In this budget versus expensive driver test, Neil Tappin puts two drivers at opposite ends of the price spectrum through their paces.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 Now the driver that I have in my hands here might just be the best value for money product I've
00:05 tested so far this year. Now I was fitted for this a couple of months ago and the model that I've got
00:10 in my hands here comes in well under 300 pounds here in the UK, $300 in the US, and since I've
00:17 received it I've hit it on a launch monitor up against a more premium priced driver and I've
00:21 hit it extensively on the golf course and on the driving range and I have been really quite
00:27 impressed by this. Now there's quite a bit to talk about so we're here at the London Club, let's get started.
00:32 Right so I'm sure there's a few people out there who might have already guessed what driver it is
00:47 that I'm holding but before I tell you exactly what it is I'm going to talk a bit about the looks
00:52 and the feel and as you set the driver down behind the ball it has what I would describe as quite a
00:56 generous footprint so it just looks fairly big without being too big so it feels quite easy to
01:03 hit it feels like there's a lot of club down behind the ball and I think that's a good thing it feels
01:08 to me like this is going to be easy to hit and in terms of the styling and the aesthetics it's very
01:14 simple so there's a kind of almost like a triangular area that highlights some carbon on the crown
01:20 and it also helps to frame the ball nicely down behind the ball there's a very simple alignment
01:25 aid but it's all very subtle there's nothing about this driver that kind of is leaping out
01:30 of me as being a kind of marmite thing that people are either going to love or going to hate I think
01:34 it's the sort of thing that a lot of people will like in terms of the looks I'd be interested to
01:38 hear what you think do you think this looks like a premium driver do you think this looks like a
01:41 driver that could cost you around about the 500 mark or do you think it's something that's maybe
01:46 a little bit below that I'd be interested to hear your thoughts and actually quite a nice comparison
01:50 in terms of the aesthetics is with the Callaway Rogue ST I'd say the Callaway Rogue ST certainly
01:57 looks a little longer from front to back probably a little bit bigger overall and possibly a little
02:02 bit more refined overall but having said that I think the club that I've got in my hands here
02:09 it looks really good down behind the ball now in terms of the feel actually I'm going to hit
02:15 one first and then I'll talk to you about what the feel is like so listen out for how it sounds
02:22 through impact so to me the sound and the feel I would describe as lively so it's not as as sort
02:33 of dull and as muted as you'll find elsewhere on the driver market certainly that Callaway driver
02:38 is a little bit more muted than this one here but actually I think it's the feel suits the look so
02:45 it feels generous down behind the ball and then when you hit it it's got that quite loud high
02:50 pitched impact sound that makes it feel easy to hit okay so that's my assessment on the looks
02:56 and the feel I think it's time I told you exactly what this driver is it is the PXG 0211 and as I
03:05 was fitted for this it has a Diamana 60S X-Flex shaft in it as I said comes in under 300 pounds
03:14 and there are a few more points I need to make about the performance okay so as I mentioned at
03:19 the start I've hit this driver on a launch monitor up against the TaylorMade Stealth Plus that I was
03:25 also fitted for a few months ago and I will talk you through that data in a little bit but before
03:30 I do that I'm going to tell you how this performed for me out on the golf course I've hit it a couple
03:34 of times but one of the rounds I had Arcos running and I played nine holes with it what's quite
03:40 interesting about that is that I was averaging I think I was averaging 268 off the tee with this
03:45 driver which isn't necessarily particularly long for me but it did include one hole where I had to
03:49 shake the ball quite heavily from left to right around the corner of a dog leg I did hit one drive
03:54 during that round that went over 290 yards which is really good distance for me and I think it shows
03:58 that this driver does offer good distance for me but what's more interesting I thought when I hit
04:04 this was just how easy it was to hit how easy it was to launch interestingly the head that I've got
04:11 um that I was fitted for is 10.5 degrees now that's a little bit higher lofted than I tend to
04:16 be fitted for but it did seem to translate into a really sort of easy to launch easy to hit driver
04:23 that just felt very forgiving and very friendly and playable while I was out on the golf course
04:26 it sort of suits the look and the feel that I've already talked about now I've got five golf balls
04:32 in front of me as you can see I'm on the 15th hole here at the London club I'm going to hit
04:36 all five of these golf balls and we'll walk up and find out how far they've gone and where they are
05:01 okay so five shots hit some good strikes some bad strikes be interesting to see where they've
05:06 finished okay so some quite interesting findings that as I mentioned on the tee
05:12 um some different strikes so I hit one that was right out the bottom I hit one that was out of
05:16 the toe and then the others I hit pretty well and the difference between my longest and my shortest
05:20 shot was only around about 18 yards so my longest shot is up here hopefully you can see that on the
05:27 fairway out there that leaves around about 50 yards into the green there's one in the left hand
05:30 semi and then if I swing around here you'll see my Canon Muzza gives a wave um one two and then
05:37 one in the right hand semi as well so not a huge difference in terms of distance I'd say the average
05:44 distance that I hit those is about 270 so that would correlate with what I found while I was
05:48 testing it out on the golf course um it's pretty good distance I would say in these conditions you
05:53 know if I was hitting it in the middle of summer it was bone dry I'd expect him to know these shots
05:57 to be another 15 or so yards up the fairway so all in all I'm really quite impressed because as I
06:03 said I hit those shots in a variety of locations around the face and as you can see they've all
06:09 done fairly well okay so I have tested these two drivers up against each other on a Trackman launch
06:15 monitor at King's Golf Studio using Titleist Pro V1X golf balls and here is the data it's quite
06:21 interesting so firstly to speak about the TaylorMade Stealth Plus really pleased with the performance
06:27 of this I was really well fitted for it and you and I can see it in the numbers it performs really
06:31 well for me in particular when you put these two drivers against each other I think the big
06:35 difference for me looking at the data is the ball speed and not only the ball speed but also the
06:42 head speed so that the Stealth Plus was moving a little bit faster through the air which I think
06:46 speaks to the work that TaylorMade had done on the inertia generator on the back of the head
06:51 and it delivered more ball speed and because the spin was under control because of the really good
06:55 fitting and because the head that I was fitted into that delivered me fantastic distance and
07:00 sort of consistency of distance as well was very good but the PHE wasn't too far behind yes I was
07:06 giving up a little bit of distance but as I said out on the golf course that distance didn't really
07:11 seem to sort of cost me too much I felt like I was in good control of this driver and it is
07:15 important to note that this isn't their premium tour play driver that's the 0811 so I think for
07:22 the money the difference in price between these two drivers the TaylorMade Stealth Plus coming in
07:26 at just under 500 pounds the 0211 from PHG coming in at just under 300 pounds there's not a massive
07:35 golf in terms of performance for me yes if I was picking purely on performance I would go with the
07:39 TaylorMade Stealth Plus but the PHG 0211 I think when you look at the data and at the performance
07:45 I was able to get on the golf course I think it says there's a reasonable amount of performance
07:48 to be gained from this driver. Okay so there you have it that's my review of the PHG 0211.
08:00 Has anyone watching this video used this driver? Have you bought this driver? If so please do
08:04 leave some comments we'd be really interested to hear what your experiences of it have been because
08:09 for me this is an excellent value for money product one of the best that I've seen in 2022.
08:16 But that's it for now from the London Club thank you very much for watching we will see you next time.