Family Secrets

An Immersion into the Design of the 500 & 900 Woods.

By Inesis

July 7^th, 2025

The 500 and 900 woods project is well underway. The product manager has written their brief, the designers have sketched the initial product lines, and now it's time for the engineers to get to work.

Turn Up the Volume!

The maximum authorized volume for a driver is 460 cm3. This value allows for reaching the R&A's authorized limits in terms of power and forgiveness. Furthermore, a driver head must weigh around 200 grams to achieve a consistent total club mass and swingweight. The first-generation 500 driver met the volume and mass targets, which was not the case for the first-generation 900 driver, as the addition of interchangeable weights increased the total mass. We therefore had to limit the volume to 447 cm3, a figure we wanted to increase for the 2025 version.

We Have a Problem.

For the new 500 driver, we've kept a simple architecture that allows us to reach the 460 cm3 and 200-gram targets without too much difficulty. It's a different kettle of fish for the 900 driver. The addition of an adjustable hosel adds about twenty grams to a head. With an additional tungsten or steel weight to improve forgiveness or power, another twenty grams are added. In short, if we want to meet the product manager's brief and reach 460 cm3, we'll have to find technical solutions for the 900 driver...

It Gained Thickness

The solution the engineers found was to play with material thicknesses. Every square millimeter of the 900 driver was worked on to find the perfect compromise between weight and rigidity. This allowed us to achieve all objectives: a volume of 460 cm3, an adjustable hosel, and an additional 15-gram steel weight for forgiveness.

Heads or Tails? Heads, obviously! On a driver, there's no question, the work on the face is paramount to maximizing power. We carried over the principle of a forged titanium face with variable thickness from the first-generation 900 driver. We've improved it further to seek more performance, and the good news is that the new Inesis 500 driver will benefit from this high-performance face.

Benoît Vincent, former R&D Director at Taylormade who assisted us on this topic, specifies: "The new face delivers more ball speed and therefore distance because it has multiple thickness levels that contribute to better flexibility during impact with the ball.

The face's thickness is thinner around its perimeter and especially at the heel and toe, which makes it more flexible upon impact.

After making the face more flexible on the edges (it flexes more easily), we want the face to deform almost as much on off-center hits as on center hits. This is how we increase the high energy transfer zone, the sweet spot. To achieve a large zone of maximum energy return, we want the face to deform uniformly. We obtain a U-shaped deformation by stiffening the center of the face (the thick central part), which moves as a 'block' during a strike at or around the center of the face."

Inesis 500 Driver: Unleash Your Confidence

For experienced golfers (handicap between 30 and 15), the slice is a very common fault. It's particularly problematic when driving, where the side spin is very noticeable and the distance the ball travels exaggerates the dispersion. A slice results in shorter shots that go far right for a right-handed golfer.

No driver can eliminate a slice, but it can be lessened. That's what we aimed to do with the Inesis 500 driver. How did we achieve this? The solution is simple: we first sought to place as much mass as possible towards the heel of the clubhead. This makes it easier to close the clubface in the impact zone, helping to avoid the combination of an out-to-in swing path and an open clubface that causes a slice. The Inesis 500 driver therefore features a slightly asymmetrical shape with an off-center spoiler, which allows us to position the center of gravity back and towards the heel.

Inesis 500 Driver: Unleash Your Confidence

No driver can eliminate a slice, but it can be lessened. That's what we aimed to do with the Inesis 500 driver. How did we achieve this? The solution is simple: we first sought to place as much mass as possible towards the heel of the clubhead. This makes it easier to close the clubface in the impact zone, helping to avoid the combination of an out-to-in swing path and an open clubface that causes a slice. The Inesis 500 driver therefore features a slightly asymmetrical shape with an off-center spoiler, which allows us to position the center of gravity back and towards the heel.

The Inesis 500/900 woods project has now entered its final stretch. In a few months, these new clubs will join the rest of the Inesis range. We can't wait to give you all the details!