Submitted by Bill Phillips on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 15:06
In last year’s Rankmark.com testing of drivers, three little companies did very well: Bobby Jones Workshop Edition, Simpac’s S Cube D1, and Tour Edge’s XCG-V. But this year, the story is different. All of the companies that did well were big names. TaylorMade golf clubs’ entry was the Burner driver, and it did very well in many categories.
Here are the categories that the Burner placed will in:
Overall 2nd place
Distance 1st place
Accuracy 1st place
Feel 2nd place
High Handicap 2nd place
Seniors 5th place
Of course I don’t know exactly how they figure out their overall ranking, but I would say that if the Burner took 1st place in distance and accuracy, it would be in first place overall. What is more important in driver performance than distance and accuracy?
Inverted Cone Technology
The Burner takes advantage of TaylorMade’s Inverted Cone Technology. Here’s what TaylorMade says about their ICT: "Characterized by a shallow cone milled directly onto the inner side of the clubface, Inverted Cone Technology changes the way the face behaves at impact so that a larger area of the face delivers higher ball speed." TaylorMade certainly likes the ICT, as they’ve included it in every driver since the R500 series.
Increasing the size of the club face in a big driver is an attempt to make the club more forgiving. But, if proper care is not taken in design, the mis-hits can be extra bad, since you can have mis-hits that are even further from the sweet spot. By placing an inverted cone behind the club face, they can make a larger portion of the club face perform like the sweet spot, which means that the larger club face actually works as it’s intended.
The Burner performed very well in the testing. They were unable to include the r9 in testing, since TaylorMade didn’t release it in time for the test. But the great performance of the Burner makes me think the r9 would do very well also.
