphic,
04:48dispersion was pretty tight.
04:50I hit one where I just shut the face down
04:51and it kind of zoomed off to the left a little bit,
04:53but on the whole, dispersion was pretty tight.
04:56But I did achieve that with quite a high spin number.
04:59So I was spinning that well over 3,000 revs.
05:01So that's something to note with the Max range.
05:04It is stable and you will get a nice tight dispersion,
05:07but it will suit players who need a little bit more spin.
05:10Moving on to the LST,
05:12well you can see straight away my dispersion's gone up.
05:15Certainly my distance and my spin numbers
05:17are more in line with what I would generally want to see,
05:21but it does feel a little bit more volatile
05:23from a left to right perspective.
05:25So again, that's something to be aware of.
05:28And then finally, I've got the Max 10K.
05:31I think I've said enough good things about this drive,
05:33but I think this graphic says it all.
05:35From left to right, from front to back,
05:38that's a ludicrous dispersion pattern.
05:40And I've not cherry picked these.
05:41I've just hit five shots straight out the bat
05:44in the same place, with the same shaft
05:46and the same setup and the same balls,
05:48and this is the data that's come out.
05:50And it's what I've seen throughout testing.
05:52Now from the discussions I've had with Ping
05:54and the engineers at Ping,
05:55they're very smug about this driver
05:57and they've got every right to be.
05:59Now I think this driver will benefit
06:01just every genre of player,
06:03from the weekend warrior to the tour player.
06:05Everyone is going to benefit
06:07from this level of stability and playability.
06:10And you're just going to have to dial your spin numbers in
06:12with a really good fitting.
06:14It comes in nine, 10 and a half, and 12 degrees of loft,
06:17so there really is something for everyone here.
06:19Ping G430 Max 10K might not just be
06:22my favorite driver of 2024,
06:25this might be the best all-round driver that I've ever hit.
06:29So it won't surprise you to know
06:31it's going straight in my bag for 2024.
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