YOUR GEAR | REVIEWED
A Hammer with Auto-correct
For 8 summers I worked in construction and I learned
a lot over that time about hammers. At first you think
they are all the same, until you grab someone else’s and
realise how different it is. Upon further investigation you
understand that there are many different head weights,
different handles, different balances and that they all
really hurt when they hit your thumb. One thing they
don’t have is a way of fixing a miss hit, it usually means
damaged wood, a bent nail or an injured figure. The new
Srixon Z355 reminds me of a hammer. The heavy head
really smashes the ball but it does have a little autocorrect feature when you miss hit it.
Srixon’s new driver is different from just about every other
driver on the market. It has a substantially heavier head
at 211grams, paired with a very light counter balanced
shaft and swingweights. For me on paper it isn’t a recipe
for consistency. I’ve struggled with both lightweight
shafts and counter-balanced clubs. But for some reason,
this one works. I was really surprised at how easy it is to
get to grips with, it feels like it just hammers the ball and
even when it felt like a bad swing, a ball that feels like it is
going to be lost right, comes back and finds the middle.
Let’s talk about the head; it is heavy by design. While
moment of inertia (MOI) isn’t the big talk anymore,
heavier heads have more MOI which translates into
more forgiveness. Secondly the weight is distributed at
an angle on the sole in a way that an over-the-top move
allows the Action Mass to go straight into the ball sending
it down the fairway, and yet for a game-improvement
design it looks very traditional with no alignment aid, a
clean black crown, a silver face and a good shape that
doesn’t appear closed or offset.
The D8 swingweight and lightweight shaft