Bullet-Shaped 460 cc Head and SuperFast Technology Make it Super Long and Perfect for Players who Love to "Bomb Away" off the Tee
CARLSBAD, Calif. (January 26, 2007) -TaylorMade’s new Burner® driver is engineered to promote greater distance through faster speed. Faster swing speed. Faster clubhead speed. Faster ball speed. Burner is about coolness and confidence. It’s designed for players who prefer to bomb it, crush it, thump it, and grip-it-and-rip-it.
Burner looks fast, feels fast and is fast. It’s sleek, sexy and powerful. Its astonishing union of size, shape and clubface technology give it phenomenal forgiveness, allowing it to maintain a level of ball speed on mis-hits that most other drivers can’t match. Burner brings out distance that players didn’t know they had. It finds power reserves that lie within and lights them on fire.
Throughout development TaylorMade engineers left no stone unturned in their efforts to eke every last bit of speed out of this club. Burner performance starts with the bullet-shaped head, which wears its 460 cc size beautifully, not awkwardly or clumsily like certain box-shaped drivers. Just as a racecar looks fast standing still, so does Burner, with sleek lines that scream "speed" from every angle.
Burner employs what we call "SuperFast Technology" to make the club lighter and faster. That includes an extra-light, 42-gram grip that’s eight grams lighter than normal; and a long and light TaylorMade SuperFast RE*AX® shaft that weighs just 50 grams, and which stretches the length of the club to 46 inches. The club’s total weight tops out at 299 grams, which is approximately 20 grams less than a typical driver measuring 45 inches and equipped with a 60- to 65-gram shaft. Meanwhile the longer length expands the swing arc. Combine the lighter weight with the wider arc and you get a significant boost in distance. Testing indicates that SuperFast Technology promotes a distance increase of six yards.
Not only is Burner extraordinarily fast and long, it’s also incredibly forgiving on mis-hits. Its size, shape and strategic weighting create an extremely high moment of inertia (MOI) that makes the clubhead extremely stable and resistant to twisting when impact is made toward the toe, toward the heel, or high or low on the face. That reduces ball-speed loss, which reduces distance loss.
Ball-speed loss is also dramatically reduced by TaylorMade’s Inverted Cone Technology (ICT), a revolutionary method of clubface construction that changes the way the clubface behaves at impact, thereby enlarging the portion of the clubface that delivers fast ball speed. With a constant-thickness clubface, ball speed plummets when you miss the center of the clubface, but with ICT you can miss the center of the face without suffering a dramatic drop in ball speed.
"ICT clearly helps average players, whose impact location on the clubface varies, to average more distance off the tee," says Dr. Benoit Vincent, TaylorMade’s chief technical officer. "TaylorMade engineers have determined that ICT adds up to 8 to 10 yards to an average player’s driving average, compared to their driving average with a constant thickness clubface. Add to that the 6-yard benefit of SuperFast technology promotes and you’ve got a potential boost of up to 14 yards. That’s huge."
Thanks to ICT, Burner delivers an incredibly high degree of what TaylorMade calls "effective MOI," which allows this driver to deliver extremely high ball speed—and distance—even when you don’t hit the ball flush in the middle of the clubface. TaylorMade defines effective MOI as the positive influence on ball speed on off-center hits that’s exerted by the combined effects of a driver’s MOI and clubface technology (versus constant-thickness clubfaces). eMOI in TaylorMade drivers is dramatically higher, and more valuable in terms of its affect on ball speed, than MOI alone, owing to the benefits of TaylorMade’s patented Inverted Cone Technology."
How much forgiveness does Burner’s extreme eMOI provide? The combined positive effects of its high MOI and ICT allow it to deliver the type of high ball speed and distance on mis-hits that’s equivalent to a driver that measures higher than 5800 MOI with a constant-thickness clubface, if not even better.
Adding to Burner’s distance advantage is the fact that it’s also engineered to naturally promote a high and penetrating draw thanks to the combination of its 1° closed clubface and the flex, flex-point and torque of its .350-tip shaft. Additionally, a permanent weight cartridge located in the middle-back of the sole pulls the CG deep and low into the head, making Burner easy to launch high and long. The cartridge also allows TaylorMade to cleanly and precisely adjust the club’s swingweight at the factory.
Burner also comes in a TP version. Differences include slightly shorter distance from the front to back of the clubhead, a 1° open clubface, a slightly shorter length (45.5") and an ultra-light 50-gram RE*AX® TP shaft with ROMBAX and a .335 tip, by Fujikura. A heavier, 65-gram shaft by Graphite Design is also available. Unlike the Burner, which is draw-biased, Burner TP is engineered to promote a neutral ball flight.
"One more valid point needs to be made, and it concerns sound," said Vincent. "TaylorMade’s design goals include making the best-sounding drivers in the business. It’s not easy to produce great sound, otherwise nobody would discuss it. How a driver sounds is especially important to good players, and another reason why TaylorMade drivers are so popular among tour pros. The Burner and Burner TP each sound solid, strong and sharp at impact, like the crack of a whip."
The bottom line, however, is that the Burner and Burner TP are built for speed. Both promote faster ball speed, and faster ball speed equals longer distance. You get higher ball speed when you hit the center of the clubface, and high ball speed when you don’t. Fast all the time. Long all the time. Cool and confident look and attitude. That’s Burner. Available in three lofts; 9.5, 10.5 and HT, and three shaft flexes; S, R and M, at a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $360. Burner TP is available in three lofts; 8.5, 9.5 and 10.5, and three shaft flexes; X, S and R, at an MSRP of $499. Availability at retail starts February 23 for Burner and March 20 for Burner TP.
About Taylor Made Golf Company, Inc. dba TaylorMade-adidas Golf Company
Taylor Made Golf Company has led the golf industry’s technological revolution since the company was founded in 1979. TaylorMade metalwoods, irons and putters have been used to win hundreds of professional golf tournaments around the world. In 1998, TaylorMade became a wholly owned subsidiary of the adidas Group. adidas Golf footwear and apparel is the choice of hundreds of professional golfers around the world. Learn more about TaylorMade-adidas Golf and its brands at (800) 888-CLUB or www.tmag.com , www.taylormadegolf.com , www.adidasgolf.com , www.maxfli.com.
The adidas Group is one of the global leaders in the sporting goods industry offering a wide range of products around the three core segments adidas, Reebok and TaylorMade-adidas Golf. Headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, the Group has approximately 25,000 employees worldwide and generates sales of about â?åÂ9.5 billion (2005).
Contact:
TaylorMade-adidas Golf
John Steinbach
Tel: 760.918.6330
eMail: john.steinbach@tmag.com
