Mavrik, SIM highlight early 2020 driver releases

Golfers eagerly await the arrival of January each year to see the new clubs that are coming to market, and at the start of the year it’s drivers that are typically front and center, as pretty much everyone who plays golf is looking for a few more yards off the tee.

And when it comes to the driver market, TaylorMade and Callaway, along with PING, have been the clear leaders in the space for the last several years, which makes it exciting that two of those three brands are out with brand new driver franchises within the last week.

Those two brands are TaylorMade and Callaway, which have just released their new SIM and Mavrik lineups, respectively, each of which will have three unique options available to meet the needs of any player.

With its new SIM line, TaylorMade has made a significant investment in improving aerodynamics through shaping to help golfers generate more clubhead speed, while Callaway has devoted even more resources to the use of Artificial Intelligence in the design process, something it introduced with Epic Flash.

If you’re in the market for a new driver in 2020, it’s pretty much a certainty that you’re planning to explore SIM and Mavrik, so here’s a quick look at what you need to know about both.

TAYLORMADE SIM

The new SIM driver lineup from TaylorMade will be replacing the M family, which had an incredible five-year run that spanned four generations of products.

It wasn’t easy for TaylorMade to move on from M given its success, but engineers felt that a new franchise was in order given all that had changed since the introduction of the original M1 driver in the fall of 2015.

“We’re really excited to introduce this new brand called SIM,” said Brian Bazzel, TaylorMade Vice President of Global Product. “SIM stands for Shape in Motion, and really it is about being able to create these new shapes, especially in the drivers, that we really couldn’t create five years ago when the M products were introduced.”

With SIM, TaylorMade believes it has developed new aerodynamic driver shapes without making any compromises when it comes to performance, which hasn’t always been the case in the driver design process.

In fact, as good as the M family was, as well as many of the TaylorMade drivers before that, R&D personnel always felt that sacrifices had to be made, which is no longer the case.

“The history of driver design has been about prioritizing tradeoffs,” said Tomo Bystedt, TaylorMade Senior Director of Product Creation. “You could have great launch conditions but poor forgiveness. You could have great forgiveness but at the sacrifice of distance. You could have an aerodynamic shape but with less than optimal launch conditions.

“But through the use of multi-material technology, we’ve developed a new shape that optimizes performance in all three areas. It’s forgiving, fast, and promotes the ideal launch conditions.”

While the shaping of the SIM products, which most notably includes a new Inertia Generator, which moves weight low and back to create high MOI and optimal launch and spin, is the big storyline, TaylorMade fans can still count on the technologies that have driven performance in the most recent driver releases from the company, including Twist Face and Speed Injection.

And as mentioned, there are three unique SIM options that players can choose from to fit their needs, and we asked Bazzel to elaborate about each.

“The SIM has the movable weight and the sliding track gives you 20 yards of left to right adjustability, and you have the loft sleeve as well to get the right fit,” Bazzel said. “In the SIM Max, we’ve taken out the weight of the track and the weight within it and put that down and back in the head. The face is slightly larger; the footprint when you set it down will look similar to SIM, but the inertia, the forgiveness is a little bit higher.

“And then finally the Max-D, that’s a draw-biased product, so if you fight the slice or you fight the right side of the golf course for a right-hander then the SIM Max-D is the best product for you.”

Golfers will have several different shafts to choose from, including multiple no upcharge options, to further help them get the right fit, and TaylorMade’s adjustable loft sleeve also provides customization that golfers can use to dial in their preferred trajectory and shot shape.

TaylorMade SIM drivers are available for pre-order now. They will begin shipping and be available at retail on Feb. 7.

CALLAWAY MAVRIK

Callaway had a big 2019 with its Epic Flash drivers, as the use of Artificial Intelligence in designing the clubface yielded impressive results for a wide array of golfers.

But engineers thought there was even more than could be done with Artificial Intelligence to optimize performance, which led to a pretty dramatic shift in Callaway's design approach.

“Over the past year we’ve more than doubled our investment in AI, so what used to take us two months we can do in a weekend,” said Dave Neville, Callaway Senior Director of Product Management. “We’ve actually taken this from being a research tool to really being a design tool and helping us to design the drivers. Now, instead of having just one face and applying that to the standard driver, we have unique faces for each of the drivers.”

And not only does Callaway create a unique clubface for each of the three Mavrik models -- the standard Mavrik, the Mavrik Sub Zero, and the Mavrik Max -- each of the available lofts has its own clubface, which Callaway is referring to as Flash Face SS20 clubface architecture.

Additionally, a new material has been used in constructing the clubface, an exotic FS2S titanium, which is helping produce more ball speed.

That said, Callaway is also relying on a number of technologies that have proven to be difference makers in its most recent driver iterations, including Jailbreak Technology, which utilizes two internal bars that connect the sole and crown to maximize energy transfer at impact, as well as a lightweight TC2 Triaxial Carbon Crown that allows engineers to establish a low, deep CG position that optimizes launch and spin conditions.

As mentioned, there are also three different Mavrik options available to fit any golfer, and Neville went into detail about the characteristics of each model.

MAVRIK STANDARD: “This is going to be our fastest head and it’s going to be more aerodynamic than any shape we’ve used before. This is going to fit the majority of golfers so this is the one that you want to start with when you’re getting fit for these drivers. It has a little bit of draw bias, it has the weight screw in the back, it has Jailbreak Technology, and the Flash Face SS20.”

MAVRIK SUB ZERO: “This is typically our better player club. It’s low spin with high MOI. It’s going to typically fit someone who has 105 MPH clubhead speed on the driver or more, (but) not all the time so you’ll still want to get fit. We have the front-back weighting here, so you can change the trajectory and spin rates and the shape is perfect for that better player. They like to see something that has a neutral CG bias.”

MAVRIK MAX: “This is really a driver we’ve never had before. It’s a big shape, high MOI shape, and then with the weight screws, what you can do is put the heavy weight in the heel and this is going to be even more draw bias than the Rogue (Draw) or you can put the heavy weight in the back and it’s going to be the easiest launching driver that we’ve ever had. It’s really like two drivers in one. For the player who’s going to struggle with where they hit it on the face or fighting a slice, they’re going to want to look at the Max driver.”

Players will also have multiple shaft options that vary in terms of weight and profile to choose from to fit their swing when it comes to Callaway’s new Mavrik drivers, which are available for pre-order now.

Mavrik drivers will start shipping and be available in stores on January 23.