INTRODUCING THE SPEEDER EVOLUTION

Accurate! Straight! A "Easy" Driver!

★ PRGR RS-E Speeder EVOLUTION RS-E Driver 10.5° (SR) ★

What is an "easy" driver?

Today I will be testing out the PRGR RS-E Driver. The "E" in "RS-E" stands for "easy." So what's "easy" about it? I think that what makes a driver "easy" varies from person to person?

The RS-E Series makes use of the GiriGiri enhanced resilience characteristic of the RS Series. Plus it has a center of gravity angle of 34 degrees. Most 460cc drivers don't have an angle of 20 degrees, let alone 34. Its large gravity angle reduces slicing. That means that you can make nice contact with the ball, even if you tend to hit the ball with an open face club. Solid contact with the ball is one of the RS-E's main characteristics.

What I can say at this point is that the RS-E is not easy for anyone struggling with chipping, or looking to reduce hitting shots to the left. If you have a problem with hooking your golf balls, this is not the club for you. This club is made for a specific type of golfer. There is a weight in the heel near the neck in order to increase the center of gravity angle. After all, the RS-E is all about "contact."

Perfectly Straight 

I am already surprised just by setting up for my shot. Many clubs made to promote solid contact tend to have a left-facing hook face when placed, but the RS-E faces perfectly straight! There are probably a lot of people who want a contact club, but find it difficult to set up their shot with the left-facing hook face. The RS-E would be perfect for them, since its face is perfectly straight.

Something else that I noticed when setting up my shot: the crown is slanted. This is part of their W crown design, a staple PRGR technology utilized in the RS Series. It’s a technology that is more forgiving of mishits: “By enhancing the flexibility, we experience significantly less loss in initial velocity, even for a mishit.” The emphasis on “Contact” and “User-Friendliness" are the two main characteristics that make the RS-E series.

"Easy" refers to solid contact and strong against mishits!

The shaft is the PRGR Speeder original. The one I’ll be using today is 45.5 inches and has a loft of 10.5° and an SR shaft. It has the perfect specs for an amateur golfer with a head speed of about 89.4 mph. I’m gonna try to hit the ball with a speed of about that.

The shaft is quite flexible. And that’s a nice sound. When I set up for the shot, I thought the ball would go straight, since the face of the club is straight. But due to the large angle of center of gravity, the ball tends to make impact with a slightly closed face angle. That’s why this ball was a draw instead of going straight like I had originally thought.

This time I hit it with a bit of a cut. You can see that the ball starts off going a bit to the left and then goes straight after that. This makes such great contact with the ball. I’m going to try one more pattern, the push, which tends to send the ball slightly to the right. The push happens when someone hits the ball with an open face even after impact. Alright, let’s give it a shot. Wow, even though the ball did go slightly to the right, it was less of an actual push and more of a half push. Not so much so that the push became a draw, but enough to send a ball that should go to the right much straighter than I expected and make it difficult to accidentally slice the ball. Solid contact and strong against mishits, now that's an "easy" club.

Don't settle on a certain set of specks! Come out try them all out yourself!

The neck is not adjustable. Of course, some people prefer adjustable clubs, but the RS-E is more of a complete piece. For people looking for a release from their driver troubles, this is the club that will single handedly help you improve your swing and reduce mishits. It comes with a loft of either 9.5° or 10.5°, and a M-37 R shaft, a M-40 SR shaft, or a M-43 S shaft.

The most important thing is to try hitting yourself. Try out the different lofts with the different shafts and choose what fits best with your swing. If you’re lost, try just going for it and buying two clubs. You can always sell the one you don’t like as much to GOLF Partner! For those of you looking to make solid contact with the ball and reduce slicing, please try out the RS-E Driver!

 

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Mark Kanai (Golf Club Analyst)
Mark Kanai was born on September 16, 1958, in Osaka. He is 6 feet tall and has A blood type. After working as an editor for a golf magazine, he switched to freelance. He has tested over 5,000 golf clubs. With his expertise and as a single digit handicapper, his golf club trials and reports are published both in magazines and online.