Callaway Epic Driver Review

Over this past year I’ve purchased and tested over 20 drivers from different companies.

I haven’t sent out any reviews on any of them for a couple of reasons…

One of the main reasons is that nowadays you can go on Youtube and see reviews of any driver quickly and easily. However, I would question the “unbiased nature” of many of those reviews, because most of the reviews are by people who have been given the club for free. Even if there is no intention to talk up a product, there is by default a hidden code not to trash a product you’ve been given for free.

I could have gone to the golf companies and got free drivers to do reviews, but I didn’t want to do that because that’s what everyone does. There’s nothing different in doing a review on a driver you’re given for free.

If you’re given something you have no investment in it.

But that’s not the main reason I didn’t do reviews on all of those drivers individually. The main reason is because…

Drivers
Are At Their Legal Limits

So if that’s the case, why did I buy 20 drivers?

I did that for you!

Because there is so much marketing crap in the golf equipment market, I wanted to do this experiment to let you know the truth about drivers so you know how to buy a driver that will help you lower your scores. So let’s start looking at this truth (some still won’t want to hear this, but here goes)…

From my experiment of hitting different driver after different driver I quickly found that if you hit a good shot with ANY driver it will go as far as any other driver. So if that’s the case (and it is!) how do you choose a driver that is going to help lower your scores.

Well, from my experiment I quickly found some important things, which are…

1. Look. You must like the way a driver looks when you pick it up. If a golfer doesn’t like the look of a driver from the get go, I think most golfers will struggle with that driver. There’s always exceptions to any rule however. There will be golfers somewhere that will have a driver they don’t like the look of that they enjoy hitting. But with drivers at their legal limits I don’t see a point in having a driver like that.

2. Sound. I think sound has a big part to play in whether you like a driver or not. I don’t particularly like the sound of Ping drivers so I don’t gravitate to them. A lot of players like that high pitch ping sound but I’m not one of them.

3. Feel. This can encompass a lot of different things. It can be the feel when you’re holding the driver. It can be the feel of the ball being struck. It can be the feel of the driver as you’re swinging it.

4. There’s no perfect driver! From my experiment of hitting many different drivers I quickly found that there is no perfect driver. Even if you have a driver that you like the look of, sounds great and feels good, you will still hit bad golf shots. So don’t write a driver off after a couple of bad shots if it fills the 3 previous criteria.

With all that being said, you hear stories of golfers picking up 20 yards with a new driver. So if drivers are at their legal limits how can that happen?

Simple.

When a particular golfer picks up a new driver that gains them 20 yards they are changing three things as they are hitting the ball that is giving them extra yards. Those three things are…

1. Improved contact location.

2. Improved launch angle.

3. Improved angle of attack.

It’s been very well documented that if you hit a modern driver more above the center of the clubface and slightly on the toe then a ball will go a lot further than if it’s hit lower on the face.

It’s also been well documented that if a golfer has a low launch angle and they get that up then (can often be done by an increased loft on the clubface. And what a loft says on the club is often not true) they will hit the ball further.

And it’s been well documented that if a golfer goes from hitting down with a driver to hitting up on a driver then they will gain a lot of distance.

So if a golfer is hitting a driver low on the face with a low launch angle and hitting down on the ball, and then they do the opposite with a new driver they will gain heaps of distance.

The question then is… can hitting a different driver actually help a golfer to do that?

The answer, from my experiment is… YES!

From the 20 drivers I hit I narrowed the drivers I liked down to 5.

All the drivers were the same in terms of legal limits but the 5 drivers I liked helped me to get better numbers on the launch monitor.

How did that happen?

Because I liked the way they looked, I liked the way they felt, I like the way they sounded. Those things all combined to help me get better numbers.

I have no idea why “scientifically” (apart from a club loft being different on different drivers even though they are all supposedly the same loft!) but that’s what happened.

Now this is a review of the Callaway Epic driver and you may have noticed I haven’t talked about that yet. 🙂

The reason I gave you that big long introduction is because I don’t want you to ever get sucked into the marketing that these companies bring out. Drivers are at their legal limits! If you hear of golfers gaining yards with a “new” driver it’s because of those golfers changing their impact conditions with a new driver.

With that being said, Callaway came out with the Epic driver that had jail break technology, which was supposed to help golfers hit longer drives. Let’s see if that was true or not…

There were two Callaway Epic driver models. The first was the Callaway Epic and the second was the Callaway Epic sub-zero.

I purchased both of these drivers and they do actually look quite different. I thought the Epic driver was much rounder than the Epic sub-zero. I just didn’t like the look of the Epic diver at all from the get go. Then I hit it and it just seemed to have a hook bias for me. I quickly gave it up because of that. And that raises another interesting point about driver testing.

Generally speaking, a good golfer can hit a driver 3 – 5 times and tell whether they like it or not.

That’s probably a good bench mark for your driver testing as well. Hit 5 shots with a driver and see if you like it. If not, move on. You don’t need to buy 20 drivers. Just go test different drivers to see if you can find one that beats your current gamer in terms of looks, feel, sound, forgiveness and of course, distance!

Ok, so I quickly ruled out the Epic driver because I didn’t like the look of it, the way it sat and it felt like it was going to turn the ball over.

So the rest of this review is going to be on the Epic sub-zero driver.

As far as looks is concerned, I loved the way it looks. It looks fantastic.

The sound is rather a dull sound. It’s quite muted. I wasn’t a huge fan of that. It wasn’t a bad sound, it’s just not loud enough in my opinion. Maybe that has something to do with the Jailbreak technology. And on that note…

There’s heaps of stuff on Jailbreak technology on the net. But in short, it’s simply a couple of titanium rods just behind the clubface to stop the club from expanding when it’s hit, and that apparently will help transfer more energy to the ball so a golfer gets more ball speed from the face.

So all this Jailbreak technology is meant to do is increase ball speed when you hit the driver.

Now onto the performance…

When you play golf you do so on the golf course, you don’t play on a launch monitor. So I took this driver out to the golf course and tested it against my current gamer driver. And in my on-course testing I found this driver to be comparable to my gamer driver in terms of distance. It wasn’t any longer, but it was more inaccurate and not as forgiving.

All in all, it was an “ok” driver for me but nothing special.

The looks were awesome but it didn’t go any longer or straighter than my current driver so I sold it.

I guess the moral of this story is… don’t get sucked into marketing B.S.

I have heard some golf pros say that this Jailbreak technology is possibly adding a mile or two ball speed for some golfers. Come on, give me a break (pun intended)!

If a golfer hits this driver a lot further than their current driver (as long as it’s fairly new) it’s because of improved impact conditions. Nothing more – because drivers are at the legal limits.

I found it very interesting buying and testing the 20 drivers over the past year. I understand that not many golfers can do this… and they don’t need to. Remember, when I said that most good golfers can tell within 3 – 5 shots if they like a driver. That’s all you need to do. Go test lots of drivers if you want.

Hit a driver for 3 – 5 shots and you’ll know within that time frame whether to explore getting that driver some more. If you don’t like it then move on.

Naturally I could have done that, but I wanted to invest something more into this process and spend a long time testing these drivers. I won’t do this ever again but I’m glad I did it, because hopefully it will help some golfers somewhere not to get sucked into marketing hype that some new driver is going to add yards to their drives.

As I write this there is going to be a new Callaway driver that will apparently supersede the 2017 Epic driver.

I’m not knocking Callaway here either. It’s their business to sell golf equipment. And if you buy a new driver every year that’s fine. But remember, the only way a driver is going to help someone increase distance (as long as they’re using a pretty recent driver) is by improved impact conditions.

Golf Backswing Secret

How To Take Your Range Game To The Golf Course

One common question I get about the mental game is…

“I hit it great on the range but can’t take that to the golf course. Got any tips to help with this?”

This is such a common problem and the reason why this happens is so simple…

On the range there’s no consequence for a bad shot. So on the range you’re not worried about slicing it because there’s no O.B. to the right for example. You’re not worried about hitting the ball well to carry water because there is none… You get the idea.

On the golf course you only get 1 shot and each shot matters. And when you’re standing on a tee with O.B. on the right and water to the left it can cause panic. But there is one very simple thing you can do to help you in these situations, and that’s this…

When you’re on the golf course, imagine you’re hitting a shot on the driving range. Pick a target you want to hit your shot to but don’t look at all the trouble. Instead, get over your ball and imagine you’re on the range.

Now that advice raises an important point.

I said to pick a target you want to hit your shot to. But if you don’t do that on the driving range then you’re wasting your time following this advice. Because you can imagine yourself on the range as much as you want, but if you’re not in the habit of picking out targets to hit your shots to when you practice then naturally this is not going to transfer over to the golf course.

On the golf course you also need to trust your swing and commit to the process of hitting the shot. A good thing to help you do that is to imagine you’re a robot hitting a shot. Because imagine a robot hitting a shot with out of bounds down one side, a robot is not going to be nervous about that. Instead, they just aim at a target and hit to the target, without emotion.

Emotion is a big reason why golfers can’t take their range game to the golf course. Hit a bad shot on the range and it’s no big deal. You just whack another ball. But hit a bad shot on the golf course and the world is about to end. When playing golf you need to try to take negative emotions out of shots.

This is why professional golfers often seem so emotionless. It’s because they have learned to play shots without the fear of consequence hanging over them.

They just select a target and swing…. like a robot.

So try these tips the next time you’re on the golf course, and I’m sure you’ll find that you swing more freely yet hit the ball straighter. I hope that helps you.

The Golf Swing Speed Challenge Video

Below is a video about The Golf Swing Speed Challenge.

Watch the video and learn how the golf swing speed challenge is going to help you hit much longer drives in record time.

The Golf Swing Speed Challenge has helped many golfers from all around the world to hit the golf ball longer, straighter and more consistently.

Have more fun hitting longer drives and start by watching this video…

 

Thanks for watching and click the link just above to start your own Golf Swing Speed Challenge

Long Drive Myth #8 – If You Try To Swing Faster You’ll Get Injured

I’ve said this a million times, but I’ll say it again because it’s so important… the faster you swing… the further the ball will go.

For every 1mph you increase your swing speed by, you’ll gain roughly 2.2 – 2.5 yards in distance.

So following programs like this can help you to dramatically improve the distance you hit the ball.

But, there comes a problem with increasing your swing speed.

You see, when you start seeing your swing speed increasing and your ball going further and further, you’ll be tempted to train more. And more training causes a higher likelihood of injury.

When you’re trying to increase your swing speed, slow and steady wins the race. I know that’s a bit of an oxymoron… but it’s the truth.

You want to workout enough to stress your body to get new swing speed heights. But you don’t want to do this so much that you get injured. It’s a fine line, but you need to listen to your body. And if you feel any small niggles, don’t tough it out and work through it.

But instead… rest.

Another problem I see with golfers trying to increase swing speed, is they TRY to swing fast too much.

I’ve even heard of guys swinging HARD for hundreds of balls a day.

When golfers do that they are training the wrong types of muscles for speed, and they’re risking getting a lot of injuries because the golf swing is one of the hardest sporting movements there is on the body.

Look, when you want to do any movement in any sport quicker… you must practice quick movements to train your fast twitch muscles to fire faster. So whenever you’re training to hit the ball longer, you should do really short bursts of speed training – with lots of rest in between.

So don’t do this…

Do not go to the driving range and do not buy a bucket with 100 balls to try to smack all 100 drives as fast as you can. I repeat, DO NOT do that.

What you CAN do is warm-up with say 20 balls, then hit 5 balls as fast as you can with about a 1 minute rest in between shots. Then hit another 20 balls at about 80% of your normal speed. Then hit another 5 balls as fast as you can with about a 1 minute rest between shots. And repeat that routine until all the balls are gone.

Now I’m not suggesting you go and do that. But what I’m saying is that you’ve got a lot more chance of increasing your swing speed long term doing something like that (without injury), instead of trying to hit 100 balls as hard as you can.

But the best thing you can do, as far as increasing your swing speed is concerned, is to get a proven program which has been put together by someone like a sports scientist. And this is the program I highly recommend you use for this, because then you stand the most chance of gaining the most distance possible while staying injury free.

Long Drive Myth #7 – You’re Too Old To Increase Your Swing Speed

I so often hear older golfers say….”I’m (insert age here) and I’m too old to even try to increase my swing speed.”

It’s sad…but they’re right, IF…

They Keep That Attitude!

Look, no matter what age you are, if you can swing a golf club you can increase your swing speed.

And if you follow a program like this one which lays out everything you need to increase your swing speed, and if you can’t do everything in it….so what!

No matter what age you are, you have to look at improvement.

If you can’t do something that is meant to help you swing faster, then find something else you can do and do that.

People so often get hung up on what they CAN’T do, rather than what they can.

If you’re over the age of 60, and you’ve got the mentality that you’re too old to do exercises to increase your swing speed, you have to do a couple of things…

1. Give yourself a good slap around the ears, and then

2. Change your attitude to be more positive!

Here’s a simple example of this. Imagine if I told you to do 10 press-ups, and you’ll be guaranteed to increase your swing speed by 10 mph once you’ve done them.

But because you haven’t exercised for years you can only do 1 press-up. I know for a fact, in situations like this people will give up because they can’t do the prescribed number of repetition of an exercise. But that’s the wrong attitude.

If you can only do one press-up each day, then in a couple of days you will be able to do 2 press-ups. In a week’s time you might be able to do 3 press-ups. Then in a month you might be able to do 10 press-ups, and add 10 mph in swing speed to your swing speed.

That was just an analogy of course.

Doing 10 press-ups probably wouldn’t help you add 10 mph to your swing speed… OR WOULD IT?!

You see, if you haven’t exercised in a while then the only way is up. And you’ll find that you can make B-I-G improvements in your strength, flexibility, power etc. compared to someone who has been working out a long time.

And with big improvements, come nice improvements in swing speed. So if you’re over 60 and haven’t exercised in a while, then following a program like this one, and just doing what you can and improving all the time, will help you to reap big rewards.

Finally, on this topic, another complaint I hear from golfers is that they have bad knees and so they can’t exercise. Or they have a bad back, or they have a shoulder injury…and the list goes on.

The last time I checked, none of us have perfect bodies. So if I gave you 10 exercises to increase your swing speed, and you can only do 5 of them because of old injuries….don’t you think it would be better to do 5 rather than none?

Look at improvement…whenever you’re doing anything to increase your swing speed (or any other area of your life for that matter).

Ok, so that’s my pep talk for today. From now on…I don’t want to hear ever again from a golfer that they’re too old to increase their swing speed. You’re never too old. As long as you can swing a golf club, you can try to increase your swing speed so you hit longer shots.

Long Drive Myth #6 – Drive For Dough Putt For Show

If you’ve been around golf for a little while you would have heard of the saying…

Drive For Show Putt For Dough

And what that is implying is that you can drive great but it doesn’t really matter that much.  You’ll impress some people, look good, yada, yada.   But
it’s not that important because what really matters is putting, because that’s where you make your scores.

Now, there’s no doubt that putting is super important to scoring low.  You’d be stupid to say it isn’t, but I’ve heard of great golfers say that their most
important club in their bag is the driver.

Why would they say that?

It’s simply because of this fact… the shorter the shot into the green the closer on average you’ll hit the ball to the hole.

So, if you’re playing a stock standard, straight away 400 yard hole and you hit your drive 250 yards on average then you’re obviously left with a 150 yard
shot to the hole.  But what if you hit the ball 30 yards further and you had 120 yard shot into the hole.

Do you think if you had 30 yards less into each hole you’d be on average closer to the hole?

Naturally you would because…

Your worst shot from 120 yards will ALWAYS finish closer to the hole than your worst shot from 150 yards out.

So if everything else stayed the same in your golf game, and you added 30 yards to your drives you WOULD score lower than you would have otherwise.  Because
at the end of the day…it comes down to simple statistics.

The closer you get to the hole, the lower your scores will become – on average over time.

Obviously accuracy comes into the equation when discussing this, because if you add 30 inaccurate yards to your drives then chances are that your scores
will go up, not down.

So when you add 30 yards to your drives, you need to know exactly what you’re doing so that they are accurate yards.

And to help you do that, here’s a program I suggest you invest in.   

Long Drive Myth #5 – Added Distance Will Be Inaccurate Distance

There’s a popular misconception among average golfers, that if you gain  distance you’ll be less accurate. I’m not sure where that misconception came from – BUT it’s wrong!

Look… you can hit the ball longer and be MORE accurate, because if you look at the main things you can do to hit the ball longer, like….

• Increase Swing Speed
• Improve Technique
• Improve Your Body
• Get Properly Fitted Equipment

…there’s nothing in that group that will make you less accurate.

For example, if you increase the lag in your downswing you’ll probably become more accurate as well as longer.

If you gain swing speed, you’ll probably be more accurate because the club will be accelerating more through the ball better.

If you get stronger, more flexible and faster, you’ll be able to control the club better as you’re swinging.

And if you get equipment to suit your golf swing, you’ll have more confidence to go after the ball.

All and all, you have nothing to fear in trying to add more yards to your drives.  And when you do, you’ll probably see that the distance you add is more accurate.

Plus, here’s another factor that a lot of golfers don’t consider when trying to add distance to their drives.

The more distance you add, the shorter club you’ll have into holes. And the shorter the club, the closer you will get the ball to the target, e.g. instead of a 6-iron
you have a 9-iron.

But whenever you’re trying to add distance to your shots, you’ve always got to be looking at the ball flight to ascertain what’s going on.

For example, I helped one of my students go from averaging 85-95 mph swing speed, to averaging 105 – 115 mph. So that’s a 30+ yard increase in distance just because of the increase in swing speed, BUT… he was hooking everything.

And the reason he was doing that was because of the shafts in his clubs.

You see, he had regular shafts in his clubs, and because he was swinging much faster the shafts were no longer compatible to his new swing speed. He had to get stiff shafts in his clubs to fix this problem and get his accuracy back, along with 30 yards in extra distance.

Tough problem to have, right? 😉

Now as far as accuracy is concerned, it really comes down to what the clubface is doing at impact. Because although the accuracy of your shots is determined mainly by path and face angle at impact, the face angle is the most important factor.

Where your clubface is pointing at impact accounts for 80-85% of the direction.

So to help you hit your golf shots with a square clubface while hitting them longer, I’m going to give you a great drill that you’ve probably never seen before.
To do this drill, you’ll need to get a golf ball box that has three balls in it.

Take two golf balls out of the box so just one golf ball is left. Then I want you to position this box directly at your target and make sure the ball is at the end where you’re going to strike the box. I suggest you do this with a 5-iron.

Now the great thing about doing this drill, is that it’s going to force you to really accelerate through the ball. Plus, it’s going to help you to square the clubface up,
because you’re going to be hitting into a square edge rather than the round ball. So smack the crap… ah… ball rather, out of the box!

The only problem with doing this drill is that after just one shot you’re going to  kill the box.

So you need to find a good supply of 3 ball golf boxes to do this. Here’s an idea… heard of dumpster diving? 🙂

No – just joking.

Jokes aside, this is a great way to combine training yourself to hit it longer and straighter. And if you can find a good supply of 3 ball golf boxes, do it regularly
for longer and straighter drives.

Long Drive Myth #4 – You Need Expensive Equipment To Measure Smash Factor

Have you heard of the term “Smash Factor”?

Smash Factor is the term used for the measurement of your ball speed, divided by your clubhead speed. This measurement is so important, because it tells you how well you hit the ball in terms of transferring speed into the golf ball.

And the largest influence on this measurement, is how accurately you’re hitting the ball on the sweetspot.

The penalties for not hitting a shot on the center of the clubface are huge.

For example, in 1998 Golf Digest did a study into how much off-center impact shots affect distance. Here is the result of the study for a 100 mph swing.

• Center Hit – 258 yards
• 1/2 inch off center – 243 yards
• 3/4 inch off center – 237 yards
• 1 inch off center – 227

So contacting a golf ball an inch off the center of the clubface with a 100 mph swing speed, results in a 31 yard loss of distance!

Ok, it’s pretty clear that contacting the ball on the center of the clubface is pretty important for distance! And I’m going to give you a cool way to measure your smash factor.

Before I share that with you, let me just say, there are a number of very expensive pieces of equipment that will give you your smash factor. One is trackman, and this piece of equipment costs about $25,000.

Naturally, for the average golfer, that is out of the question. You could probably get on one of those machines to see your impact numbers, but you probably couldn’t get on one often.

So here’s my DIY way to workout your smash factor and try to improve it.

To do this you’ll need two portable swing speed radars like this:

This is the one I recommend you get (you’ll need two remember) for this.

Once you have two portable swing speed radars, you’ll also need a calculator (you probably have one on your cell phone).

Then you need to setup one swing speed radar so it records your swing speed, and the other one laying on the ground 3 feet in front of your ball so your ball flies over it.

Once this is setup, then you simply need to hit drives so your ball flies directly over the swing speed radar that is lying on the ground.

When you do that you’ll get two results. One will be your swing speed, and the other will be your ball speed. Let’s say your swing is 90 mph and your ball speed is 120mph.

So you simply divide 120 (ball speed) by 90 (swing speed) and you get 1.33. That’s your smash factor.

Apparently Tiger Woods has a smash factor of 1.48, whereas the average golfer has a smash factor of 1.20.

So if you find your smash factor is about 1.20 when you do this, then simply by increasing this number will mean longer drives – and that will be exciting.

Your goal should be to have between a 1.47 and 1.5 smash factor.

So there you go, that’s a very cheap way for you to measure smash factor. It’s a critical stat when it comes to distance. So put that into action, improve your smash factor and reap the rewards.

Important Note: You may find when you do this that the center of your clubface (on a driver) does not produce the highest smash factor. That’s because for most modern drivers the sweetspot is above the center of the clubface.

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Long Drive Myth #3 – Pro’s Swing Slowly

You hear it all the time on golf courses….I need to slow my swing down.

Maybe you’ve even said that yourself.

Well, unless you swing at 160 mph and are spraying it all over the place you don’t need to slow your swing down….ever!

You may need better timing. You may need better rhythm and tempo, but I bet my house on the fact that you will not need to slow your swing down.

I think T.V. has caused this big problem, because when you see a pro swing on T.V. it looks slow and smooth. But what you’re watching is not reality.

It’s like watching race cars on T.V. and thinking they look to be going quite slow.

Then when you watch a professional golfer swing or a race car go around a track in person it looks fast.

Now a great example is Fred Couples. His swing is so slow, smooth and easy right?

Well, his swing speed is up to 123 mph. So he might have a smooth and easy swing but it’s very FAST!

So you should swing smooth AND fast.

That should be your goal if you want to hit longer drives.

You should never try to swing slow unless you’re playing a little knock down shot into the wind and you want to reduce the backspin on the ball.

The point of this article is to make sure that you NEVER say you need to slow down your swing. Take that word out of your golf vocabulary if you want longer drives.

Instead say things like….I need better timing. Or, I need better sequencing in my swing. Or, I need better rhythm.

If I hear you say you need to slow your swing down I’ll come and slap you around the ears. Got it?!

One simple way to learn to swing faster is to simply turn your driver upside down so you grip it near the clubhead. Then swing it.

If you get a swing speed radar like this one I recommend and you find that you’re not swinging at least 10% faster than your normal driver swing speed, then you’ve trained yourself to swing slow.

Swinging something lighter than your normal golf club is a great way to train yourself to swing faster. The device must be about 10-20% lighter than your normal driver to get any benefit when you go to swing normally though.

So go to it…train to speed up your golf swing and you’ll hit longer golf shots.