TaylorMade AeroBurner: More than just a distance story

After trying the TaylorMade AeroBurner range for the first time, Technical Editor Joel Tadman concludes there's more to it than out-driving your playing partners

The tag line for TaylorMade’s new AeroBurner product line is Made Of Speed. Generally speaking, more clubhead speed means more distance, something nearly all golfers desire off the tee – so that’s an easy sell. Plus the fact the woods have a fixed hosel means there's no faffing around fine-tuning the loft. Just grip it and rip it, as they say. The driver clearly delivers on this ideal and is even getting some use on tour, as is the fairway wood.

The addition of the AeroBurner Mini driver to the line recently is an interesting one. The concept of a club that sits in size directly between a driver and 3-wood is not something many manufacturers offer, nor club golfers know about.

Yet there are many potential benefits, most notably enhanced playability from tee and turf, more accuracy than a driver due to the higher loft and more distance than a traditional fairway wood.

Another new member of the family is the AeroBurner iron. TaylorMade are labeling this as ‘Too long for Tour’ and it’s no wonder. At an event at Woburn, TaylorMade staffer and European Tour player Johan Carlsson gave us a masterclass with the new AeroBurner gear on Trackman. He's known for being a long hitter and the numbers he achieved were mind blowing.

First, he carried the AeroBurner Mini (14° head) over 290 yards with nonchalant ease and then proceeded to melt an AeroBurner 6-iron beyond the 250-yard barrier. These a numbers club golfers can only dream of so why wouldn’t he want to benefit from this distance on Tour?

“For me, irons are about covering different distances,” he told us. “I don’t necessarily want to hit a 6-iron 250 yards because that will leave big gaps on the shorter distances into the green.”

Fair enough. It’s worth mentioning here that the lofts on the AeroBurner irons are some of the lowest on the market, which goes some way to explaining the distances he generated. While better players won’t want to look down on an iron with such a large footprint, or hit a four iron the same distance as they’re hybrid, the appeal to beginners or slow swingers that struggle with distance and ball striking is tremendous.

After Johan put me to shame on the range, I moved on to the back nine on the Marquess, a delightful tree-lined track set to host the British Masters in October, completing a series of fun challenges with the new product. Various zones were set up for us to find, some more successfully than others.

It must be said, on the whole I found the woods surprisingly easy to get on with, even with some not quite in my usual spec. I was especially impressed with the driver and Mini, which secured me a point on the tight 16^th through the ‘Mini Zone’ with a bullet-straight tee shot that felt easy to reproduce. In the video below, I take on the risk-and-reward Par four 12th with limited success.

From the day, I concluded that while the TaylorMade AeroBurner family is built predominantly for distance, one should consider the versatility on offer too. In the Mini Driver, you have a club to turn to when your driver is misbehaving and in the irons, you have a club that is incredibly forgiving and easy to hit due to its size, while offering distance in abundance.

Whether distance or forgiveness is your desire, the AeroBurner family should be high up on your list to try. The AeroBurner Pro ball felt surprisingly good too, it was nowhere near as hard as I was expecting with decent levels of spin around the green.

Oh, and if you ever get the chance to see Johan Carlsson hit balls, take it. You'll be blown away!