Ping G400 Max Driver

They say golf isn't a sport. They also say anyone can play golf. Some people even think that golf is easy. Some feel golfers aren't athletes. Have they ever tried doing it? Try hitting a sweet spot of one square inch with a stick that measure four foot. Can you hit a ball at close to 100 miles per hour and hit it on a spot the size of a dime? You play against yourself rather than  your flight mates. You do battle for 4-5 hours at the mercy of the weather and the elements. You could train for hours or play for years and get destroyed with just one shot. You could hit 250m with a drive and then do a three putt within metres. Haha. So golf are for people who do not get enough frustrations at work? Bobby Jones said that golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; You get good breaks from bad shots - but you have to play the ball where it lies. 

So the first rule for me is not having to fight with your clubs. You want to play with the most suitable one for your game. Beginning with the driver which to many is the most difficult club to handle since it is the longest at close to 46 inches. In recent releases of the season for 2018, the usual suspects came out with some hot stuffs. Callaway has great success with the Epic. You would not want to call it Epic if you were not sure. They bested themselves when they released the Rogue that came with the same jailbreak technology - two vertical bars joined to stabilise the crown and the sole. It is one of the longest if not the longest. Cobra released the King F8, which has something new and striking - the world's first CNC milled face in a driver! CNC milled face are usually found on putters as they have better tolerances as a result of consistent thickness. It could even record and connect your swing data to your smart phone. Cool!  TaylorMade gave us the M3 and M4. Both featured what they call ''Twist Face". Twist face is a face curvature engineered with corrective angle for your off centre hits with less loft on high toe and then less loft on the low heelers. In other words, your slice becomes more like a fade and your hooks more like a draw. 

Ping started with their G400, a club head that goes against the grain of everything big. It actually went smaller at 445cc instead of the usual 460. It was built to reduce drag on the down swing so you could increase your swing speed and due to its very high MOI, the smaller head is well compensated for forgiveness. It has a combined MOI of over 9000 which by numbers alone made it the most forgiving driver. The G400 measures exactly 9263 whereas the rest of the competition weighs in at 6587, 7474, 7638, 7720 and 7832. As if not enough, Ping released another new version and called it the G400 Max. You should know why because it has MOI to the max! If G400 at 9263 was already the most forgiving but it was built for speed then the G400 Max is the king of forgiveness with MOI of 9902 where 10,000 is the max allowed!! This is eye-popping. It is the most forgiving driver on the planet based on these numbers alone. It is the G400 on steroids.

MOI is measured in two ways - heel to toe and then top to bottom. The Ping G400 Max has a heel/toe MOI value of 5700 g/cm2 where the USGA limit is 5900 with a test allowance of 100. I have played with a Cobra Fly-Z which I read had a horizontal MOI of 4,900 and it is a very forgiving driver. Ping G30 and G has something in the range of 5,000 to 5100 and Ping G400 Max is 5700. Go figure it.I think only PXG has something close but Ping's MOI for top/bottom is even higher and when combined achieved a MOI of 9900 nobody else is close. If you find anything in the market with a combined MOI of 8500 it is definitely top tier but Ping's G400 Max is 9900! The numbers say it all. My goal was for maximum forgiveness and nothing else is close and could be tossed away. You could call it extremely forgiving, ultra, uber or super forgiving. Say no more. Please just take my money! Will this be a game changer?

It comes with a new driver cover where it is easier to unsheathe the weapon. The colour scheme has also been revised.

I consulted my shaft guru on the stock shaft as the most problematic for me has always been the shaft especially for a driver. His advice to me was that this is a seriously good premium shaft and there is no need to change it unless one has trouble with its length. So if I were to get one with Japanese/Asian specs then I would probably get one with a stiff shaft.

This is Ping's very own Alta CB shaft. It is only at 55g. I am often suspicious and concerned with light shafts. They tended to be too light and have too much flex. The Alta CB shaft where CB means counter-balanced where it has a high balance point for more energy, momentum and inertia meant to create outstanding long drives. The one I had, a Japan-made stiff shaft was perfect for me. Lovely shaft!

It is also like a magic wand. Perhaps the coolest shaft as it is colour changing. When you look at it when holding it up it is a classy copper colour. It has a shaft weight of 55-59g if the flex is stiff. 

When you bring it down or during set up, it automatically morph into a dark colour, almost like black. Magic! Very cool! No distraction whatsoever. I have fitted with expensive after market premium shafts such as the Tour AD-Di from Graphite Design and Nano-Reloaded by Graphite Design, various Aldila including the Rogue, Mitsubishi Rayon, various Fujikura where the feel is good and the loading and unloading are precise. The Alta CB is equal to and as good as any.

Golf as in life, it is all about confidence. For that matter, in any areas of life and in every other sports. You need to feel confident with the club in your hands.

Ping's main design features are there like the 'dragonfly technology' crown construction (thinner crown), turbulators , etc. When your centre of gravity is too high, it will yield too much spin so how to counter that? Save weight elsewhere and put a huge chunk of tungsten at the back. always like a matt finish as it totally reduces glare. The footprint is huge though it does not look cumbersome but it only adds confidence that you could real go for it with this in your hands. Of course the reality may be that we fear not the weapons but the hands that wield them but this is about giving those hands and their owners less stress. Looking down at it from address during set up will only give great confidence to the golfer that you could actually give it a mighty whack.

Ping always has a club head with great stability and the G400 Max has a to weight of 271g. Ping usually has a swing weight fixed at D3 for their drivers which to me is the best swing weight for  a driver. Swing weight is the feel of the club head relative to the weight of the entire club. 

As they positioned extreme mass and pushed it farthest to the back, they have to do away with the drag-reducing Vortec Cavity at the same position in the previous G where there is now a tungsten which at 15g is double the tungsten used in the smaller G400. This helps tighten dispersion. Look carefully and you will see what Ping called an 'infinity edge'. Perhaps like your infinity swimming pool. Like seamless. Good aesthetics. 

9 per cent weight savings came from the TS9+ titanium face that has more flex. Other weight savings came from the thinner crown and sole. 

The unprecedented stability and forgiveness has led to the club being sold out at the beginning when it was launched. I have to wait a few weeks to get hold of one. Ping engineers actually used computer simulation in their research coupled with music theory with the rib architecture to fine tune produce a deeper and muted sound and to enhance feel. 

I have played with some very good drivers that are light but also quite often I could not get the balance that I needed/wanted. This one felt like it was made for me so that it feels effortless to hit. It is so well built that when you hit it away towards the toe or heel you could feel the feedback to your hands, something that ultra forgiving drivers don't do.

If Robin sees this, he will give a new exclamation to Batman: "Holy Torpedo Batman!" instead of his usual Holy Toledo! Some drivers are too loud, too tinny and others too muted. I think Ping got it right with a sound that is slightly higher in decibel than the average 'thwack'. In golf, sound is associated with feel quite a lot but the performance of this club will make you forget the rest never mind the sound.

They say the prove of the pie is in the tasting. I played with excellent drivers all the time. The last one I really like is my Cobra Fly-Z that I later fitted with the Graphite Design Tour AD-DI-6. I was convinced no other driver could replace it. Till now.

The race for high MOI is crucial as a 20% improvement in MOI (Moment Of Inertia), there would be a 50% improvement in the ''Stat area" where stat area means the area of dispersion for a series of impacts across the entire face of the club. The Ping G400 Max has been tested and found and confirmed to be the most forgiving driver on the planet followed by the Ping G400, the Callaway Rogue and the TaylorMade M4.

The crown looks like a ribbed six-pack on the body of Bruce Lee with wings to match. If ''Thanos'' gets his hands on this weapon, he will just need a few more Infinity stones and he will destroy the world! 

This is an incredibly  solid and all round very strong performer that is extremely forgiving and so easy to play. 

The forged face is thin to create more discretionary weight for the deepest CG ever in a driver and translated it will produce the tightest dispersion in golf. Looking at the face you could see that there are only lines bear the toe and the heel. Where at one time the theory for longer distance was simply to build a more forgiving head, today we are talking about producing less spin. Grooves creates spin to help average golfers who struggle to get the ball flying.

You can't ask for anything more from a driver as the G400 Max has in the whole package. It looks sleek and powerful, has great feel and incredible forgiveness. Only thing you need is to get the right flex for your shaft. I am hitting it so well as this driver has led me to greener pastures so much so that I am tempted to reset it to a lower loft of 9.5 degree but have yet to dare to do it.

The forgiveness is amazing and if you need more forgiveness than this you will have to ask from God yourself. There will be days when you need forgiveness and If God lets you wait then you have to rely on the G400 Max. If long and straight all day is what you are looking for then look no further. If you are looking for a great driver, do yourself a favour by not missing to try this. This is a weapon that even Batman would use and Thanos would get his hands on. "Mai Tu Liao!" (do not delay any longer).

Golf as in life, play as it lies!