The Ultimate Titleist 917 Driver Fitting at TPI Oceanside (Launch Monitor Data Added Pg. 4)

[scratchswinger]

I would like to see some numbers or data backing the accuracy claims.... I have owned and gamed 909D3, 910D3, 913D2, 913D3, 915D2, 915D3, 915D4 and the M1 has been just as accurate as any of these. I did however have to go up a little in loft in he M1 compared to very low lofted Titleist drivers.

[brushie]

Great experience and writeups. Kudos to Golfwrx and Titliest for this offering. Love to read all of the improvements with the new line. It was interesting to me that most of the fittings were into a 44.5" shaft length. Much shorter than the typical 45.5" stock lengths going out in drivers on the shelf today. Just a reminder to me that I need to shorten my driver shaft, since I'm always choking down on it.

 

Thanks for all the writeups!

 

I was told by the fitter pro's average driver length is somewhere in the 44" range. I forget the exact number, might have been 44.75". For me, it helped dispersion and I didn't really lose swing speed. Distance was actually better because of the better strike. And even though he wasn't trying to change it, it increased AoA.

[brushie]

I see a lot of no way it's better than the M1 here. That is probably true for the people that have seen success with the M1. I gave the M1 more than a fair shake for a lot of rounds (though I never got fitted, but I tried out a lot of shafts on my own, tried different lofts, and tried the 430 and 460 heads) and people that have played with me for years said it wasn't as good FOR ME as my D4. All this says is that everyone needs something different and we all get different results.

[pitchinwedge]

BTW, does anyone know if older Surefit (915, 913, etc.) shaft adapters fit the 917?

 

Edit: Uh-oh... here I go again...

[KPH808]

BTW, does anyone know if older Surefit (915, 913, etc.) shaft adapters fit the 917?

 

Edit: Uh-oh... here I go again...

 

They all fit the 917

[Tony_Ireland]

Funny, I got fit for an M1 last year, and the 917 D3 last week. If im honest, very minimal differences!! (Apart from TM drivers feeling very hard off the face). I just prefer titleist as its always suited my eye, plus moneywise they only bring a driver out once every 2 yrs and holds its value. Hard to understand how some guys are blatantly saying "the m1 is sooo much longer". How? If u are fit properly for both, all things being equal, they will be close in performance

[EricWGolf]

Thanks again to Glenn (my fitter),

 

Glenn (sp?) and Lucas were my fitters today,

 

we (Glenn, my fitter) and I went to work.

 

Glenn is, without question, one of the best clubfitters/TrackMan gurus I have ever had the chance to meet. I hope you all had a chance to hear some of his stories from the road.

 

Congratulations to everyone who got to experience TPI Oceanside. It truly is an amazing facility full of people passionate about golf.

[Pure745]

Great thread, cool experience for those that got to take part.

 

My club is a major fitting center for Titleist, so I've pretty much hit everything. The 917 line is great... not surprising people are seeing gains.

 

How great? Majority of what I've heard has been ho-hum, especially from guys hitting the M1/M2. Seriously curious to see some numbers, was hoping to see some of this info in an easy to read layout. 917 is definitely on my radar, but pretty happy with what I have now.. just a big fan of Titleist :)

 

I've been fit three separate times for the M1/M2. I have 5-6* positive AOA, and in my hands, I find the M's deliver incredible numbers. No kidding - 17*/1700rpm. I've seen easily 20yds more carry than anything I did yesterday but something's always kept me from biting the bullet. The numbers really don't tell the whole story....

 

My best shots pre-fitting with the 915D2 were around 16/2400, iirc. To be fair, I think Glenn was looking for closer to 13/2200 with the 917D2 to tighten up the dispersion of my misses. Tweaking ball flight and tendencies was what Glenn was working on. The club seemed to "move" very differently based on the adjustments he made. Much more so than with other clubs I've adjusted in the past. This was really eye-opening. Instead of hunting for every last yard, I think he was trying to make the club feel more "automatic". Help my bad swings instead of making a bad swing worse. IMO, this is where a properly fit 917 potentially wins over the M's.

 

FWIW, I think I owe it to myself to have another fitting. There aren't many drivers out there that can get me to 17/1700 and my hunch is we could have gotten very close with the right D3/shaft combo. Don't know if the the 917 would match the M's ball speeds but it sure looked like they'd be close. Would be cool to have a safety club for off-days and the long-drive machine for on-days.

 

Yeah, that's good info, I'm +3-4 AoA and 178-181ish BS and have found the tour issue 8.5 M2 (and M1 for that matter) to be incredibly long and forgiving. I am a Titleist fan, and have been fit at TPI for irons, wedges, and woods, and honestly the M1/M2 blew the doors of my D4 I was fit to, both longer and straighter. I will probably end up shelling out a few more $$'s to go to TPI and see what my M2 driver and 3 wood do against the 917. I loved the look and feel of the 917, but most of what I've seen and heard has been that the M1/M2 are still better. Disclaimer, the M1/M2 are extremely popular out here, I see them in a lot of bags of amateur players and even more in competitive amateur bags. I have also heard that the 3 wood is a beast this year, so interested to see how it all shakes out.

 

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it!

[The Chicken Connoisseur]

If M1 isn't forgiving enough and Titleist stuff spins too much, get an LTD it's that simple

[Lacey Underall]

Great experience and writeups. Kudos to Golfwrx and Titliest for this offering. Love to read all of the improvements with the new line. It was interesting to me that most of the fittings were into a 44.5" shaft length. Much shorter than the typical 45.5" stock lengths going out in drivers on the shelf today. Just a reminder to me that I need to shorten my driver shaft, since I'm always choking down on it.

 

Thanks for all the writeups!

This, this, this, this, and this again ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Nearly everyone playing this game would be better off with a less than 45 inch driver. I've always respected Titleist for NOT going over that 45" barrier and making a club that we could play SHORTER than 45" while keeping a decent swing weight.

[gripandrip]

Hi all! I’m Marc, and I was one of the lucky six that were chosen for today’s event at Titleist TPI Oceanside. Let’s get right into it. (disclaimer: I don’t have my trackman numbers yet, so I’ll update my write-up as soon as I get them.)

 

A little about me: Straight up, driving is the strongest part of my game, and I’m very okay at everything else. I’ll have my runs where I threaten to break par, but it’s not as often as I’d like. I have two older brothers that I’m ultra competitive with. My oldest brother is short off the tee, but miles better than me at putting so to stay ahead, I had to figure out my own way to keep it in the fairway more than him and be able to swing freely off the tee. I’m currently an 8.9 handicap, and from the trackman numbers today at Titleist TPI Oceanside, I swung comfortably at 100mph on average. I can crank it all the way up to an incredible 103mph, but only when the cart girl is watching. (Kidding, or am I?) I’ve never been to Titleist TPI Oceanside before, but I’ve read other member’s write-ups on their experiences so I had a general idea of what it was going to be like. If you’ve read them too, they’re not exaggerated. This place is unbelievable.

 

Arrival: I arrived at the facility around 10:05am. The weather was perfect: barely 72 degrees and sunny. I was informed that I’d be fitted alongside Neil. Him and I actually arrived at the same time, but I didn’t know it was him until we were greeted with a warm welcome at the front desk by a mob of Titleist staff. (Forgive me, I only remember Glenn, Lucas, Dino, Eric, and Mike.) They gave us tour of the facility and explained to us that TPI wasn’t just a fitting center. It’s a place where they can also measure your swing dynamics (from motion capture technology) and based on the information they gather, give you an option to either tweak your equipment (club fitting), or work on parts of your body based on those swing dynamics to make you a better swinger of the club (fitness area).

 

Right before we headed out back to the fitting area, they gave us the details about the 917 drivers. They explained how they redesigned the channel (A.R.C.), the face of the drivers (Radial Speed Face 2.0), adjusted the sound at impact, kept the SureFit hosel the same, but added the new SureFit CG to help move the CG to tweak your ball flight to draw or fade a little bit more. They brought back the crown color which is reminiscent of the 905/983/975 heads which I heard they call “liquid slate”. That’s when we met Zak, the Editor-in-Chief here at GolfWRX. Really nice guy.

 

Fitting: I’ve never been fitted for a driver before. I’ve been meaning to, I just wasn’t in a hurry to as I was happy with my driving. I knew before hand that I’d be working with the same fitters who fit Titleist’s PGA Tour players, so I knew I was in the best hands and just let them do their thing. The entire Titleist staff are professionals, and the facility they occupy at TPI Oceanside reflect that sentiment. They mean business and I love it.

 

Glenn (sp?) and Lucas were my fitters today, while Dino (sp?) worked with Neil. They had me warm up to game speed and told me to take my time. I was excited to swing the 917 line so I had to constantly remind myself to take my time and just stick with my routine. I hit about 8-9 wedges, 3-4 eight irons, and a couple 5 irons and luckily I was ready to go. I felt really stiff until after a couple eight iron swings.

 

Glenn had me start with my driver to get find my baseline numbers. My game driver is a 915 D3 8.5 in the B1 setting with a Fujikura Speeder 661 Evolution Tour Spec, 44.5” tipped additional .5". Going into the driver, I felt good about my swing so I just swung away.

 

It turned out that my smash factor was good at 1.48, but my average carry numbers weren’t optimal. I don’t have the numbers at the moment but I was roughly around a 235 average carry with about 30 yards of rollout, roughly 265 total. My angle of descent is on the low-end of about 26-30 degrees. This makes sense because I get a good amount of roll on the course I’ve been playing recently that’s pretty dry right now.

 

The first recommendation was to increase my launch angle. In my 915, I was around 10* launch. They had me try a 917 D3 9.5 in the B1 setting with my Speeder 661 Evo TS AND tee my ball higher to encourage hitting the ball higher on the face. The idea was that the 9.5 loft would first increase my launch and spin, then when paired with hitting it a little higher on the face, it would increase my launch and LOWER spin. If I confused you, what essentially happened was that I increased my launch angle and kept the same spin, if not a touch lower, than my 915 head. This high launch and low spin combination did what you probably have guessed for me…longer drives. My average carry increased roughly 7-10 yards with the longest carry at about 252 yards. (Again, I’ll update these numbers when I get my trackman results.) This was great and all, but the next best part was that my dispersion was about 1/3 of the size of my 915 grouping, and I already feel accurate with my 915 D3! We didn’t even need to touch the SureFit CG, although I wished we messed with it just for kicks. At the end of the day, Neil told me “I wish I had that problem.” Haha.

 

I had a hunch that we weren’t going to get any better numbers than that. I later overheard Glenn and Lucas say something to that effect while I was swinging a 3 wood setup, but more on that later. Next up, they put me into another setup that felt lighter. I didn’t get a good look at the shaft weight or flex to prevent any bias. I did notice it was from the Speeder Pro line, though. Impact felt nice and softer, but I my dispersion worsened. They tweaked a few things, same result. That setup was a no-go.

 

Then we backtrack to a combination closer to my first recommendation. I hit this combination just as good as the first, but the whole setup felt heavier. Glenn revealed that it’s the heavier brother of the 661 Evo TS, the 757 Evo TS. He asked me which weight I preferred. I had none, so I eventually settled on the former.

 

My final build, if I’m not mistaken, is a 917 D3 9.5 with a Fujikura Speeder 661 Evolution Tour Spec 44.5" in the B1 setting, and neutral weight.

 

The feel of the new 917 line is incredible. I played the 910 since I started playing golf and I’ve been apprehensive to switch for years. I found a great deal on a 915 head recently and I haven’t skipped a beat. I love the 915 D3 feel. The 917 do sound better! It’s still a relatively high-pitched sound. (Don’t get me wrong, I must have bought a later production 915 D3, because I’ve never felt the 915 line was ear-piercing like many reports state, and I have pretty sensitive ears.) The best way I can explain it is the 915 D3 has a high-pitched TINK, while the 917 D3 has a high-pitched CRACK to it. It’s like a 910 sound on steroids. It’s really subtle, but it’s enough to give it a faster feeling sound. I was hooked.

 

Fitting, Part 2: I’m going to be honest, my driving was pretty on while I was there. I was so excited to be there that I kept reminding myself to not rush and stick to my pre-shot routine. It translated to a pretty efficient fitting. So since we had more time, Glenn was nice enough to ask me about my 915F. I told him I’ve never had the best luck with any 3 wood. He was adamant that he could find a better fitted 3-wood setup. I currently have a new-ish 915F 16.5* 3-wood with a Diamana S+ 80gram in the B1 setting. I don’t hit it great, but I can live with the misses. To some extent, I actually feel like this is the best 3 wood I’ve ever had. His initial thought was that it played too long at 43”, so he and Lucas put me into a couple of setups, and gave me some swing thoughts to think about. I honestly didn’t even bother to look at the shafts or settings of any of them. Some worked okay, and some didn’t. Now that I looked at Titleist’s new 917F fairway shaft offerings, one of the shafts I tried was the Diamana Limited Blue. Short story long, they recommended me the 917F2 16.5* B1 setting in a Fujikura Speeder 757 Evo Tour Spec at 42"

 

End of the fitting: Zak asked us a few questions about our experience, and then it happened. Zak hooked us up with some GolfWRX swag: a GolfWRX bag tag, sticker, and a serialized GolfWRX poker chip...And then Eric from Titleist gave us a grab bag of our choice of Titleist Pro V1 balls and a Titleist cap…And then Zak dropped the bombshell on us….He told us Titleist will be sending us the driver build that we were fit for today! I was BEYOND EXCITED! This was just icing on top of the regular icing that was my fitting. THANK YOU!!

 

Thank you very much GolfWRX and Titleist! This experience is one that I’ll never forget!

 

To Zak, and the entire Titleist staff, THANK YOU!!

 

So how would you compare to the 910 D2? That's my gamer and I am also apprehensive about changing. I didn't care much for the 913 or 915, as the sound was much different and I saw no advantage to change. But my initial impressions after hitting the 917 are that the feel is very similar to the 910, and that the sound was back to what I have now. It also seems to be longer and more consistent with both my current shaft (Aldila RIP Alpha) and the new Rogue M*AX 65.

 

Your thoughts?

[Pure745]

If M1 isn't forgiving enough and Titleist stuff spins too much, get an LTD it's that simple

 

Bless you.

[Dscvrr St Louis]

Great write up guys...sounds like an awesome experience!!

[knock it close]

I would like to see some numbers or data backing the accuracy claims.... I have owned and gamed 909D3, 910D3, 913D2, 913D3, 915D2, 915D3, 915D4 and the M1 has been just as accurate as any of these. I did however have to go up a little in loft in he M1 compared to very low lofted Titleist drivers.

Same except no D4, I found the M1 and M2 slightly less accurate than my titleist, but I attribute that to using the same shaft in the titleist for 5+ years and had something different and longer in the taylormades. M2 was the best driver I used this year and I used ~10 drivers atleast 2+ rounds this year.

[rymail00]

This is cool and all but it's still laughable to me that the 915 was not a max ball speed driver

 

This will be my first and last post ever like this, please stop stop trolling. We get it, you you are not a fan of Titleist, and that's absolutely fine, honestly.

 

Everyone one here is entitled to their own opinions. But it seems you go out of your way to stir the pot in any thread with Titleist in it the headlines. I just read TheRealJonZone write up as well. There's way to give constructive criticism, but it's seems your trying to just start arguments.......over golf clubs......golf clubs......

 

Best of luck to you.

rymail00

[rymail00]

Very cool for the 6 guys that showed up for a fitting and walked out with a fitted driver.

 

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[hankmoody]

I am geeking out to the nth degree. Congratulations guys! Thanks for posting the experience.

 

My concept of a perfect day has changed quite a bit since I joined GolfWRX.

[Darxez]

I recently got fitted for a full range of 915 gear, a few weeks before the 917 was announced... Sucks balls, but I suppose that I should have researched a bit more... Anyways, now I've seen multiple reviews on the new 917's, along with this topic... I think I will see if I can find a 917 head to test it out on my current shaft setup... To see how it goes. Awesome reviews on these clubs guys, loveing to see the experience!

[MB Dirtyy]

So how would you compare to the 910 D2? That's my gamer and I am also apprehensive about changing. I didn't care much for the 913 or 915, as the sound was much different and I saw no advantage to change. But my initial impressions after hitting the 917 are that the feel is very similar to the 910, and that the sound was back to what I have now. It also seems to be longer and more consistent with both my current shaft (Aldila RIP Alpha) and the new Rogue M*AX 65.

 

Your thoughts?

I actually played the 910 D3. The several times i've tried the D2, it had a little too much spin in my eyes and I overcooked the ball too often. It didn't help that I prefer a more pear shaped driver. So the biggest thing between the 910 D3 and 917 D3, for MY swing tendencies, was that left and right off-center hits don't curve as hard in the 917. On the 910, low heel shots on the face increased spin like crazy, high slightly toed shots on the face I could hit draws comfortably. On the 917, I was generallly around the middle and those looked like 1-2 yard draws. Off the heel, the ball flight didn't look spinny and produced baby fades that still looked pretty dang straight. Even way out on the toe, the 917 didn't move as much as I would have thought. IMO, the 917 D3 is pretty dang forgiving.

 

The 917 sound to me seemed like a higher pitch version of the 910. Granted, shafts change the sound of drivers so i'm guessing if you stay with your RIP Alpha, it might feel like a faster version of your 910. I haven't hit my 910 with my speeder 661 ts so i'll report back a secondary observation after the weekend.

[F1pilot22]

would love to see how these compare to the 915.

[gripandrip]

So how would you compare to the 910 D2? That's my gamer and I am also apprehensive about changing. I didn't care much for the 913 or 915, as the sound was much different and I saw no advantage to change. But my initial impressions after hitting the 917 are that the feel is very similar to the 910, and that the sound was back to what I have now. It also seems to be longer and more consistent with both my current shaft (Aldila RIP Alpha) and the new Rogue M*AX 65.

 

Your thoughts?

I actually played the 910 D3. The several times i've tried the D2, it had a little too much spin in my eyes and I overcooked the ball too often. It didn't help that I prefer a more pear shaped driver. So the biggest thing between the 910 D3 and 917 D3, for MY swing tendencies, was that left and right off-center hits don't curve as hard in the 917. On the 910, low heel shots on the face increased spin like crazy, high slightly toed shots on the face I could hit draws comfortably. On the 917, I was generallly around the middle and those looked like 1-2 yard draws. Off the heel, the ball flight didn't look spinny and produced baby fades that still looked pretty dang straight. Even way out on the toe, the 917 didn't move as much as I would have thought. IMO, the 917 D3 is pretty dang forgiving.

 

The 917 sound to me seemed like a higher pitch version of the 910. Granted, shafts change the sound of drivers so i'm guessing if you stay with your RIP Alpha, it might feel like a faster version of your 910. I haven't hit my 910 with my speeder 661 ts so i'll report back a secondary observation after the weekend.

 

 

Thanks. I appreciate the feedback. That was kind of the impression I got of the 917 as well. I little hotter, and a bit straighter on off center hits. I thought the sound was more of the older "Thwack" sound as opposed to the "Ting" I got with the 913 and 915. I think it might be going in the bag, but not until I try the D3.

[Carolina Golfer 2]

Great experiemce provided by Titleist and GolfWrX

 

Thanks for taking the time to write up the fittings.

[swizbeatz]

Congrats to those chosen! Where are the screenshots of numbers for us to look at?!? That's all I want to see.

[scratchswinger]

Congrats to those chosen! Where are the screenshots of numbers for us to look at?!? That's all I want to see.

 

I know from past experiences at TPI the fitting isn't solely based on getting the best Trackman numbers and trying to "beat" other drivers on a computer. The fitters will openly share all the data with you but they aren't shouting it out shot after shot and basing their guidance solely on that. Every time that I have been there (5 total) and each fitter (3 total) has based the fitting in finding my best miss versus my longest ball. Every time I wanted my numbers at the end of the fitting I had to ask. I would be willing to bet that TPI treated this fitting the same and unless these guys asked to take a photo they probably don't have all that info.

[bladehunter]

no doubt the 917 D2 is an accurate forgiving driver that doesnt look as big as it is and sounds fantastic... I cant speak to the M1... But its worlds better than the 915 D2 D3 D4 x2 that it tried to like... and in my fitting the 917 beat the M1 M2 and ping G by a wide margain.. but i will say i never could get the spin down on the M2 enough to call it a "test" and the ping G Ls was actually the closest competitor... which is likely due to my -1 or so AoA,,, I think an M1 430 playing at 44.5 with a low low shaft could blow the 917 out of the water for pure distance ..But i dont know if dispersion would be close.... My shot pattern with the 917 looked like a single rainbow picture... just a group of lines all going the same place.... was really remarkable... Ill have on course report after this weekend...

[Torrey4Life]

Damn, I had a feeling that this might be what it was. I REALY wanted it, but congrats to the winners!

[brushie]

Congrats to those chosen! Where are the screenshots of numbers for us to look at?!? That's all I want to see.

 

I know from past experiences at TPI the fitting isn't solely based on getting the best Trackman numbers and trying to "beat" other drivers on a computer. The fitters will openly share all the data with you but they aren't shouting it out shot after shot and basing their guidance solely on that. Every time that I have been there (5 total) and each fitter (3 total) has based the fitting in finding my best miss versus my longest ball. Every time I wanted my numbers at the end of the fitting I had to ask. I would be willing to bet that TPI treated this fitting the same and unless these guys asked to take a photo they probably don't have all that info.

 

Numbers are coming. At the end of the session I asked for numbers to be emailed and Titleist said they would get it to Zak to get to us. I'm sure he was busy traveling / getting home but hopefully we'll get numbers soon.

[brushie]

no doubt the 917 D2 is an accurate forgiving driver that doesnt look as big as it is and sounds fantastic... I cant speak to the M1... But its worlds better than the 915 D2 D3 D4 x2 that it tried to like... and in my fitting the 917 beat the M1 M2 and ping G by a wide margain.. but i will say i never could get the spin down on the M2 enough to call it a "test" and the ping G Ls was actually the closest competitor... which is likely due to my -1 or so AoA,,, I think an M1 430 playing at 44.5 with a low low shaft could blow the 917 out of the water for pure distance ..But i dont know if dispersion would be close.... My shot pattern with the 917 looked like a single rainbow picture... just a group of lines all going the same place.... was really remarkable... Ill have on course report after this weekend...

 

The M1 430 for me didn't feel close to as forgiving as the 917 D3. I hit some bombs with it but consistency wasn't there for me.

[pitchinwedge]

Congrats to those chosen! Where are the screenshots of numbers for us to look at?!? That's all I want to see.

 

I know from past experiences at TPI the fitting isn't solely based on getting the best Trackman numbers and trying to "beat" other drivers on a computer. The fitters will openly share all the data with you but they aren't shouting it out shot after shot and basing their guidance solely on that. Every time that I have been there (5 total) and each fitter (3 total) has based the fitting in finding my best miss versus my longest ball. Every time I wanted my numbers at the end of the fitting I had to ask. I would be willing to bet that TPI treated this fitting the same and unless these guys asked to take a photo they probably don't have all that info.

 

Exactly.

[sjugolf64]

Sounds like a great experience and seems like everyone prefers the 917's over the 915's. Also great to hear the people talking about fitting for the best misses versus fitting to hit the longest shot on your best swing as this is where you will truly see improvement in your game. I had a 915 previously and it just didn't work and the M1 blew it out of the water for both distance and forgiveness, but these 917's sound like they will give them a running. And again Golfwrx having some sweet giveaways, so jealous of the guys that got to experience this!