TaylorMade Kalea Premier Women's Driver Review
Carly Frost tests out TaylorMade's new premium performance driver for lady golfers
As far as upgrades to a recognised ladies golf club line go this is the ultimate makeover. The TaylorMade Kalea Premier is a beautifully-designed driver that can be precision built to suit anyone. It's a club that will catch your eye with elegant styling and wow you with its performance. We found it to be long, promote a soft draw and feel powerful from a large area.
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Impressive distance
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Effortlessly easy to hit
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Premium quality and fully customisable
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The crown's gloss finish could distract in sunlight
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TaylorMade Kalea Premier Women's Driver Review
TaylorMade's goal with the new Kalea range was to produce the absolute best clubs for ladies across a broad spectrum of playing styles. It ran focus groups across four countries, asking over 15,000 lady golfers of varying abilities what they wanted in a driver and even built an advisory panel made up of female PGA professionals. The result, in our opinion is one of the best golfer drivers for women TaylorMade has ever built.
The Kalea Premier women's driver has 12.5 degrees of loft as standard and is constructed in pieces, with a super lightweight carbon crown and sole, a 22-gram steel back weight to help you launch the ball higher and TaylorMade's corrective 'Twist Face' to help straighten out your heel and toe mis-hits. There's also a flexible 'Speed Pocket' channel behind the face that expands the sweet spot, giving you an added boost of ball speed and forgiveness on low face strikes. The overall club weight is 10g lighter than its predecessor, the Kalea 3 driver, which should make it even easier for the slower swinging lady to gain yards off the tee.
Aesthetically, this driver shares many design and visual elements of the SIM2 drivers, which is no bad thing. I first tested the Kalea Premier driver on the challenging Marco Simone 2023 Ryder Cup course in Rome. This tour-standard course demands long and accurate tee shots with some substantial carry distances off the red tees to avoid punishing fairway bunkers and well-placed penalty areas. From the moment I picked it up I loved it. The light feel and balance of weight is perfect. It's effortlessly easy to swing. The huge head sits boldly behind the ball, looking impossible to miss, making it one of the best women's golf clubs for boosting confidence over the ball.
I found the launch to be high with a noticeable draw-bias to the flight, allowing me to gently shape shots with added distance. The pleasing impact sound, resulting from the clever design elements inside the head, makes you want to hit this club again and again. My mis-hits off all corners of the face still flew a decent distance and, most importantly, when I made a bad swing I kept the ball in play, avoiding the brutal long rough. The lovely tacky grip is the perfect size for smaller ladies hands, too.
It's hard not to love the colour of this club, the intense dark blue head with a subtle shimmer finish is accented by bold white edging lines that really focus your eye on accurately aiming the club.
Another appealing element to the Kalea Premier driver is that it is fully customisable, including a variety of shaft and grip options as well as the ability to tweak loft and lie. As Michelle Penney, the Principle Product Development Engineer for TaylorMade, rightly says: "The shrink it and pink it formula no longer works for women golfers," and she's absolutely right. We're as diverse and discerning as the men and a one-size-suits-all ladies club just doesn't do all of our games' justice. So while this driver does come in at a premium price this is certainly an investment worth making and I applaud TaylorMade for going that extra mile for us lady golfers.
If you are interested in buying a TaylorMade driver, then check out our helpful TaylorMade coupon codes.
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Carly Frost is one of the golf industry’s best-known female writers, having worked for golf magazines for over 20 years. As a consistent three-handicapper who plays competitive club golf at Parkstone and the Isle of Purbeck courses in Dorset every week, Carly is well-versed in what lady golfers love. Her passion for golf and skill at writing combine to give her an unbeatable insight into the ladies game.
Carly’s role at Golf Monthly is to help deliver thorough and accurate ladies equipment reviews, buying advice and comparisons to help you find exactly what you are looking for. So whether it’s the latest driver, set of irons, golf ball, pair of shoes or even an outfit, Carly will help you decide what to buy. Over the years she has been fortunate to play some of the greatest courses in the world, ranking Sea Island, Georgia, USA, among her favourite golf resorts. Carly's aptly-named son Hogan is already hitting the ball as far as mum and will undoubtedly be a name to watch out for in the future. Carly is a keen competitor and her list of golfing achievements are vast. She is a former winner of the South West of England Ladies Intermediate Championship, a three-time winner of the European Media Masters and she once beat an entire start-sheet of men to the title of Times Corporate World Golf Champion. She has played for both the Dorset and Surrey County Ladies first teams and is known for her excellent track record at matchplay.
Carly holds the ladies course record (68) at her home club Parkstone and her lowest competition round (seven-under-par 65) was carded in the pro-am of the Irish Ladies Open at Killeen Castle, playing alongside Solheim Cup superstar Anna Nordqvist. Although her current handicap index has crept up to 3.7 since Covid she has her sights firmly set on achieving that elusive scratch handicap and hopefully playing for her country when she’s 50.
Carly’s current What's In The Bag?
Driver: Callaway Epic Max, 10.5°
Fairway wood: TaylorMade SIM2, 15°
Hybrids: Titleist TS2, 19°, 21°, 24°
Irons: Mizuno JPX900, 5-PW
Wedges: Cleveland RTX, 52°, 56° and 58°
Putter: Scotty Cameron Futura X5
Ball: 2021 Callaway Ladies SuperSoft
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