Taylormade R7 Quad Mini Driver Quick Review : The tee box Goldilocks

30 Second Summary

• Better forgiveness off the tee than a typical 3 wood ✅
• Better accuracy than a driver (for me anyway)✅
• Looks bad a$$ and has a throw back vibe to simpler times✅
• Perfect for holes that you want a lot of distance off the tee but if you happen to pure one with the big dog, you are totally cooked ✅
• A long fairway finding option for anyone who's a headcase with the driver ✅

This thing is freakin sweet. With a sweet retro mod look of a modernized original R7 driver and a bigger footprint than a 3 wood, the R7 Mini Driver offers a confidence inspiring option off the tee thats just the right club for anyone that feels like 3 wood is just a bit short/small for a tee ball, and driver is just a bit long or erratic.

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What I love

(For me using this as a 3 wood replacement)

• Being able to tee the ball up a little higher than my typical 3 wood, gives me more margin for error on the vertical nature of the strike, because the face is bigger and taller there’s just a lot more room to miss.
• The transition from driver down to 3 wood is a little less severe visually.
• Versatility - I can swing a little harder and come a little shy of driver distance, or i can feather or smoothy one pretty easily to take a few yards off (I have a mental block on doing this with driver).
• Adjustability - true to its R7 roots, the club has four moveable weights to help influence ball flight or counteract a consistent miss. 
• It’s remarkably easy to hit off the deck, albeit the launch and flight is low compared to a typical 3 wood.
• The looks - as aforementioned, the vibes on every detail of this club are cool. My word associations would include:  Ferrari, Batman, Nostalgic.  
• The headcover - speaking of every detail being cool, it comes with a reversible headcover, that’s the Ferrari race car style leather reversing to fluffy checkered flag. 

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What could be better

There’s really not a lot to say here. If I could have my cake and eat it too, Id say if it could do everything above and still give me high launch off the turf, that would sorta be the creme de la creme of fairway woods.  I'd trade away a couple yards for a little more height. So maybe a higher lofted version.

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Who is it for

I think there are 2 main use cases that really suit this club.

Use case 1: You simply aren’t comfortable with the driver, probably from some mental block that manifests itself into a technical flaw. 

For this use case, just changing gear(s) (figuratively and literally) can do wonders for your game.  If you are this person, I would lean towards going with the lower lofted version.(obvs test to see what launches better) Typically, the lower lofted (11.5 deg) version will work great as a driver replacement.

Use case 2: You mostly use the 3 wood as a club off the tee when driver is too much, or you need a little more accuracy.

For this use case, I’d lean towards the higher loft (13.5 deg, tweak loft with the hosel setting as appreciate, and use this as a 3 wood replacement. 

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Final Thoughts

For me, I’m use case 2. 

This has become my go to tee club on 1/3rd of my par4/par5 tee shots at my home course, and has become the club I reach for when a few of the shorter holes that I usually tee off with hybrid / 5 wood,  are into the wind.

It was an easy decision to replace my traditional 3 wood with this club and I feel like for the foreseeable future I’ll have some kind of mini driver in the bag. 

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