Summary: I love my SRV-II! The long story: If you all remember I was inspired to build a high loft SRV-II after hearing Dan Neubecker's results with it hitting high straight consistent bombs with it. I ended up building a 12* SRV-II on a Rifle 5.5 steel shaft, no tip-trim, shaft inserted to the plug, butt-trimmed to 44" and spine at 12 oclock. Swingweight is D2-3.
I cut the day short at work yesterday to head out to Encinitas Ranch with a few other guys who work in the building around here in San Diego for as many holes as light would allow. I hit 4/5 fairways when I used driver on the front 9 and a few more on the back (didn't finish the back). I was consistently getting about 255-275 yards carry+roll. On the 18th hole (470 yard par 5) I hit a 300 yard bomb right down the middle with a little help from a small downhill roll about 40 yards past everyone else. Shots which didn't end up in the fairway where two slight pulls which landed one in a fairway bunker (only about 20 yards to squeeze through) and the other ended up about 3-4 yards into the rough. Had one high push/fade which landed about 10 yards into the rough on the right (and under a damn bush!) but that was definately the swing's fault. All afternoon I was either matching or out driving the guys I was with using longer drivers than me (9.5* TM 320, another new R500 series driver, another guy using a Cobra 350). I was worried initially that the high loft would rob me of distance but that certainly doesn't seem to be the case. The best part about the driver is that it doesn't seem to matter where you hit it on the face, it's especially forgiving low and off the heel where my mis-swings tend to go. Whew! I've got a 10* Bang 450 arriving shortly that I'm going to shaft up with either a DGS300 I have or a FGS Ultralite, I haven't decided yet. I don't expect this one to outperform the SRV-II in terms of accuracy, but I'd like to be able to pull out a club that will get me over 300 yards without too much trouble for those wide open par 5s. I keep on telling myself that fairways are the key to scoring, but distance is addicting! -Dave
