The Acushnet Company’s highly-anticipated Titleist 915 drivers will be available beginning Nov. 14 at a price of $449. That’s a bit more than most high-end drivers on the market, but you can never go wrong with Titleist quality and performance. So if you have the extra cash, expect the 915D2 or 915D3 to be worth the price.
The Titleist 915D driver
Each new driver, according to the Acushnet Company, is “built for distance’’ and feature the company’s Active Recoil Channel technology to produce lower spin and higher speed for more distance without sacrificing forgiveness.
The Acushnet Company says the improved performance of Titleist 915 drivers, underlining the Titleist Golf Club R&D team’s driver design strategy of “distance and forgiveness,” is the result of three key advancements:
• The proprietary Active Recoil Channel, a long, wide and deep sole channel that actively flexes at impact and recoils to launch the ball off the face with higher speed and lower spin;
• Radial Speed Face, a high-speed forged face insert with a radially thinner perimeter in the heel and toe, which works with the Active Recoil Channel to increase ball speed on off-center hits; and
• A precise, high-MOI design with a low and deep center of gravity location that delivers stability and forgiveness by preserving off-center ball speed for more distance, more often.
“The new 915 drivers are a game-changer for us,” said Dan Stone, Vice President of Research and Development, Titleist Golf Clubs. “We’ve increased speed and lowered spin without sacrificing MOI or forgiveness – and we’re the first to get that combination right.
“The Active Recoil Channel is a major technical leap in the area of spin reduction. In player testing, we’ve seen significant distance gains, up to 15 yards for players who need spin control.’’
The Acushnet Company began incorporating Active Recoil Channel in the prototype phase about four years ago, Stone said, but the technology required a lot of fine-tuning.
“By adding significant technology for speed and spin without sacrificing MOI, we think we’ve done something very special that nobody’s done to this point,’’ Stone said.
The 915D2 driver is a 460cc full-pear shaped head designed, Stone said, for maximum forgiveness and a slight draw bias. The 915D3 features a 440cc pear shape that is forgiving and workable, according to Stone, and offers 250rpm less spin than 915D2 to produce a lower peak trajectory.
Each model, Stone said, launch similar to their previous generation Titleist 913 models. Basically what that means is that middle and high handicap players should use the 915D and lower handicap players should use the 915D3.
The Acushnet Company said 18 players put new 915 drivers into play the first week they were available at the PGA Tour’s Quicken Loan Invitational this past June, including Geoff Ogilvy, who used a 915D2 (9.5 degrees) driver to win the Barracuda Championship a few weeks later. Twenty-four players used 915 drivers at the PGA Championship this past August.
