Club: Nike SasQuatch 460 Ti Driver

Details: Aldila NV-65 Stiff Shaft, 9.5 Degrees

The SasQuatch is certainly an interesting looking golf club. I still remember when I first saw it on TV, watching some PGA event, and thought, my god, why would anyone want to hit a golf club that looked so awful. But slowly, the strange shape and bright, contrasting colors, grew on me, and I had to see how well it performed for myself.

A quick perusal through Ebay and I found myself a mint condition (well, they said mint, it did have a sky mark on it) SasQuatch for $230. A week later I had the golf club in hand, and off I went to the driving range. The first session with the SasQuatch was interesting. I am used to hitting my 12 degree R5, so dropping all the way down to 9.5, probably wasnt the most intelligent decision. Nonetheless, I had been hitting the R5 so high, I figured I could get a more wind friendly trajectory out of the 9.5..and I was right. What I didnt consider was the left-rightright-left affect!

The club shaft is identical to that of my R5, so I was comfortable with the feel of the club very quickly. I like the Aldila NV-65, as it forces me to have a nice, smooth tempo. Overswinging with this shaft seems to put me out to the right quite often. But thats fine, I shouldnt be trying to hit it 110%. So no complaints about the shaft. The trajectory started off quite low, and stayed quite low with the 9.5 degree driver face.

I did like the sound of the SasQuatch on a solid hit. It was quite a menacing thwack.

Well struck balls went quite far, stayed quite low, and got a lot of run on the fairway. Unfortunately, this is no miracle piece of golf equipment, you still have to put a good golf swing on the ball if you want it to go where you are aiming. I had a lot of slices and hooks with this club at the range. A lot of it, I believe, had to do with what I believe was a general lack of feeling of where the club head was. The club seemed very light to me, couple that with the enormous headsize, and I always had a feeling of, what the heck am I swinging. Perhaps with a few more range sessions, I could get over that feelingbut I decided against investing that time, as I prefer the forgiveness, feel & length of the R5.

Ok, so after a few driving range sessions, I felt like I could take this interesting piece of golf equipment out on the course. And I did, twice. Both times I certainly had some bombed tee shots. But I never really had a good feeling about the club, and ended up with far too many missesand lost balls. I just never had that feeling of confidence with the SasQuatch in my hands. Im not sure why, perhaps its the shallower face? The lack of weight to the club? Seriously, sometimes I just felt like I was swinging a fly swatter around..I could feel some wind resistancebut where was the club face?

Conclusion

Im going to stick with my TaylorMade R5, as I feel quite comfortable with it these days, and have been hitting it extremely well. As much as I wanted to keep the SasQuatch, it looks like it will be finding its way back to eBay. I might have to look for a 10.5 degree R5 now though!