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

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

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

00:07going to take you through the process I've been through this year in terms of

00:10getting fitted for it and then how it helped me benefit my game. Initially I

00:14had a driver that was maybe a couple of generations old it's about three or

00:17four year old model and whilst it was performing well I knew potentially I

00:21could be doing a little bit better with all the advances that are going on

00:24in the world of golf equipment these days. So I went along to an independent

00:28fitter in Scotland called Scott Gourley Golf Technology and what they did is

00:32they were able to analyze my game and they have a wide choice of heads from

00:35every single brand so they actually the Callaway driver almost chose me rather

00:39than the other way around. Now the results of that fitting were that they

00:43promised me that I could gain another 11 yards carry and also be about 20% more

00:49accurate which actually would hopefully suit my game. So what I did was I've used

00:53this driver in competitions I've used it in friendly games as well and I was

00:57using the Arcos shot tracking system in order to measure the performance of both

01:02of these clubs because I was able to compare the two of them together. You can

01:05actually track this data by creating their counts, putting sensors in the end

01:10of the golf clubs which I'm sure some of you may already be familiar with if you

01:13look at our review of the Arcos Caddy and then you either record the

01:17information by having the phone in your pocket using the link device on your

01:21belt buckle or as I've been doing using the Apple watch. So when I was fitted

01:26into the Callaway Rogue ST Max this was deemed to be the most forgiving head for

01:30me and initially we started with a ten and a half degree loft driver and what

01:35the fitting enables the fitter to do is to adjust this to suit your game. So for

01:40me they adjusted down the loft to nine and a half degrees by changing the

01:45hosel to minus one and then what that would do is slightly open the face so in

01:49order to return the face to where it was originally they also use the draw

01:52setting as well and for me that worked really well. I like seeing the face a

01:56little bit straighter and also the extra face angle was hopefully going to give

02:02me a little bit more ball speed and hopefully a bit more distance. Before we

02:05take it out on the course let's go into a little bit more detail about the

02:08driver and what I liked about it. The Rogue range of drivers really is a

02:11forgiving model. There's no adjustability really in this apart from the

02:15hosel that I mentioned earlier. It's just got a quite a low deep center of gravity

02:19and this gold speed cartridge as they're calling it weighs about 26 grams and

02:25really what that does is draw the weight low and back you can see here that it's

02:28kind of off the bottom of the sole and that really creates a deep center of

02:31gravity. There are a few different heads in this there's an LS as a standard but

02:35this is the max so this is the deepest head and normally I probably wouldn't

02:38have gone for this but it doesn't feel too pulled back if you know what

02:43I mean. It's still quite a rounded head they've got a quite a nice decal around

02:46it and I think overall Callaway done a very good job of creating a driver which

02:50looks quite classy. It's certainly a little bit better than some of the Mavic

02:55model which it replaced. Let's give it a go and see how it feels. I don't know if

03:06you can hear that but I think the sound for this is certainly something that

03:08really appealed to me. It's a nice deep sort of solid sound you've got some

03:12carbon in the sole here which combines with the titanium and the rest of the

03:15head and I think that is certainly an improvement on the previous models that

03:19they've had. I think one of the things that came to me through my fitting

03:25was that this should be a lot more accurate driver and that's just again

03:29not only partly because of the shaft but also partly because of the head. It was

03:33going to be a lot more forgiving on off-center hits and certainly I found

03:36that to be the case in most of the year. I had a bit of a problem when I didn't

03:39quite connect my previous driver when I went right it really went right whereas

03:43I've noticed with this when it I've hit it slightly right it's probably stayed a

03:47little bit more in play. So now that I've talked about having it in play let's go

03:58back and have a look at the Arccos stats for how this driver performed for me as

04:01I played right through the year. How did my new driver compare over the course of

04:05a whole season? As I mentioned I was going to use Arccos to track not only

04:09the distance but also the accuracy of the two drivers both my current one and

04:13the new Caloray. What I was able to see from this is in terms of accuracy the

04:17drivers were broadly the same I was hitting about 40% of my fairways and I

04:22was probably missing slightly less fairways to the right than I was

04:25missing to the left and maybe a few percent more missing to the left which

04:29probably accounts for the fact that this driver has a slightly draw bias in there

04:32they call it a semi draw bias but that is fine with me I do probably hit it

04:37straight have a little bit of a fade so it did straighten it up. I think

04:40anecdotally I did feel that the big right miss was reduced with the new

04:44driver just because I think it's a little bit more forgiving and again the

04:47fact because of that draw bias. However the really big gain came for me in terms

04:51of distance in my fitting they said I would gain about 11 yards carry in

04:56practice the previous model went 256 yards but under with the Caloray it was

05:02going up to 269 yards. Now that is total distance so that's why it's a couple

05:07yards more than what the fitting said but it's really pleasing to see that

05:10what I'd experienced in the fitting bay what I were told would happen actually

05:14pretty much did happen when I was out on the course so that was great to see but

05:18what archers can really do is really take it stats to the next level and show

05:22you how much difference that actually means to your scores so they use

05:25something called strokes gained and that allows you to benchmark your performance

05:29against other players of a similar handicap. So I'm a three handicap and I

05:33was benchmarking myself against others and over the course of the season I had

05:38over a hundred shots with both clubs now with the previous model it was costing

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

05:52was gaining me 0.07. Now these don't sound like very big numbers however I

05:57was also to work out how many times I hit the drivers so the previous model I

06:01was hitting about eight times around but with the Caloray I was hitting it

06:04actually ten times around and I think that came more because of the confidence

06:08I had with the club that I could use it more often so when you put those two

06:13numbers together if I'm using it ten times around I'm gaining 0.7 shots

06:18around with the Caloray whereas with the previous model if I use it eight times I'm

06:23losing 1.12 shots so when you take the difference between those two you can see

06:28that's 1.8 shots per round that I'd be gaining by having been fitted for a new

06:33driver which hopefully would suit my game a little bit better than it does

06:36today. Now that is quite a significant amount and I think really the gain you

06:41can see there came from probably the misses not being quite as big as they

06:44were before but also because I was actually that bit further down the

06:49fairway so I could hit a shorter second shot into the particular green.

06:56Well that's the end of another enjoyable round at the London Club here. Certainly I've

07:02enjoyed using the Caloray driver here and actually throughout the whole of the

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

07:09gone through a fitting, you've actually been promised some results and then

07:13been able to track the performance on the course throughout the whole year and

07:16see those results come to fruition. In terms of the club I think the Rogue ST

07:21Max has been a very forgiving club, it certainly worked for me. It's been able to

07:25combine forgiveness with performance and probably I can see it suiting quite a

07:29lot of players. If you feel you can improve your game then I recommend going

07:34for a fitting and getting the club that really suits your swing and hopefully it

07:38will lower your scores too.

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