Drew Stoltz, the co-host of GOLF’s popular Subpar podcast, is back with a second season of Emergency 9, presented by Cobra. Readers of this space may remember that last year, Stoltz’s Emergency 9 series covered a number of topics, from gear explainers to tips on how to get an edge on your buddies in your next match.
For this season of Emergency 9, Stoltz is kicking things off with a review of Cobra’s OPTM family of drivers.
There are four OPTM driver models to choose from: LS, X, Max-K and Max-D. As a fast player who wants to minimize spin, Stoltz was fit into the OPTM LS.
Cobra OPTM LS Custom Driver
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Shop Cobra’s entire OPTM family of clubs here.
Last year, Stoltz was impressed Cobra’s FutureFit33 technology, which was introduced in Cobra’s DS-APAPT products. FutureFit33, which allows you to adjust the loft and lie of your metals by plus or minus 2 degrees in every direction — enabling 33 total setting options — is also available in the OPTM line. But there’s more! With the OPTM family, Cobra prioritized POI — Product Of Inertia — modeling to re-engineer mass placement and weight positions on the driver heads to reduce the 3D twisting on off-center hits, resulting in tighter dispersion and better accuracy.
“I loved the last line honestly and wasn’t sure I was going to put this in the bag just because I had no complaints about the last one,” Stoltz said. “But I think I get everything I had out of that last driver plus some with this, a little more face stability.”
The OPTM’s game-changing Hot Face technology enabled Stoltz to hit bomb after bomb.
“The forged face insert creates space flex when you hit it, which basically means you get the most pop out of your drive, the most speed that you can possibly get,” Stoltz explained. “Next up, we’ve got an advanced weighting system here. There’s three different places where you can place weight.
“The one on the toe is where I put my heaviest weight,” he continued. “I like everything to go left to right to encourage a fade, so I put the most weight up in the toe. This also helps me get the shot shape that I like.
“No matter what kind of golfer you are, what kind of shot shape you like to hit, there’s a fitting here on the FutureFit33 that will help your game.”
Stoltz worked with Cobra’s Ben Schomin to dial in his specs.
“We went through a number of different settings, a number of different lies, lofts, all the things, till we finally came up with this combination here,” Stoltz said. “The 10.5-degree head moved down almost 1.5 to around 9, and then we’ve also flattened it 1 degree too. So I have a little left-to-right missile-hitter right here.
“I do have to issue a warning before you hit the OPTM driver,” he said. “This does come with highly addictive accuracy and dangerous levels of stability.”
