The driver market in golf is one of the most hotly contested categories in the game. Trying to break into the big leagues and create one of the best golf drivers has to be one of the toughest tasks in golf club manufacturing. The sheer amount of complex R&D and high-tech materials involved are mind-boggling, but one company that is up for the challenge is Tour Edge, and I have been looking at its new E725 driver.
In terms of the technology, this is a driver geared almost entirely towards forgiveness, with features such as a 3D Diamond Face and 360-degree Ridgeback designed to provide optimal feel and maximize ball speed. This is Tour Edge’s highest-ever MOI driver, with the 10,000 g-cm2 reading matching that of drivers such as the Ping G430 Max 10K and the TaylorMade Qi10 Max. It is keeping heady company in that regard so it will be interesting to see if it delivers.
With regards to looks, the Tour Edge Exotics E725 driver is a very premium-looking offering featuring a carbon fiber crown and a banner strip of matte black along the leading edge which offers a nice contrast and I found it very useful for alignment. The head is much more rounded than pear-shaped which is a look I enjoy and the overall playing profile is very strong, there is nothing here to suggest you are dealing with anything less than a premium driver.
My only slight visual gripe is with the loft adapter, which might sound strange but Mizuno is another company guilty of this, where (in my opinion) the adjustable hosel stops too abruptly before joining the shaft, creating an unsightly ledge. I think this could easily be softened with the addition of a small tapered ferrule and the visual would go up a notch. However, as I write these words, I am aware of how fussy this sounds!
The shelf appeal is no more than fine for me. I like an understated look so it is in my wheelhouse, but some may prefer a little more visual stimulus to have their head turned on the shop floor.
Performance wise the E725 delivered everything it promised and arguably a little more. This is up there with the new TaylorMade Qi35 Max in terms of forgiveness levels for me, you can almost feel the head self-correcting through strikes on any heel or toe hits, and is the closest I have hit to the Qi35 Max in terms of tightness of dispersion this season. In terms of a metric of dollars per yard, this driver was streets ahead of all the other major launches from Callaway, Ping, TaylorMade, Titleist and Cobra.
One of the surprises was the feel and acoustics, which is often one of the first things to be compromised when looking at more budget-friendly drivers. While this is always subjective, the E725 offers a near-perfect impact sensation to me. Lively enough to know you’ve struck one, but just absorbent enough to not offer any unpleasant feedback, and the sound matches. Far from dull, but not loud or clangy, just somewhere perfectly in the middle, similar to another great feeling driver in the PXG Black Ops. There are eight available hosel settings that allow you to alter the lie, loft, and face angle to get you dialed in even further.
I have really enjoyed testing both this E725 model as well as the lower-spinning C725. Both do exactly what they profess to and for a fraction of the price ($399) of some of the bigger brands. The savvy shopper will be eyeing up this Tour Edge driver family for sure and won't be disappointed with the on-course experience.
