Equipment
Ping G440 drivers: What you need to know

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The Ping G440 driver lineup (G440 Max, G440 SFT, G440 LST) mixes something different with its traditional focus on forgiveness with a slightly new approach to more distance. Across the board the three drivers benefit from a new internal structure that saves weight. Unlike in the past when all that weight was pushed to the perimeter for the highest possible stability on off-center hits, the new idea explores lowering the center of gravity to help shots launch with less spin for more potential distance. As a result, the company calls this bunch the drivers with the lowest CGs in Ping history.
PRICE: $600. G440 Max (9, 10.5, 12 degrees), G440 SFT (9, 10.5degrees), G440 LST (9, 10.5 degrees). All heads feature adjustable hosels (+/- 1.5 degrees).
3 Cool Things
1. The other key to distance. For years, actually decades, Ping’s focus in driver design (and, truly, all clubs) has been driven by a pursuit of stability on off-center hits. It’s essentially a company core value that traces to the early days of its putter designs by legendary founder Karsten Solheim. And there’s no question Ping’s G-series drivers have been groundbreaking in the area of moment of inertia, that measurement of how much the head resists twisting on an off-center strike (and thus losing ball speed and ultimately distance). Last year’s G430 Max 10K was among the short list (along with TaylorMade’s Qi10 Max) to push the 10,000 barrier (as in 10,000 grams-centimeters squared), a measurement that combined the MOI for heel-toe rotation with the MOI for sole-crown rotation.

But while not stepping away from that philosophy, the G440 series of drivers finds a new source for distance that goes beyond MOI. Specifically, these drivers push the center of gravity lower. That lower CG reduces the higher spin numbers that ultra-forgiving drivers often have had to fight, opening a new door for distance for Ping. Something that includes lighter total weight and even a slightly longer stock shaft (a quarter of an inch longer than previously) as well, said Ryan Stokke, Ping's director of product design.

“Because the Max head is smaller [than G430 Max] it has a slightly lower MOI, but in head-to-head testing, it actually is having a tighter dispersion,” Stokke said. “If we can focus on getting the CG in a better location, we will make the trade-off relative to a static MOI number to get a better dynamic overall forgiveness of the club.”

The key to that lower internal weighting comes from several weight-saving technologies. Those include a broad swath of lightweight carbon composite that stretches across the crown and into the skirt region (now extended to the entire range of drivers in the family for the first time), a lighter face design and a new lighter internal hosel structure that frees up more mass while allowing for better face flexing at the same time. Removing mass from around the hosel inside the head gives more room for the heel section to deflect, while also providing extra mass to lower the CG.

2. Facial recognition. If you’re going to talk about distance in a driver, a lot of the attention should be on where impact happens: the face. Ping’s team has used the same titanium alloy for years, forged T9S. The G440 lineup again uses T9S, but in a new way. Specifically, by lowering the face height about the thickness of a penny engineers enabled the alloy to get selectively thinner and thus hotter, including improving the flexibility in the high heel area, the least flexible part of the face.
“Our big reasons for doing this is that by getting the face thinner, we save mass, and it helps us increase ball speed,” Stokke said, noting that the face alone saves an additional two grams. “We can get more consistent ball speed around the face.
“This is our thinnest face that we've ever made in a G product.”

The faces all feature a new variable thickness pattern to deflect more consistently, as well as again featuring the variable roll curvature the company calls “Spinsistency.” The degree of roll changes from high to low for less loft on lower-face impacts to reduce excessive spin, meaning spin is consistent across the face.

3. Model behavior. The three familiar models in the G440 lineup are the G440 Max, G440 SFT and G440 LST. While there is no “10K” model like in the G430 lineup, because the G430 Max 10K, introduced only a year ago, still exists in the marketplace and still occupies a different shape and space compared to the G440 drivers, there wasn’t a pressing immediate need for a similar model in the G440 lineup at this time. The G440 Max still fills the role of the largest footprint in the family, and it features the largest back weight at 29 grams, or four grams more than in its predecessor. That weight can be positioned in draw, neutral or fade positions.

The G440 SFT again will be the slice-fighting agent in the mix. This year, it adds a 9-degree option to better work with faster players fighting a slice. The SFT again will feature two settings for degrees of draw bias, but even the SFT’s “standard” face angle is 1.5 degrees closed compared to when the G440 Max is set in a “Draw” setting. It is about 3 percent lighter than the G440 LST to give moderate speed players more control.
The LST features a slightly compact head (450cc), and it also features a flatter lie angle than G440 Max to reduce draw bias. While its CG is more forward than the G440 Max to lessen spin, it still maintains an MOI above the average of current drivers.