Menu
Often considered one of the most important shots, the drive can make or break your success on a hole. Literally driving your golf ball as near to the pin as possible in one shot, the drive is typically the most practiced shot in all of golf - that’s why there are driving ranges. But aside from mastering your technique, it pays to invest in a good driver that can support your swing and maximize your distance.
Coming to the course with the most forgiving driver you can find can help make that first shot easier, giving you better results regardless of how well you know your swing. While it might be a good choice for beginners, a forgiving driver can find a suitable place in the hands of many other types of golfers seeking to improve their game overall.
Drivers that are built for forgiving performance can offer you a long list of advantages off the tee. Designed to help you achieve maximum distance and precision direction, the most forgiving golf driver picks can improve your performance without you actually having to be too skilled with the swing.
The sweet spot on a club is essentially the area of the club face where the magic happens. When hitting the golf ball, it’s any golfer’s intention to make impact with the sweet spot, or the specific surface on the club face where both power and precision collide. Hitting the ball off of this center - also called a ‘mishit’ - will likely result to reduced power and decreased accuracy.
The first and most important benefit of a forgiving golf driver is that they’re easier to hit, thanks to their enlarged sweet spot. For you, that means less pressure on perfecting your aim, since you can hit the ball almost anywhere without having to think about how it might impact your results.
There are countless factors that contribute to the drive. And with you at the helm of the entire encounter, you might feel overwhelmed with all of the little details you need to keep tabs on. For beginners, it can be particularly challenging to make a note of every distinct aspect of the drive shot. Hence that’s another reason why forgiving drivers can come in so handy.
The most forgiving driver for beginners will be designed so that the golfer can reduce their focus on the swing and more on simply hitting the target. These are opposed to professional driver clubs that are significantly heavier than the easier drivers to hit. So with reduced weight and intuitive weight distribution, a forgiving design can help you swing faster and harder to impart maximum power on your golf ball.
The objective of the drive shot is simple - to get the ball as near to the pin as possible. Again, there are tons of factors that contribute to distance. The firmness of your ball, the flexibility of your driver, and the speed of your swing. These are just some of the elements that come together to impact your results.
Drivers that are designed to be forgiving can launch your ball farther, even if there isn’t a lot of power behind your swing. It does this by way of its enlarged head that works like a spring. This preserves energy and shooting your golf ball closer to the pin even if you weren’t able to max out your speed or power.
We’re no strangers to that jittery feeling right before a golf drive. As you step up to the tee, the nerves might get the best of you, worried that you might not be able to launch your ball as far as you want to. But as you grasp that forgiving driver, you might find a new sense of self-confidence sparked deep inside your chest.
While lots of golfers don’t think much of it, your level of confidence at the tee can actually be instrumental in achieving the optimal drive. By shaking off those pre-shot jitters, you can focus on your swing and hit the ball with unshakable reliance in your trusty driver.
Drivers are all designed to achieve the same thing - and that’s to launch your ball over several hundred yards of distance. But because minute differences in the anatomy of a driver can change the kind of results you get, you should expect there to be various golf driver designs on the market.
The question you should be asking is what features make a driver ‘forgiving’?
A golf driver is said to have a ‘cavity back’ when the rear of the head is hollowed out. This brings the weight of the club front and center, further increasing the sweet spot to give you a bigger area to work with. Cavity back drivers are some of the easiest to hit. It will produce relatively the same distance, trajectory, and speed regardless of where on the face you hit the golf ball.
Club heads are measured in volume, and drivers are typically available in two different sizes. These are 440cc and 460cc. The larger the head, the more forgiving the driver will be. The added head size doesn’t only enlarge the face of the club to widen the sweet spot, but also makes it easier for you to hit your target since you’re using a bigger surface. The best illustration of that point would be to imagine hitting a golf ball with a plate versus hitting it with a coin.
A driver becomes far easier to hit when it’s engineered with a low and deep center of gravity. Bringing back the COG creates a ‘scooping’ effect during impact, where the golf club uses its intuitive weight distribution to lift your ball upwards and launch it farther. The lower and deeper into the back of the head the COG sits, the higher the ball rises into the air. Therefore you won’t have to worry about creating that lift with your swing.
An offset is basically a club neck that leads ahead the edge of the head. As you swing, your arms and hands will be aligned with the shaft, but the head will come in at a slight delay behind the neck. The purpose of this is it gives you a little extra time to fine tune your swing as you approach the ball. With an offset hosel, you get to see exactly how and where the club face will make impact with the golf ball. It will give you that split second to perform any minor adjustments right before the big collision.
Other than that, the offset hosel design has also been known to improve lift. With the head trailing behind the shaft, the weight distribution is changed and the club all together works more like a spoon to scoop your ball and toss it upwards for more upward flight.
One of the most important features of the driver is moment of inertia. This refers to the tendency of a club to twist on its axis as you hit the ball. When you mishit, the shaft and head will have a tendency to twist either left or right - depending where you strike the golf ball. But a club designed with high MOI resists this movement so you can maintain a relatively square and straight impact regardless of whether or not you hit the golf ball dead center.
There will generally be two types of shafts - stiff and flexible. A stiffer shaft will often work best for more advanced players who enjoy more resonant feedback. But if you’re looking for forgiveness, flexible would be the way to go. A shaft that bends throughout the swing will produce more speed for a low speed hitter. They produce more distance all together, and generally ‘feel’ better for the hands of a novice player.
The TaylorMade Golf M6 Driver is one of the fastest drivers out there. But despite its unrivalled speed, the M5 also boasts one of the most intuitive and forgiving designs across the market. For you, that means fast ball speeds without actually having to be such a strong driver. It does this by way of a speed injected head that works to fine-tune the transfer of energy from the club face to the golf ball. The result is minimum energy loss during impact, helping preserve and even amplify the power of your swing during collision.
If you’re constantly mishitting a golf ball, the M6 comes with a curved corrective face angle that’s intended to calibrate off center hits in real time. This works to bring your golf ball nearer to the center during those first few moments of impact, helping correct an off-center hit to produce straight trajectory regardless of your miscalculation. And to further add to your confidence, the M6 brandishes a redesigned sole that brings the COG low and back for increased MOI and higher launch.
Light as a feather, the Cobra Golf 2019 F-Max Superlite Offset Driver can help you swing with ease and control. Its ultra-light construction touts 18 grams of weight-saving performance that feels comfortable and maneuverable in the hands of a beginner. Most of its weight is focused at the center of gravity - low and deep into the head of the club. This creates the coveted scoop dynamic that tosses the ball higher into the air for longer flight.
Along the face, a forged E9 titanium face works to improve the coefficient of restitution, which is basically a fancy term for energy transfer. This material increases the amount of energy that’s delivered from the face to the golf ball, ensuring that none of your swing power is lost during the smash. And with the option to choose an off-set neck, the Cobra Golf 2019 F-Max Superlite Offset Driver guarantees almost flawless drive shots every time you take it out of the bag.
The industry-leading Boeing Aero package is essentially optimized club head shape that minimizes resistance on the Callaway Golf Rogue Driver’s head during swing. This results to a faster, more accurate stroke that lets you truly max out your power without the challenge of drag pulling back on your golf head. Along the sole, cut-outs reduce the weight behind the club face, focusing the sweet spot across a larger area of the club’s front surface.
Designed for supremely high MOI, the Callaway Golf Rogue Driver stays square on throughout the swing cycle, hitting your golf ball dead center regardless of whether or not you truly calculated your shot to perfection. As it incorporates the brand’s unique Jailbreak Effect, each shot is imbued with maximum power and razor sharp direction that launches your ball high and far for professional-level performance in the hands of a rookie.
Chemically milled, the Callaway Golf X Series Driver uses precise engineering to deliver perfect anatomy for long, effective drive shots. The head on the club was forged in a unique chemical process that guarantees precision center of gravity placement that sits far and low into the head. This increases lift during launch and ensures that no matter how much skill you have, the club will cast your ball into the air for long-distance travel.
What makes the Callaway Golf X Series Driver a little extra special is that it comes with an adjustable lie and loft. With its head able to move to various angles, the Callaway Golf X Series lets you figure out the precise placement to match your swing. And to make sure you get the fastest speed for the farthest travel, the club also touts a VFT face that increases energy transfer from club head to golf ball for reduced energy loss in between.
Often brandished as the most forgiving driver for high handicapper players, the PGX Offset Golf Driver simplifies the whole drive shot process. The offset head comes in especially handy if you’re a constant victim of the slice which is typically the most common problem for high handicap players. Its large 460cc club head gives you load of space to hit the ball, creating a wide sweet spot that imparts near perfect power and direction on the golf ball even during a mishit.
The biggest benefit of the PGX Offset Golf Driver is that it helps you maintain the head square upon impact. So aside from the off-set neck, it also incorporates a massive sweet spot and high MOI that prevents twisting movement when you fail to collide with the golf ball dead on.
The drive is potentially the most important shot in all of golf - next to the putt. An unskilled drive sets the tone for the rest of the hole, dampening your confidence and putting you at risk of incurring a score over par right off the bat. Fortunately however, you don’t really need to perfect your drive before you hit the course. The most forgiving driver choices lend novice-friendly performance that augments your swing to max out distance and accuracy - even if you’ve yet to strike like a pro.
