Taking It To The Limit

Taylormade’s M5 and M6 Drivers are Hotter than Thought Possible

When driver faces first started getting too hot under the collar, the powers that be deemed it time to reign in how far golfers were hitting the ball, introducing a limit on the springiness of driver faces some two decades ago. Any face that had a COR or coefficient of restitution beyond .830 was deemed illegal for competitive play.

And even as club manufacturers toed the COR line, no one outside of the factories knew how close to the limit drivers were. Since it was difficult to produce the many thousands of drivers with any degree of consistent precision, engineers worked within a reasonable level of tolerance to ensure that all drivers produced were conforming.

So it wasn’t your imagination if you found one driver to perform better than another, the very reason why there are tour issue driver heads, which are essentially the same heads off the production line but cherry picked for tighter performance tolerances among other considerations, including hotter faces that are closer to the COR limit. And Taylormade says that most retail drivers, up to 70%, fall outside of this hotter performance range reserved for tour players.

Enter Taylormade’s Speed Injected Twist Face. Technology that now guarantees that every face is as hot as possible, within 2-3% of the legal limit. The original Twist Face counteracted the high-toe miss (a hook), by increasing loft and opening the face on the high-toe to help straighten ball flight. Similarly, to counteract the low-heel miss (a slice) the driver face was modified closed to de-loft and close the face in the low heel area.

While the Speed Injected Twist Face retains the earlier technology, the new M5 and M6 drivers have now been designed with a thinner, more flexible face that is initially illegal, before going through a tuning process in which resin is injected to ensure the maximum conforming speed for each head. The injection process uses two new tuning ports on the face of the driver and a proprietary algorithm to ensure the right amount of resin is used to dial in the speed for each driver face.

This thinner and faster face design produces a faster off-center COR, effectively increasing forgiveness with up to a 66% larger sweetspot in the M5 drivers over the M3, and more than 100% larger than the original M1.

Four key features of the Speed Injected Twist Face work in unison to allow every M5 & M6 driver to be precision-tuned to the maximum allowable speed limit.

• An ultra-thin titanium face with redesigned Inverted Cone Technology (ICT)

• A more-flexible Hammerhead 2.0 slot

• Internal support foam with variable amounts of injected resin

• A proprietary algorithm to tune each head

M5 and M5 Tour Drivers

Leading the charge for Taylormade are the M5 and M5 Tour drivers in a new vibrant blood orange color and two-tone composite sole, designed

from the sole up to be the highestperforming drivers in the company’s history. Speed Injected Twist Face aside, additional performance boosting technologies include:

Inverted T-track

In the M5 & M5 Tour drivers, a new Inverted T-track makes personalization more intuitive and simplified with high/low & draw/fade settings, and two 10g movable weights offer heel to toe control as well as front to back CG adjustment. Regardless of weight setting, the lowest possible CG promotes high launch and low spin. Positioning both weights all the way forward maximizes speed with very low spin, and pushing the weights all the way back maximizes MOI and forgiveness. This results in up to one degree of launch angle and 600rpm of spin change, as well as 25 yards of left-to-right adjustability. Additionally, the 2° loft sleeve allows for the adjustment of the loft, lie, and face angles. The M5 driver will be offered in 9°, 10.5° and 12° lofts, and come equipped with a Mitsubishi Kuro Kage TM5 shaft with additional shaft options available at no additional cost. The stock grip is the MCC Decade grip from Golf Pride.

M6 and M6 D-type Drivers

Complementing the M5 driver are the M6 and M6 D-type drivers, as described by Brian Bazzel, Vice President Product Creation, “Injected Twist Face delivers a hot, yet accurate performance package in the new M6 driver. When you add optimised CG and MOI through the use of a full carbon crown and sole, the result is a complete driver that delivers on all fronts.”

Speed Injected Twist Face

Like the M5, each M6 driver head is individually speed tested and injected with tuning resin to optimise COR across the entire face and deliver

maximum ball speed and distance. The face of the M6 driver is also slightly taller by 1mm than the M5.

Aerodynamic Carbon Sole Design with ‘Inertia Generator’

Featuring the same 6-layer carbon composite crown as the M5, the M6 drivers adds a weight saving carbon fibre sole. Engineers were able to create a sleek, aerodynamic shape inclusive of the new ‘inertia generator’ which houses the saved discretionary weight extremely low and back for maximum forgiveness and lowered CG compared to previous models.

The M6 D-type driver is a draw-biased, easy-to-launch package to help the 90% of golfers who slice the ball. The key feature is the optical engineering that makes the face angle appear more open than it actually is, this helps golfers to close the face at impact. The center of gravity is also moved slightly toward the heel to help deliver a square clubface to the golf ball, adding up to 20 yards more draw bias than the standard M6 driver.

The M6 and M6 D-type drivers will be offered in 9°, 10.5° and 12° (RH only) lofts. The stock shaft is the Mitsubishi Kuro Kage in S, SR, and R flexes. The stock men’s grip is the Lamkin Dual Feel grip.

For women, the M6 and M6 D-type drivers will be offered in 10.5° and 12° lofts (RH only) and come equipped with Taylormade’s Tuned Performance 45g L-flex shaft, and the stock grip is the Lamkin Comfort Plus Dual Feel grip.