2020 TaylorMade SIM and SIM Max drivers (in hand photos, M5/M6 comparison pics)

[getitdaily]

Nice. What do the guys at the kingdom do to test swingweight changes? In your fitting, did they toy with swingweight changes?

[SC-TX 88]

Yup - for the 5 wood though.

[bchilders87]

Anyone played both the G410 and the Sim Max? Thoughts comparing the two?

[JStang]

11 yards is a lot. I would buy any $600 driver on the spot if I picked up 11 yards. I really need to go to a fitting and I'm not distance challenged.

[Krt22]

No monitor data but very similar setups back to back (G410+, 8*, PX Green 6.5TX vs Sim max, 8.25*, PX Green 6.5), over all very similar minus the max being noticeably lower in spin. They would both launch high and peak pretty similar, but the Sim max would flatten out and keep going. Sound/feel 10X better with the sim as well. G410 went on BST very quickly.

[dlow206]

Have SIM Max with the TM Ventus Red shaft. Seems to be a bit fade biased for me.

[sethdavidsdad]

I did. Feel like the Sim Max is a little more fade biased than the g410 was. Haven’t had a lot of good weather rounds with the sim yet but so far like it better. Used my AD DI 6x in both heads same loft.

[ZA206]

So played my first round with the SIM 9 today on my home course. Conditions were 60F, but the course was a sloppy wet mess. I hit the driver maybe 5 times today and they were all very nice results. There was absolutely NO ROLL at all. I think I honestly was carrying the ball 5-7 yards further than I would have with my old M5. I really would have liked to have seen how it would have turned out in dry conditions because I think the SIM was spinning a good bit less than the M5, so the roll out would have made it even better.

Two of the shots were fades that I thought were toast until I got up to them and the extra distance saved my bacon. Definitely longer than I expected. I will say playing in the winter is depressing though.... the course felt like it was 400 yards longer than normal.

I’ll say that the SIM is definitely louder than my M5... I’m please with the first outing in very tough conditions.

-ZA

[QuigleyDU]

I posted this review in the equipment section but it got moved to the club building section. I figured I would put it here as well as it does relate to the sim.

https://forums.golfwrx.com/discussion/1815157/kbs-td-tour-driver-shaft#latest

[drbonesvt]

How do u like the pro white in the sim, I did not like the PW in the m5 head but in the sim I’m liking it better

[dlow206]

I hadn't noticed the SIM Max being fade biased during my fitting, but really am noticing it now that I have gotten to hit it a bunch. I like the fade bias.

This is what golf.com said: "If high, power fades are your game, the SIM Max is your gamer."

[GoGoErky]

iirc Ian says they only throw out the bad ones that are clearly anomalies or some way off swing by matt. I haven’t paid attention to the numbers of the shots they show with the data vs number hit or if they even show that just going by memory from past videos

[Z1ggy16]

If you re-watch the videos, you'll notice that they tend to hit in total for all 3 drivers, about 40 shots. They are only showing about 6 for each, so that shows you about how many they throw away. Thing is... It's not just outliers... they probably throw away anything that would be probably not on a fairway, and also not totally middled. I'm not criticizing them really, because at least they are always consistent, but... it's not a huge surprise that they've been showing virtually no difference between drivers when all they use are the best shots he hits. They are trying to take as much of the "human element" out as they can, which is a good thing... but at the same time, these new drivers are really only going to shine on the less than stellar hits.

[getitdaily]

Bingo...they need to start doing videos where they hit about 6 straight shots, no shots removed, to show how the drivers deal with the human element.

You don't retee, so why not show that a driver's miss for a player is really good or really bad?

If I bought a new driver this year just based on the best shots then I'd be in a mavrik sz. But about 3 of the 12-15 shots I hot with it went off the map left. SIM had none of that.

[getitdaily]

Clear anomalies such as...someone impacted matt swinging for that shot? Someone else hit the shot?

Matt is matt. An anomaly is called a bad swing, not an anomaly. They need to show what happens with really bad swings. That's where driver tech is improving.

[Z1ggy16]

In all honesty though, they are trying to pump out videos every single day. If they wanted to do a legit job at comparing the entire data set with not great hits included, they'd probably need to hire or buy some kind of data science analyst or stats person because it's very hard to say what's an outlier and what isn't, because it depends on the data set itself. It's not trivial.

So in that sense I get why they are doing it the way they are doing it. I'm watching the videos more for Ian's insight and comments moreso than for the actual results.

[SC-TX 88]

Honestly haven’t had a chance to spend much time with it. I tweaked my back the day after I got it back from my builder. I had the PW in a tour issue M6 fairway before this and that was a very good combo but the toe of the clubhead always looked toe-d in to me (even though it was 1.8 open FA) so I struggled with it. I was not a fan of the M5 fairway head, it never setup well to my eye. Hoping to hit the SIM this weekend as my back is finally starting to feel better and see what I think.

[BostonWRX]

Justin Rose is gaming a SIM today

[hammy83]

I've only hit the SIM Max on the trackman indoors with the diamana S and I didnt find it to be fade biased. My struggle is typically an over the top giant banana but this thing was virtually dead straight for me. With that said, mine is a 9 degree adjusted to 9.75. My AOA was about 2 and my over the top was significantly reduced to -1 or -2 tops.

[getitdaily]

I think it could be much simpler than that...

Just hit 10 straight shots, show those and then show the data. If you want to supplement the video with "perfect shots" to show that stuff then easy peasy. It doesn't have to be complicated by showing strike location, face data, etc. Most folks don't understand all that anyway. Just show the shots. That's one reason I like newton. He just hits balls and shows the ballflight. Shiels has gotten away from that. Crossfield too.

Just show me ballflight and keep it simple.

[dlow206]

I see, I have been hitting power fades with it set at standard. I'm guessing if I adjust the loft up slightly, I will probably hit straight or slight draw.

[KonaV821]

Went to a local Golf mart here in SD, and I wanted to sample a 9 degree sim but the employee had told me some had already cracked the crown

 

He showed me the inside of the driver and it had some hotmelt already in there? Is this common with demo heads?

[Z1ggy16]

They could but it makes it much less controlled and open to variables still over such few shots. They are doing the best they can but they're is a better way. The way mygulfspi does it with thousands of shots and uses actual Stat tools to mark bad shots is really the right way. They leave in hits that are marginal but remove outliers. This is of course not practical for txg so the only real way is by showing what you can control, which is just picking really good hits. Luckily Matt is borderline a robot.

They could intentionally try to just change one variable at a time, like leave all else equal but only leave heel shots in... Only leave low but middle hits in, etc. It's just a time commitment issue. Fsx is not a Stat tool so there is no clean way to combine that data to show some kind of overall set of data combining poor hits of varying degree driver by driver.

[Natural1]

With respect to TXG and everyone else on youtube, I think the limiter is the amount of time put in vs. what they get out of it. From a business sense It's probably just not worth it. I know nothing of YouTube "monitizing" or video editing, but I'm guessing they have a good, repeatable formula that helps keep things reasonable in terms of # of videos produced vs time ($) spent on each.

I do love TXG. By miles the best equipment channel I've seen.

EDIT: Also, check out SecondSwing on YouTube. I've just started watching some of those and I think they do a very good job as well. Their Club Fitter / test robot seems to be at least as good a ball striker as Matt is.

[Kale_m]

Lol not even close IMO

[GoGoErky]

Matt and his company run the YouTube channel and does all the editing.

[Natural1]

Yep, I know. But you still have to strike the balance between time & revenue.

[GoGoErky]

Im sure they look at that and factor it in but they also do 1+ hour videos of fitting matt which Im sure isn’t great for monetization perspective also haven’t been watching a lot of their videos lately so not sure how much they are pushing their patreon page which last year seemed to be where the focus was and where time and effort was spent to draw in money.

[sethdavidsdad]

Agree, Like it but very noticeable compared to the the Ping G410plus

[QuigleyDU]

Alex etches is my second fav. Mainly because he is funny.