Any mini driver fans on here?
I have a TM SLDR mini that I just can’t get rid of. I’m always so streaky with my driver, and about once every year, I’ll bring back the mini, and i almost always hit it well. I should probably just stick with it as my main driver, but i never do. I’ve always seemed to have a mental block with the 460cc drivers.
My new driver experiment is finally put together, but I haven’t had any time to test it…
I forced myself to get along with my regular driver… I was struggling off the tee, and knew I needed to make an adjustment to improve my scoring, so I put the time in and built confidence with my driver… that’s a different story for a different question… but one of the results of me getting confident with my driver is I’ve found some places where it isn’t the right club at my home course… and I needed something else to get off the tee with.
I bought a 12 degree Adams Speedline head for $50 and tossed a shaft I like into it at 43 inches. I haven’t lead taped the head yet, but it is my next step. The goal for it is something I feel like I can get up high, and have it stop when it lands… I like the 460 cc head as I’ll take the forgiveness I can find, but the short shaft and heavy weight help me reign myself in, so I don’t swing out of my shoes.
Ideally, it will be a “position” club for me on a number of holes where my best strikes with a driver get me in trouble, and a good hit with this will put me in place to have a simple shot to the middle of the green.
Originally, I was going to buy a mini driver or a 2 wood, but they are few and far in between… I looked for the SLDR mini and couldn’t find a decent deal on one… The Original One is fine, but I didn’t love it… XHot 3 deeps are tough to find as well… In the short term, my little monster should be a good fit… ideally, in the long term, I’ll replace it with a 2 wood that can be hit off the turf.
I plan on experimenting with one soon. I really liked the TM Original One Mini when it came out, but was fairly happy with my driver then so I waited and now they are hard to find…this pandemic has made selling old clubs easy, but not finding them. I do still have a larger 13 degree Wishon head so I’m going to pair that with a heavier shaft and see if it works as well as the 2 wood I had years ago.
I use to love my SLDR Mini. When they relesed the Original One Mini I bought another SLDR to save money. I hit it great, but now that I have a launch monitor I found that I spun the thing like crazy which caused it to not go any farther than my 3 wood. Now that priced have come down, I should take another crack at the Original One Mini to see if the spin is better for me.
I tried the Original One when it came out, and it was very low spin for me.
I hope it is for me as well, I just bought one.
My Original One Mini Driver was delivered yesterday while I was at the course. I hit it on my launch monitor and it is definitely a low spin head. I ended up putting my driver shaft in it and got the same ball speed and back spin as my M3, but with higher launch. I always struggle with launch, so this could be a great fit for me. I can’t wait to get this thing out to the course this weekend to see how it performs.
What loft did you get it in?
I was not a fan of the stock shaft. Too light and whippy for me.
I bought the 13.5 degree head set to 12 degrees. I can’t believe how low spin this thing is at that range. My M3 is a 10.5 head and if I turn it up to 12 degrees, I’m spinning at 3500+.
I just snagged a used 13.5 TM Mini head. Just glued it up last night with a shaft I had laying around and hopefully I can hit a few balls later.
Man… now I feel like I need to buy one… my current project is way too high spin…
I haven’t given up on it yet… hoping I win a masters pool for some fun money.
I hit the TM Mini last night and there is potential. Not sure I got the right shaft in it and it felt a bit heavy, but I was hitting some good ones. It was so windy it was a bit tough to tell. I have a shaft that’s in an old 3 wood that may work better that I’ll try next. It’s probably just an experiment though as the last round I did get the driver going on the back 9 and I like the new 3 wood I got late last year.
I’m still testing shafts myself. With the driver shaft, I was spraying them more than I would like on the simulator last night. I have multiple driver and fairway would shafts with TM tips on them, so I have lots of options.
I’ve got an LH Original One Mini Driver for sale if anybody is interested.
I never tried the mini Driver, but I do use the the Adams 12* TightLies. My Driver is a 9* TM SLDR 430. I have found it to consistently produce the lowest spin rate of any Driver I have tried before or since, the only rub is there is very little forgiveness, you have to have a solid strike pattern… I practice at least 30 balls with my original TM 9.5* Burner Plus from 1989. It looks like a mini Driver. The ball looks bigger than the head…
I am still liking what I am seeing from my TM Mini. It’s supposed to rain here tomorrow, so it may be Sunday before I can get it outside to see some real world results.
I totally regret selling my Original One Mini. Should have just tried a new shaft in it.
I’m probably going to buy the mavrik strong three my pro has… he’s back with Taylor made.
It rained here all weekend, so I still haven’t gotten the mini outside yet. I did do some extensive testing and found that the while the mini is just as long as my driver with the same shaft, it is not as forgiving. I think I may put the original shaft back in it and use it as a 3 wood replacement instead of a driver replacement.
I ordered a shaft for mine which hopefully will come this week so I can try it this weekend. I really struggled with a 2-way miss with the driver last weekend. If I was my usual short knocker self it wouldn’t have been so bad but for some reason I had some extra pop and drove it through some fairways