Gear: PXG 0311, 0311 XF GEN5 drivers Price: $499 Specs: Titanium chassis with aluminum-vapor covered carbon fiber crown, movable weights, and adjustable hosel. Lofts: 7.5, 9 and 10.5 degrees (0311); 9, 10.5 and 12 degrees (0311 XF). Who it’s for: The standard 0311 is made for golfers who covet distance and want to maximize ball speed, while the 0311 XF is larger and more forgiving for golfers who want more forgiveness and stability. The Skinny: For 2022, PXG has updated several of the company’s core technologies and refined others to create a more simplified, cleaner driver line-up. The 0311 XF appears slightly larger at address, and it produces a higher-flying, slightly higher-spinning shot, but both drivers sound and feel very similar.
The Deep Dive: PXG is not reinventing the wheel with its drivers for 2022. Instead, the company’s designers have tried to improve the concepts and technologies that previously appeared in last season’s 0811 driver family.
From a shape perspective, the 0311 GEN5 has a taller face and a higher crown than the lower-profile 0311 XF GEN5, which is also larger from front to back.
Both 0311 GEN5 drivers feature a Ti412 titanium face. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Both clubs feature a Ti412 titanium face that is extremely thin. PXG’s designers like the material more than other titanium alloys because it has a high yield strength, which means it is durable, along with a low elastic modulus. That means it bends easily. That combination, according to PXG, makes Ti412 perfect for a driver’s face.
The 0311 and 0311 XF also both have an adjustable hosel that lets players and fitters increase or decrease the loft by up to 1.5 degrees and a carbon fiber crown enhanced by a layer of aluminum vapor. PXG has used carbon fiber in crowns for years because it saves weight compared to titanium, but the carbon fiber piece in the 0311 drivers is larger, increasing weight savings. According to the company, the aluminum vapor stiffens the carbon fiber, so less energy is lost at impact and more can be returned to the ball.
Applying aluminum vapor to the carbon fiber crown stiffens it and allows for better energy transfer. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The most impactful change is the updating of the movable weights in the sole. Last season in the 0811 drivers, PXG added three weight ports and made it possible for players and fitters to swap the weights to create a draw bias, a fade bias, or boost the overall moment of inertia (MOI). Now, in the 0311 and 0311 XF, those weight ports have been shifted to the extreme heel and toe areas, with the third port in the back of the head. They do the same job: moving the center of gravity (CG) location to enhance performance, but their locations allow them to make more significant shifts. As a result, the 0311 GEN5 driver has a 25 percent higher MOI than last season’s 0811 X GEN4, and the 0311 XF GEN5 has a 22 percent higher MOI than the 0811 XF GEN4.
Designing the weights on the extreme perimeter of the head allows players and fitters to move the CG location more easily. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The 0311 drivers come standard with two 7.5-gram weights and a 2.5-gram weight, but weights ranging from 2.5 grams to 20 grams are available to make it easier for players and fitters to create the best performing combination possible.
In the past, PXG has relied upon a honeycomb-patterned piece of thermoplastic elastomer on the club’s sole to absorb excessive vibrations and enhance feel. That piece is no longer being used thanks to modal analysis and the study of what frequencies were being produced by different areas of the head at impact. By stiffening some portions of the head, PXG created higher frequencies that tend to be more pleasing to a wide range of golfers, making the TPE piece unnecessary.
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