Gear: Cleveland HiBore XL, HiBore XL Lite drivers
Price: $399.99 with Aldila Ascent shaft and Golf Pride Tour Velvet 360 grip
Specs: Titanium face and chassis with adjustable hosel
Available: Dec. 6
Who it’s for: Mid- and higher-handicap golfers who want a blend of distance and forgiveness off the tee.
What you should know: Cleveland used artificial intelligence to develop a triangular head shape that optimizes forgiveness, ball speed, and sound.
The deep dive: In the late 2000s, Cleveland HiBore drivers were easy to spot at PGA Tour events for two reasons. First, stars like Vijay Singh and David Toms played them, and second, in a few cases, those HiBore drivers looked nothing like the other drivers. Several models featured a dramatic downward swoop in the crown that drastically lowered the center of gravity (CG) location at a time when carbon fiber was scarcer in golf equipment than golfers who weren’t intimidated by Tiger Woods.
Over time, and with the introduction of new technologies and materials, the HiBore drivers’ look toned down, but now Cleveland is announcing the HiBore XL and HiBore XL Lite drivers and designing them for recreational players who want a blend of distance and forgiveness.
While artificial intelligence has been used to create many drivers’ faces and hitting areas, Cleveland designers turned to A.I. to create a chassis shape that would create the ideal blend of forgiveness, distance and enhanced sound. So, instead of seeing a swooping crown, the first thing golfers will notice when they set the HiBore down is the triangular shape and extended back portion of the crown.
The face and hitting area of the HiBore XL drivers are also 19 percent larger and look significantly taller. The variable-thickness MainFrame XL design and enlarged shape broaden the sweet spot and help golfers who struggle to consistently make center-face contact by protecting ball speed on mis-hits.
To help golfers make solid contact more often, Cleveland also added ActivWing, an aerodynamics-enhancing feature to the heel portion of the crown. ActivWing does not make the driver go faster on the downswing but instead acts like an airfoil and helps to keep the head more stable as it approaches the ball. The two notches in the crown make the air move around the head in a way that encourages the face to square through the hitting area, which should result in better performance.
While ActivWing is not designed to help golfers swing the HiBore XL driver faster, the Action Mass CB shaft design might make the club feel lighter. With an 8-gram weight at the top of the shaft, it counterbalances the weight of the head, so with the same effort, the club should feel lighter.
The 12-gram weight in the back of the head helps to pull the CG down and back, away from the hitting area. The weight can be adjusted by custom fitters who want to change the club’s swing weight.
For players who want even more clubhead speed or who battle a slice, the HiBore XL Lite features the same technology as the standard HiBore XL but is designed with a draw bias and comes standard with a lighter shaft and grip. It generates slightly more spin than the standard HiBore XL driver to help slower- and moderate-speed players create more carry distance.
Both the HiBore XL and the HiBore XL Lite feature Cleveland’s new hosel sleeve that allows players and fitters to increase or decrease the loft by up to 1.5 degrees.
Here are several close-up images of the Cleveland HiBore XL and HiBore XL Lite drivers: