William L. Coney Blog: First Look: Mizuno JPX 900 Driver

Monday, August 29, 2016

First Look: Mizuno JPX 900 Driver

When it comes to perception of technology, Mizuno believes golfers talk about their irons, but only whisper about their woods.

Indoor voices and whatnot.

With the JPX 900, Mizuno hopes to have golfers screaming like kids inside a damn Chuck E. Cheese.

My words…

To that end, Mizuno had a fairly straightforward objective when it comes to its new JPX 900 driver. The company wanted to improve on the JPX 850 in every respect. More ball speed, more forgiveness, and greater adjustability.

Sounds simple enough.

The Most Adjustable Driver in Golf?

When we talk about the JPX 900 there’s an almost natural tendency to compare to TaylorMade’s M1. That driver is the current benchmark for adjustability – and we’d argue performance too. Sufficed to say, it came up in our conversations with Mizuno.

At the foundation of the JPX 900’s adjustability is (2) 8 gram weights. Quick math…that’s 16 grams of movable weight. It’s not the most in golf, but it’s a solid number.

Those weights can be distributed a number of different ways. You can put both in the center (the default), both on the perimeter, or mix and match. Whatever it takes to optimize your ball flight, and if that takes freeing the golfer from the channeled constraints of other weight systems, Mizuno is happy to do it.

While the weight system isn’t radically different from its predecessor, it does move weight over a bit broader of an area, which gives Mizuno the ability to fit a wider range of golfers.

Also well worth mentioning, the JPX 850 was an extremely low forward CG design. That’s still mostly true of the JPX 900, however Mizuno raised the CG a bit while also bumping it a bit farther back. In addition to boosting MOI a bit, that should also make the JPX 900 a bit easier for higher lofted, lower swing speed players to get the ball airborne. As we found during 2015 Most Wanted driver testing, that could be an issue for some.

VFA Technology

Continuing the theme of ultimate adjustability, Mizuno has added VFA (Visual Face Angle) technology to the JPX 900 design. Functionally it works like the ASP (Adjustable Sole Plate) technology found on TaylorMade’s R1.

The 3 position sliding mechanism allows the golfer to set the face angle open, neutral, or closed. Like ASP, VFA is a ground-based technology that doesn’t have any actual impact on anything until the driver is soled. If you ground your driver at address the technology will likely be more impactful than it will for those who don’t.

Whether it’s in the store or on the course, all of us ground the driver at one time or another, but this is most definitely one of those your actual mileage may vary technologies.

Worth mentioning that there is weight cost associated with the VFA. It adds 3 grams to the driver, and has a small impact (less than 1mm) on CG location.

New Cortech Face

As with nearly every new driver, Mizuno has an updated face technology story to tell. Refreshingly, perhaps, the company acknowledges they’ve lagged a bit behind when it comes to preserving ball speed, but that’s changed with the JPX 900.

In addition to being lighter (the new face saves 5g over the previous model), the area of that face that Mizuno calls the sweet zone has been substantially expanded. Mizuno claims that it maintains a COR above .80 for a greater area of the face than TaylorMade’s M1. In tour player testing, Mizuno says it has yet to lose a ball speed battle to any competitor.

It Sounds Like A Mizuno

Sound and feel are hallmarks of the Mizuno brand, so it should not come as any real surprise that the company has gone to great lengths to tune the acoustics of the JPX 900.

The new driver features a version of Mizuno’s Harmonic Impact Technology (HIT) that specifically involves the use of rib structures to achieve what Mizuno describes as a solid, powerful sound. That includes a focused effort to ensure consistent sound regardless of where the weights are positioned. That certainly isn’t the case with all adjustable drivers.

Still One Head

As was the case with the previous model, Mizuno has again elected to encompass all lofts in a single head. The JPX 900 has a nominal (stamped) loft of 9.5 degrees and features an adapter that allows loft to be tweaked by 2° in either direction, and lie angle to be adjusted by 1.5°.

For those of you struggling to count fingers, that’s an effective range of 7.5° to 11.5°.

No BS Shafts

Mizuno doesn’t want there to be any confusion about its stock shaft this year. It’s a 100%, made in Japan, Real Deal, no corners cut, same as the aftermarket Fujikura Speeder Evolution II.

To cover a breadth of weight and flex needs, golfers can choose between the 661X, 569S, 569R, and even the 474R2. The latter otherwise being available in Japan only.

Pricing and Availability

The Mizuno JPX 900 Driver will retail for $499.99 and will be available beginning 9/16/2016.

The men’s driver is available in blue only in both right and left handed models. A ladies model with a nominal loft of 12° is also available. It features a grey/scuba blue colorway. The stock shaft Fujikura SIX 50L.