8 Things You Need To Know About the New Sub 70 859 Drivers

There’s a reason Jason Hiland has an extra spring in his step this holiday season.

Hiland, you see, is the owner-operator of Sub 70 Golf in Sycamore, Ill., and his company has just released a new family of drivers. That, in and of itself, isn’t what’s putting some slide into Hiland’s glide. It’s the fact the new Sub 70 859, 859 Pro and 859 JD drivers have something no Sub 70 driver has ever had before.

A patent.

Well, a patent pending. But it’s still a patent.

“I don’t false-promise stuff to people,” Hiland tells MyGolfSpy. “But this is the biggest leap forward we’ve ever had from one generation of product to the next.”

There’s a lot to know about the new Sub 70 859 drivers so let’s dive right into the deep end of the pool and discuss the eight things that will matter most to you.

#1: The Sub 70 859 drivers are a Renegar-Hiland production

Hiland brought in a ringer to help design the new Sub 70 859 drivers: a ringer named Renegar.

Bob Renegar may not be a household name in golf today, but he does have some serious street cred. In the ’80s and ’90s, Renegar was director of R&D for the Arnold Palmer and Ben Hogan companies and later founded the Solus and Renegar wedge companies. He developed and patented something we take for granted today: a high-bounce wedge with a low leading edge.

Hiland had already started working on the new Sub 70 859 drivers but soon found himself stuck. He previously collaborated with Renegar on the 699 V2 irons and reached out for help.

“Jason is kind of the king of outside-the-box thinking,” says Renegar. “He said he needed something to replace the 849 driver and asked if I had any ideas.”

They started work on the 859 series during the summer of 2021. By the third iteration, both men realized they might be on to something.

#2: That something is the patent-pending ART face

ART stands for Axis of Rotation Technology and is the basis for Sub 70’s utility patent application. According to Renegar, it’s a new way of looking at – and solving – an old problem.

“Current design theory is the clubhead is a free body at impact,” explains Renegar. “Drivers are designed around the belief that if you hit it towards the toe, the clubhead rotates open. If you hit it towards the heel, it rotates closed.

“The fact is the clubhead is rigidly attached to the shaft. It doesn’t rotate as a free body; it only turns on one axis and that’s the shaft centerline.”

Renegar chose to maximize the moment of inertia by distributing weight around this new idea of club rotation – low heel and high toe – and then redesigned face curvature to match. That puts a new spin, so to speak, on bulge and roll.

“Face curvature is low-heel to high-toe because that’s perpendicular to the way the clubhead actually turns. All you have to do is make the gear effect correction in that one direction.”

If you look closely, the ART face on the new Sub 70 859 drivers does look different. It’s CNC milled from forged beta-titanium and features variable face thickness. It is not, however, AI-designed.

“It’s good old-fashioned human intelligence,” says Hiland. “It’s Bob Renegar’s brain.”

#3: It’s about accuracy and a little ball speed

As any golfer knows, the USGA and R&A limit driver ball speed and OEMs are at about that limit.

“When you hit our new driver in the middle with a 105 mph swing speed, we’ll get one more mile-per-hour ball speed over the 849,” explains Hiland. “We’re happy with that but it’s three yards.”

All OEMs know they’re maxed out in the middle so the new Holy Grail is minimizing ball speed loss on off-center hits. That’s the whole point behind AI-designed variable-face thickness. Renegar and Hiland believe they’ve created a different way of achieving that same thing.

“It’s different enough to apply for the patent,” says Hiland. “We do know, from good players playing it, mediocre players playing it, bad players playing it and robots testing it, that it works.”

Specifically, if you were to hit a driver toward the heel, you can expect to lose a lot of ball speed while imparting a ton of spin. If you’re lucky, it’ll only fade. If not, it’s a hellacious slice. Hit that driver toward the toe and you’re trending toward a low-spinning snap hook. The new Sub 70 859 drivers minimize the right or left miss while also minimizing ball speed loss.

“A heel shot won’t spin as much,” says Hiland. “It reduces spin and the amount of curvature and ball speed is very close to a center hit. It’s still going to go right, just not as much. Since it has more ball speed, it’ll go a little farther.”

It’s the same with a toe shot that snaps left (for the righty) with low spin and you’re yelling at it to get down.

“The spin rate goes up so it stays in the air longer and it doesn’t snap as hard. It has a little softer draw.”

#4: Does it work? So far …

My thought process off the tee is that since I paid for the entire clubface, by golly, I’m going to use the entire clubface. (It evens out wear over time.) My experience with the standard Sub 70 859 driver (there are Pro and Pro-JD models which we’ll discuss later) lends some credence to Hiland’s and Renegar’s claims.

Launch monitor numbers show lower spin and more playable flight, especially on hits toward the heel. Usually, that’s a recipe for an “uncontrollable fade” for me. With the Sub 70 859 driver, I noticed lower spin overall and lower fade spin. On the course, I noticed that on three separate holes where, based on how the impact felt, I just knew I’d be in the trees on the right. In each instance, however, the ball landed on the right side of the fairway or in the right rough. They weren’t bombs, mind you, but I did get some distance. Most importantly, I could find them and hit them again.

I had similar results on toe strikes. I can snap-hook anything and I did a few times with the Sub 70 859. However, slight toe hits that might have wound up in trouble on the left did remain in play.  All in all, I didn’t notice massive distance gains but less-than-ideal shots were in play and seemingly a little longer.

MyGolfSpy’s 2025 driver test will be able to provide a more in-depth and #datacratic evaluation. Based on a launch monitor session and two late-season rounds, the results, while not conclusive, are promising.

#5: Sub 70 659 drivers ain’t magic but the tech appears useful

“You can still mishit this thing with a really bad swing, don’t get me wrong,” says Hiland. “But if you’re missing the sweet spot by three-quarters of an inch, that’s where the mishit won’t be nearly as punishing. That’s what this tech does for you.”

As mentioned, this is Sub 70’s first patent pending and the company fully expects the application to be approved in due course. It’s important to understand, however, that Sub 70 hasn’t reinvented the driver. It has simply developed its own technology to achieve a certain goal. It’s Sub 70’s way of saying, “We want this to happen and this is our unique way of doing it.”

“This was three-plus years of work,” says Hiland. “We didn’t rush it because we knew it had to look right, sound right and perform right and we didn’t want people to set it down, look at it and go, ‘Oh, shit.’ We want people to go, ‘Oh, shiiit.’

“You want the right kind of ‘Oh, shit.’”

There are also carbon fiber sole panels to aid performance. The standard 859 has a sole panel on the toe to make it easier to close the face. The 859 Pro and 859 JD have panels on the heel to keep the face open for a fade bias. The standard 859 also has what Renegar calls “Aerodynamic Fences” on the crown, a Sub 70 take on PING Turbulators.

“My degree is in aerospace,” Reneger says. “It’s nibbling at the edges but if it provides one or two more miles per hour swing speed, it’s worth the trouble.”

The 859 Pro and JD models do not have Aerodynamic Fences. Presumably, players who fit into those drivers don’t need the extra help.

#6: It puts Sub 70 in the driver technology conversation

If I’ve learned anything in my years of writing for MyGolfSpy, it’s that golfers do not want a $399 driver. What they really want is a $600 driver to cost $399.

Direct-to-consumer companies have traditionally been able to compete with the big OEMs in irons and wedges. From a technology perspective, drivers were a bridge too far. Sub 70 believes ART and the new 859 driver series change that equation.

If this driver had a Big Five OEM name on it, they’d be charging 600 bucks for it.

“That would simply be the retail cost of the driver,” explains Hiland. “The retailer has to make a couple hundred bucks themselves. If we were in the traditional game, this would have to retail for $600 for both us and the retailer to make a reasonable profit.”

Therein lies the appeal of direct-to-consumer. There’s no extra step involved before it gets to the end user.

“I’m not sure where everyone else will be next year but we’ll be at least $200 less expensive,” Hiland says. “We make the same margin but are you getting as good of a shaft? Do you want it 44-¾ inches, swing-weighted to a D3 with a midsize grip and two-and-a-half wraps under it? That’s what we do.”

Sub 70, like the other DTC companies, has made nice little drivers that you could play good golf with and weren’t that expensive. What Sub 70 has now is a driver technology platform it can build on for several generations. It’s more expensive than past Sub 70 drivers but Hiland says it is what it is.

“I wanted to make a great driver, to hell with the cost. We’re a direct-to-consumer company but we’re trying to make the best equipment in the world.”

#8: Excited? You better believe it

I’ve spoken with Jason Hiland enough times in my career to notice a difference in his voice. He’s always excited about his new products but this time it’s different. You can hear it.

“Can you imagine how cool it is to get a call from Tommy Armour III, John Daly or Tag Ridings and hear them say, ‘Jesus, Jason, this thing is fantastic. I’m not sending it back.’”

Hiland says that what’s even more gratifying is the feedback he’s been getting from regular golfers.

“It’s that call from a mid-handicapper trying to control his fade/slice telling you he’s cut his fade in half; it’s staying in the fairway and it’s longer because it’s not spinning as much. One guy said, ‘What the hell did you do to this thing?’

“That’s pretty cool, too.”

More than anything, however, Sub 70 believes its new 859 drivers put it in the driver conversation with the large OEMs for the first time. It’s not in a price-locked DTC box anymore.

“There’s more than one way to do this,” says Hiland. “Callaway, TaylorMade, Titleist, PING and the others, their drivers have never been better. Golf equipment in general has never been better.

“We just feel at this point we can honestly say that we are in the conversation and will be from this point forward.”

Sub 70 859 drivers: Specs, price, availability

The new Sub 70 859 drivers are all available on the Sub 70 website. As mentioned, there are three models.

The standard Sub 70 859 is 460cc and is available in 9-, 10.5 and 12.5-degree models for lefties and righties. The hosel is adjustable up or down two degrees. It features a 12-gram heel weight and a 6-gram toe weight, with extra weights available for purchase. A real deal Project X Denali Blue 50 shaft is standard, along with the Lamkin Crossline 360 grip.

The Sub 70 859 Pro is 450cc and is more fade-biased. It’s available in 9- and 10.5-degree lofts in right-handed only. The Denali Blue 60 shaft and Lamkin Crossline 360 grip are standard.

There’s also a special edition Sub 70 859 JD driver available, made in conjunction with and specifically for John Daly.

“There’s going to be a cult following for this one,” says Hiland. “If you’re looking for a really low-spin driver and have some swing speed, the JD setup could be good for you.”

The 859 JD comes in one 8-degree loft (adjustable) and in right-handed only. The Denali Blue 60 and Black 60 are stock shafts with the Lamkin Crossline the stock grip.

As always, Sub 70 offers a variety of no-upcharge and upcharge shaft and grip options. The standard and Pro Sub 70 848 drivers sell for $399. The JD model sells for $449.

For more information, visit www.golfsub70.com.

The post 8 Things You Need To Know About the New Sub 70 859 Drivers appeared first on MyGolfSpy.