By Jeffrey B. Janas, Images By Adams Golf

Adams Drivers

Nothing Is Constant, Except Change. 

As summer gives way to autumn for most of the country, signaling the beginning of the end of this year's golf season, we're again reminded of how difficult it is for golfers, particularly avid players, to adjust to a change in seasons.

Gone until next year are those scorching afternoon rounds, with cart girls wielding our favorite cold beverages.  Also gone are the extra 30 yards of roll we get from firm, dry fairways.  Instead, now we look forward to donning our favorite sweater vests, sipping hot morning coffee on the chilly first tee box, and needing to clear a path through the green's collection of fallen leaves and acorns that would otherwise prevent us from sinking that can't-miss thirty footer.

It's not that seasonal changes are necessarily bad or even unwelcome.  We all have our own preferences.  However, they simply portend the inevitable -- that soon, most of us will be preparing our clubs for winter hibernation, save for those rare occasions where the weather allows for a winter round, or when we can pack our bags and head to warmer confines affording the opportunity to swing again.

Nothing is so inevitable as change.  Better to accept rather than fight it -- either that or move to a tropical climate. 

The Adams Redline family of drivers.

But whether it's the irresistible march of the seasons or altering the way we play golf, change is often hard to accept.  The same can be said about changing the equipment we use to play our favorite game.

While we initially extol the benefits of newer equipment and the technology behind it, we're sometimes hesitant to welcome it into our personal world.  We are, after all, creatures of habit.  Heck, it took me years to finally retire my old Bulls-eye putter.    Nothing short of actually setting aside the worn-out and comfortable allows for trying something newer and probably better.

In our minds, technology is supposed to help our game, not hurt it.   Enter the Adams Redline Titanium Driver and Fairway woods.

Bigger Than Big

From a first look at the clubs, it's obvious the Adams Redline Driver and Fairway Woods are different -- but what makes them different is what makes them better. 

Immediately jumping out at you is the size of the Adams Redline Driver clubhead.  Simply put, it's massive.  However, you can only truly appreciate the size of the Adams Redline when placed alongside another driver.  At 460cc's (the largest legal clubhead size allowed), the Adams Redline Driver is bigger than every other legal driver on the market, outpacing most by over 100cc's.  To put it in perspective, that's similar to the size difference between a softball and a baseball.

The Redline Driver -- it's massive.

Believe me when I claim that all of the extra size is not just for show, too.

Technically speaking, The Adams Redline Driver (as the name implies) pushes the clubhead size to the legal limit by offering titanium construction for a state-of-the-art design that also shoots the COR (or Coefficient of Restitution) right up to the maximum allowable limit of .830. 

Tungsten perimeter weighting rounds out the dramatic features of the clubhead, providing for maximum MOI (Moment of Inertia).  Adams' Chairman, Barney Adams, describes the virtues of the driver:  "Not only does the Redline Driver reach the limits of COR, but the 460cc head also provides maximum forgiveness.  Adams Golf is the first premium equipment company to introduce a 460cc driver with the precise mass properties that deliver this kind of distance, forgiveness and accuracy."

These characteristics (I used 9.5 degrees of loft) provide optimum launch conditions, creating a high launch and low spin, perfect for those fall days when you'll appreciate a few extra yards on the thicker, muddier, late-year fairways.  You'll get all this while also receiving the accuracy and forgiveness you'd expect from a club painstakingly designed and engineered incorporating today's latest technology. 

As a package, all of these features combined -- from the tungsten perimeter weighting, to the 460cc clubhead with the highest COR allowed -- equals a high performance driver bestowing maximum velocity and distance.

Show me a golfer who isn't seeking maximum velocity and distance and I'll show you a miniature golf pro.

Barney Adams helped pioneer the age of easy to hit metal woods.

For the proverbial icing on the cake, the driver comes equipped with a 60-gram proprietary Fujikura graphite shaft measuring 46" in length, about an inch longer than most driver shafts.  The extra inch comes in handy, too, providing an appropriate adjustment for the oversized clubhead -- you're sure to notice an immediate difference in the length of your drives.

Finally, the Golf Pride Velvet Feel grip provides you with the necessary "feel" you need to handle the club.

All of this technological jargon may not mean much to the average golfer as he or she considers purchasing a new driver or set of woods.  They want something that feels good and performs well.  If some old persimmon wood is the club that's doing it for you, that's just fine -- but you at least owe it to yourself to try the latest technology. 

Because of the Adams Redline's obvious size difference, you might feel a bit intimidated trying it at first, even though everything technology has to offer is contained right there in that 460cc frame.  I know I was a bit apprehensive hitting my first ball with it.

Just like anything else, a new club takes a bit of getting used to, especially one that rivals the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.  As a matter of fact, as I traversed my way through the links this summer and fall, that's exactly how the club was described by some folks who saw it -- "a Volkswagen on a stick." 

My personal favorite nickname for the club was coined during a trip to West Virginia, when a playing partner dubbed the club, "a toaster on a stick" -- perhaps a little more apropos than the VW comparison.  But no matter what my Adams Redline Driver was called, or how many different comparisons were made to various cars or kitchen appliances -- the bottom line was, when I gave each new player an opportunity to try it out, I got the same response:

The Adams Redline Fairway Wood family.

They loved it.

Many times I was asked to allow a playing partner a trial run on the club, just to see how it felt.  And many times I ended up sharing my driver with him on the rest of the tee boxes!  I found myself getting jealous of it being used by so many people, but who could blame them -- the club works.

Continuing a Good Thing

The Adams Redline Titanium Fairway Woods are designed with the same precision technology as the driver.  For this particular review, I used the Adams Redline 3-wood (15 degree loft).  I was so immediately impressed with the 3-wood's performance that I went out and purchased an Adams Redline 5-wood (21 degree loft) to round out my bag with the Redline series.

In my humble opinion, I hit fairway woods better than any other club in my bag.  I use these clubs frequently, and if I was about to tinker with the best part of my game -- I was only going to do it with a club that I felt completely comfortable with.  I had no problem transitioning to my new Adams clubs.

The Adams Redline Fairway Woods easily helped me continue my love affair with this type of club that I've always had, while adding superior accuracy and some increased distance over my old set.  I found myself flirting with eagle putts and chips on exceptionally long par fives, something that I rarely had the pleasure of challenging before I had these clubs.   Again, technology and the Adams design contributed to this performance.

Adams Redline trio of metal woods.

The Adams designers claim the super thin titanium walls of the fairway woods allow for strategic placement of 90 grams of weight in the heel and toe while the tungsten perimeter weighting boasts up to 59% more MOI.  Although the clubhead(s) do not keep pace with the huge size of the Adams Redline "appliance-size" Driver, the new technology and state-of-the-art design in the Redline Fairway Woods provides for a hotter face for explosive distance. 

Building on the benefits of Adams' Tight Lies Fairway Woods, the Redline Series takes advantage of the patented 'upside down' design of the Tight Lies, making it easier to hit from all types of lies.  Coupled with a similar proprietary Fujikura shaft (the driver shaft weighs 60 grams, while the fairway woods' shaft weighs 75-grams) as the Redline Driver, the Adams Fairway Woods are a force to be reckoned with on those friendly Saturday morning golf outings.

So give these Adams Redline metal woods a try... you won't be disappointed.  And although you may find it impossible to get in a late nine after work as the daylight hours grow shorter this fall, hopefully Old Man Winter will afford you a chance or two to use these clubs during a chilly weekend round -- while you, like me, await next year's warmer months.   

Regardless of the weather, however, I am sure you will find the Adams Redline Driver and Fairway Woods to be the best "appliances" you have in your golf bag.

Adams Redline Metal Woods

Available at your finer golf pro shops and golf retailers.

The Redline 3-wood. It could become your favorite club.

The Redline Drivers are available in lofts of 8.5, 9.5 and 10.5 and come in right and left handed models with shaft flex ranging from X,S,R,A. Suggested retail price is $349.95.        

The Redline Fairway Woods are available in lofts of 13, 15, 19 and 21 and come in right and left handed models.  Suggested retail price is $299.95