White drivers winning over TOUR pros and the public

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Courtesy TaylorMade

No clubs have generated more attention this year in golf than TaylorMade's white drivers.

CARLSBAD, Calif. -- Perception is reality, even in the highly scientific and technological world of golf equipment. So when TaylorMade first introduced its R11 driver, it was noticed all right.

"Sean O'Hair at first said, 'I think it's the ugliest thing I've ever seen.'" Sean Toulon, the company's executive vice president said.

Then O'Hair hit about 10 drives with it, told the film crew that was on hand to turn the camera back on, apologized and admitted he was wrong.

He wasn't the only one. Martin Kaymer, who switches equipment about as much as Donald Trump changes hairstyles, actually liked the look of the club the first time he saw it and he eventually switched from the R9 to the R11, too.

"The first time I swung it, it felt like someone took my picture," Paul Goydos said. "The white went by and it was like a flash. I thought that was going to be weird to get used to. Once I got it fit for me, I've driven the ball really well."

Case in point: This year's THE PLAYERS Championship, where Goydos finished third and was tied for first in driving accuracy for the week.

"I drove it well all week and I couldn't hit a better tee shot than I hit on 18 on Sunday," Goydos said. "I live in a world where I have to drive it well, meaning in the fairway. Once I got it fit for me, I've driven the ball really well."

Anecdotes aside, there is technology behind not just the color, but the club itself.

For one, it features what TaylorMade calls Adjustable Sole Plate technology, which allows the user to adjust the face angle, the loft and the weight of the clubhead. The differences are measureable in the adjustments, and discovered quickly, in a trip to TaylorMade's Kingdom, a state-of-the-art driving range and testing facility across the street from the company's campus of three buildings.

In other words, once the clubfitters see the data on the screen, they can quickly adjust the characteristics of the club to make it perform better.

But in the R11, and its Burner SuperFast series, it's all about the white -- a fact that's evident in a walk through the company's massive warehouse, where hundreds of white drivers and metal woods are being built, assembled and shipped by an army of employees.

It was a process six years in the making and one that involved testing multiple colors, including red, yellow, orange and, of course, black.

According to Toulon, some inside his own building were scared of introducing a club with a white head. TOUR players were less concerned, so long as they liked the look of it and more importantly the performance.

"Kenny Perry loved the yellow one," Toulon said.

Toulon and TaylorMade also knew that if TOUR players endorsed the product, so would the public. Sure enough, white clubs now account for one of every five woods sold (Cobra also offers a white driver), according to Golf Datatech, in what's been the biggest splash in the equipment world since the Titleist ProV1 golf ball hit just over a decade ago.

And on TOUR, Luke Donald, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose and O'Hair are just some of the players using it.

So what's the biggest benefit of the white in a driver?

"When you have white, you get more color in your eyes because white reflects 100 percent of the light so it's easier to see an object in space," says Benoit Vincent, TaylorMade's chief technical officer says.

"Second, when you put a dark surface to a light surface, the top line popped up much better and you get aligned better. The third thing was the hot spot. The white color overpowered the reflection. When you think about wood woods, they were light woods. We went grey with steel then we made a mistake for 10 years going with black. Now we're finally where we should be."

Goydos agrees -- "It's easier to aim, I think that's the biggest advantage," he said.

The stats might say differently -- Goydos' accuracy and distance are both down this year compared to last -- but it also took him time to get adjusted to it and he's battled a couple of injuries this season. Once Goydos did adjust to it, the rest, as they say, was history.

"It's the same shape and the same head pretty much [as the R9], but I seem to hit it farther," Goydos said. "This has been one of most genius moves TaylorMade has come up with. White just seemed to change the world."