Which TaylorMade driver has been your fave?

[playit]

Out of all the drivers I have ever had, I think it was the 320 Ti that was the best ever for me but I haven't played in many years, so, I don't know about newer ones. For the life of me, I cannot recall what shaft I had in it other than "stiff" flex. It's possible I put a UST Proforce 65 stiff in the driver, as I liked that shaft. And I think it was 45 inches or very close to that. I could hit a pretty draw with it but also could fade it. I had the 8.5 degree because I tended to hit the driver kind of high anyway. It felt great when I flushed it. The 320 Ti was such a treat to hit after replacing a TaylorMade BurnerPlus. I have no idea why I kept that thing so long, I was terrible with it regarding control. I could hit it plain ugly.

 

What was a great TM driver for you? Have you tried newer model TM drivers?

 

EDIT:  I found a web page that briefly covered the history of TM drivers and it said this... "In 2000, the 300 series became the number one driver on tour. The 300, 320 and 360 were developed for the three most prevalent swing types."

 

Anyone know what those swing types were for the 300, 320 and 360 drivers?

Edited October 27, 2021 by playit

[nitram]

The SLDR 430 followed closely by the R510TP.

[TM4me]

Been playing TM woods from the beginning. My R11S was in my bag for a long time, only recently replaced by an M1-440.

[LUXOR54]

another vote for SLDR 430. I really need to get an appropriate shaft and put it back in the bag for a few rounds. Love the sound, a true bomber

[Vater]

My current one - SIM Max.

 

I think my pedigree is:

R5

Jetspeed

2016 M2

SIM Max

[JoeyJoeyJoeJoe]

SLDR 430

[Phabs]

M3 9* 440 has been an awesome head for me.   Going into its 5th season. 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Phabs

[halfsumo]

My first metal driver back in the early 90's. System 2 9* with Dynamic Gold R300. Really wanted the Flex Twist graphite shaft, but was too expensive. That club started a long journey of club ho'ing for me. 

[mogc60]

R7 quad TP.  That was the first driver I ever had where I didn’t think about missing a fairway. 

[getitdaily]

Sim

 

 

By a MILE

[cadman88]

2016 M2 10.5° with UST Elements Chrome 6F5T... !

 

Only have tried the 2017 M2 and M6 since.. and now moved into other brands..

Edited October 27, 2021 by cadman88

[cgasucks]

In my stash I got a TM 360, r510 TP, R7 Superquad (First Edition), R9 Supertri, and a Black R1.

 

Out of those, I'm most fond of the r510 TP because of its looks, sound and feel.  I'm not too crazy of the TM 360 as the sound and feel isn't to my liking.

Edited October 27, 2021 by cgasucks

[JoeFrigo]

ive played about 15 TM drivers..... I would go with R7 SuperQuad

[uglande]

The 1980s Original One. Followed closely by the 300 Mini Driver. And then the modern Original One mini. 

 

Honestly these are probably the ONLY TaylorMade drivers I have ever really liked. And I have played a lot of them.

[kcarrgolf]

1. SIM 2 MAX

2. R540

3. SLDR 460 

[nitram]

22 minutes ago, cgasucks said:

In my stash I got a TM 360, r510 TP, R7 Superquad (First Edition), R9 Supertri, and a Black R1.

 

Out of those, I'm most fond of the r510 TP because of its looks, sound and feel.  I'm not too crazy of the TM 360 as the sound and feel isn't to my liking.

The 510TP is the best sounding driver (to my ears) I've ever owned. It didn't require hotmelt or cotton balls or anything else. It simply came out of the box in "Beast mode" and sounded perfect. The SLDR 430 is very similar but not quite there.

Edited October 27, 2021 by nitram

[DeCuchi]

1. SIM

2. SLDR 430
3. 2016 M2

 

Honorable mentions: R510, R7 Quad TP, R9 Super Deep

[ShortSticks]

1) 2007 Burner TP

2) R580XD TP

3) R5 TP

 

[exgolfpro]

I've only had 2, the R7 and my current driver, M3-440 with Hzrdus Black shaft.  This current one is the best driver I have ever played.  I would like to upgrade to either the SIM or SIM2, but just don't want to give up my current driver.  

[Nixhex524]

SIM2

2017 M2

R11

[DArnie]

2016 M2 is my favorite. And the fairways are awesome. 

R15 still feels sweet off the face.

Didn't like the M3 too much felt kind of muted and dead. 

Haven't tried the Sim2 yet.

[jl3424]

SIM

[playit]

56 minutes ago, getitdaily said:

Sim

 

 

By a MILE

 

Curious, what did you have before? Why do you like the Sim so much? (I've never hit one.) Do you have stock shaft? Details, lol!

[ohjims]

SIM

[getitdaily]

3 minutes ago, playit said:

 

Curious, what did you have before? Why do you like the Sim so much? (I've never hit one.) Do you have stock shaft? Details, lol!

Oh man...

 

I played the 510tp way back. Loved it. Moved on to a cleveland then to rbz. From rbz I went to 16m2. Then to m4. Then to m5. Then to sim.

 

M2 was a great driver. I liked it a lot but cracked faces on 2 or 3 of them. After the last face cracked I decided i needed to find my next driver since i would eventually run out of quality m2 heads to buy. I hit m4 and it was faster than m2. But it was also more fade biased. I started tracking fairways hit and found the m4 to be less than ideal. I didn't toy around with loft settings because I was mostly ignorant to what did what. 

 

I then gave m6 a very brief try...like 2.5 weeks. I hit too many pulls with it so I dumped it for the m5 while also getting deep into loft changes, center of gravity, gear effect, etc. With my newfound knowledge, I started to tinker away. In that tinkering I did a driver fitting to see if other drivers could compete and what different settings did for launch and spin. This was outdoors on a trackman. I ended up with a setup that was super straight. I almost literally stopped missing fairways. But I was also short of where both m2 and m4 had been putting me. The m5...was slow. 

 

Then I saw the design of the sim and I got excited. Fitting with it showed it to be exactly what I was after...straight like the m5 but way faster. Adjustable front weight allowed me to dial in flight. 

 

My first 6 months with sim were really good, but with an occasional ball that was off the planet. My original setup was stock rear weight and an added 4g front track weight to raise swingweight. The 4g was in the heel and the 10g toe side of center. I wanted to improve the sim and found the thread where folks mentioned that the tour guys were using heavier stock rear weights with hot melt in the heel. I started tinkering to get a more forgiving setup. Through testing I found the 17g weight to perform the best. I got rid of the 4g front weight. But I still.saw that big right miss here and there. 

 

I then looked at the previously mentioned trackman driver fitting data. I logged every drive's face to path and noticed that I leave the face open to path more than 1.5 degrees about 60-65% of the time. So I turned my 9.0 sim up to 9.75 which closes the face 1.5 degrees. I then toyed with the 10g front weight. I hit 100 drives one day and found the weight setting that gives me a tiny fade if I square face to path (fade CoG and center contact produces right spin). The hard right miss was gone too since I rarely ever leave the face open to path enough to hit it hard right (with the closed setup.

 

I have a driver that I can just pound away on. I cracked the face on it a couple months ago and got a sim2 replacement. Didn't care for it. Great driver, but no movable weight tech. 

 

Playing ventus blue 6x in it at 45". 

[SlickT73]

510TP with the 757 Speeder.

 

First time I hit a new driver and just went “whoa…”.

 

Have 2 heads around for when I want something more classic.

[getitdaily]

27 minutes ago, SlickT73 said:

510TP with the 757 Speeder.

 

First time I hit a new driver and just went “whoa…”.

 

Have 2 heads around for when I want something more classic.

510tp mini driver...lol

[hammergolf]

For me it’s been the Sim Max. The damn thing just goes straight and finds the fwy. Not sure if it’s twist face or just a really good fit, but hands down this club is the straightest driver I’ve ever hit. 

[pccasstpro]

R580XD TP - This was a tour only head that I had with a Fujikura VTLT and was a complete bomb stick 

M5 440 Tour 

R7 425 TP

R510 TP 

M1 440

 

  I have not felt the need to try the Sim series considering I hit the M5 on a rope and my driving distance hasn't slipped 

Edited October 27, 2021 by pccasstpro

[R5Two]

The Sim/Sim 2 with an LAGolf shaft has been a monster. Great forgiveness hot face and great trajectory. By far the longest combo I have hit. 

 

Surprise second was the TM Jetspeed. It was just a firm feeling face that launched the ball in the windo I prefer. Absolute beast. Nice firm feel much like the first SIM. 

 

Also gamed an R11.. ehh