Tour Edge C721 Driver Review

Tour Edge C721 Driver Review

Tour Edge Exotics C721 Driver
Grade: A
Teacher’s Comments: Hot face. Low Spin. Fifteen yards longer than my previous driver. Seriously.

Manufacturer’s Website

I am always skeptical when I see a manufacturer’s claim that a particular club or ball is X yards longer. If all of those “yards longer” were added up, I would be hitting 500-yard drives by now.

Given this, I do not expect anyone to believe me when I write that the Tour Edge Exotics C721Driver is fifteen yards longer on average than my previous gamer. It is, however, absolutely true.

With the C721 driver, I have regained some of the yards I lost with age and am seriously considering moving back from the senior tees to the mid tees. (Or maybe not. It is fun playing it forward)

Drives I hit with the Tour Edge Exotics C721 driver take off quickly on a piercing mid-height arc, approach the ground like a plane coming in for a shallow landing and then roll out. (As opposed to some of my other drivers, where the ball behaved more like a F-14 dropping in on a carrier and coming to a sudden halt as it catches with the tail hook).

I love to watch the ball disappear into the slight depression on the par five third at Washtenaw Golf Club, then roll back into sight as the fairway rises again. It’s gone … and then … there it is. A hole that has been driver-hybrid-midiron in recent rounds has been driver-hybrid-wedge.

The model that Tour Edge sent for review is a 9.5 degree head with a Ventus 50 Gram R Fujikura shaft. Tour Edge has sixteen different shafts available. It retails for $399.

I think several factors in the distance gain I’ve seen.

First, the Tour Edge Exotics C721 Driver has gotten my spin rate down. On most drivers I’ve put into play, I regularly lose distance with shots that quickly hit an apex and then plummet out of the sky, on occasion even plugging in the fairway. Just a few of those every round are enough to play havoc.

Lessons and club fittings over the years tell a consistent story: I need help getting my spin rate down.

I have found that help with the Exotics driver. Drives hit with the Tour Edge C721 have a more consistently penetrating flight than my usual gamer. The ball hits the fairway and then does something I haven’t seen much in recent years: It skips forward and rolls out.

I am excited to see how it will play in the summer and fall when the fairways are drier and faster. It’s still a bit spring-wet here in Michigan.

A second factor in the distance gain likely lies in the Tour Edge C721’s face design. With a technology they call Diamond Face 2.0, it has 43 different diamond shapes of variable thickness behind the face. Each acts as a mini-trampoline, bringing more speed to the outer edges where hackers like me make contact as often as not.

I don’t need a Trackman to tell me that my contact is all over the face. I can feel it. Inconsistency is the root of distance loss.

With the Diamond Face on the Exotics C721 Driver, the good shots are really good. The mishits are … well … not all that bad.

My mental conversations with the C721 have gone something like this:

(Swing). Dang. I hit that one on the toe. Wow … that turned out better than I thought it would. (Watches ball roll out to a completely undeserved distance)

The pairing of the shaft is the third factor. Tour Edge recommended the Ventus 50 gram, saying that the tip was stiff enough to max out distance for this golfer of a certain age, while combining with the head for lower spin.

Another helpful design feature is the Ridgeback, which is a titanium spine in the crown that acts as a brace. The Ridgeback, Tour Edge says, creates more power on center hits while at the same time allowing greater flex in the heel and toe to help with the off-center strikes.

Again: my bad contact with this driver does not punish me as badly as it should.

On either side of the Ridgeback are carbon fiber “wings” which serve to complete the crown of the Exotics C721 driver. Weight saved here was moved to the rear of the club to produce a higher moment of inertia (resistance to twisting)

As with nearly all of the modern drivers, the Exotics C721driver has adjustable settings. In this case, a hosel adjustment manipulates loft and lie. With the 9.5 degree head, you can crank the loft as high as 11.5, and adjust the lie between 59 and 62 degrees, depending on the loft. The rear weight can also be swapped out with an optional kit.

There’s no adjustment for a more closed or open face, though. That brings me to the one red mark on the report card of this otherwise brilliant product: it’s brought the right side of the fairway back in play for me.

My current gamer is set to produce a draw — which it does to an admirable extent. At the very least, it has the effect of taking the right side of the fairway out of play.

My shots with the Tour Edge Exotics C721, on the other hand, range from straight to a slight slice — you could maybe call it a fade. I’m still hitting fairways, but it’s the other side of the fairway. I’ll still occasionally hit the big hook, though. That’s my fault, though, not the club’s.

I’m going to need to make a little adjustment with my stance and alignment.

In terms of value, the Tour Edge Exotics C721 is excellent. Retail is $399, compared to $529 for a TaylorMade SIM or Callaway Epic.

Value has long been Tour Edge’s forte. For many years, Tour Edge was famous for being the little golf company that could. Unlike others, it did not engage in expensive undertakings such as maintaining a roster of pro players and launching saturation level ad campaigns. I remember first seeing them a couple of decades ago in some local green grass pro shops. I wondered if a club so inexpensive could be any good. At one point, I owned one of their earlier Bazooka driver models. It was a good piece of gear.

In spite of their contrarian approach, Tour Edge clubs were good enough that you could spot them — particularly the hybrids — in the bags of many senior tour players.

Tour Edge has abandoned flying-under-the-radar in recent years. The Batavia, Illinois-based company has signed several PGA TOUR Champions players, including Scott McCarron, Duffy Waldorf, Tim Petrovic, Tom Lehman and Ken Duke. John Daly also plays their clubs. Their advertising is more prominent.

The fact that Langer, the ageless wonder, is all-in on Tour Edge gives me hope.

If you’re in the market for a new driver, I think you should give the Tour Edge Exotics C721 Driver a serious look. Your game and your pocketbook may thank you.

As for me, the Exotics C721 Driver stays in my bag as my new gamer. They can’t have it back.

The Tour Edge C721 Driver review was first published on GolfBlogger Golf Blog on May 22, 2021