The Loop

Cobra brings back the "King" name with new line of clubs

August 18, 2015

Remember the King Cobra? The clubs that Greg Norman played? Cobra is bringing the King name back into circulation with its Tuesday launch of the King LTD line of clubs y introduced Tuesday in Florida.

Before using the King name again, the team at Cobra wanted to make sure that it had something that was really cool and deserving of the moniker.

/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2015/08/19/55d508974759c60c0823bd4f_blogs-the-loop-cobra%20press%20release.jpg

The launch focused a lot on the driver - so let's cover that. When you look at the driver from address, it looks sleek, and as Rickie Fowler put it, old school.

blogs-the-loop-king_driver_address_textreme_8bit.jpg

But then you flip it over, and you see something that's definitely not old school. There's a circle low and back on the bottom of the club that you can see into. They call it a portal. When you look into it, you can see all of the technology inside of the driver:

blogs-the-loop-King_LTD_driver_exploded1_8bit.jpg

The idea for the portal came from the work that Cobra did with the Center for Advancement of Science in Space. CASIS does research on the International Space Station. On the space station, there's a cupola -- basically a circular set of windows through which you can see Earth. That served as inspiration for Cobra's portal in the driver.

This driver has zero center of gravity, which means that the center of gravity is in line with the middle of the face - that's low. The benefit of low CG is that it promotes high launch and low spin, two things that you need for distance.

They got the center of gravity low by taking weight out of different places and reallocating it down near the portal. The carbon that they used in the crown is lighter than carbon they've used before. They made the hosel a little lighter, and the way the material used to secure the portal and weighting in place is upgraded. They looked to CASIS for that, because like NASA, engineers developing golf clubs need to build something that can withstand lots of vibration and a high load.

It's offered as the LTD Standard (9 to 12 degrees, $450) and the LTD Pro (7 to 10 degrees, $500). They're available Oct. 1.

The fairway woods also have a portal, and the new Pro LTD irons have a cool matte black finish.

/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2015/08/19/55d508974759c60c0823bd4c_blogs-the-loop-ltd%20irons%20cobra.jpg