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Gear: Cobra King Speedzone, King Speedzone Xtreme drivers
Price: $449 with UST Helium Black, Mitsubishi CK Blue, Project X HZRDUS Smoke or Aldila Rogue Silver shaft and Lamkin Crossline Connect grip
Specs: Carbon-fiber crown and sole areas with milled titanium face, moveable weights and an adjustable hosel. Available in black/yellow or black/white
Available: Jan. 17, 2020
Veteran golfers may remember Cobra’s SZ 400 and SZ 440 drivers from the early 2000s, but while the company has brought back the Speedback name for its flagship woods for 2020, the newest models are not throwbacks. The new King Speedback and King Speedback Xtreme are packed with modern technologies to help golfers hit the ball farther and straighter.
The most unique feature of the new Speedback drivers is the CNC-milled Infinity Face. Most driver faces are forged, soldered onto the chassis and then hand-ground and polished, but the faces of the Speedback drivers are milled using computer-controlled robots. They pass a high-speed bit across the hitting area, shaving off tiny ribbons of material to ensure the face thickness that engineers want is achieved every time.
The F9 Speedzone drivers used by Rickie Fowler, Bryson DeChambeau and Lexi Thompson throughout 2019 had CNC-milled faces too, but the milled faces of the new Speedback drivers extend all the way around the face and into the leading edge, the toe and the topline. Cobra said this enlarges the sweet spot and helps protect ball speed on mis-hits more effectively.
The chassis of the club also was redesigned. A titanium strip on the top connects the front of the club to the back section, and carbon fiber was used in two large areas on the crown and in the sole. Fifty percent of the club is now made from carbon fiber, which saved 25 grams of weight that could be redistributed to performance-enhancing areas.
Most of that was added to a 69-gram internal weight positioned at the back of the sole. It helps pull the center of gravity down and away from the hitting area, which encourages a higher launch angle and boosts stability. Cobra further enhanced stability by adding a pair of weights to the heel and toe areas behind the face. They help the club resist twisting on off-center hits.
The King Speedback comes with a pair of moveable weights: a red 14-gram weight and a black 2-gram weight. Putting the heavier weight in the forward position reduces spin and creates a lower ball flight. When the heavier weight is in the back, it boosts forgiveness and spin.
The King Speedback Xtreme shares all of the standard Speedback driver’s technologies, including the MyFly adjustable hosel that allows players and fitters to increase or decrease the club’s stated loft by as many as 1.5 degrees, but it is designed to be more forgiving. It is slightly larger from front to back and has more perimeter weighting, so it has a higher moment of inertia.
The clubs come standard with Cobra Connect, an Arccos-powered sensor embedded in the grip that links to a free smartphone app that can track drives and compile stats about performance. They also are available in standard length (45.5 inches) and Tour length (44.5 inches) with black and yellow or black and white color schemes.