The Hot List
Equipment

Drivers: Ping G/LS Tec/SF Tec

Golf Digest equipment editors Mike Stachura and E. Michael Johnson discuss the Ping G/LS Tec/SF Tec, which earned gold medal honors on the 2016 Golf Digest Hot List.

Released on 2/2/2016

Transcript

00:00
(rock music)
00:06
A lot of people think that club design
00:09
is a bunch of egg heads sitting in the back room
00:11
pouring over physics textbooks and all the like,
00:14
but for Ping's G driver, the follow up
00:17
to last years G 30, which was one of the best selling
00:20
drivers in the marketplace,
00:22
company CEO John Solheim sent his R and D team
00:24
a picture of a dragonfly.
00:27
Why did he send them a picture of a dragonfly?
00:29
Because he was looking at the wings, right,
00:31
you've got support arms within a very thin wing structure.
00:35
Well that's exactly what they did to the crown here.
00:38
You've got support areas but then
00:40
you've thinned out the crown.
00:41
What does that do?
00:42
That saves weight.
00:43
That means they can push the CG lower
00:45
than any other Ping driver in history,
00:47
and farther back, farther back means more stability
00:49
on off center hits, lower means low spin.
00:52
Those two things means more distance
00:54
not only on on center hits,
00:56
but on off center hits where I hit the ball.
00:59
Well what they also didn't forget too
01:01
is what made their driver so successful last year,
01:03
were the turbulators.
01:04
These little ridges on the crown here help the club
01:07
go through the air more efficiently,
01:10
better aerodynamics, and then they took it a step further,
01:13
by coming here in the back, and doing some work back here to
01:17
further enhance the aerodynamics, really impressive stuff.
01:20
The other thing they did was give you three options,
01:23
so you've got the standard version, the most forgiving,
01:25
then you've got a low spin, LS tech version
01:27
for higher swing speed players,
01:29
and for those fighting a slice,
01:31
there's an SF Tec version to keep that ball
01:32
from going too far into the weeds.
01:35
You forgot the other version, the pink version,
01:37
for Bubba Watson, he put it in play at
01:39
The Hyundai Tournament of Champions earlier this year,
01:42
but there's no pink for you, or me,
01:44
or anyone else, the pink is just for Bubba.
More from golfdigest.com
Equipment The Complete Hot List
Equipment The Complete Hot List
Golf Culture Most Annoying Golfers
Golf Culture Most Annoying Golfers
Instruction How To Do Everything
Instruction How To Do Everything
News & Tours Blog: Stay In The Loop
News & Tours Blog: Stay In The Loop
Ranking 100 Greatest Courses
Ranking 100 Greatest Courses
Cover Story Paulina Gretzky
Cover Story Paulina Gretzky