TaylorMade Qi35 drivers: Full reviews, player testing, photos and more
HIGHLIGHTS
Four new models
Jet-inspired design
No more sliding weight Club Comparison
PLAYER TESTING TAKEAWAYS
“Straight, straight, straight. Very consistent and good distance with mishits. Would purchase. Like the look and weight. Maintained distance on heel hits. Dispersion was great. Straightness is greatness. Would buy.” – Greg Caster (15.1-handicap) on the TaylorMade Qi35 driver
“Matte carbon is awesome. Felt easy to hit. Squaring the face was easy. Gave me distance. Pleasant surprise. I liked the loft and overall look and the way it sits on the ground. Doesn’t look as big and really like the matte look” – Joanne Storbeck (32.2-handicap) on the TaylorMade Qi35 Max driver
“Don’t like gray color. Sits nicely at address. Off center hits still good. Lost a bit of distance on mishits. Would consider buying.” – Alain Brunet on the TaylorMade Qi35 Max Lite driver
TaylorMade Qi35 Drivers
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
To nail down the design of the Qi35 drivers, TaylorMade designers started with what’s called a “mood board” of images they wanted to shape the look of the new line. For Qi35, the mood board included an F-22 Fighter Jet, an exotic yacht, a Lamborghini and several examples of “point to” features — that is, graphics that lead viewers’ eyes in an intentional direction.
All of these ideas culminated in specific features of the Qi35 drivers.
One of those key ideas from the mood board was exposing materials to draw the golfer into the product, such as the visible grey Chromium Carbon that TaylorMade is using for the first time in the Infinity Carbon Crown. Steel, aluminum, tungsten and titanium also are all visible throughout the clubhead.
How is a fitting for TaylorMade’s new Qi35 drivers different? We found out
Every driver shaft, when unscrewed from the shaft, will perfectly balance on a singular point on the face, TaylorMade says. That point is known as the center of gravity (CG) projection, or the point the center of gravity points to on the face.
The lower that balance point, the less chance that lower strikes on the face will balloon spin numbers.
Typically, when creating a driver, designers have to choose between pulling the CG toward the back of the head to increase forgiveness and raising CG projection or moving the center of gravity forward to increase speed and lower CG projection.
But thanks to the fourth generation of TaylorMade’s Carbonwood technology and the new chromium carbon crown, the Qi35 drivers have lowered the CG and the CG projection, meaning you can get consistent ball speed and spin numbers from more points on the face. In other words, TaylorMade has built drivers that have CGs pulled back for inertia but also are lower to increase speed.
While there are four different driver models, the “5” in Qi35 is derived from a fifth head option, which is the Qi35 SelectFit heads. These aren’t heads that will be available to consumers, but rather heads for clubfitters that will have reflective markers built into the clubface to allow Foresight GCQuad and Quad Max launch monitors to accurately track the club through the swing.
A staple on every low spin TaylorMade driver since 2014 except for one has been a sliding weight on the sole to move center either left-to-right or front-to-back.
With Qi35 LS, the sliding weight has been replaced by three weight ports in the rear and front-left and front-right of the sole called the Trajectory Adjustment System (TAS).
