Taylormade R7 Quad Mini Driver | 4 things to know

Taylormade continues a nostalgia theme with its latest mini driver release.

The BRNR Mini and the subsequent BRNR Mini Copper of the company launched the current Mini driver Obsession of the Golf World for the stratosphere and came up with the heels of the original Mini and 300 Mini, each of whom were a tribute to legendary motives from the past of Taylormade.

For the last import to the mini driver category, Taylormade returns to what many consider as the largest driver of the company of all time with the R7 Quad Mini.

Here are four things to know about the Taylormade R7 Quad Mini Driver.

An iconic name

All recent mini control programs from Taylormade are named after iconic drivers from the past, instead of coordinating on their current line, as some of their competitors do.

The R7 Quad Mini brings back the R7 name, one of the most popular rules of Taylormade. Originally released in 2004, the R7 line lasted four seasons with no fewer than half a dozen iterations in that period, including the original R7 quad and later R7 Superquad, the 460 cc version and has the same black, red and gold paint schedule as R7 Quad Mini of today.

“The R7 Quad Mini Driver is one of those projects that made everyone enthusiastic about the first concept, and bringing back one of the most iconic clubs in the history of Taylormade was a dream come true,” said Chandler Carr, product manager of Taylormade, product creation. “We cannot be more excited to continue to set the pace in the mini driver category.”

For many who played the driver almost 20 years ago, the return of the R7 name will certainly evoke a fairly strong emotional bond. Some consider the R7 Superquad as the best driver that Taylormade has ever released.

The most important innovation of the R7 was the Four -Cartridge Movable Weight Technology (MWT) system, which was one of the first adjustment functions in a driver. The original R7 contained 883 possible weight and CG combinations using an additional weight set with eight extra weights.

To add to the nostalgia, the Stock Fujikura Speedher MD (Mini Driver) axis and headcover have the same red, white and yellow accents of the R7 line.

What is old is new

Starting with the SLDR driver of 2014, Taylormade went away from Cartridge-based MWT in favor of sliding weights, and the industry followed.

But with this year’s QI35-line-up, the company made a reverse and dropped the sliding weights, recurring to a cartridge-based weighing system that calls it a route adjustment system (TAS) on both the QI35 LS and QI35 drivers. The reasoning was that designers discovered that you could move more weight further when you use a “PIN-Point-movement” on cartridge than you can use sliding weights.

The QI35 LS has three weight gates, while the QI35 has two, but the R7 Quad Mini is the first time that Taylormade has used four adjustable weight gates since the R7 Superquad in 2007.

“The R7 Quad Mini Driver is the perfect canvas for innovation and style,” Carr. “With four movable bag (trajectory adjustment system) weights, our newest mini -driver golfers gives the opportunity to adjust the shot shape and maximize the performance of the T -shirt and the deck.”

The Stock R7 Quad Mini weight system includes two 13 g of weights that are placed in the back positions and two 4 g of weights in the forward heel and toe positions, making six different weight configurations possible with more weights available for purchase.

Placing both the heavy weights at the back increases forgiveness and launch, while placing forward, decreases spider and stimulates the distance with a forward CG. Of course you can place both heavy weights on both sides on both sides to create an extreme draw or fading bias, but placing the heavy weight in the forward heel or toe will also produce a slight bias to that side.

If you place one heavy weight on the front, on the side of the face that you tend to turn, it should be a good place to start. For example, I tend to hit the ball to the toe, so I want to put heavy weight in the front toe with a light weight in the front heel while I have the opposite in the rear weights (the ceremony in the graph below).

A best option of both worlds

Although Callaway and Titleist both have collected their claims on either side of the mini driver size spectrum (Callaway is the largest while title is the smallest), Taylormade has continued to take a position in the middle.

At 305 cc, the R7 Quad Mini is basically the same main size as the previous BRNR mini and BRNR Mini Copper Mini drivers from Taylormade, while it is 25 cc larger than the titleistic GT280 and 35 cc smaller than the callaway Elyte Mini.

What does this mean? In principle, Taylormade tries to find that middle land between a mini driver as a purely off-the-tee second driver option or a 2-wood.

In the True Spec Golf test video above and in my own tests, the R7 quad seems to be a pretty workable option, even of just the stock weight. It is enough to play off the deck, while it also remains large enough to inspire some confidence of the tee.

Old name, new-age tech

While the R7 Quad Mini Driver looks like a director of the past of Taylormade, it has all the technology of the present of Taylormade.

The R7 is the first Taylormade Mini -Driver to take over the Infinity Carbon Crown from the company that debuted on the QI10 Woods -Line -Up from last year. This not only helps to create a clean appearance at the address, but it also enables engineers to redistribute the stored weight elsewhere, including the MWT system.