I walked into the Titleist Performance Institute in Oceanside with a driver I absolutely love. I didn’t want or need anything from the session, which put the pressure squarely on Titleist Master Fitter and dear friend Lucas Bro to find more meat on the bone when I was already completely dialed. My goal wasn’t just chasing raw ball speed; it was about finding pure on-course comfort, stability and a window that allows me to stand on the tee box and just send it with total freedom.
What I walked in with has been well documented. I am playing a TaylorMade Qi4D (9@8.5) that is draw biased, has one miss and provides incredible launch numbers (162 mph, 12 launch, 2,400 RPM spin). I’ve used it in tournaments, drove it better than I have in years and most importantly, I TRUST IT.
At this point in the game, that word trust is huge.
The Fitting
Lucas started by breaking down the serious engineering behind the new GTS line. He showed me the thermoformed body, which is essentially split-mass technology that puts all the weight on the extreme fringes of the head. It gives you six independent center of gravity locations per loft to play with, allowing you to manipulate spin by up to 1,000 RPM.
We started with the GTS4 head with the weight slammed forward to look at the low-spin option. I immediately gravitated toward the look at address, and the ball flight was a piercing bullet. But when Lucas flipped me into GTS2 with the weight all the way to show me the variance, it actually slowed me down. My clubhead speed dropped because I could feel the head trying to square itself up, forcing me to fight my natural release pattern. It’s the perfect example of why getting fit matters.
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From there, we migrated over to the GTS3, and the numbers were staggering. I was seeing ball speeds jump up to 163 and 164 mph, which at 49 years old and in the cool morning climate in Oceanside, Calif., ain’t too shabby. Although I saw some higher ball speeds with the GTS3, my center face contact (i.e., hitting it out of the optimized part of the face) wasn’t there as much as I’d like, and that aspect these days is enough to spin me off.
Honestly from a numbers standpoint, GTS3 was a tick better than GTS4, and what really blew my hair back was the forgiveness on off-center hits. I caught a couple of toe-bangers that usually lose three to five miles an hour and tumble into the abyss — but the GTS face technology held its own. I actually gained ball speed on a high-toe mishit, clocking 162.5 mph because of how they structured the face topology.
There was just something about GTS4
Over the course of the fitting, my feels and, most important, my eye, kept drifting back to the GTS4, and in the end it was the best setup for me. There is something to be said for optics and how they can impact how you react to a club. The GTS4 sits square to my eye, and I feel comfortable drawing it, while the GTS3, although faster overall, has a slightly open look to it in a neutral setting, which for me means I have to work a bit harder to turn it over and keep it from going out to the right. The right miss is the bane of my existence.
To lock in the final build, we played with the SureFit hosel, ultimately taking an 8-degree head and kicking it up to the D3 setting to get 8.75 degrees of loft and an upright lie angle. We also threw a heavier weight into the head because I have a lot of moving parts in my swing and need to feel the club throughout the transition. Getting it to a D4 swing weight helped to ensure my path consistency, which ultimately won the day vs. my gamer.
In the end, this fitting wasn’t about a magical distance explosion; it was a victory of subtleties. The GTS gave me a remarkably consistent peak height and a tighter standard deviation, but, more important, it lowered the physical tax of my swing. This setup requires far less manual manipulation from me to find the fairway.
On the course, that means a bad swing turns into a playable miss instead of a scorecard-killing double bogey. I’ll take it. 10/10 Titleist, no further notes.
Final Numbers:
Swing Speed: 109.2
Speed: 162.8 MPH
Launch: 12.7
Spin: 2,301 RPM
Final Spec:
GTS4 8@8.75 (D3 Surfeit)
45 inches
D4
Fujikura Ventus Black Velo+ 6X (Tipped .5)
Golf Pride Tour Velvet 58R (2 DBL Sides, Logo Down)
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