First Look – Titleist 917 Series Drivers

It’s been almost two years since Titleist launched its 915 Series of drivers, which means it’s time for the 917. Score one for predictability.

For its part in spreading the word, Titleist has begun to release teaser shots on Social Media and you can expect more pictures to come flooding out as the Tour Validation stage of the release kicks off this week at the Quicken Loans.

Also worth a mention, the USGA has cleared the new drivers for tournament play, which generally means we’re actually well past any sort of validation phase. Now its about getting the new clubs into tour bags and trying to build a little buzz ahead of retail.

Two Models

The USGA has, thus far, cleared both D2 and D3 heads (no word if other models will follow). If tradition holds, the D2 will be a 460cc head that will offer comparatively higher MOI. The D3 will be somewhere in the 440cc range, and will be billed as more workable for better players. That’s general industry-speak for a more forward center of gravity and a lower MOI.

If the 917 proves similar to the 915, don’t expect a tremendous difference in CG location (or forgiveness for that matter), so the buying decision may likely come down as much to your individual preference for shape as it does any launch monitor numbers.

 CG Adjustability

If you’ve already seen Titleist’s premium market C (concept) 16 driver, you won’t find many surprises here.

The most noteworthy feature of the 917 series is what Titleist is calling SUREFIT CG.

SUREFIT offers a horizontal weight system that runs mostly left to right, and a bit front to back, suggesting it will offer both draw/fade bias and a bit of trajectory and spin control as well. Given the size and placement of the weight, I don’t expect we’re talking about a substantial amount of mass movement, and my early read is that while Titleist is evolving, it appears comfortable existing in the mid to high Center of Gravity and MOI space.

Of course, these are just educated assumptions, and there’s always a chance Titleist could surprise us.

The Need to Compete

By largely standing still for the last year plus, Titleist has slowly fallen behind with respect to its drivers. Consider that when the 915 series launched it was one of the highest MOI offerings on the market. Now several competitors can legitimately claim they have more forgiving models with lower CG. Basically, lots of companies offer lower spin and more distance, and that’s an issue for Titleist (whether it’s willing to acknowledge it or not). In our recent Most Wanted Driver Test, Titleist’s drivers were among the shortest in the field.

On the positive side, the 915 D2 more than held its own under our Strokes Gained formulas. To me that suggests Titleist isn’t far from being back the mix, but we all know golfers seldom (if ever) buy for accuracy.

The bottom line is that the 917 needs to both drop spin compared the 915, and be appreciably longer, otherwise whatever claims Titleist makes about SUREFIT CG adjustability won’t matter to anyone except Titleist loyalists.

That said, we’ve heard from multiple sources that Titleist is excited about its innovation pipeline and believes its new technologies are compelling.

We’re definitely looking forward to hearing the full story.

Retail?

There’s no word on retail timing from Titleist yet, but past releases suggest we’ll see the 917 sometime this fall (give or take September). Titleist was the first to offer multiple legitimate stock shaft offerings for its metalwoods, and we expect that will continue.

While it’s clear that the 917 borrows heavily from the C16, we expect it will be constructed from more traditional (less expensive) materials and will be priced substantially lower. Our best guess is that the 917 will retail for $449.