“Underrated”, “overlooked”, “sleeper”, “ready for the primetime”…
Those are all terms you may have heard when it relates to Tour Edge Golf. However, for those who follow gear actively it’s no surprise that Tour Edge consistently tops the charts when it comes to bang for your buck performance and value.
If you follow PGA Tour Champions golf at all you would know that Tour Edge is extremely active in terms of clubs in play week in and week out. Players like Bernhard Langer, Scott McCarron, Duffy Waldorf, Tim Petrovic and Tom Lehman have all been Tour Edge users fairly consistently over the past decade.
In this new installment of Tour Validated, Rocco and I had a chance to test the Tour Edge Exotics Max and LS drivers and it goes without saying that we were both surprised (not shocked) and just how quality and efficient this new lineup really is.
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Launched last October, the Exotics drivers have been quietly inching their way into any serious driver conversation based on overall performance and value vs. their much larger competitors. What Rocco and I learned more than anything during the video is that both the Max and LS not only perfectly live up to their marketing, but the user experience is a 10/10 in terms of consistency, look, feel and dispersion down range.
Here are the three biggest takeaways from our Tour Validation test:
3 biggest takeaways from Tour Edge Exotics driver testing
The Tour Edge Exotics drivers had Johnny and Rocco scratching their heads
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1. Consistent launch and spin windows
Rocco hits one shot and one shot only, a draw. While that shot is optimal for extra distance, it’s also a shot that can lead players down a tricky path in terms of spin retention. If a draw isn’t spinning in a consistent window (2300-2700 RPMs) it makes reliability a fleeting endeavor.
In this particular session Rocco saw a 1 to 1 relationship with launch and spin from model to model. The Max model launched at 14-15 degrees at 2400-2800 RPMs while the LS launched at 14-15 degrees with 2100-2400 RPMs of spin and wouldn’t curve as much. That’s exactly the feedback you would expect from a Max to an LS model.
2. It’s sneaky fast
Compared to his Ping gamer, both Exotics models were 1-2 MPH faster. The question most would ask is “why isn’t it in the bag then?” To put it simply, it’s not that simple at a Tour level. Especially with someone like Rocco who judges a driver on the way it draws vs. what the math/data tells him.
What we discovered in our test was that although the Tour Edge outperformed his gamer in a bunch of categories, it came down to Rocco’s non-negotiable “window” that it must fly out of which is about a degree and half lower than the Exotics. That was it. Keep in mind that this test isn’t a fitting, it’s a test, so we no doubt knew there was still value to be found.
3. This thing is just really fun to hit
That’s been the overarching feedback I’ve seen and heard on the Exotics lineup, the user experience via sound, feel and flight is just a bunch of fun.
“That thing sounds incredible” is something I heard a few times after the fact from Rocco. Sound has always been a mark of a great driver in his eyes, and it’s always the first acid test he will put any club through. He’s not your normal Tour player in terms of fitting which makes him quite a challenge when it comes time to getting him into a new club. His swing speed and ball speed have stayed within 2-3 MPH of each other for the past 30+ years. I would estimate at his fastest Rocco probably lived in the 155-160MPH neighborhood at the peak of his powers, and now in his 60s he lives in the low 150s.
The point is, because of his tight parameters for shape and the fact that there isn’t a world where a driver affords him 5-6MPH more ball speed (without sacrificing shape and spin), the Tour Edge Exotics Max was the first driver I have seen that was faster and on the razor’s edge of giving him all the other “have tos” he requires. Quite impressive actually. The other drivers we have tested with him may be faster, launch higher, etc., but the tradeoffs to give him those better numbers cost him too much in terms of what he needs to see on the course and under the gun.
There is lot to learn from how Rocco evaluates equipment. He’s not a data guy, he doesn’t really care about hitting it farther, and hitting it high has never been an issue. His priorities are simple, any club he considers has to fly out of a window that is just right of the center line and slowly drift back to the left. That’s it. Consistency and reliability are demanded in every possible situation. “If I do this, the ball has to do that” is something I’ve heard him say countless times.
What’s even cooler is he doesn’t look back at the numbers to confirm this either, he looks down range the whole time. “The ball in the air will tell me if a club is good for me”.
That’s how we should all be looking at our sticks at the end of the day, building a bag of trust vs. a bag of really fun launch numbers will always lead to better play. It seems counterintuitive these days based on fitting content, how we review equipment, etc., but Rocco is over 60 years old, not long by any metric and still competes week in and week out on the Champions Tour… eyeballing everything.
So how does that have anything to do with Tour Edge and their Exotics lineup? Simple. It passed his eyeball test on the first go around and mine based on the data. To put that into perspective, Rocco may play clubs he loves that won’t make any fitter jump for joy based on the numbers, but in this case it satisfied both. That’s saying a lot actually. For as fun as Rocco is he has a healthy stubbornness when it comes to his clubs. The Tour Edge Exotics broke through all of that.
Don’t sleep on these, we were both very curious after this video shoot was done… very curious.
