Buying a new golf driver can be a wallet chastening experience. It’s can be tough now to find a latest model weighing in at less than £500 and many of the top brands are now pushing the £600 barrier.
The price of new equipment is often cited as a barrier to participation and fuels accusations golf is elitist.
But how do brands justify the price? One of the world’s top equipment developers has given us an answer.
On The GBQ Podcast, hosted by The PGA, Dr Alan Hocknell, Titleist’s VP of advanced research and innovation, broke down to host Sarah Stirk some of the costs.
Why are golf driver costs so high?
He said: “The bulk of the cost of a driver is in the head. That might make sense – it’s where the most expensive materials are. It’s the part that makes contact with the ball. It has the most influence over your success in where the ball goes.
“It’s the part we focus on the most, but in order to get the most out of the performance – within the limits of the rules these days – we do have to use fairly exotic materials.
“Materials like titanium and carbon-based composites are pretty expensive. They’re the same sorts of materials that are used in fighter jets or in Formula 1 cars and they are put through manufacturing processes with very expensive tooling to create the shapes that we need to make with high precision and high quality.
“Those are expensive processes as well. There is all the research that goes in beforehand and the innovation funnel might be years long.
“There are people working at all stages of that, working with new technology, proving things for the first time, making lots of prototypes, breaking things, doing computer simulations, using expensive computer software and large computing resources to study things like aerodynamics.
Advertisement
“All those are genuine costs that we take on during development and some of those are a component of the final cost of the product as well.
“I will say that while brand new golf clubs are noticeably expensive because of the technology, there is a healthy pre-owned marked too for people who are really just putting their toe in the water to not have such a great outlay to start with.”
Now have your say
What do you think of golf driver costs? Do you appreciate the research and development comes with a price, or do you think they’re just too expensive? Let us know by leaving a comment on X.
- NOW READ: Best Golf Drivers 2025 Revealed: Hit It Longer and Straighter
- NOW READ: Best Budget Golf Drivers 2025: Some Unbelievable Deals!
Watch our video review – Best Golf Drivers of 2025
Advertisement