Hear the thunder – The New Kamui Works Ray Driver

The Kamui Works 456 Silver has been one of the all time favorite drivers here at TSG. With a combination of unrivaled custom options, a traditional look, premium performance and feel, there weren’t many drivers that could match it. While the original 456 Silver was a reasonably forgiving driver, they have gone a step further in designing their latest model the Kamui Works Ray. The idea of Ray is based on Raijin, god of thunder and lightning,  in the Shinto religion and in Japanese mythology. His name is derived from the Japanese words rai (雷, meaning thunder) and shin (神, god). Raijin is typically depicted as a demon beating drums to create thunder and is engraved on the sole of the new Kamui Works Ray driver.

The new Ray has been designed to feature a slightly shallower face as well as a shallow back head with more weighting towards back. A double bulge sole further brings the weight down to create a mid to higher low spin trajectory.  Once again like all Kamui works drivers, the Ray is completely made to customer spec by hand in a very time consuming and intricate process.

The new Ray features the following options:

• Conforming (0.83) or Non Conforming (0.88)  heads
• Real lofts from 8* to 12* (8 and 12* are only available non conforming)
  
• Real Lie Angles 58.5* to 61.5* (though they can probably go more)
• Real face angles 1* open to 2* closed (though they can probably go more)
• No paintfill sole
• Headweight 190g to 210g
• Head Bias – Fade, Neutral, Draw
• Custom head finish

In the past all Kamui drivers were made using cold forged as roll titan faces utilizing DAT56,  a next generation titanium steel from Daido Industries.  This time however, they have opted for a new mix of Beta Titanium. They have told me that the material is top secret and will improve feel and spring (in other words they won’t tell me what it is!) The titanium is still cold forged using pressure moulding with 400 tons of pressure.

The Ray like the 456 Silver  also features a dimpled back face which creates variable thickness all across the face for feel and added ball speeds.

Kamui Works then uses TIG Welding (by hand) to attach the face to the driver body. Because this is all done carefully by the hands of top Kamui Works craftsmen, there is very little margin of error when it comes to loft and face angle. You order 9.3* and that’s what you get.

The driver heads spend a lot of time on the grinding belt and are worked thoroughly by hand to ensure uniform thickness all throughout the head. Kamui Works believes this is an important process in creating a maximum performance driver as uneven surface and walls of the driver would not only throw off the overall balance of the head but cause the performance to fall below optimal.

Moving from rougher belts to finer belts with many steps in between, Kamui Works ensures a perfect polish and shine with the final touch being done by hand and cloth buffing. This is pure hand made attention folks.

The head is then hand painted to color and finish of customers choice including black pearl metallic, Wine or Green metallic.

The new Ray with its shallow back head is created to produce more forgiveness and ease of use.

I’ve got a not conforming 10* head with no paintfill on the sole coming my way to be shafted with a Crazy Black 46 for some testing. I loved the 456 silver and if there was something I wish it had more of was forgiveness on miss hits. I’m hoping that this Kamui Ray can rival the ease of use of the Ryoma and give us all yet another great option to choose from. The Kamui’s are just so attractive because of the ability to pretty much have your own driver made to spec. Look for the new Kamui Ray in the TSG pro shop later this week!

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