GOUGE: So I'm riding in my brother-in-law's fancy new car the other day and I watch him taking directions through the sultry voice of his flip-up nav screen, and it occurred to me: Wow, this thing really works. It gets you where you want to go without you having to think too much about it. I thought about the nav screen story as we went through some testing with the Trackman launch monitor this morning that showed us just how effective equipment technology can be. The subject under review was the anti-slice driver, and what we saw both on the Trackman read out (see chart) and in the repeated ballflights arcing high and to the left made one thing completely clear: Any right-hander who still hits the ball to the right is quite simply too dumb to live.
There are plenty of drivers out there that claim to fight the slice and the two handfuls we ran through today with golfers of varying ability all resisted the right in such universal accord it was like listening to an Obama-Biden campaign rally. (I apologize for that mediocre humor reference.) You can see the scatter plot of all the shots that were hit and the evidence is irrefutable. These clubs truly feel different, and that confidence lets you take a portion of the golf course out of play. You can aim it just inside the right mower line and have very little worry that your shot won't move left. It's a beautiful thing, like GPS for your tee shot.
BOMB: A beautiful thing? I don't know about that. In fact, it was pretty unnerving to stand up, make a good swing and see a ball start off straight and then go further left than Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow combined (hey, if you can make a cheap political reference then so can I). How far left? The anti-slice drivers we tested stopped an average of 16.05 yards left of the center line according to Trackman. And in our group of testers, not one of the players would be considered to have a strong right-to-left driver ball flight. Impressive.
You'll have to wait for the February issue of Golf Digest to find out which club made driving on the left easier than when you're in Europe, but I can tell you that one club averaged 37.9 yards left of center. Now, that club is not pretty to look at. But that tee ball you're hacking into the right woods on a regular basis isn't exactly a thing of beauty, either, Mr. Hack 'N Chop. Heck, even the livestock lined up to see what was going on. JAnd when that happens, all you can say is Holy Cow! These things work. Bottom line: If you want to kill your slice, you probably can. It might cost you a few snickers from your buddies on the first tee, but so what? You'll be laughing all the way to the bank from cashing in on the Nassaus -- at least until your handicap catches up with your newfound ability to keep the ball in play.
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