EQUIPMENT REVIEW
Adams Golf Insight BUL and KZG Gemini II drivers: A pair of straight-shooters
By Kiel Christianson,
Senior Writer
More and more golf club manufacturers are focusing on designing drivers that will compensate for miss-hits and unintentional sidespin. Two new drivers on the market, Adams Golf's Insight BUL, and KZG's Gemini II, are examples of very different, but effective, approaches to increased accuracy.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The USGA and R&A have set limits on driver club head size and the so-called spring-like or trampoline effect of the clubface. The result is a limit on the ultimate distance any driver can achieve, both due to these restrictions and to the laws of physics.
The next technological frontier: control and accuracy. The straight-down-the-middle effect.
More and more golf club manufacturers are focusing on designing drivers that will compensate for miss-hits and unintentional sidespin..
Two new drivers on the market, Adams Golf's Insight BUL, and KZG's Gemini II, are examples of very different approaches to increased accuracy.
Despite the differences in the design of these big sticks, they both produce the same result: a remarkable increase in fairways hit.
Adams Insight BUL 5000
When the size of drivers jumped into the 400cc-plus range, driving distances also jumped, even for amateurs. However, for many of those amateurs, longer also meant wilder. You see, with larger clubfaces, off-center hits became more extreme, and with off-center contact came considerable twisting of the club head upon impact. So even if the club was delivered squarely to the ball, this twisting - or torque - sent balls into the rough (or woods).
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To address this problem, engineers increased the moment of inertia, or MOI, of driver club heads. The MOI is simply the driver's resistance to twisting on off-center hits, and even this once arcane specification has now been limited to 5,900 g-cm squared, with a tolerance of plus or minus 100 g-cm squared, and club manufacturers are falling all over themselves to design drivers with the highest possible MOI without going over the limit.
Adams Golf is a major player in the MOI game, thanks to its Insight BUL 5000 driver (MSRP $399). As the name suggests, the MOI for this 460cc beast is touted as over 5000 g-cm-squared. This impressive stability is achieved with a somewhat shallower, deeper, slightly "squashed"-looking club head with interior perimeter weighting. All of this moves weight lower and farther back from the titanium clubface, without extreme geometrical manipulations.
In other words, as far as high-MOI drivers go, the Insight BUL 5000 looks pretty traditional at set-up.
In our testing, the Insight (9.5 degrees, Aldila G65 S-flex shaft) performed admirably, especially with respect to accuracy. In two rounds on the course and several trips to the range, the Adams delivered consistently straight drives, and even when a ball went awry (as my shots are wont to do at times), they seemed to stray less offline than with some other drivers.
With respect to distance, the Insight was consistent as well. It is not the longest of the new breed of high-MOI drivers we have tested - approximately 5-10 yards shorter than the longest of the long. However, given the choice between 280-yards in the center of the fairway (as was my very first drive with this club), and 285-yards in the left rough, well, you can guess which most golfers would pick.
KZG Gemini II
KZ Golf, or KZG, is one of those small, high-quality equipment manufacturers that are usually completely ignored in the over-hyped equipment tests of the major print magazines. So earlier this year when the independent Golf Test USA released the results of its 2007 driver test, and KZG's Gemini II came out on top of the accuracy category and tied for best overall, some people were surprised.
The folks at KZG or the hundreds of club fitters across North America were not surprised. Interestingly, KZG ships only custom-built clubs, producing individual clubs or entire sets strictly to each golfer's specs. The driver that did so well in the Golf Test USA testing wasn't even custom-fit - it was a "stock" club.
Also interestingly, the Gemini II (MSRP $349) achieves its accuracy not via high MOI or altered geometry, but rather with the company's unique "dual-face" technology. This patent-pending design consists of a rigid outer face that is anchored to a thinner, springier contoured inner face. The USGA originally ruled the design non-conforming because they felt it would increase spring-like effect too much. When KZG demonstrated that it was intended to help accuracy rather than distance, it was allowed.
The result is both power and control. Similarly to the Adams Insight, the Gemini II (10.5 degrees, NovaTech 6000 S-flex shaft) was noticeably more consistent than many other somewhat longer drivers, both on the range and on the course. And like the Adams club, this accuracy was tempered by a minor 5-10 yard decrease in distance.
Dave Huber, head professional at Lake of the Woods Golf Course in Mahomet, Ill., was impressed not only by the control of the Gemini II, but also of its set-up and appearance. "Wow," remarked Huber, "this looks about as traditional as a 460cc driver can look."
After hitting the Gemini II, Huber was also impressed by the understated sound at impact and penetrating ball flight. "It doesn't balloon up like some of the new drivers," he commented.
The verdict on the Adams Insight BUL 5000 and the KZG Gemini II
Distance is both the Holy Grail and the sacred cow of driver design. But as all drivers get longer and longer, the emphasis may well shift from sheer length to accuracy. These two drivers sacrifice a very small bit of distance for significantly more control.
Golfers who are willing to check their egos at the door in exchange for a few more approaches from the fairway each round should take these straight shooters out to the firing range for some target practice.
For more information, visit www.adamsgolf.com or www.kzgolf.com.
October 8, 2007
Any opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the management.
