In my opinion the cobra f9 was the best driver this year i went as far as saying it was the driver to beat in 2019. And i've had it in the back the whole year well cobra are bringing out a new driver the s z. And this is my full review. So before we get excited about the new s z driver i want to talk about why i felt like the f9 was. So popular and why i used it all year for me the performance was fantastic the numbers i got from that driver was superb not only that it looks mean. And it looks quite different to some of the drivers linkedin that the sound and feel was fantastic it had that slightly deader noise through the carbon. And the price was much cheaper than competitors out there at 350 pounds plus you also get some added tech including the milled face. And the archos in the grip which are massive positives. For the f9 driver so what's new with the s z driver well first off it's called sc instead of f10 which i fully expect it to be called sc stands for speed zone because they've designed it all about gaining club head speed and there's two models this year there's the standard model which has two weights which are flippable around very similar to the f9. And that's pretty much the direct replacement and there's the s z extreme which has one weight more position back in the head to offer more forgiveness now i'm going to get to a point straight away which i think is very important the sc is the same price as the f9 when it first came out. So it's 350 pounds or 449 dollars in the us which is a massive bonus. For cobra because they could have really hiked up the price this year considering the success of the f9 it comes in two color ways the black and yellow with the kind of glossy top and the black and white with the more matted top which is actually my personal favorite the matic one now in this review i'm gonna be focusing my attention on the s z to the standard model because. For me that's the one that's gonna be most popular and the one that has the best direct comparison to the f9 driver so before taking on the golf course and also more importantly before comparing it to my f9 driver on gc quad let's talk about what's new a little bit more because as i mentioned sc is all about speed speed zone well the first thing they've changed is the face they've elongated this milling of the face. So it's 95 percent more machine milled and also that's to help with aerodynamics it's also built with more carbon so it's got 10 percent more carbon the f9 driver so all in all the big story with this driver is club head speed it's designed. For more aerodynamic flow to help you hit the ball further by adding more speed well i tested it to see if that's the case does it pick up more speed than my f9 driver you're going to find out in this video. But before that i took it to the golf course to give it a test so i'm here i'm excited about hitting these drivers out on the course. But before i do i want to hit some warm-up shots here on the range. So i'm fully prepared to test these bad boys [Music] okay i'm loosened up i've not hit driver. Yet i'm saving that for the course let's get out there and see what it can do [Music] [Music]. So the cobra s z driver how did i find it out on the golf course well. For me i thought it was a fantastic driver i loved the shape of the sc i actually really grew fond of the overlapping milled face around the toe. And the top of the golf club i didn't like it at first but it grown me sound wise it's very similar to what i've become accustomed to with the f9 and performance wise i like this driver off the tee i didn't have any hard evidence yet until i tested on gc quad which will come in this video. But for me the flight was exactly what i'd like to see from a driver it was up in the air it was long distances i felt like i could shape it when i needed to which is a bonus i could draw it fade it. And sometimes hit it straight as i could and also the sound of the driver was very familiar to the f9 that slightly more carbon maybe in the head maybe sound a little bit more dead. But all in all it was a very familiar sound i liked it performance-wise out on the golf course now something i also wanted to experiment with is the archos the cobra connect the device that sits in the end of the grip that helps you track data out in the golf course. And for me as a coach i think it's. So important to track data and i'll be honest on my hands up i completely neglected it when it comes to let's say the f9 so i gave it a shot i connected it to my phone and i tested it out in the golf course hitting some shots the only thing i don't like is you have to have your phone in your pocket now i have a normal standard iphone. And it felt big in my pocket i don't particularly like having it in my pocket if i ever did play with it i'd have it in my back pocket. But it suggests it's got to go in one of your front pockets kind of puts me off a little bit if you had a bigger phone that'd be even worse but looking past that for a moment the data i got from the shots was actually pretty impressive. So how it works is once you hit a drive the microphone on your phone that's in your pocket knows when you've hit a shot it can hear it then.
It'll put a gps location of where you've hit that shot from quite simply you walk down to your drive you get your phone back out. And then.
You press done and basically the phone will tell you how far you fit it from the location it registered when you hit your t-shirt to now where you finished the more you use that device i reckon it could be very useful to improve your stats. And help you let's say you miss all your shots right or you miss all your shots left whatever it may be you cannot just then.
Start to fix it but let's get to the meat let's find out if the performance of the cobra s z was any better than the f9. So i went up to quest golf academy with gc quad pro v1s i had three heads the f9 the sc and the sc extreme all in nine degrees of loft all in exactly the same shaft so i know the numbers let's start off with my f9 first as a baseline level to know what basically these two have to be so distances with the f9 was exactly where i like to see him 288 yards of carry distance. For 312 yards a total distance the spin rate was just over 2 000. And the ball speed was 161.3 miles per hour perfect that's why that drive has been in the bag all year now club head speed with this because it's key to note certainly when i compare it with the sc club head speed was clocking in at 113.9 miles per hour. So remember that number so now is the moment of truth did the s z the new model from cobra outperform the f9 that's been in my bag all year let's have a look at some numbers let's look at distance first well the distance was exactly the same carry distance 288 yards it gave me 310 yards of total distance the spin was very similar to the f9. And the ball speed was almost exactly the same at 161 miles per hour did the club head speed change because that's what the claiming should have changed with the new aerodynamic shaping i was getting 113.9 with the f9. And with the sc i picked up a grand total of 0.4 miles per hour the sc gave me 114.3 miles per hour almost nothing i mean the tiniest tiniest change that is not a lot at all if i'm honest. And i also tested the sc extreme now this particular head has a centre of gravity it's much further back it's much more suited for higher handicappers who want more forgiveness as opposed to out and out distance and that's pretty much what i saw it didn't go quite as far and it spun up a little bit more be honest it did go fairly straight. And it was easier to hit. But comparing f9 to s z it was next.
To no difference. So as a summary if you currently use the cobra f9 driver the sc is categorically not worth upgrading to. And i for one will not be moving into the sc driver over the f9 having said that the sc is a fantastic driver as is the f9. And that's why i think the sc is gonna be the driver to beat in 2020. we'll see you next.
Time.
