Golfing News & Blog Articles
Honma T//World GS Driver – More Speed for Average Golfers
Before we dig into the requisite details of the new Honma T//World GS driver, a quick refresher on the brand couldn’t hurt.
The Beres line is positioned as “super premium.” The focus is on what Honma describes as “legendary craftsmanship and prestige with unparalleled beauty.” Beres models are based on a star system. 2-Star irons start at $350 a stick. 5-Star irons feature real 24k gold accents and inlays and will set you back $4,500. That’s per iron.
Despite the aspirational (or foolish … perspective is everything here) sticker price, Beres is Honma’s best-selling line worldwide.
KABOOM that! PXG got nuthin’ on Honma.
Honma’s T//World line forks two ways. The TR line is designed for competitive and serious golfers. It’s what Justin Rose played until he didn’t. The GS line leans heavily towards the game-improvement crowd.
The “GS” stands for “gain speed,” which speaks to designs intended for moderate swing speed golfers. It’s a specification that’s longer and lighter by design. The idea is to create speed for golfers who struggle to generate it on their own. There’s no shame in that. Let’s have some fun.
The audience for the Honma T//World GS Driver ranges from 8 to 36 handicaps. There’s always a bit of wiggle room in those type of numbers so it’s best to think in terms of application.
For the mid to high end of that range, the Honma T//World GS Driver is about forgiveness. At the lower end, the emphasis on the speed-favoring elements with forgiveness mixed in. T//World TR drivers are also an option for those guys.
In either case, the prevailing theme is a driver that’s designed to go fast and go straight, which is not much of a divergence from the market as a whole, I suppose.
Honma T//World GS Driver – Key Technologies
With that intro out of the way, let’s take a closer look at the key technologies that power the Honma T//World GS driver.
Keel Sole
The Honma T//World GS driver features a Keel Sole. Look at a boat and you’ve got the gist of the shape. The shape allows for optimized placement of the draw-biased weight and helps promote straighter flight.
Flip Slot
Just about everyone who makes a driver has either some form of a slot or technology that replicates function of a slot. With the Honma TR//World GS driver, the catch-all benefit of the Flip Slot is more distance but, as with any other slot-based technology, the fundamentals boil down to maintaining ball speed and reducing spin on low-face impacts.
Radial Face Design
Honma’s take on getting more speed over more of the face boils down to using internal rib structures to keep CT (the USGA’s approximation of real-world speed) high across the face while being efficient with mass. Your benefit here is higher ball speeds though, more accurately, that translates to more consistent ball speed which isn’t the same as totally consistent ball speed.
All but the most extreme areas of the T//World GS Driver face maintain over 90 percent of center CT. That’s awesome but it’s kind of my job to poop the party and point out that CT doesn’t perfectly correlate with distance. Your ball speed (and distance) invariably drop appreciably when impact isn’t aligned with the center of gravity.
Ultra-Thin Variable Crown
This part of the Honma T//World GS story is boilerplate. Engineers invariably strive to save weight in the crown so they can use it somewhere more beneficial. Everybody wants to go as light as they can without having crowns break.
That said, the Honma T//World GS driver crown story isn’t without some interesting footnotes.
Honma says the crown and Flip Slot work in phase to reduce energy loss at impact.
That’s not exactly visible tech but the crown graphics are—insomuch as graphics are technology.
The “your mileage may vary” portion of our story is that the heel-notch design in the trailing-edge graphics works with the primary crown graphic to encourage squaring the face with a path that’s in-to-out or at least square-to-out.
Non-rotating Adjustable Hosel
As with other Honma drivers, the T//World GS offers a non-rotating adjustable hosel. The system isn’t nearly as intuitive as others but the benefit is that it keeps the shaft in consistent alignment regardless of your loft/face angle setting.
Honma T//World GS Driver – More of the good stuff for golfers who need it
To summarize: the Honma T//World GS Driver is all about more, more, more and more. More speed, more forgiveness, more visible technology and more fitting options.
That last one speaks to adjustability paired with shaft options. Honma believes its house-brand Vizard shaft line is as good as anything in the game. True or not, it does carry the perception of being limited because I believe North American golfers aren’t nearly as familiar with the lineup as they are with Fujikura, Project X, Mitsubishi, etc.
Honma T//World GS Driver Stock Options
The Honma T//World GS driver is available in 9 , 10 and 11.5 degrees.
Stock shaft offerings include the lightweight (and more affordable) SPEEDTUNED line in 42 and 55 grams. The more premium Japan-made Vizard FD and FP lines are available in weights ranging from 39 to 70 grams.
The stock grip is a Golf Pride Tour Velvet.
As Honma makes yet another effort to assimilate with the North American market, it has priced the T//World GS more in line with the rest of the market.
Prices start at $499 with the SPEEDTUNED shaft. Your cost rises to $599 when outfitted with the VIZARD shaft line. A women’s version is available, as is red version. Distribution of the latter is currently limited to Asia.
The Honma T/World GS driver is available now.
For more information, visit the Honma Golf website.
The post Honma T//World GS Driver – More Speed for Average Golfers appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
