Golf equipment manufacturers are starting to tell their stories. And while I think the time has come, I feel like these subs are trying to put me out of a job.
Over the past several years, Titleist has led the charge with a series of slick behind-the-scenes documentaries—We Go Farther (The Title Speed Project), Finding Feel (a three-part deep dive into engineering the subjective experience of how an iron feels at impact), Making the Modern Wedge (the Bob Vokey and Searching of Spin Milled development) each pulls back the curtain on R&D and humanizes the process in a way that press releases and flyers specifications simply cannot.
Now TaylorMade has entered the conversation with Finding Fast, a 17-minute documentary that traces the company’s obsession with driver speed from the original ironwood in 1979 to the launch of the Qi4D. Conspicuously missing from the cast: me. For the record, Titleist interviewed yours truly for We Go Farther, so I know what it’s like to be in this stuff. TaylorMade, my phone works.
call me
If the format looks familiar — slick production, behind-the-scenes engineering footage, candid interviews with R&D staff, touring pros reacting to early prototype hits — there’s a reason for that. When someone creates a template that works, it probably shouldn’t surprise anyone when others follow suit. The naming convention alone (Finding Fast, meet Finding Feel) suggests that TaylorMade has paid attention to what Titleist has done in this space. And, yes, I suppose when you already have a good plan, you use it.
It’s a smart approach, and I suppose there’s enough unique TaylorMade flavor to support the format.
The Stealth 2 of It All
What separates Finding Fast from the established template—and frankly, what makes your 17 minutes worth it—is that TaylorMade doesn’t shy away from the ugly parts entirely.
The film traces the origins of the company’s driver – the M1 that “saved the company” in 2015, the SIM generation’s push in aerodynamics, the first carbon sole of the SIM 2 and the innovative carbon technology of the Stealth. And then comes the piece most brands would leave on the cutting room floor: the Stealth 2.
“It was painful. It was painful for me. It was painful for the entire organization,” says TaylorMade CEO and President David Abeles, who serves as the film’s narrator. “It was the first time we had to face real difficulties around a product quality issue in our company in decades. And the reason we got there was because we were trying so hard to improve. We went too far.”
This is a brand CEO saying the quiet part out loud. And rather than framing it as an isolated hiccup, Abeles positions it as a consequence of ambition—something that forced further innovation rather than retreating. It’s a more honest story than you usually get from a company selling you next year’s model.
The film also doesn’t shy away from Qi35’s frustrations. Despite the strong performance in the market, TaylorMade admits that some of their best tour players – the Schefflers and McIlroys of the world – did not put the Qi35 driver into play because the company could not demonstrate that it was better than what they were already playing. “There’s definitely an added pressure,” the film admits.
The Four Dimensions
From there, Finding Fast moves on to develop the Qi4D in what TaylorMade calls the “four dimensions of speed” – face technology, aerodynamics, shaft dynamics (via the React shaft system) and fitment.
The engineering visuals are truly compelling. You see faces pushed to failure in durability testing—engineers examine crack patterns and stress points, actively looking for where things break so they can push the limits even further. You see the airplane team discussing 300 to 400 CFD simulation runs that were eventually narrowed down to six or seven workable shapes, each validated in a wind tunnel test that lasts five seconds but represents a year of work. You see high-speed motion capture used to map individual swing signatures for shaft optimization.
TaylorMade’s engineering and tour staff are featured throughout. Product and engineering team members walk through the precision CAD (tenths of a millimeter, tenths of a degree) and explain how five years of R&D culminated in the Qi4D platform. Tour representatives detail the adaptation process and the challenge of working with the world’s most demanding focus group.
Tournament test
The back half of the film is all tour de force. Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Nelly Korda, Tommy Fleetwood and Collin Morikawa are all featured, testing Qi4D prototypes months before launch.
Some highlights: Rory hits a quick 190 and casually mentions that he has to stay ahead of Luke Clantons in the world. A tour representative asking Rory if he knows where his Qi35 player driver is. (“No.”) Scheffler’s swing is being replicated on a robot to dial in its correct configuration. And Nelly Korda getting 2.5 to 3 mph ball speeds and admitting that the Qi4D is “performing better now” than the Qi10 Max she didn’t want to let go.
The mounting sequences also reinforce Qi4D’s “fitter” pitch—you see weight shifts, shaft profile changes, and loft adjustments happen in real-time, with players reacting shot by shot.
The bigger picture
In a YouTube world of golf, the trend of producers producing documentary content is worth paying attention to—and it’s clearly accelerating. Titleist built the playbook. TaylorMade is running a version of the same feat. And I’ll bet they won’t be the last. When you see how effectively a well-produced behind-the-scenes film can humanize a brand and contextualize a product launch, the ROI case practically makes itself.
Yes, these movies are marketing. Nobody’s making a documentary about the time their new driver tested worse than last year’s model (well, unless it’s setting up for a redemption), but access is real. The engineering details are real. And when a company’s CEO is willing to point to failures as catalysts instead of pretending they didn’t happen, the story becomes little more than a 17-minute commercial.
The headliner set the bar. TaylorMade cleaned it up—or at least came close enough to make the conversation interesting. And frankly, the more we get from each manufacturer willing to pull back the curtain, the better it is for gamers who want to understand what really goes into the gear they’re buying.
Seriously though, TaylorMade. call me
Finding Fast is available now on TaylorMade’s YouTube channel.
