Performance Golf SF2 anti-slice driver: What you need to know
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Performance Golf, a direct-to-consumer brand that mixes game improvement club designs and golf tips in an effort to solve the everyday golfer’s most vexing problems, is going after the biggest one with its new slice-fighting SF2 driver. The SF2 features a host of elements designed to dull those right-to-right misses, including a 3-degree closed face, flatter face bulge in the heel, deep heel weighting and a counterbalanced shaft. It’s the latest offering in the company’s game improvement collection, which also includes a wide-soled “anti-chunk” wedge (One.1) and an easier-launching fairway wood, the 3-5-7, which combines the head size of a 3-wood, the shaft length of a 5-wood and the loft of a 7-wood.
PRICE: $350. Loft: 12 degrees.
3 Cool Things
1. Slice-fighter basics. There are some fundamentally obvious things that a driver that’s designed to fight the slice has to do, but what makes the Performance Golf SF2 compelling is how those basic lines of attacking the slice are stacked together to provide a compounded collection of slice-dulling features, said Performance Golf’s Chris McGinley, who directs the innovation team. Those include a closed face angle to counteract the tendency of slicers not to be able to get the face back to square and deep weighting on the heel side with an angled keel-like weight in the sole to provide a “dynamic face closure” effect, he said. With the toe side of the head lighter than the heel side, the head’s center of gravity is shifted toward the heel giving the typical slicer more control over the face angle than on a standard driver, McGinley said.
“We tried to do as much as the club could possibly do to help the slicer,” he said. “If you look all over the design, we've got maybe eight features, sometimes even just little subtle features, all about trying to do everything we could, no matter how small and incremental it might be, with the thought that all that's going to add up.”
2. Power draw. The SF2 is Performance Golf’s second iteration of a slice-fighting driver. Without question the biggest enhancement over the SF1 is the switch from an aluminum design to an all-titanium, three-piece head. While the titanium face, body and crown sections are denser than aluminum, they also are stronger, allowing for an overall thinner wall thicknesses. That’s especially meaningful in creating a higher-flexing face for more ball speed. “We wanted a better material that we can make thinner, that we could push the weight around a bit more,” McGinley said, noting the use of titanium also allows for a variable-face thickness design for improved off-center deflection, as well. “There’s definitely a lot more flexibility than what we had in aluminum.
3. Hidden helpers. The obvious closed face and heel-biased weighting may carry the heaviest load in slice-dulling, but McGinley also pointed to an array of more subtle features. Those include a flatter bulge on the heel side with more curvature on the toe side. That combination with the draw-biased weighting also can tame the excessively mis-hit slice. The smaller 445 cc head also is designed to be easier to control than a fully oversized head, while the shaft features a counterbalanced weight in the grip to create an easier-swinging club. The slightly shorter shaft (45 inches) and 12-degree loft also help to breed confidence in the slicer, while a counterbalanced weight in the butt end raises the club's balance point to further aid control for average slicers.
Performance Golf also provides access to instruction videos to complete the holistic anti-slice solution, especially for the slicer who sees the beginnings of hope but needs more than a club can do. That collection includes those from Hank Haney, former PGA of America teacher of the year and instructor to Mark O’Meara and Tiger Woods, among others.
“We paired with Hank Haney on this launch, so Hank does instruction content with us, and I don't think anyone's fixed more slices than Hank,” McGinley said.