The vast majority of golf drivers on the market today come with some type of adjustability. From the standard adjustable hosel to the customizable weighting, almost every driver has a way to fine-tune performance to better fit your swing. But how should you use this technology and how can it help your game? We’ll examine how to best use the adjustable features of a driver, discuss if they work, and show you some of the top options for adjustable drivers available today.
What Is An Adjustable Driver?
An adjustable golf driver is a driver with any degree of adjustability. The majority of the drivers on the market today are adjustable. Adjustability can be as simple as a hosel that allows you to change loft and lie angle or more advanced like sliding or movable weights that let you adjust things like center of gravity to help get a slice or hook under control.
What Types Of Adjustability Do Drivers Have?
Modern drivers come with two types of adjustability: adjustable hosels and movable weight for the center of gravity. Each feature has its benefits for your swing performance. If you need to flight the ball a little higher or lower off the tee, you can adjust the loft. If you need to correct the left or right ball flight of your drivers, adjustable weight positions can help you there. Here is how each type of adjustability works.
Adjustable Hosel
- Allows you to raise or lower the loft to correct a ball flight that is too low or too high off the tee
- Increasing the loft will also fractionally close the face of the driver
- Decreasing the loft will also fractionally open the face of the driver
- Some adjustable hosels allow you to change the lie angle independently of loft
- Increasing the lie angle should help create fade bias
- Decreasing the lie angle should help create draw bias
Adjustable/Movable Weights
- Some drivers have weights that can be moved forward or back to produce a lower or higher ball flight
- Moving more weight back can increase the launch for higher ball flight with more carry
- Moving more weight forward to lower the launch for a more piercing ball flight with more roll out
- Some drivers have weights that can be moved to the heel or toe for draw or fade bias
- Moving more weight to the toe creates fade bias
- Moving more weight to the heel creates draw bias
Why Would You Need An Adjustable Driver?
If you have a consistent miss with your swing off the tee, adjustability can make a big difference in your game. This makes it ideal to help out the average, everyday golfer. You know your game and know where your misses are off the tee. If that miss is a consistent left or right, there are adjustable weights to help. Maybe your ball flight is too high and ballooning or too low and burns its way along the ground, you can adjust the loft. Adjustable driver technology helps by providing corrections to your one consistent miss off the tee.
Who Can Use An Adjustable Driver?
Every golfer can benefit from an adjustable driver. Any golfer who might struggle with a consistent miss off the tee should try one. If you fight a slice off the tee, an adjustable driver where you can add more weight to the heel of the club head to create more draw bias can help straighten out those shots. If you struggle with a hook, a driver that allows you to move more weight to the toe for fade bias can help stop those shots from turning left. These golf clubs can also benefit golfers who hit the ball too high or too low. You can raise the loft on an adjustable hosel to create higher flight or lower the loft if the ball balloons off the tee. Most golfers don’t hit it perfectly off the tee so the majority of players can benefit from adjustability. If you hit your drivers straight down the middle every time and your ball flight doesn’t put you in trouble, then you might not need an adjustable driver, but we all know those golfers are rare!
Does It Work?
Adjustable golf drivers absolutely work and can help you correct swing flaws, as long as they are used correctly and your expectations are reasonable. Adjustments will never take the place of practice and developing a solid, repeatable swing. It is also highly unlikely that you will adjust your driver from round to round or hole to hole based on the type of shot you need to it. That’s not what they are designed for. Adjustable drivers are more of a one-time fitting tool to correct the one consistent miss in your drives. You can always go back and adjust it again as your swing changes, but the proper way to make it work for you is to adjust the driver to fix your consistent miss.
Best Adjustable Drivers
We selected the five newest adjustable driver models, each featuring adjustable hosels and weighting. To find the best of the best, we read through customer feedback and tallied up the ratings to pick which one TGW shoppers preferred.. See which adjustable driver is the favorite among TGW customers.
#5 - Cobra King F9 Driver
Adjustable Features:
- Adjustable front and back weight locations help fine-tune ball flight
- Place the heavier 14-gram weight in the front for mid-low launch, low spin, and more workable fade bias
- Place the heavier 14-gram weight in the back for mid-high launch, mid spin, and more forgiving draw bias
- 8-way adjustable hosel provides +/-1.5 degrees of loft adjustment plus draw-bias settings and Smart Pad Technology that keeps the face square at every setting
- TGW Customer Rating: 4.0/5
#4 - TITLEIST TS3 DRIVER
Adjustable Features:
- SureFit CG system allows you to opimize spin, launch, and shot shape for personalized performance.
- Insert the heavier SureFit weight toward the toe for more fade bias
- Use the heavier SureFit weight toward the heel for more draw bias
- 16-way adjustable SureFit hosel features independent loft and lie adjustments to fine-tune launch
- TGW Customer Rating: 4.5/5
#3 - TaylorMade M5 Driver
Adjustable Features:
- Inverse T-Track system uses two 10-gram weights to set up the weighting exactly where you need it
- The front-to-back track allows you to set up higher or lower ball flight
- The heel-to-toe track around the perimeter of the club head lets you set up draw or fade bias
- 12-way adjustable hosel provides +/-2 degrees of loft adjustment plus lie angle and face angle adjustment
- TGW Customer Rating: 4.6/5
#2 - Callaway Epic Flash Driver
Adjustable Features:
- Sliding 16-gram perimeter weight gives you more control over left and right ball flight
- Move the weight toward the heel for more draw bias
- Move the weight toward the toe for more fade bias
- 8-way adjustable hosel lets you add up to 2 degrees of loft or take away up to 1 degree of loft, plus adjustable lie angle
- TGW Customer Rating: 4.7/5
#1 - PING G410 Plus Driver
Adjustable Features:
- First PING driver with adjustable weighting
- 16-gram sliding weight allows you to select neutral, draw, or fade bias
- Eight-way adjustable hosel for +/-1.5 degrees of loft adjustment as well as neutral or flat lie angle adjustments
- TGW Customer Rating: 4.8/5
Adjustable drivers do some good if worked out correctly with a swing that stays the same…that includes grip pressure which when it changes light to tight can really effect the adjustment. The higher handicap player is going to try different things just about every round to make a difference and an adjustable driver just adds another multitude of things to try and match up…..strong believer an adjustable driver is best handled by low handicap players working to get one or two strokes better not players trying to break 90.
Completely agree Larry. Until you have a repeatable swing (consistent miss) you are just kidding yourself!
The author states that increasing the lie of the driver increases fade bias and decreasing it produces draw bias. That is exactly backwards. If the toe is higher at impact (increased driver lie angle) the face will point slightly to the left and up creating shots that tend to go left. If the toe is lower than the heel at impact (decreased driver lie angle) the face will tend to be open. The loft will point up and to the right.
Thank you Bob , You are absolutely right …. I play irons that are 2 degrees upright and they are fine. But whenever i increase the lie on an adjustable Wood or Hybrid the ball goes left. Playing them flat (lowered loft setting) takes the left side or severe hook out of my game.
For most golfers, a draw bias driver with a fixed heel weight that is not movable, plus adjustable loft/lie is a better solution. The Callaway Rouge was and still is a great model.