What sets the R9™ driver apart from all other drivers is that it incorporates our new TaylorMade Flight Control Technology, or FCT for short. With a simple twist of a wrench, FCT allows you to change the R9's face angle, loft and lie angle. How does FCT work? It starts with a small metallic sleeve positioned over the tip of the shaft. The shaft is secured to the clubhead with a specially made bolt in the bottom of the clubhead. The FCT bolt is designed to be retained in the well to eliminate the chance of losing it. The sleeve, made of high-strength 7075-T6 aluminum alloy, is ringed around the bottom with small teeth, which tightly mesh with a second ring of matching teeth within the hosel. You can change the clubhead's characteristics (face angle, loft, lie) by loosening the FCT bolt, removing the shaft from the head, rotating the sleeve and shaft into a specified position, then locking them into that position within the head with the FCT bolt.

"The R9 driver offers eight positions, and changing from one position to another is easy and takes only a matter of seconds," said Dr. Benoit Vincent, TaylorMade's chief technical officer. "When changing, it's important to recognize that as the face angle closes, the loft increases; and as the face angle opens, the loft decreases." Thus the R9 driver is engineered to promote trajectories that are 1) increasingly higher, long-carrying and which move from right-to-left; 2) increasingly lower, more controllable and which move from left-to-right; or 3) which are neutral, with relatively straight flight and at mid-level height.