430 Max vs 430 10K

[kingbing]

Is the 10K really worth the upgrade over the Max?

[doctor220]

Depends on the player and what you want 

[chollier986]

Loft for loft it’s 2-300 lower spin with the 10k.  So depends on what your looking for.

[kingbing]

What about launch and feel?  I play the 10.5 Max and looking for a little less spin. Sounds like the 10K would work.  Should I go 9 degrees in the 10K?

[Auleran87]

That depends, why are do you play 10.5 in the Max? The 10k is a bit of a lower spin head already so you would get MUCH lower spin with it if you're also dropping in loft

[noodle3872]

2 hours ago, kingbing said:

What about launch and feel?  I play the 10.5 Max and looking for a little less spin. Sounds like the 10K would work.  Should I go 9 degrees in the 10K?

Depends on how much extra spin you have to drop. I’d say start by demoing a 10.5°. 

[DNice26]

Or consider a golf ball change…?

[Hot Rod 71]

Michael Newton compares the two in this video. 
 

Edited March 24 by Hot Rod 71

[kingbing]

18 minutes ago, Hot Rod 71 said:

Michael Newton compares the two in this video. 
 

This definitely helped.  Thanks

[jeffrey r]

11 hours ago, kingbing said:

What about launch and feel?  I play the 10.5 Max and looking for a little less spin. Sounds like the 10K would work.  Should I go 9 degrees in the 10K?

 

I achieved lower spin and more distance by going to the 9* G430 Max instead of the 10.5* I was playing. That said, with my G430 LST head, I have the 10.5*. Not having demo’d the 10K, I can’t say for sure, but sounds like I would probably go with the 10.5* head as a starting point with the 10K as well.

 

Point being, short of hitting both the 9* and 10.5* 10K heads, you need to assess your spin, launch, dispersion, shaft selection, etc. to see whether you really need to go down to the 9* 10K. You may be just fine in the 10.5* 10K head to lower spin from where are now, without going too low. YMMV.

 

 

[TheShark1]

I own the 430 max in 10.5° and tried it against my friends 430 max 10k also 10.5°. Same shaft in both as I just swapped my own shaft into his. The 10k is definitely lower spin on comparable strikes. Forgiveness seemed about the same. I will say that the 10k had a shallower face and I personally didn’t like it. But that is just me, I prefer a deeper face on the driver. Performance wise, the 10k did deliver on the lower spin claims. 

[hardten]

Ultimately what did the spin change net your shots in distance ? I understand how  spin can effect distance and carry but no replies got specific as to thier net shot outcome.

[jeffrey r]

1 hour ago, TheShark1 said:

I own the 430 max in 10.5° and tried it against my friends 430 max 10k also 10.5°. Same shaft in both as I just swapped my own shaft into his. The 10k is definitely lower spin on comparable strikes. Forgiveness seemed about the same. I will say that the 10k had a shallower face and I personally didn’t like it. But that is just me, I prefer a deeper face on the driver. Performance wise, the 10k did deliver on the lower spin claims. 

 

That seems to be consistent with the recurring theme. The G430 Max sets up perfectly to my eye, so I am curious how I would take to the 10K from a visual and delivery standpoint with the shallower face. Anyway, three outstanding options with the Max, 10K and LST.

[Wardonation]

Are all the "stock" 10K heads the same headweight regardless of stock shaft? Is the stock Alta head going to weigh the same as the stock Tour Shaft head off the rack?

[TheShark1]

8 minutes ago, hardten said:

Ultimately what did the spin change net your shots in distance ? I understand how  spin can effect distance and carry but no replies got specific as to thier net shot outcome.

On the launch monitor it was a couple yards, not too much of a difference. Watching the ball go down the range, you wouldn’t be able to tell which was which. They were very comparable. For me, the deeper face of the Max was better for me, so I stuck with that instead of moving on to the 10k. 

[TheShark1]

3 minutes ago, jeffrey r said:

 

That seems to be consistent with the recurring theme. The G430 Max sets up perfectly to my eye, so I am curious how I would take to the 10K from a visual and delivery standpoint with the shallower face. Anyway, three outstanding options with the Max, 10K and LST.

It kind of reminded me of the original Sim driver where it was a very nice looking club that performed very well but I just couldn’t get used to the shallow face. 

[hardten]

I agree that  the look of a club is more important than some give credit to.

[underwater]

27 minutes ago, Wardonation said:

Are all the "stock" 10K heads the same headweight regardless of stock shaft? Is the stock Alta head going to weigh the same as the stock Tour Shaft head off the rack?

 

Yes.  I believe PING states that if you tinker with he 29g tail weight, your undo the 10k quality of the head.  Which begs the question "why is it a removable weight?  My theory?  They want to avoid an epoxied tungsten weight from falling out like the one is Patrick Reeds Master's winning G400 LST. 

[underwater]

I'm curious how PING allegedly achieved lower spin in the 10k.  Physics is physics and whenever you pull a large amount of weight rear-wards on a driver, the unintended by-product is increased spin.  

 

...that's why the Triple Diamond drivers have a pair of flippable weights - and when we move the heavy one towards the tail, we see higher launch and increased spin.

 

Additionally, more shallow faces (like on the 10k) are typically associated with higher spin, in contrast to drivers with taller faces.

 

So where is this new voodoo engineered into the head?  An honest question, not doubting PINGs low-spin claims.

[MysteryV]

1 hour ago, underwater said:

I'm curious how PING allegedly achieved lower spin in the 10k.  Physics is physics and whenever you pull a large amount of weight rear-wards on a driver, the unintended by-product is increased spin.  

 

...that's why the Triple Diamond drivers have a pair of flippable weights - and when we move the heavy one towards the tail, we see higher launch and increased spin.

 

Additionally, more shallow faces (like on the 10k) are typically associated with higher spin, in contrast to drivers with taller faces.

 

So where is this new voodoo engineered into the head?  An honest question, not doubting PINGs low-spin claims.

 

My guess is that the carbon fly wrap allowed them to move more weight forward, while decreasing overall height enabled them to move weight further back while staying within the 460cc limit.  They likely also played with the shape a bit.

 

I believe the 10k is what they wanted the Max to be, but they had some engineering challenges with the carbon wrap that they couldn't get sorted before release date (it sounds like the drivers just kept exploding).

 

[nev adams]

You really need to go to a fitting and test the drivers in real time with a fitter that understands what's happening. I went last week expecting the 10K to win as I wanted the forgiveness but I needed to drop 500 or more RPM off my drives. 10K didn't do it, the LST did. Even when my most hated miss came up during the fitting, (block slice) the LST was better in every way, lower spin, more distance and just as accurate.

I would never have believed it if I didn't experience it myself. It along with new I230 irons and S159 wedges should be in within the next few days.

[mantan]

This may be a Goldilocks driver for me.  My fitter had my try every new head last year. The results were best with the G430. The only minor thing he didn't like was he thought the spin was a bit high.  But I was noticeably wilder with the LST.

 

I may text him and ask him if it's worth the upgrade.  I love the G430 but this feels a bit like the hype when the G400 Max came out a year after the G400.  The G400 was very good - but the G400 Max was arguably the best driver PING had ever released and a big leap in forgiveness.

Edited March 25 by mantan

[Zach.buckler23]

Depends what you’re trying to get out of it 

[dalillama47]

13 hours ago, mantan said:

This may be a Goldilocks driver for me.  My fitter had my try every new head last year. The results were best with the G430. The only minor thing he didn't like was he thought the spin was a bit high.  But I was noticeably wilder with the LST.

 

I may text him and ask him if it's worth the upgrade.  I love the G430 but this feels a bit like the hype when the G400 Max came out a year after the G400.  The G400 was very good - but the G400 Max was arguably the best driver PING had ever released and a big leap in forgiveness.

Kind of  in the same boat.  Had my best driving in years last year with the 430 Max.  Been kind of cold and windy here in the North East, but have demoed the 10K against my gamer and right now hard to tell if it's worth the upgrade.  Has a mile or two more ball speed and a tad less spin so not much in it.  Waiting for it to warm up a bit and the swing getting off of winter mode and will give it some more testing.

[Masterhacker]

Does anyone know what the 10k heads are weighing around, just the head of course?  in grams.  thanks

[underwater]

13 hours ago, nev adams said:

You really need to go to a fitting and test the drivers in real time with a fitter that understands what's happening. I went last week expecting the 10K to win as I wanted the forgiveness but I needed to drop 500 or more RPM off my drives. 10K didn't do it, the LST did. Even when my most hated miss came up during the fitting, (block slice) the LST was better in every way, lower spin, more distance and just as accurate.

I would never have believed it if I didn't experience it myself. It along with new I230 irons and S159 wedges should be in within the next few days.

...and the LST is a gorgeous head in my opinion. Small and efficient looking.  I don't own a 10k but I've swung it a few sessions and it always takes me a moment to acclimate to the large trailing section (frankly it looks difficult to hit; like trying to hit a pea with a shoebox - but after you swing that certainly goes straight!).  The LST is more conservative sounding if this is important to you.  I'll probably get roasted for talking about sound again in this thread but it is what it is.

 

I understand that some people cannot tolerate the slight anti-left bias of the LST.

 

Edited March 25 by underwater

[Cameron Circle T]

2 hours ago, Masterhacker said:

Does anyone know what the 10k heads are weighing around, just the head of course?  in grams.  thanks

Correction: I remember reading 202 grams from Britt Lindsey on Golfworks for the Max 10k.

Edited March 25 by Cameron Circle T

[ajbillings]

2 hours ago, Masterhacker said:

Does anyone know what the 10k heads are weighing around, just the head of course?  in grams.  thanks

My 10.5 10K head weighed in at 198g. Not sure how accurate my $25 Escali Kitchen Scale is, but it did read 28g for the 28g tungsten weight. Seems like most others on WRX are getting closer to ~202g in the main G430 Max 10K thread. I have a SwingW Touch Mini 2 Swingweight Scale coming today so I should be able to check/confirm SW and headweight with that

[sviswan]

I’m a long time G400 Max user at 9 Deg, and went to the G430 Max head last year and just couldn’t find the same magic (launch, consistency and spin) of my G400 max.  This year i moved to the G430 Max 10K and also made a shaft switch from RDX (in my G430 max) to Chrome 2.0 (in the G430 max 10K)….The G430 Max 10k launches higher, is more forgiving for me ( i had the tendency to push slice more with the regular g430 max vs 10K) also getting better carry numbers compared to the trusted G400 max.  The combo of Ping Chrome tour and 9 degree G430 max 10k head is just perfect for me and similar to my old G400 max with hzrdus shaft.  

 

The 10K is a winner for me, definitely feels like Ping’s best driver in years since the G400 Max.   Allows me to have very similar drivers in my older and newer golf bag which i keep in different locations. 

[ajbillings]

5 hours ago, ajbillings said:

My 10.5 10K head weighed in at 198g. Not sure how accurate my $25 Escali Kitchen Scale is, but it did read 28g for the 28g tungsten weight. Seems like most others on WRX are getting closer to ~202g in the main G430 Max 10K thread. I have a SwingW Touch Mini 2 Swingweight Scale coming today so I should be able to check/confirm SW and headweight with that

Got the SwingW scale setup and got the same 198g weight for my 10K head..maybe I just got a lighter head? Swingweight was different though..Seemed to be in line w/ what I was seeing on a much more expensive scale (Irons all came in around ~D2/D2+/D3 for PW, etc.) The G430 Max 10K head (45.25" TR Blue 6X) had a SW of D5.2 which is about what I expected. Will bring it with me next time I stop by my local builder and compare