Posted on January 22nd, 2009 in
Drivers
TaylorMade Flight Control Technology
What sets the R9™ driver apart from all other drivers is that it incorporates our new TaylorMade Flight Control Technology, or FCT for short. With a simple twist of a wrench, FCT allows you to change the R9's face angle, loft and lie angle. How does FCT work? It starts with a small metallic sleeve positioned over the tip of the shaft. The shaft is secured to the clubhead with a specially made bolt in the bottom of the clubhead. The FCT bolt is designed to be retained in the well to eliminate the chance of losing it. The sleeve, made of high-strength 7075-T6 aluminum alloy, is ringed around the bottom with small teeth, which tightly mesh with a second ring of matching teeth within the hosel. You can change the clubhead's characteristics (face angle, loft, lie) by loosening the FCT bolt, removing the shaft from the head, rotating the sleeve and shaft into a specified position, then locking them into that position within the head with the FCT bolt.
"The R9 driver offers eight positions, and changing from one position to another is easy and takes only a matter of seconds," said Dr. Benoit Vincent, TaylorMade's chief technical officer. "When changing, it's important to recognize that as the face angle closes, the loft increases; and as the face angle opens, the loft decreases." Thus the R9 driver is engineered to promote trajectories that are 1) increasingly higher, long-carrying and which move from right-to-left; 2) increasingly lower, more controllable and which move from left-to-right; or 3) which are neutral, with relatively straight flight and at mid-level height.
R9 Driver Technology
"Every golfer, whether a tour pro or high-handicapper, knows that the position of the face angle at address is critical to confidence," said Harry Arnett, TaylorMade's senior category director of equipment. "Strong players prone to hooks much prefer looking at a square or slightly open face at address, while slicers find reassurance in seeing a closed face. FCT gives the golfer the ability to adjust the face to the position that they like best, which is a huge advantage."
Most previous TaylorMade metalwoods can be bent to adjust the face, loft and lie angles; it happens every week on the PGA Tour in the TaylorMade Tour Trailer, as tour pros commonly request such tweaks to improve their performance. However, the process requires a tour technician to immobilize the clubhead and bend the hosel by hand. FCT makes it possible to quickly, accurately and easily adjust the face, loft and lie angles.
FCT + MWT = Total Adjustability
What makes the R9 driver totally adjustable as opposed to partially adjustable is that it unites FCT with MWT. The clubhead features three weight ports and comes equipped with one 16-gram and two 1-gram weights. Put the heavy weight in the heel port to promote a draw, in the toe port to promote a fade, and in the middle port to promote a straight flight.
The combined effect of FCT and MWT gives golfers an amazing amount of influence over their trajectory, and gives the R9 driver a tremendous advantage over other drivers. TaylorMade testing indicates that the R9 driver promotes up to 75 yards of side-to-side trajectory change, depending upon how the clubhead characteristics are set and the weights are configured.
Do the math on the multiple settings made possible by combining FCT with MWT: Eight clubhead positions made possible by FCT multiplied by three MWT configurations: 8 x 3 = 24. Twenty-four drivers with the purchase of one club!
The R9 driver includes a new white wrench that must be used with both the FCT bolt and the movable weights. This wrench and this wrench only must be used with the R9 driver because the FCT bolt requires 40 inch-pounds of torque to tighten fully; older MWT wrenches deliver only 30 inch-pounds of torque Like previous wrenches, the R9 wrench emits a loud and powerful "click" when either the FCT bolt or MWT weights have been sufficiently tightened.
"New Classic" Clubhead Shape with Ultra-Thin Wall Technology
The R9 driver features a new clubhead shape that merges modern and classic lines with incredible effectiveness. It's best described as a cross between the r7 SuperQuad and the r7 Limited – a triangular shape with beautifully contoured corners. TaylorMade calls it "New Classic" because it is at once modern and traditional, and should prove to be popular for a long time to come. The triangular shape offers four distinct advantages: 1) it allows for a deep back, far-from-the-face CG location that makes it easier to launch the ball; 2) it contributes to a higher MOI for greater stability on off-center hits; 3) it allows for an exceptionally low CG location that's lower than that of the r7 Limited and the r7 SuperQuad; and 4) it works more efficiently with MWT, allowing it to use only three ports and cartridges to more effectively influence trajectory than the r7 SuperQuad could with four.
The R9 clubhead is constructed with the aid of TaylorMade's Ultra-Thin Wall (UTW) technology, which allows for clubhead walls measuring as thin as 0.6 millimeters, with the saved weight redistributed to make both MWT and the low-and-deep CG possible.
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TaylorMade R9 and R9 TP Drivers
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