Golf Digest South Africa Hotlist 2025

TEE IT HIGH AND LET IT FLY? NOT NECESSARILY Take your swing path into consideration

COBRA DS-Adapt Max R17 500

GOLD

OVERALL RATING ★★★★ ½

• Most of the same

technical features of the DS-Adapt irons are used here but with a longer blade length, more offset and a wider sole – all things highly useful to players in this category. • Concentrating weight low and back is key to achieving easier launch and more speed. That’s accomplished via a steel weighting system that gets mass in the proper position while allowing maximum flexing of the face. • Top 5 in Performance, high-handicaps • Specs: 7-iron: 29 degrees; PW: 43.5 degrees

PERFORMANCE ★★★★ ½ INNOVATION ★★★★ ½ LOOK / SOUND / FEEL ★★★★

To take advantage of the technology in your driver, especially if you don’t swing it over 100 miles per hour, you might have been told it’s best to tee the ball high and catch it on the upswing. Do that, and you’ll maximise the time the ball stays in the air and minimise the amount of distance-robbing backspin. That’s good advice, but perhaps more important to get- ting the most out of your driver is to make sure you strike the ball in the centre of the face. If you’ve been hitting the ball high on the face more often than not, it’s probably the result of having a steeper downswing. Your club might be de- scending as it reaches the ball or even be level with the turf. If you keep seeing ball and tee marks higher on your face than needed to get a centre strike, it’s time to tee the ball lower. How low depends on where you seem to be mak- ing the best contact, but you can see below that it’s even OK if only a small portion of the ball is above the face. Go to the range and experiment with tee height or, even better, get on a launch monitor to find out which height yields your best data.

‘It was so easy to get the ball in the air with a very manageable ball flight, and there never was a feeling of sacrificing distance. Mis-hits ended up playable.’ – 12-HANDICAP

– Jason Guss, Golf Digest Best in State Teacher, Naperville CC, Illinois.

AESTHETICS

Plain

Elaborate

ACOUSTICS

Quieter

Louder

SENSORY

Softer

Firmer

LAUNCH

Lower

Higher

FORGIVENESS

Least

Most

GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 99

HOT LIST 2025

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