Of course, if you hit a driver long and straight, it probably won’t take you long to get used to the big bang on every tee shot.
It seemed louder than most drivers I’ve hit, including the square headed drivers that are notorious for being loud. Having played an SMT 455 Deep Bore a few years ago I don’t think I’m overly sensitive to loud drivers, but the XLS definitely surprised me. Perhaps, “XLS” actually stands for “eXtra Loud Sounding.” If you want to scare everyone in your group on the first tee, this might be the driver for you. It sounded like something had exploded at the bottom of the swing. The first time I hit a ball with the HiBORE XLS I felt the urge to check myself for shrapnel wounds. When it comes to auditory impressions, the XLS makes one in a big way. The sole of the club features large graphics, though it’s not as busy as the TaylorMade Burner, for instance. The charcoal finish helps minimize any shock to the senses that the size of the head and its shape might cause. The head is a little stretched out, but not grossly so (at least to my eyes). The HiBORE is not a bad looking driver, provided you can get over the scooped-out look of the head, presumably inspired by the old Halo hybrid.
Some still look odd to me, but for the most part I no longer chuckle when I look at one of these drivers at address. I’m starting to get used to the look of the “geometric” style drivers, those that seek straighter drivers through elongated, triangular, or square shapes. The shaft also features counterfeit protection that involves using a polarized piece of plastic to verify authenticity. The toe graphics will change from white to yellow on the real thing. To check to see if you have an authentic HiBORE XLS driver, just check out the toe in daylight or under UV light. Still, with the elongated clubhead and that big clubface, players shouldn’t have much trouble aiming the driver down the fairway.Ĭleveland has even added a measure of protection against knockoffs. There is no central alignment mark on top of the clubhead, though the crown plaque and “stability foils” are intended to aid alignment. Unlike the double-faced drivers that a few second-tier manufacturers (Bang, among others) experimented with a couple years ago, the spines in the XLS run perpendicular to the clubface. Cleveland is placing titanium spines inside the clubhead to direct impact energy to the ball to create more efficient energy transfer and high ball speeds from impact locations. The “Energy Transfer Core” is something I haven’t quite seen before. It’s also not particularly revolutionary, but it is a good idea. MOI and redistributing weight low and back are the primary reasons we now have geometrically oriented clubheads in the first place.Ĭleveland’s “Full Face Performance” is similar marketing jargon for the alignment of the sweet spot and maximizing the C.O.R. Every manufacturer has been doing this for the last several years. Simply put, Distance Driven Geometry moves weight low and back in the clubhead. According to Cleveland Golf, the XLS has an MOI of 5300, 13% more than the XL.Ĭleveland has a laundry list of technology crammed into the XLS, some of which is new, others like the “Distance Driven Geometry” just put a fancy name on something we’ve seen before. The XLS features a 17% larger clubface than its predecessor, the HiBORE XL. The Cleveland HiBORE XLS is the third generation in the HiBORE line. The HiBORE XLS Tour boasts a more traditional and compact pear shape, while its 2° open face and toe-biased weighting will help better players work the ball off the tee.įor this review, we looked at the standard model only. The XLS Draw, naturally, is for golfers who fight the “power fade.” It features a draw-biased face, offset hosel, and internal heel weighting to help mid- to high-handicappers straigten out their fades to hit more fairways without sacrificing distance. Great claims, but do they hold up? In addition to the standard XLS, the line also includes the XLS Draw and the XLS Tour. The HiBORE XLS is billed as the hottest, largest faced, and most forgiving yet. Now Cleveland has introduced the third rendition in the HiBORE trilogy.
Unlike most movies, in this case the sequel was far superior to the original. Cleveland soon replaced the HiBORE with the HiBORE XL. High and straight are good, but what fun is there in hitting a driver if you don’t get reasonable distance out of it? That original HiBORE lasted two weeks in the bag. My typical swing with the original HiBORE produced drives that flew wedge-shot high, very straight… and about as far as a 3-wood.Īs it turns out, two out of three can be bad. The driver was supposed to hit the ball high, straight, and long. When the original HiBORE driver hit store shelves, I was among the first in line to pick one up.