Bob Burns No Bananas 460cc Driver Review

Pros

• Super game improvement
• Slice reduction or complete elimination
• Handsome appearance, doesn't scream "I need help!"
• Nice balance

Cons

• Slight distance loss from comparable clubs

Review: Bob Burns No Bananas Review
When I picked up the Bob Burns No Bananas driver, I did not know what to expect. Sure, I'd heard about this small Midwestern company that for years was a lone crusader in the golf industry, taking on golfers' public enemy No. 1, the slice.

OK, maybe I was a little skeptical. Frankly, the promise of eliminating the No. 1 fault in amateur golf was about as real to me as some anatomy enhancement pills, promised by internet sites.

But as I continued, I was pleasantly surprised by the look of the driver. A handsome gunmetal grey crown and traditional pear-shape head disguised the heaping amounts of help to slicers that the club contains.

First, the clubface is 7 degrees closed, which is a huge amount, but that severely closed face is disguised as an offset. The smart looking high-polish face actually appears to be much less closed than the specs indicate.

The driver I hit was equipped with an Aldila ONE stiff flex, low launch shaft. This is a smart combo in both performance and look. The 46-inch finished length driver was topped off with a complementary colored Winn grip.

Well, looks will only get you so far on the first tee - how did it perform? My game is a mid-handicap with not a lot of difficulty off the tee. That doesn't mean that, on occasion, I'll try to really crank one off the tee and instead produce the most dreaded of shots, the slice.

I teed up the ball on the first tee and according to script, striped one down the middle of the fairway. This led me to try to really test the No Bananas technology. I teed up another, and another - each time coming outside to in, lining up left, virtually everything that might cause big slices. The results were shots that may have started right, but flew gently back into the fairway. The radical face angle on the No Bananas accomplishes this by getting golfers who normally leave the clubface open at impact to get the clubface to square. According to the company, the correction in flight path can be up to 35 yards from side to side.

I had a low handicap partner who can play a fade on command and asked him to test the anti-slice No Bananas. He was also surprised at how much real improvement the No Bananas provides over other "offset" drivers.

The feel off the driver was solid and the flight - while a little lower than my usual (and that may be attributable to the low launch shaft) - was mid. Bottom line, I was in the fairway. And, isn't that the best place to be on a golf course, short of the 19th hole?

Even though the driver as tested was 46-inches in finished length, the length of my average drive with the No Bananas was just a few yards short of my regular driver. As I just said, the fairway trumps the rough.

For good measure, I was able to try out the No Bananas irons and a Burns putter. (Fairways and hybrids are also available).

The irons feature a solid, attractive clubhead again featuring the anti-slice offset. Extreme cavity weighting helped get balls airborne as easy as any club I've tried.

The Bob Burns Roll-In putter was a departure from the closed face design. Featuring weight "pods" that can be moved to various positions in the rear of the club, and a flat grip that is meant to reduce "wristiness" on putts, the feel of the putter was soft and the roll was pleasing. The shaft is neither center-shafted nor heel-shafted, but rather placed in a logical place - a bit rear of center - that plays to the strengths of both placements.

The putter was a very pleasant surprise and I holed as many putts as with my current flatstick.

Burns says 85-percent of the world's golfers are afflicted with a slice. That is a whole lot of people. If only some of them were to try the No Bananas, that figure might change significantly.