Srixon Z 785 Driver
We test the new Srixon Z 785 driver against its predecessor but did it impress?
This is still an impressive offering from Srixon that is a worthy rival to the big boys of the driver category and while we think it might fall just short, the £349 price tag is awfully appealing and represents some great value for money.
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Improvement in looks, feel and added forgiveness certainly widens the appeal to more abilities
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Performance gains over the previous model seemed to be fairly minimal
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Srixon Z 785 Driver Review - Technical Editor Joel Tadman tests the new Srixon Z 785 driver on the Foresight Sports GCQuad to assess performance over its predecessor
Srixon Z 785 Driver Review
The new Z 785 driver has much more shelf appeal than its predecessor thanks to the added flashes of colour and generally looking more futuristic.
At address it has a significantly different look too, with the carbon fibre pattern clearly visible on the crown with the new alignment mark helping centre the ball on the face.
The extra size over the Z 765 is also noticeable, immediately boosting your confidence before a ball is struck, although you could argue it isn’t as easy to align given the previous model had more contrast from a lighter face and white grooves.
Send a few balls down the range and you’ll notice the sound is different too, the new Z 785 model offering up a softer thud compared to the more metallic sound of the Z 765.
We tested the old Z 765 driver in 9.5° of loft with the Miyazaki tour issue shaft with a 5677 flex profile, meaning it’s stiff in the butt section and x-stiff towards the tip.
A foolishly heavy gym session the day before testing meant the numbers were not especially comparable to other driver reviews but having set some solid base numbers, we tried the new Z 785 in the new x-stiff Project X HZRDUS shaft.
Sadly it didn’t give us the performance we were hoping for, so reverted back to the Miyazaki shaft in 8.5° as it was clear the Z 785 launches the ball higher than the Z 765 driver.
As you can see below, we got 3 mph more ball speed on a similar launch, spin and a slightly higher flight, resulting in two yards extra carry on average.
The writing on the tip of the shaft, should you take the head off to adjust it, is plentiful and could bamboozle you at first but on closer inspection it is relatively straightforward – there are simply numerous loft, lie and face angle settings to help you get dialled in.
It’s fair to say - this represented just a minor improvement but the head does feel more stable at impact, despite us not seeing a major improvement in accuracy. We’ve ordered the new Tensei CK Pro Blue 70 x-stiff shaft, which is a stock option, so we’re hopeful we might get a few more yards from it in further testing so watch this space.
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