TaylorMade 580Ti 5-wood

TaylorMade 580 fairway wood.

Price: £299 (graphite shaft)

It wasn’t the ideal ball position you’d want, to gain a first impression of a new club in your hands…second shot to a par-5 requiring 200-yard carry to an elevated green, OB on the right, ball below your feet…

You guessed it…toe end of the futuristic clubhead strikes ball with glancing blow, squirts over hedge into ploughed field!

No amount of ‘titanium pull-face construction technology by TaylorMade engineers making the R580 largest 5-wood ever created’ or ‘.810 COR and 30 per-cent more inertia for extra forgiveness’ can substitute for a rank bad shot. From that moment I hated the bloody thing.

So I gave it some someone else to try; someone who might appreciate its sleek sole, its ‘tuned weight cartidge weighting system (TWC)’ and ‘MAS 60 graphite shaft for faster swing speeds.’ In short, a better player than me.

Knowing that 15-year-old schoolboy Rory Smith – a 6ft tall seven handicapper who hits the ball very hard and plays a lot, waslooking to buy a 5-wood to help him reach more par-5s in two blows, I gave him the job of testing this one.

He relished the idea and almost drove the green at Greetham’s opening par-4 – a soaring tee shot with a touch of draw that left him with a hands and arms chip to the flagstick.

Sadly after keeping the club in his bag for a few weeks, he fell more and more out of love with it.

"Its looks and quality are far superior to most fairways woods on the market – but it’s over-priced," he told me. "At address it sits and looks very neat but it’s too big for tight lies.

"Cosmetically it looks futuristic with its see-through weighting on the sole, but the regular shaft seemed a lot whippier than normal, so I’d be inclined to go for a stiffer option."

Rory told me that after his initial burst of enthusiasm he found the ball flight ‘a bit weak’. It ballooned into wind and lost distance – a performance not appreciated by lower handicappers.

"However, the club was more forgiving when struck towards the heel than it was towards the toe."

"It’s a lot of money to pay for a fairway wood," says Rory, "but higher handicappers would love it more and would gain more benefit than single figure players."