What's the difference between a $50 driver and a $350 driver?

Question

both of them hit the same

Answer 1

$300.

Answer 2

$300...golf companies spend millions of dollars trying to convince u that the new stuff is the latest and greatest. the newest technology...

now there are some differences...but if u have a good swing it won't matter much.

i play a 8 yr old Callaway Hawkeye VFT and hit it just as long as straight as my new TaylorMade R510. but like someone else mentioned, the bigger clubheads are more forgiving. if you're swing isn't repeatable/consistent then it doesn't matter which club is in your hands.

Answer 3

$300 left over for green fees, beers, and a trip to the strip club afterwards

Answer 4

I've hit both. And the $350 driver is much more forgiving. It can help improve your game. For me... I'm not all that good, so it can be hard for me to find the sweet spot on my driver (its a cheap, no name, $20 driver) i can hit a good one say 1 out of 5. With a real good driver it ups the ratio to say 1 out of 3 or 4.

Plus they got a nice "ping" sound when you hit em.

Honestly, if i was rich then yeah... i'd go with the $350 driver all day. But for a weekend player like myself... it isn't worth it.

Answer 5

Materials, shaft, workmanship, and brand will all impact price.

The $50 driver may work great, but I wouldn't have any expectations on quality of materials (shaft, clubhead), workmanship, and workability of the club.  Ultimately...you get what you pay for.  Odds are when that $50 driver falls apart you're pretty much out of luck, whereas your 'name' brands will have some kind of warranty.

Answer 6

If you play a lot, there's a big difference. Obviously the money ($300) first off, but when it comes to driving the ball, the more costly driver will be less costly to your game. The cheaper one will not be as forgiving and not help you get the most out of your drive. I was using an older smaller size cheapo and kept slicing and then decided to get a 460CC 10.5 degree Callaway Mens X driver and my drives are so much improved because I switched. I got it for $139 instead of the retail $299 and it's the best money I've spent on equipment to date. It's way more forgiving and shaved several strokes off my game immediately. Some people can hit cheap stuff as well as expensive stuff and be fine with either. Some people can't. It depends on how fat your wallet or budget is and how well your fundamental driving ability is.

Hope this (not very technical answer) helps.

Answer 7

A $50 driver will usually be a generic brand or knock off. If you are not an experienced golfer it  wouldn't be a bad choice and you would save a lot of money. The differences are the way they are built and how they are designed to perform. There are many different sizes and it all depends on what you like. I personally have a $100 Callaway Big Bertha and love it. It is no worse than one of those $300 Sasquatches that Tiger uses in my opinion.

Answer 8

It depends.  If it's a $50 Wal-Mart special driver vs. a $350 Titleist or Ping driver (or any pro-line company), there's quite a bit of difference.  If it's an older model Titleist selling for $50 vs. a newer model selling for $350, there's still plenty of difference.  

Wal-Mart special vs. Pro-line companies:  The clubs you get at Wal-Mart or anywhere of the like uses worse quality metals in the head, worse quality graphite in the shaft, and overall is just junk.  That's why it's sold in Wal-Mart and costs $50.  Pro-line companies have better technology, better weighting, better shafts, better metals ... just about better everything.  Granted, if you cannot find the middle of the club face anyways, this doesn't really make a difference, except to your ego and wallet.  

Older model pro-line stuff vs. newer models of pro-line stuff is a separate issue.  Newer models USUALLY means a bigger head, larger sweet spot, more forgiveness, and possibly better technology to help distance (depending how old the older model is).  Now that heads cannot get any bigger than 460cc's, there's really no change from year to year, but the companies will have fun trying to convince you there is.

Answer 9

Last year I used the cheap one that came with the set of clubs I got from d**k's. I sliced almost every shot I took. Over the winter I found a Taylormade r7 on sale and while I still have a few bad hits, my drives have been longer and I've been hitting alot more fairways. It could just be that my game is improving but I think the club is helping.