As most of you know, I’m quite the traditionalist when it comes to my equipment, even though I’ve been designing wedges for over 30 years, have over 100 putter designs to my credit and have “authored” several sets of irons.

To give you a look into my own bag, I’ve played only two iron designs over the past 27 year – the RL Blades I designed at Reid Lockhart, and the Ben Hogan Ft. Worth 15 irons I designed for the re-launch of the Ben Hogan brand in 2015 (those are still in my bag). Of course, my wedges have always changed to reflect my latest work in the category and now include lofts of 45, 49, 53, and 55 of the Edison Forged line.

I carry only one hybrid, a prototype that led to the Hogan VKTR product line, and an old favorite 4-wood.

Since early 2016, my driver has been a prototype we developed at Hogan, which is only 400cc in size, but was designed to accommodate working the ball in both directions. Though that club never made it to market, I have used it to become a very good driver of the ball – respectfully long and hitting lots of fairways.

I share all that because I began to wonder if I was leaving significant yardage “on the table” by not taking advantage of newer driver technology. So, I visited my local Edwin Watts Golf Shop, managed by a close friend, to get some insight into what he liked these days. Without “plugging” any brand, I chose to build a driver on a current model head with a story that appealed to me – lower spin and a fade bias. I opted for the 9-degree version, as I like to keep the ball down in our Texas coastal winds that are rarely below 15 mph, and often 20-25 or even higher.

My friends at KBS provided me with their new TD driver shaft at 60 grams.

After putting this new driver together at my preferred 45.25-inch length, I compared it to my Hogan before ever hitting it. Swingweight was a match, while the overall weight of the new one was about eight grams lighter. On the frequency machine, they were a close match, only five cycles different. So now, it was time to go to the course and see what I had.

After hitting some balls on the range to get the feel of it, I went out to the course to see “the numbers.” Using my MEVO+ launch monitor, and my regular game ball, the OnCore VERO 1x, I quickly saw that the new driver had definitely earned a place in my bag. Launch angle was about the same, but spin went down by over 400 rpms, and smash factor improved by almost four percent, which is huge. Between them, that translated to over 12 yards in additional carry on average, and over 15 yards on my less efficient impacts.

My best shots with both drivers gave a nod of almost 15 yards to the new technology. But more importantly, I found that I had “bought” that baby fade that I like as my regular shot pattern, and that I could aggressively hit a draw without it turning into a hook.

While enjoying this success, I read where Justin Rose said he could skip one generation of driver technology, but not two. Interesting.

So, my point here is that if you are playing a driver that is over three-to-four years old, you are likely leaving some yards “on the table.” There is no question that category continues to improve, as hard as it may be. The big boys are grinding every way they can to squeeze every yard out of that driver for all of us.

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• The Wedge Guy: The 2 putting triangles