The temperatures in Chiba cooled this morning as I headed to the driving range to test both the Quelot Gold and Silver model drivers. This concerned me a bit as the combination of colder weather and harder range balls could put a damper on the initial feel I had when I used the driver yesterday in 18C warm weather with my soft 3 piece Gran Z Premium golf balls.

Feel and Distance…

Again I should remind readers of two important points when testing and reviewing golf clubs. Feel is of course subjective and can be affected by many things including design, materials, the ball you use and even the weather. Cold weather results in harder feel and this morning at 6C it was 12C COLDER than yesterday afternoon. The other point is that, there is no ONE longest driver. This is one of the questions I get asked all the time. “What’s the longest driver TSG has?” If there were such a thing, everyone would buy it. But there isn’t because it’s all about finding the best driver that fits each specific player. I try my best to relay my impressions and recommendations based on my testing but in the end if a driver works for me, it doesn’t mean it works for you. I hope that readers can take the information I provide and understand that I test many many drivers, and use that information to make an educated purchase.

One of the reasons why we started this blog was to provide more info to customers and readers. It certainly is not easy buying golf clubs without being able to try them. We try and take as nice pictures as we can and give enough info so customers can make good decisions. I don’t after all expect anyone to simply throw down there hard earned cash without at least making an effort to understand that they are buying the right club.

Anyway, back to the real topic here which is my review of the Quelot drivers. One of the factors I don’t always touch base on in some of the club reviews is cost. The fact is JDM (Japan Domestic Market) gear is not cheap. It’s a completely different market from the rest of the world where Japanese golfers don’t hesitate to spend over 800.00 a driver as that’s the norm. As long as those clubs are cutting edge, with great designs and workmanship and perform, golfers in Japan keep buying and manufacturers keep producing. So what I’m getting at is when a driver like the Quelot comes around and provides superb forgiveness and distance, this impression is enhanced by its cost performance, because the Quelot is one of the lower priced drivers in Japan (I’ll touch on the cost later).

Quelot Royal Excellence RE10

The Quelot Royal Excellence (RE10) drivers are made by Geotech Golf, Japan’s leading components brand and manufacturer. I made a more in depth introduction last year, but to summarize, Geotech has been making golf clubs since 1988, originally as part of Dynamic Precision Industry. Dynamic, whose head office is in Taiwan, is still one of the largest golf club manufacturers in the world and one of the oldest in Asia dating back to 1972 and known to have supplied heads to companies like Taylormade, Wilson and other big OEM’s over the years so without doubt the quality is high. Even though in 1996 Geotech became an independent company head officed right here in Chiba, Japan, Dynamic still handles most of Geotech’s woods while many of the irons and wedges are now forged and finished in Japan.

3 Different but Same models…

In the past, Geotech has had success with their GT line of drivers, many targeting the better player and faster swinger. With the Quelot RE10, Geotech decided on a driver which would focus on ease of use, and distance performance especially for the average golfer with more mortal like swing speeds. The decided to create 3 RE10 models, Silver, Gold and Alpha-Spec. All 3 models feature similar design, shape and dimensions (which you’ll see in the pictures). The difference comes in finish, specs and COR.

Please note I only received the Silver (9.5* LT) and Gold (10.5* MT) models and not the Alpha-Spec (though I wish I did) so images here and my testing feature the Silver and Gold models. All three models feature a shallow back design with a mid – shallow face (56mm high) and 450cc head size. The head does look larger at address providing lots of confidence.  All 3 models feature a variable thickness face with the thickest area being right in the sweet spot and then progressing thinner as it heads towards the outer areas of the face. As Geotech puts it, this is for maximum rebound and smash factor. All models feature closed faces to some degree and lofts of 9.5 10.5 and 11.5 degress which are marked on each head not by number but by initials; LT or Low Trajectory for the 9.5, MT or Mid Trajectory for the 10.5 and HT or High Trajectory for the 11.5* head.

The Specs…

To break down the differences which as I said are specs and materials:

Quelot RE10 Silver:
9.5* Closed 0.5*, 10.5* Closed 1.0*, 11.5* Closed 1.5*
Head Weight: 192g
Material: 6-4 Titanium face and body
Satin Face, Mirror Sole, Black Metallic Crown
0.83 COR Conforming

Quelot RE10 Gold:
9.5* Closed 1.0*, 10.5* Closed 1.5*, 11.5* Closed 2.0*
Head Weight: 190g
Material: SP700 Titanium face, 6-4 Titanium body
Gold PVD Satin Face, Gold PVD Mirror Sole, Wine Red x Black Gradation Crown
0.83 COR Conforming

Quelot RE10 Alpha-Spec:
9.5* Closed 1.0*, 10.5* Closed 1.5*, 11.5* Closed 2.0*
Head Weight: 188g
Material: SP700 Titanium face, 6-4 Titanium body
Gold PVD Satin Face, Gold PVD Mirror Sole, Wine Red x Black Gradation Crown
0.86-0.87 COR NON-Conforming

As you can see from the above specs, the key differences are the more closed faces on the Gold and Alpha Spec models vs the Silver, the use of SP700 Titanium faces in Gold and Alpha spec models, and the weight and finishes of the heads.

On course performance…

So how does this all translate into real life performance? I spent a week with both drivers and a full round on Monday as well as side by side test hitting at the range yesterday.  First off the driver is pretty easy to hit and rather forgiving. As I noted in an earlier post I missed the sweet spot on my first drive while at Katsuura Country Club and I lost no distance at all off the toe. As with any driver, heel misses do result in some noticeable loss of distance but toe hits are hardly noticeable in at all in lost yardage. Most distance drivers with deep CG locations provide higher launch and high trajectory balls for what supposed to be big carry. The RE10 Silver 9.5* produced a very stable mid trajectory with good run which is probably why I achieved very good distance with it . The Silver 9.5 only being closed 0.5* is probably the most workable driver of all the models and specs available if that is important to you. Most my drives with the Silver 9.5 were straight or with a soft fade.

The Gold 10.5* I had is 1.5* closed and it shows at address. This resulted in mostly draws and drives to the left side of the fairway for me as I have a bit of an aggressive transition. The left sided bias could have also been a result of the shaft which I will touch on a bit later.  The ball certainly launched higher than the Silver 9.5 but it was by no means a very high trajectory.

Easy to hit distance…

Both models produced very long drives for me and best of all were pretty easy to hit. Both models are equally forgiving. Now on to feel which was difficult for me.  I went into testing the drivers already knowing that the Gold model had the SP700 Ti face and the Silver the more common 6-4 Ti so I was expecting the Gold to feel different from the Silver based on industry assumptions that SP700 can provide a more springy type performance and feel at impact. Now I will be totally honest here, I could NOT feel the difference.  Maybe I did not have enough time with the driver or when I finally got around to alternating side by side drives the weather got too cold hardening the feel. It’s hard to say.  However playing both clubs on the course on Monday with my GranZ Premium Blue ball which is a pretty soft ball, impact felt great for both drivers.Soft but a crisp sound and not overly loud.

There are a few other things I liked about this driver besides it’s performance and feel and that’s the fact that even though its a shallow back head it doesn’t look huge at address. I also liked the fact that the drivers don’t have an overly huge gravity angle which dictate head bias and how fast it roates square. With there already closed faces, a huge gravity angle could result in soft draws quickly becoming pulls and hooks. Finally the face doesn’t have too much bulge to it and is flatter in appearance at address.

Heads Only or Custom Built…

The Quelot RE10’s are available as heads only and in the case of my testers came with stock Quelot shafts especially made for the Quelot driver by NGS Japan (wine for the gold model and blue for the silver model). These Quelot shafts are actually rather high end for a stock shaft and feature 4 Axis carbon weaves. The shafts play reasonably true to flex considering they are stock shafts though aggressive and faster swingers should probably opt for something else.

For the Average golfer?

I actually stopped by Geotech’s headquarters today to return my demos so I spoke with their head of sales Mr. Yaita about the RE10 driver. As I noted and Mr. Yaita agreed, the Quelot is really made for the average golfer. Mr. Yaita said that Geotech recommends the Silver and Gold to players with a 16-36 handicap and the Alpha-Spec non conforming model to 20-36 handicap players. Another thing we discussed was head weight and length. In order to achieve acceptable swing weights with the Quelot’s it’s suggested they be installed at longer lengths.

While I agree with Geotech’s handicap recommendations I also note that the face angle really is aimed at the player that struggles to square the face and battles the right side. The Silver model 9.5* could be played by the better player who doesn’t pull or hook the ball as its trajectory and only 0.5* closed face can suit a faster more powerful player still. Both the Gold and the Alpha-Spec though do fit the slower swinger and slicer as well as executive golfer as they cost more than the Silver model thanks to their gold hues and accents, for that prestige look I assume.

I  wish I got to test the Alpha-spec to see if a nonconforming model had any difference in feel or resulted in any distance. Typically in this day and age, non conforming drivers have less and less of an edge over many of the high tech drivers today especially with slower swingers who can’t make that extra COR produce more distance. That said, I’m actually thinking of getting the Hi COR model as I like to keep my hopes up like many golfers out there who still email for a non conforming driver.

Reasonably priced for JDM….

As mentioned the Quelot will be carried by TSG as heads only and also available with stock shaft. Custom orders can also be made with any shaft available in Japan built to customer length with grip of choice by Geotech’s workshop. The Quelot’s are priced pretty competitively even in light of the ultra strong yen which has pretty much bumped up JDM prices in US dollars by over 20% during the last couple of years. The Silver Model is 365.00 per head, the Gold 400.00 per head and the Alpha Spec 440.00 per head. Geotech charges more for the SP700 and gold PVD as well as more for Hi Cor. For a limited time only we’ve got a coupon code for the Quelot SILVER Model resulting in 30.00 off.  The coupon code is SILVER30 and can be used tomorrow after we add the heads to the pro shop.

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