Quelot Royal Excellence Driver First Impressions

It’s the 20th of December today and temperatures hit 18C down in southern Chiba. It’s hard to believe it’s almost Christmas. I overdressed for a round over at Katsuura Tokyu Resort as I got a chance to test out the Quelot Royal Excellence drivers. I originally was planning a range and photo session with both the Gold and Silver models tomorrow before writing up a full review and introduction about their features and differences but after today’s round, I had to post my first impressions.

There are a lot of drivers that have impressed me with their performance but I had to say “wow” after spending a day hitting the Quelots. I pulled out the Quelot Silver on the first hole and and promptly drove the ball around 240y total distance. All my playing partners said “great drive! nice shot” as I usually average just under 230y  when driving the ball well. I then took a look at the driver face and the ball mark was  towards the toe, by actually quite a bit. As you can imagine, this made me rather excited, and its been a while since an off center hit excited me. I realized it might take me a few holes to get used to the longer lengths of the  Quelot as I typically play a driver between 44.00″ and 44.5″ which really help me hit the sweet spot all the time. The Quelot’s feature light heads as they are meant to be built longer ie between 45.50″ and 46.00″ in length. The longer length will definitely help gain distance as long as a player can consistently hit the sweet spot… or not? Yes I did just say I hit one off the toe that went longer than my usual drives.

I’m not going to go into too much detail as I still want to do one more range session tomorrow with them where I can hit them alternately for a bucket of balls and finish taking pictures. However I will say that while both drivers share similar dimensions and designs, there ARE more differences to them than just being Gold and Silver. One thing they do share in common is explosive impact and great forgiveness.  I was reminded of a Kamui 456 feel with dare I say crisper sound, a hotter face and more forgiveness. I should also note that I hit both Quelot’s with their stock Quelot shafts which are 4 axis weave shafts made in Japan by NGS. Because the Quelot is available through TSG as a custom order it’s actually available with ANY SHAFT in Japan (you can contact us now if you feel like ordering or getting a price quote or fitting).

Overall I had a great day with the Quelots. I recently hit the X-Drive 705 455, PRGR iD 435 and ONOFF XI-S (all forged by Endo by the way) which I thought were all top class drivers but the Quelot tops them thanks to its more explosive feel geared towards a player of my level and swing speed (mid 80’s and just over 90mph) and it’s superior forgiveness.

I’ll finish testing the Quelot drivers tomorrow and post the more detailed portion of my review including who I think the target audience of the Quelot is and why the driver worked for me today. Stay tuned!