What last year's driver actually saves you
Consecutive generations of the same driver, priced from recorded sales rather than from the discount on the box.
"Buy last year's model" is the most repeated piece of golf advice there is, and almost nobody attaches a number to it. The number matters: if the previous generation is 10% cheaper it is not worth the compromise, and if it is 40% cheaper very little else in the bag competes with it.
Across the one pair the previous generation is 37% cheaper. That is a genuinely large number for equipment separated by about two years and, in most cases, a few yards nobody has reliably measured on a golf course.
The timing part
The saving is not sitting there all year. A driver falls when its successor is announced, because that is the moment every shop holding stock discounts and every owner who upgrades annually lists theirs. Before the announcement you are paying current-model money for a club that is about to stop being the current model, which is the worst square on the board.
So the rule with the timing attached: buy the outgoing model in the weeks after the new one ships, not in the months before. Same club, and the announcement has done the negotiating.
What we are not saying
Nothing here is a claim about performance. We measure prices. Whether a G440 Max is worth £149.61 more than a G430 Max to you is a question for a launch monitor and your own swing, and anyone answering it from a spreadsheet is guessing.
The value ranking keeps this current.
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Every figure here is read from the tracker when the page loads, so it moves as the market does. Written by George Thirlaway. About this site.