Vijay Singh's win at the Mercedes-Benz Championship with a new Cleveland Golf HiBore XL driver raised so much interest that Cleveland began shipping the drivers on Monday. The official worldwide launch is scheduled for Feb. 2.
Cleveland's newest offering actually comes in two models -- the HiBore XL and the XL Tour. Singh and Jerry Kelly both used the XL model in Kapalua, while Joe Durant had the new XL Tour model in his bag.
"Vijay was definitely looking for added distance and help off the tee," said Keith Patterson of Cleveland's media relations department. "Last year he had a good season, but his standard is a great season."
Patterson said that Singh has worked with the driver since the end of last season and has seen increases in accuracy and distance. Official stats from one tournament -- especially with Kapalua's trademark winds -- are tough to take much from, but Singh's driving accuracy improved from a dismal 59.4 percent overall in 2006 to 71.67 percent last week.
"Got a new driver that I feel very comfortable with, and that was a big problem last year," Singh told reporters after his first round at Kapalua. "It's a new generation HiBore and driving the hell out of the ball, so that's a good thing. I'm knocking it straight, and whenever I drive the ball straight, my whole demeanor changes on the golf course."
Singh is using a standard model of the XL driver, but with a more open face.
Both the HiBore XL and XL Tour drivers use HiBore technology, which pushes the weight to the far edge of the club head for an increased moment of inertia and more forgiveness on off-center hits. Both clubs have a face area that's 11 percent larger than the previous HiBore driver. The tour model has a standard lie angle that's one degree flatter and a face angle that's three degrees open.
Like their predecessors, the new HiBore clubs include what Cleveland calls Distance Driven Geometry. This expands the area of the clubface where the golfer can get a high launch and less spin. Traditional drivers have a point on the clubface where the least rotation occurs at impact, called the center of gravity projections (CGP), which is relatively high on the clubface. By bringing that down to the center of the face, the lower spin results in greater accuracy and more distance.
"I asked for a new driver and they got me this new HiBore, and it's an incredible club," Singh said. "I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more guys don't change to it. It's probably one of the better drivers out here for a while."
