2026 bag finalised.
View attachment 1520231
Cobra DS Adapt X 9° - Fujikura Pro-60S
Cobra King Tec MD 13.5° - Denali Black Frost 70S
Cobra OPTM X 7W - Fujikura Pro-70S
Cobra King Tour 4-PW - KBS Tour 120 stiff
Cobra King Wedges - 50.8V, 54.12D, 58.7T - DG Spinner
Odyssey S2S AI-Dual Max - 2.0 reverse taper forward press grip.
Come on, we knew this was a load of rubbish, I tweak too much to stick with things for too long.
It is in the woods department I have made some changes. Initially it was just going to be the mini driver I changed, I enjoyed it a lot, easy enough to hit consistently, good feel, good sound, but it went too long to be useful as a 2nd tee club. It was far too close to the length of my driver so on the holes where I needed a shorter option or to find a fairway, it couldn't really serve that purpose. So I replaced it with a TaylorMade QI35 3/4 wood (3HL is the official designation but to all intent and purpose it's a 4 wood), 16.5 degree, Ventus blue, and it does everything I expect a wood in that slot to do, it's measurably shorter than the driver, more controllable than the mini so it serves the purpose of a 2nd tee club, with the benefit of it launching extremely well off the turf as well.
In fact, it felt so good I decided to add a QI35 3 Hybrid to bridge the gap to the 7 wood, Ventus blue again, absolute rocket ship, super versatile and unlike hybrids that I have tried to use in the past, it doesn't feel like it wants to go left on me. I can hit it high, low, out of the rough, off the tee, it's brilliant.
That then got me thinking about how good that and the 4 wood feel, and how I was struggling to fall in love with the OPTM X 7 wood. Everyone on the internet and the few people I play golf with had been raving about 7 woods, so I bought the OPTM on a whim and whilst it is, fine, I didn't get the hype around the 7 wood thing. Then I hit the QI35 7 wood and immediately traded the OPTM, the QI35 showed me the way, showed me what a 7 wood should do and how easy they should be to hit. I know some of it probably shaft related, my OPTM 7 had the same shaft as my driver, Fujikura Pro black, just the 70g version, and it was probably not the right shaft, low launch, low spin, quite stout. The QI35 I chose the Mitsubishi Kai-li blue, I could have gone Ventus blue to match the other woods but I know the profile of the Kai-li blue suits higher launching woods, like the 7, and I was right. Now I get it with regards the 7 wood 'thing', it launches high, it goes straight and it hits the yardage I want every, single, time. I removed the 4 iron after this, I had only kept the 4 iron in alongside the OPTM 7W because the OPTM wasn't consistent enough to take the 4 iron out completely.
After all this over the course of a few weeks, enjoying the immensely powerful, solid feel of these woods, it was only natural I would start questioning the driver. The DS-Adapt X hadn't been doing much wrong, but it hadn't been perfect. On a good day it would be solid, but anything less than that and the spinny nature of the head and the low launch/low spin shaft would clash hard and make it difficult to keep it in play. This led me to source a QI35 core model with a Ventus blue shaft, from the pro shop at The Old Course in St. Andrews no less, an ex hire club used for 2 rounds, sold at a big enough discount that the sale of my Cobra driver covered it easily.
I have had it in the bag for one round, and it is superb, honeymoon period I know, but I hit my longest drive of the season on the 13th hole of Dunston Hall, where my and my brother-in-law had just discussed the distances to the various bunkers, with the greenside bunker at 290y (300y adjusted) being out of range so green light to go, he hit it 280y dead straight and well short (he has much higher club head speed than me), I then hit a peach straight off the screws and was resting on the edge of said greenside bunker. Then proceeded to hit a 270y fade into wind on the par 5 15th and another 280y bomb down the par 5 17th.
Even with a few errant tee shots on the front 9 with it (longer shaft than I am used too with a standard grip rather than my preferred jumbo) it outperformed my last 5 rounds with the Cobra DS-Adapt driver. Once I have it shortened to my preferred length and chuck a jumbo grip on, this could be a driver that actually lasts longer than 7 months in the bag.
Irons are going nowhere, the improvement the King Tours have given me on my approach game is, almost, the sole reason for my handicap plummeting from 19 to 14, now with more confidence at the top of the bag, I'm hoping I can now get down to 10 before season end, which in the UK really is end of October. I will still play in the winter but my course plays a good 700 yards shorter off the winter tees.
