TaylorMade releases M5 and M6 drivers, fairway woods and rescue clubs

TaylorMade’s new M5 and M6 drivers are first manufactured “hot,” meaning they’re faster than the legal limit; then, before they go on the shelf, each driver is dialed back to within the legal range to get closer to the limit than ever before.

We’ll get to how that works below, but first, a refresher on the rules that are in place by the USGA and R&A, and the challenges those rules present driver manufacturers.

As many are familiar with, the USGA used to test for COR (Coefficient of Restitution, a measure of energy transfer), and the legal limit on COR is 0.830. Since then, a new CT (Characteristic of Time, a measure of face flexibility) was implemented. The CT limit is 239, with a tolerance of up to 257, according to Tomo Bystedt, Senior Director of Product Creation at TaylorMade. Drivers are also tested off-center. So now, drivers are considered non-conforming if they measure over 257 CT points in any area on the face.

This being the case, driver manufacturers face a dilemma. They can either play it safe and aim for a range well below the limit, or they can try to push closer to that legal limit and risk going over due to manufacturing tolerances. Why are there tolerances for such carefully crafted heads? “There’s no fully-automated golf club manufacturing system where everything just happens all the way through, there’s always hand interaction,” according to Bystedt.

Due to these manufacturing tolerances, CT values of drivers from any company exist on a bell curve. For example, go to your local big box store and pull 10 drivers of any model off the shelf. Maybe two drivers have a CT of 230, two drivers have a CT of 250, with the rest falling somewhere in the middle. Those are not real numbers, they’re strictly for explanation.

So, with its new M5 and M6 drivers, Taylormade is playing the game a bit differently. Instead of aiming for a range below the legal limit, as to not let manufacturing tolerances take any driver over 257, TaylorMade is manufacturing the drivers above the legal limit. Then, using a new injection process, resin gets pumped into the face and housed inside internal foam support chambers to effectively reduce flexibility back below 257. Since there are still tolerances even when manufacturing the new drivers above the limit, a different amount of resin gets injected into each driver, ranging from no resin to 2-grams worth of the material.

This, according to Bystedt, reduces the bell curve by “at least twice as much as before.” That would mean, hypothetically, if the range of M3 drivers was, say, 16 CT points, the range for M5 drivers would be 8 CT points, at most. Since Bystedt was not legally allowed to give me the exact range for the M5 and M6 drivers, the numbers above, again, are used strictly to illustrate the concept.

Let’s answer a few questions before getting into the other new designs of the M5 and M6 drivers.

How does TaylorMade manufacture the drivers above the legal limit? Thinner faces? What else?

Bystedt:“We have what we call levers to pull to get the speed higher. You mention face thickness (in your question), that’s a big one. The new faces are about 20 percent thinner than faces of M3 and M4. So that’s the first thing you go to. The challenge with the face thickness, though, is that you’re going to get more dangerous on durability. So obviously the thinner you go, the less durable the face is going to be. And these clubs have to hold up to guys who are hitting it 125 mph club head speeds over and over and over again. So durability becomes a problem. We can also adjust how flexible our speed pockets are. So, on M3/M4, we intentionally had those little, like, ribs across on the hammerhead slots because we didn’t want to make them too flexible. Because what happens if you make the slot too flexible, you’re potentially going to go over the COR limit, and you have to thicken the face, which is bad because you have to put mass where you don’t want it and that kind of stuff. So one of the kind of breakthroughs last year with the M3/M4 is doing the hammerhead slot that was not as flexible, it actually allowed us to go thinner face last year. Now, we’re again 20 percent thinner than last year. So all these things you can do to make the face faster, and so, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s difficult to make a club faster. It is hard to make it above the COR limit and make durable, especially with all the carbon panels you have there, the whole shell is so thin around the face that for sure that’s one of our biggest engineers challenges is to design these clubs as complicated as they are to hold up to these incredible swing speeds that we see nowadays, again beyond COR limits so that we can dial it back to be legal.”

So the bell curve is tighter and relatively closer to the limit than ever before. What does this mean for consumers?

Bystedt:“So what we’re doing is, I think, making people not have to doubt about what the speed they’re getting on their clubs… if you bought an old M2 driver, or whatever, you may have gotten really lucky, and you got 1 out of 100 that was like a 252, but likewise you could have gotten one that was way slower. Relatively speaking, I mean, none of them would be way slower, but you know what I mean. But even the TOUR guys… yes, we know what the CTs are for the TOUR players’ clubs… yes, we don’t want to give them slow clubs, but more so we know that they’re definitely conforming. Because the worst thing that happens is DJ wins a major, and it’s like oh yeah it’s not conforming. That’s a disaster. So we want to be 100 percent sure, same thing with the golf balls, that everything that goes to Tour is 100 percent conforming. Because even with the tolerances that we work with, and somewhat playing it safe with COR in the past, there’s still going to be the odd club… And so, for me, it’s exciting that we can guarantee people. First of all, whatever you’re getting fit into, in the hitting bay, you’re going to walk away with the same performance when you buy the club. That’s another thing where we’ve seen disconnects with people who get fit, they say ‘Aw, I hit it awesome.’ Two weeks later you get it in the mail, and it’s ‘I don’t know this doesn’t feel the same as the one I hit.’

If a different amount of resin is going into each driver head, are there any performance differences in a driver with no resin compared to one with 2 grams of resin?

Bystedt:“Almost none. Negligible. Yea we’ve tested it for sound. We’ve tested it, obviously. The thing is the maximum difference in the amount of weight is about 2 grams, between the minimum and the maximum injection. So it’s a very small amount of mass that’s actually going in there, which is why there’s really no difference in the mass properties or even the sound and feel. So it’s essentially exactly the same club.”

Hopefully by now you have a solid understanding of TaylorMade’s new injection process and why it matters. Let’s move onto everything else you need to know about the new M5 and M6 drivers.

Like the previous M3 and M4 drivers, the new M5 and M6 drivers will still have the familiar Twist Face that increases loft and opens the face on the high toe, to reduce a toe-hook, and decreases loft and closes the face on the low heel to reduce the heel-slice. The new M5 and M6 faces, however, are made 20 percent thinner, according to TaylorMade. Additionally, a new Hammerhead 2.0 slot behind the face was made more flexible than its predecessors, as explained briefly by Bystedt above, in order to increase ball speeds across the faces.

TaylorMade’s fourth generation of carbon composite technology sees composite panels on the soles and composite crowns – an overall increase of 10 percent more carbon in the M5 and M6 drivers than previous lines – thus increasing discretionary weight to optimize center of gravity (CG) and forgiveness, according to TaylorMade. The M6 and M6 D-Type drivers – the D-Type provides up to 20 more yards of draw bias compared to the standard M6 -- have a full carbon crown and carbon soles.

As with the M4 drivers, the new M6 drivers are not CG-adjustable; but like the M3 and M3 440, the new M5 and M5 Tour (435cc) models are. The new adjustability system in the soles of the M5 and M5 Tour drivers, however, looks different than the T-track featured in previous M1 drivers, and different than the Y-track of the M3 drivers. Instead, the new T-track of the M5 drivers is inverted. That means the draw/heel adjustability track is housed in the rear part of the sole instead of toward the face. In the new system, which uses two 10-gram sliding weights, there are 1770 different CG configurations. In all, TaylorMade reports a maximum difference of 1 degree in launch angle, 600 rpm of spin, and 25 yards of left-to-right adjustability.

The M5 and M6 drivers also have a 2-degree loft sleeve in the hosel to adjust loft, lie and face angle.

The new M5 (9, 10.5 and 12 degrees), M6 and M6 D-Type drivers (9, 10.5 and 12 degrees) are available for pre-order on January 18, coming to retail on February 1. The M5 Tour model becomes available on March 1. The M5 and M5 Tour will sell for $549.99, and come stock with either a Mitsubishi Tensei CK Orange shaft, a Project X HZRDUS Smoke, or other shaft options available for no upcharge. The M6 and M6 D-Type drivers will sell for $499.99; the M6 comes stock with a Fujikura Atmos Orange or a Fujikura Atmos Black shaft. The M6 D-Type comes stock with a Project X Evenflow Max Carry shaft.

TaylorMade M5 and M6 Fairway Woods

Each of TaylorMade’s new fairway woods and rescue clubs now have Twist Face technology, used to minimize gear effect on the high toe and low heel. The exact geometries, however, have been adjusted to suit the needs of these clubs compared to the drivers, according to TaylorMade.

The CG-adjustable fairway wood in the 2019 line, now called the M5 Titanium, has received a major overhaul in its design compared to the M3 fairway wood. With a multi-material construction – a Titanium body and a carbon composite crown – enough weight was saved to put a 65-gram movable steel weight in the sole; the movable weight, according to TaylorMade, weighs more than 30 percent of the head’s total weight. The weight allows for CG adjustability to create draw and fade bias, and the general position of the weight helped shift CG lower in the head to create higher launch and lower spin compared to its predecessor. The M5 Titanium also has a 4-degree adjustable loft sleeve.

For its non-CG-adjustable M6 and M6 D-Type fairway woods, TaylorMade re-designed its Speed Pocket with a new TPU (thermoplastic urethane) slot insert to improve turf interaction. For its M6 design, TaylorMade says it repositioned overall CG “directly behind center face,” for greater energy transfer. Also, the face height of the M6 fairways is slightly taller than the M4 fairways, according to TaylorMade, in order to provide more available impact area. The M6 D-Type adds a draw-biased option in the fairway wood line, producing up to 15 yards of draw bias, according to the company.

All fairway wood options are available for pre-order on January 18, and hit retail on February 1. The M5 Titanium –it comes in a “Rocket 3” at 14 degrees, and 15/18 degree options – will sell for $399.99. It comes stock with a Mitsubishi Tensei CK Orange shaft, and additional shafts are available at no upcharge. The M6 fairway woods (“Rocket 3” 14 degrees, 15/18/21/24 degree options) will come stock with Fujikura Atmos Orange shafts, and the M6 D-Type (16/19/22 degree lofts) will come with Project X EvenFlow Max Carry shafts; each will sell for $299.99.

TaylorMade M5 and M6 Fairway Woods

Each of TaylorMade’s new fairway woods and rescue clubs now have Twist Face technology, used to minimize gear effect on the high toe and low heel. The exact geometries, however, have been adjusted to suit the needs of these clubs compared to the drivers, according to TaylorMade.

The CG-adjustable fairway wood in the 2019 line, now called the M5 Titanium, has received a major overhaul in its design compared to the M3 fairway wood. With a multi-material construction – a Titanium body and a carbon composite crown – enough weight was saved to put a 65-gram movable steel weight in the sole; the movable weight, according to TaylorMade, weighs more than 30 percent of the head’s total weight. The weight allows for CG adjustability to create draw and fade bias, and the general position of the weight helped shift CG lower in the head to create higher launch and lower spin compared to its predecessor. The M5 Titanium also has a 4-degree adjustable loft sleeve.

For its non-CG-adjustable M6 and M6 D-Type fairway woods, TaylorMade re-designed its Speed Pocket with a new TPU (thermoplastic urethane) slot insert to improve turf interaction. For its M6 design, TaylorMade says it repositioned overall CG “directly behind center face,” for greater energy transfer. Also, the face height of the M6 fairways is slightly taller than the M4 fairways, according to TaylorMade, in order to provide more available impact area. The M6 D-Type adds a draw-biased option in the fairway wood line, producing up to 15 yards of draw bias, according to the company.

All fairway wood options are available for pre-order on January 18, and hit retail on February 1. The M5 Titanium –it comes in a “Rocket 3” at 14 degrees, and 15/18 degree options – will sell for $399.99. It comes stock with a Mitsubishi Tensei CK Orange shaft, and additional shafts are available at no upcharge. The M6 fairway woods (“Rocket 3” 14 degrees, 15/18/21/24 degree options) will come stock with Fujikura Atmos Orange shafts, and the M6 D-Type (16/19/22 degree lofts) will come with Project X EvenFlow Max Carry shafts; each will sell for $299.99.