Even though I’m budget conscious, that doesn’t mean I don’t love knocking it past my buddies by more than a few yards. The question that needs to be asked is how much is too much to spend on a driver for a budgeting golfer? While the driver is one of the three most important clubs in your bag from a usage standpoint, overall, the benefits you will get between a good driver and a great one shouldn’t be more than one club, unless you’re really going deep into a custom fit deriver and blowing $400-500 on a new club. Even then, you may see a modest increase of 25-30 yards at best, which equals 2-3 clubs on your approach shots. So, where does the line get drawn and when should you look for something new?
Buy at least two seasons old if you are buying new…
Yes, you read that correctly. Right now, I am playing the Wilson Golf FG Tour F5 driver. This was a hot club in 2016 and serves me very well today. I was able to find them for as low as $119.96 at Budget Golf online and they still had a few different shaft options available. Of course, you can break the mold a bit by jumping to the Wilson Triton (winner of Wilson Golf’s Driver vs. Driver’s first season) for $149.96 and have even more custom fitting options. Both of these were $400+ clubs when released and both are great drivers. The Callaway Golf Big Bertha Alpha 816 driver hit the shelves at the same time as the Wilson F5 and carried a $500 price tag on it. Now you can snag one from Budget Golf for just under $200. TaylorMade M1 and M2 drivers as well as a few Mizuno JPX series clubs are also an easy mark at over $100-200 off their original retail prices. You have to get a bit lucky with some of these clubs, but overall, you get much more bang for the buck buying a new face that is a few years old instead of a used club that may have seen better days for a bit less.
Pay for a fitting before you buy used…
Buying a custom fit driver is always the best thing you can do for you game, but buying a new one off the shelf can get pricey. That $500 TaylorMade M1 looks so tempting when you see the launch monitor numbers that it shows, but honestly, will gaining 20 yards really make you three putt less? If you can, set up a quick fitting at your local store and then shop their used bins to see what they have that is close to a perfect match. Generally, used clubs will cost about 1/2 of what new will and if they are taken care of, they will easily have another 3-5 years of play left in them. Also don’t be afraid to pay the store and leave with your specs. You can probably find a great deal on a Cobra F6+ (Used - $120 at Rock Bottom Golf) that will smoke the new price. Even better, look for open box or clearance models that just didn’t have the advertising dollars behind them. Open box clubs may or may not have been hit, but will give you years of performance for a fraction of the cost.
Don’t be afraid of no-names…
Bazooka, Dunlop, Nike, Bullet and even Tour Edge have been making great golf clubs for a long time. Just because you don’t see them on tour or in magazines doesn’t make them a bad club. For example, the Tour Edge Hot Launch 2 Offset Driver is $139.96 (new at Budget Golf) and is available in two lofts with two different shaft flexes. Probably not as good of a deal as some of those Triton, F5 or Bertha’s that we were talking about before, but the component quality is great with these brands and they can save you quite a bit of money over the more advertised brands.
Sometimes the shaft is worth more than the club…
I’ll fully admit to this – I’ve purchased clubs before just to get the shaft that it had in it. As a matter of fact, this was exactly the case that I have with my gamer shaft right now – the Aldila Rogue Black, X-Stiff, that is in my 10.5° F5 right now. This shaft fits me so well, in fact, it was the choice of shafts when I was fitted for the Triton last year by my friends at Puetz Golf Centers in Seattle. I spent almost nothing on a used F5 to get a $300 shaft and hosel adapter. The head I purchased was still usable, but the shaft was mint. The list price on the shaft at most retailers (if you can find it) is $285. Add the Wilson Fast Fit adapter to that price and that $300 mark is right there. I paid less than $50 for the F5 with the shaft and shipping. It was a very inexpensive shaft that was a very inexpensive upgrade.
Do some homework online…
Most shaft manufacturers change designs every few years. There are some tried and true models that show up year after year, but for the most part, technology moves on. For example, the new TaylorMade M3 driver features the Mitsubishi Tensi shaft in a low, mid or high launch version. Chances are, one of these shafts will be a good fit for you. If you go in and swing them, and get properly fit for which shaft works best, you can match that up to past offerings from others with similar characteristics. For example, the Aldila shaft that I love so much is a mid kick/high launch style shaft. This differs completely from the Fujikura Speeder Evolution 757 TS shaft that I was using in my F5 as well. The 757 TS is a high kick/low launch shaft. The Aldila offers me a touch more distance, especially in the winter months where a higher launch will give me a bit more carry. But, both of these shafts or ones similar to them can be found in last year’s TaylorMade M2 driver for under $300 on sites like Ebay. Getting the numbers for what works best for you is important, but finding a $200-300 discount on a new driver or even more on a used one can reap huge benefits to the pocketbook.Just doing a bit of looking around before you buy can save you in the long run.
Going rogue, and I’m not talking Callaway or shafts here…
Running away from major retail stores and the normal online sellers can be risky, but it can also pay great dividends. For example, Diamond Tour Golf sells older designs and some fresh new faces to the game at huge discounts. DTG has the Cobra Bio Cell driver for as little as $129.99. They also have some custom setups for under $50 that include a mid-kick shaft and a pretty cool paint job. You’ll find some horrible copy-cat designs, but tell me you don’t love the “Turner H1 Driver” or the “Turner SpeedForce Driver” and I’ll call you out on it. They are pretty much direct rip-offs of the popular TaylorMade models, but are a fraction of the cost. The performance isn’t tested, and I’d stay away from anything with moving parts on these, but for basic bang for the buck drivers, you could do worse than than some of these offerings.
How to determine how much is too much?
The biggest things to remember when getting some bang for your driving buck is what is your end game and how much do you want to spend. I would honestly spend another $120 on a new F5 or even the $150 on the Triton without batting an eye lash. They are both great clubs, and the Triton even offers more flexibility in weighting and control than most of the newer clubs do today. With the available options under $200 it’s hard to recommend to anyone that isn’t play competitive golf to spend any more. That said, this is about golfing on a budget, so even $200 can seem a bit extreme for a budget player. In most cases, I would recommend a maximum of $100 be spent on any single club on any bag at any time. For that $100 you should see some great used options in the Cobra F6 lineup, almost any of the Wilson drivers over the past few years, something in the Ping G driver series, the Callaway XR line, the Cleveland CG series and even some slightly older TaylorMade models if the branding is super important to you. If you really want to put together a budget bag, this is the range you should be looking in, if not trying to save even a bit more. If you can move the budget needle to $1000, feel free to check out some of those new $125-200 clubs that are always out there. Shiny is always nice, but after you hit that first rock on the tee box, you won’t feel so bad about scratching your new club if it was a bit less expensive.
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