Whenever I start thinking about things, I hear Crash Davis somewhere in the back of my cerebral cortex.
Don’t think, Mish. It can only damage the ball club.
However, that nagging measure of conscience will not deter me from the following statement.
We, meaning you, the golfer, and we in the golf media, are thinking about it Tour Edge Exotics all wrong.
As in INCORRECT. Bass-back also works. We’re so far off base, friends, that if my grandmother was on the mound, she could easily pick us up, and she’s been calling on the (heavenly) Angels since 1989.
we are talking error.
I think most of the brains behind the eyeballs reading this article think so Tour Edge Exotics as a “value proposition”. Beautiful clubs, good performance at a modest price. This is understandable.
It is also wrong.
This year’s MyGolfSpy driver testing suggests … no, it does insist … to stop thinking of Tour Edge Exotics as one value proposition and start thinking of it as one golf performance decision.
Not an alternative. Not an option based on price. An active decision based on performance.
I’m not sure if this is what you’re expecting, but that’s the message we’re bringing today, so buckle up, toad, it’s going to be a wild ride.
Why we got it wrong about Tour Edge Exotics
Seriously, when you think about it Tour Edge Exoticsspecifically the new one Exotics Max Driveras a performance decision rather than a value option, your view of the world of golf equipment becomes much clearer.
Almost every year, Tour Edge has an iron, fairway wood or driver that is a medal performer in our testing. It happens often enough that it’s not really worth saying Tour Edge punches above its weight class. That the Exotics Max driver finished in the top four overall in this year’s driver test and in a virtual heat for the first in the medium movement speed category i have to tell you something.
“We knew we had a good driver,” Duffy Callahan, Director of Tour Edge Operations and Tour Edge National Customization Accounts, tells MyGolfSpy. “But you don’t really know until you get out there and test against the competition.”
Believe it or not, OEMs don’t do head-to-head testing against their competitors’ new models on par with MyGolfSpy. They can, in-house or through a third-party tester, compare their new driver to their competitors’ drivers from last year. In many cases, tests like MyGolfSpy’s are the first glimpse OEMs get of how their new equipment stacks up.
As a remote staff writer, I don’t know how our most requested testing is progressing. I learn who wins almost the same way you do. That’s why, once the average swing speed results came in, I had to pack up my 65-year-old, 94 mph swing and try the Tour Edge Exotics Max.
Can it compete with my players from 2025, the Callaway Elyte Triple Diamond and my beloved Cleveland HiBore XL?
Turns out I was quite surprised. But that’s only because my thinking was wrong.
Gearing up for Exotics Max
I find myself in Chicago often on business, so I was able to arrange a convenient session in that one Tour Edge facility in Batavia. In addition to the performance of the gear, the house that Tour Edge founder David Glod has built is impressive. The company can turn around any custom order, whether for a set of irons or a single metal wood, within 48 hours.
My fitting session with Callahan began with the new Exotics LS model. LS, of course, stands for Low rotation.
“The biggest thing with adaptation is to start by ruling things out,” says Callahan. “We want to eliminate what we can early, whether it’s a Tour player or an amateur. It’s better to find the things we can say no to right out of the gate.”
It took a handful of swings for me to decide for myself that the LS wasn’t going to work. No matter what we tried, I just didn’t have the swing speed to get the thing up in the air for any significant amount of time.
“LS definitely works for players who have a lot of ball speed and need to get a lot of spin,” explains Callahan. “Golfers sometimes gravitate toward the LS because they think it will go farther. But when they hit the Max, the forgiveness and bigger face work much better.”
Everyone has a 10K driver. Is the Tour Edge different?
I wouldn’t say Tour Edge you are making 10k unlike anyone else. But they have been able to create a 10k driver that doesn’t look like an oil can on a stick.
Before we go any further, let’s consider this 10K MOI thing. You could say it’s a made up number and you wouldn’t be wrong. The USGA limits the MOI of footstools to 5,900 g·cm². 10K MOI combines that number with MOI with the sole. If both together exceed the 10K threshold, then you have a 10K MOI driver.
There is nothing magical about 10K except that it means the driver is quite stable and forgiving. 10k drivers tend to go straighter on heel or toe shots and offer more consistent ball speeds over a wider area of the face. This showed up in MyGolfSpy testing as Exotics Max finished tops in both accuracy and forgiveness for mid-swing speed.
On the other hand, 10k drivers tend to be on the spin side, and all that forgiveness comes with a ball speed penalty. of Exotics Max it finished in the middle of the pack for spin at nearly 400 rpm more than the lowest-spinning driver for average swing speed, the Callaway Quantum Triple Diamond. However, he finished slightly better than the middle of the pack in both distance and total. Take this with a grain of salt, however, as on both occasions he finished just five meters – 15 feet – behind the leaders in both of those categories.
“With drivers, everyone has the same goal: Hit it far and hit it straight,” explains Callahan. “We knew Max would have a little more spin, but getting to 10K gave us more forgiveness. That’s when we saw our distance increase.”
Fitting into the Tour Edge Exotics Max driver
With the discharge of the LS, the Max became the choice. While the 10k MOI carries a ball speed penalty, the forgiveness tends to make up for it.
“Whenever you have a bigger face, you have more room to bend,” says Callahan. “The 10K gives us a bigger footprint and a bigger face which leads to better ball speed over a wider area.”
Yes, center hit ball speed is adjusted, maximized, blah, blah, blah. However, none of us hit the center every time. We mortals appreciate the extra wiggle room.
For axles, Tour Edge there is an adequate free offer. We started with the stock Fujikura Ventus Blue shaft (the non-VeloCore version). It worked well, but at Callahan’s suggestion, we also tried Ventus Red,
The red is lighter which gave me more swing speed and ball speed. It also gave me seven more carry yards and nearly 10 more yards of total distance. Indoor Trackman can be broken, but the comparison was apples-to-apples and we were able to make a good decision.
(And you can also see from the rev numbers why the LS was never an option)
Other no-load axle options include the Project X Denali, Cypher and HZRDUS Black, along with the Mitsubishi Tensei AV. It’s not the most powerful offering, but you should be able to find one that will work.
“If your goal is more distance, then the lightest, softest shaft you can hit straight is best for you,” says Callahan. “The happy medium is finding a shaft that’s soft enough to go far, but strong enough that you can control it.
“If the shaft is too soft, it will be difficult to hit the road.”
Would a more “premium” axle have given me better numbers? Maybe, but I was very happy with the results and saw no point in messing with the issue. A week or so later at Golftec’s GC Quad, I got this nice piece of validation:
Tour Edge Exotics Max on the Course: You have to like it before you love it
One thing Callahan said to me during the fitting has stuck with me over the past month. It took me so long to fully understand what he meant.
You should HOW your driver before you can love that.
“There are guys who don’t like to look at a big head and a deep face,” he said. “You have to like it first.”
i will say Tour Edge did a good job of doing Exotics Max you look like a normal driver despite carrying 10k MB. The head, obviously, is 460cc, but it doesn’t feel big or heavy. The design team kept the geometry under control.
During the course, we are still getting to know each other. The early season weather here in New England has been blustery and I have yet to play in temperatures above 60 degrees with winds lower than 15 mph. However, despite the small sample size, I can say that the early returns are encouraging. Through three rounds with Exotics MaxI’m hitting 57 percent of my drives, a little more than last year. My left and right losses are evenly split at about 21 percent each.
Last year’s stats (split between the HiBore XL and the Elyte Triple Diamond) showed a 53 percent strike rate. I lost more often to the right than to the left. Given the wind and temperature, I can’t compare average distances. However, I did drop a (wind assisted) bomb from 279 yards.
Hey, I’m 65. Wind or no wind, spring or no spring, I’m going to bend over a little.
Final thoughts
We said above that once you stop thinking Tour Edge like a value proposition and start thinking of it as one golf performance decisionthe view of the world of your devices changes instantly. Here’s why.
At $499.99, Tour Edge Exotics Max it is a great value. The problem, however, comes when we categorize something as a “great value.” The mind automatically and invariably decides that it is “very good”… for the price. Since the Exotics Max is $150 to $200 less than drivers from the Big Four, we subconsciously conclude that it can’t be that good.
Although, in reality, it is.
None of us are immune to this. And we justify it by saying silly things like, “I’ll wait until the season is over and buy the Callaway at a discount” or “Yeah, but the resale value isn’t that good.” The first statement is a clear admission of being washed up (I mean, if there’s no real difference, why wait?). The second is similar to starting a divorce fund on your wedding day.
However, when you consider the Tour Edge as a golf performance decision, the price becomes irrelevant as the decisions become simpler. Does it beat what you’re using now? yes or no If it isn’t, it isn’t.
However, if it is, then there’s another question: Is it equal to or better than any of the other drivers you’re testing?
If the answer is no, it is no.
However, if the answer is yes, you have reached a logical decision based on golf performance. Tour Edge (or any other brand we label as a value proposition) may end up working for you, or not. But at least you will have come to this conclusion honestly.
