When Titleist released their latest driver, the TSR, which was an instant hit with fans and followers of the brand, many started wondering if a move toward carbon would ultimately be on the cards. The TSR built on the massive success of the original ‘Titleist Speed Project’ TS and TSi line ups, and has brought with it their fastest, longest and straightest driver to date. At the same time we saw the likes of the TaylorMade Stealth and Stealth 2.0 drivers which were the early entries in the carbon driver marketplace. Callaway also joined fray in 2023 with the introduction of Paradym driver lineup which is their first move into the realm of carbon woods.
TaylorMade recently stated that carbonwood technology had been in development for over 20 years. Engineers in the TaylorMade R&D lab started to explore the benefits of composite materials as early as the year 2000 and slowly iterations of a carbon driver began to emerge internally. It wasn’t long until the TaylorMade started to see significant ball speed increases and felt that sticking with titanium metalwoods was only going to take them so far.
Today’s TaylorMade Stealth 2.0 has almost twice as much carbon in the club that the original Stealth. The Stealth 2.0 Plus takes that further with over 75% more carbon included, and it seems the days of carbonwoods, certainly with TaylorMade, are here to stay.
So will Titleist make a carbon driver?
It seems likely that both TaylorMade and Callaway are firmly committed to carbon technology and will continue to develop in that direction. The question many Golfers have, particularly Titleist fans, is whether we will see a Titleist carbon driver?
Outwardly it seems Titleist will continue with their ‘Speed Project’ lineup for a while yet. It’s worth noting that the previous 9-series drivers from Titleist spanned a development period between 1998 and 2016, starting with the 975 all the way to the 917. In these early days of carbonwood technology it does seem that TaylorMade have cornered the market, and with that also meant that either Callaway or Titleist as the other players of the ‘Big 3’ golfing manufacturers, either had to stick or twist with a move towards carbon.
It seems likely therefore that Titleist will perhaps stay clear of a material that is already so associated with TaylorMade in particular, and instead will perhaps look to continue to develop metal woods from their aerospace grade titanium which already delivers incredible speed and is trusted by Tour players and golfers the World over.
We’ll obviously be keeping a close eye on all Titleist developments in the coming year, so check back here for any updates!
1 thought on “Will we see a Titleist carbon driver in 2023 or 2024?”
Another new titleist, keys spend ooh let’s say £750 this time, someone’s having a giraffe.