Two years ago, Titleist launched its GT series of drivers, and the lineup was received extremely well. This year’s GTS drivers take it to another level.
GT exploded on the PGA Tour, it won a bunch of tournaments, and the general sentiment was that Titleist was back to being serious about having a lineup of drivers aimed at the true player. No compromises, no frills, just a great lineup of drivers that, if nothing else, were very, very fast. It seemed like everybody was jumping into the GT family.
That is, except for me.
I never really got along with GT. I had a great fitting at TPI with Hunter, but with no options to bring the weight back in the head on the GT3, and not finding the right feel for the GT2, I was left on an island. It would be obvious to say that the addition of the rear weight in the new GTS3 is what finally sold me back to a Titleist driver, but after testing I actually found out that there’s another hidden feature that could be playing an even bigger role.
Behind the face of the GTS lineup of drivers is a welded ring that Titleist calls their Speed Sync face. This is an evolution of the Speed Ring that was part of the magic behind the success of the GT lineup of drivers.
What they’ve done with Speed Sync, though, is actually opened up the top of the ring to create more of a horseshoe shape. This opening at the top allows the top of the face to continue to flex and promote faster ball speeds in what’s typically one of the slower parts of the face. It also gives the drivers a great deal of spin consistency, which you’ll see reflected in some of the reactions that Titleist Senior Director of Metalwood R&D Stephanie Luttrell and I had in the above video.
Titleist’s Speed Sync Face
Titleist
I tend to live higher on the face with my strike, and it’s something I’ve become accustomed to building my drivers around. Now, when I say “high,” we’re talking a couple of millimeters, but the issue is that as an already low-spin player, going high in the face can sometimes cause a drastic reduction in spin. More so than what you would see with the average player.
I’m already on the edge and going up high in the face, on the wrong driver, can be devastating. And that was the case with the Titleist GT. The GT series had such a forward CG and a lower MOI measurement compared to others that anything that made those attributes stand out more, like hitting high on the face or out towards the toe, was going to hurt my performance potential.
With Speed Sync on the Titleist GTS, that entire issue was thrown out the window. It did still drop spin a touch, but it was actually just a touch. We’re talking maybe 150 rpms of spin, instead of the 200-300 that I was dropping with GT, and the GTS still launched more appropriately with more speed. Having that new horseshoe shape and an open high face created a better environment for my strike and my normal miss.
I’ve had a lot of success with my GTS3 build this year. Hunter, my fitter at TPI, knew exactly what I needed out of the new stick and he was ready to hand me a winner as soon as I parked my car.
We had a blast in the fitting and talking to Steph and the R&D team about everything it took for them to get GTS finally over the finish line was very eye-opening.
It just goes to show that you never really know what’s happening behind closed doors at these companies. It’s like Tony Stark’s dad understanding a new element, and not having the technology to make it happen. It makes you think what else might “exist” right now, and we have no idea.
