GOLF AUSTRALIA Clubs Road Test
KING COBRA SPEED PRO

MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED:
King Cobra Speed Pro D X/9.5° driver fitted with an Aldila VS Proto stiff graphite shaft.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
This King Cobra driver has a classic pear-shaped look, which seems to disguise the actual size of the 460cc of clubhead you have in front of you.

I also really liked the contrast between the black clubhead and the silver clubface, which makes it easy to align the club square to the target. Aligning the clubhead square at address wasn’t diffi cult to do anyway as the club was so well-balanced it set itself square every time. Iwas confi dent every time I put this driver on the ground it would set-up square. Actually I was surprised to learn the clubface is designed one degree open as it doesn’t appear that way at address.

VERDICT:
The deep face design of the King Cobra Speed Pro D produces a low- to midtrajectory ball fl ight, which was really helpful given the windy conditions during the road test. Each drive hit into the wind still fl ew a long way, despite the lower trajectory. The wind was blowing between 20 and 25km/h (at least a two club wind) and I was still able to carry drives between 240 and 245 metres.

The penetrating ball fl ight on these drives was incredible as the ball seemed to be unaffected by the wind. Not one drive hit into the headwind ballooned.

In terms of forgiveness, this is one of the best drivers I have ever used. My fi rst few drives failed to fi nd the large sweet spot (they were pretty ordinary swings) but still managed to carry an acceptable distance and were only slightly off line. I hit one drive where the impact was low and near the heel but the ball still carried 220 metres, into the wind, and ran out to 250 metres on the edge of a nicely trimmed Couch grass fairway.

This forgiveness gave me the freedom to simply launch myself at the ball and some of the resulting drives went much further than tee shots I hit with my own driver. In fact, I started to swing so hard at the ball that mis-hits were inevitable and when they did appear, the ball still went a long way without fl ying too wide of the mark. I can only put this down to the fact that the driver mustn’t generate much spin at all. However, you certainly know when you have missed the centre of the clubface with this driver because the sound created by a mis-hit at impact is loud and on the tinny side. That said, the sound the club makes when you stripe one from the middle of the sweet spot is much the same as any titanium driver on the market.

PLAYER RATING
Appearance: Terrific shape: 9/10
Playability: Great ball flight: 9/10
Balance: Really good: 9/10
Feel Outstanding: 9/10
Total: 90%