Square...Drivers

There was talk early in the week about these apparently ugly new square headed drivers tested out by the Callaway players in Europe, and I mistakenly chalked the articles up to scribblers hoping that Larry Dorman would send them a freebie.

But Mark Reason in the Telegraph dug a bit deeper and suggested this:

And it could become even harder for those Europeans to win majors next season if Tiger Woods takes advantage of the new square-headed driver that has been on show in Spain this week. So far the players have been reluctant to use the new driver in actual competition — although Thomas Bjorn employed it in Thursday's round of 78 — but they have no doubt as to its advantages.

They also believe that it might straighten out the one weakness in Tiger's game. After yesterday's round, Nick Dougherty said: "Thank God Tiger's driving like he is or there would be no point in the rest of us turning up. There almost isn't now. But if he starts driving it again like he did in 2000, then we really needn't bother because his iron play and short game is so much better than it was then." Dougherty believes that Woods might well turn to this new technology to minimise his weakness from the tee. He says: "Well, he looks like a traditional guy … but if he's still driving it poorly next year then I would say yeah, we will see him using it at next year's Open." The point of the square-headed driver that has been developed by both Callaway and Nike is that it doesn't twist as much on impact as conventional drivers — the introduction of super-slow-mo having shown, to the surprise of many experts, that a large proportion of crooked shots are the result of the clubhead twisting from the impact of an off-centre hit.