We featured the new Nike Golf Vapor Flex driver last week, which seems to be one of the company’s new drivers for 2015. We also saw Rory McIlroy testing a new driver from that Vapor line as well – the Vapor Pro driver. He’s been practicing and testing with this new driver since June and decided to put it in the bag this week for the Ryder Cup. He’s been driving the ball incredibly well this season with his Covert 2.0, but he says that he’s about 10 – 15 yards longer with this new Vapor Pro driver and has an even better ability to shape his shots – scary!
Cosmetically, the new driver is very bold – black on the crown with a volt coloured nike swoosh, along with volt in the cavity back and Compression Channel, which is making a come back from previous Nike Golf equipment. This volt colour will definitely be the theme of Nike Golf in 2015 – we’ve already seen this colour of the Vapor line of irons earlier in the year. The combination of the cavity back plus compression channel produces a penetrating, tour-launch with low spin and added speed across the entire face. The Vapor Pro that McIlroy is using is a 460cc pear-shaped head and features Nike’s new FlyBeam reinforced Cvert Cavity Back design to focus energy into the variable-profile Compression Channel and NexCOR face.
The FlyBeam construction stiffens the Covert Cavity in the back of the club, while the Compression Channel, with variable compliance, accentuates the spring-like effect across the NexCOR face. The two technologies work together to focus, store and return impact energy to the golf ball for shots struck at all points on the face. Rory said the ball came out noticeably hotter with the Vapor driver. FlexLoft 2 will allow golfers to adjust their loft (five lofts) and face angles (three face angles) within 15 different settings – this new system is five grams (30%) lighter than before therefore, allowing Nike engineers to redistribute weight and mass elsewhere to create more stability, better launch conditions and faster swing speeds. Luckily, the FlexLoft 2 system is forward and backward compatible!
Although Nike Golf and Rory have only announced this Vapor Pro driver, you can expect to see a Vapor Speed driver and Vapor Flex driver that we featured earlier in the week. More details on these in the coming months! The Vapor Pro driver will be available on January 30, 2015 from 8.5° – 12.5° loft with a Mitsubishi Diamana S+ Blue Board 60 shaft (R, S, X-flex) for an MSRP of $479.99.
Source: Nike Inc.
