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Was This The Best Golf Hybrid Ever Made? | Golf Monthly Retro Review
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Jul 18, 2025
This hybrid was launched a little over 10 years ago and even against today's competition it stacks up pretty well. In fact, there's a case for it to be crowned one of the best golf hybrids ever made. It's no surprise to see it still feature in the bag of a multiple major champion! Joe Ferguson puts this iconic hybrid to the test on the range to see how it performs and whether there's value to be had on the second hand market should you be shopping for a new club in this area of the bag.
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Retro review time today again and whilst I've got one that technically is retro over 10 years old
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it's still in the bag of a multiple major winner. More on that in a moment but as always this video
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is in association with Golf Clubs for Cash, one of the leading retailers of pre-loved equipment
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so if you're looking for value in the second-hand market please go and check those guys out on their
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website and in the new Golf Clubs for Cash app. You'll find some great deals and they provide us
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for some absolute gems to test. Now, those in the know will remember this
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the TaylorMade SLDR Hybrid as maybe the rocket ship of all hybrids
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Now, I paid just $64.99 for this iconic hybrid. And to give you a bit of context
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this whole SLDR, incredibly popular SLDR range of drivers, fairways, and hybrids
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was actually a bit of a mistake. It was TaylorMade's first foray
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into creating the lowest spinning products possible by pushing that CG right the way forward
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and boy oh boy did it work. So the problem if there was one with this SLDR range of drivers
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fairways and hybrids was that basically no one could get it in the air so even tour feedback
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it was just too piercing there wasn't enough spin on the ball so TaylorMade reacted really cleverly
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and swiftly with the introduction of their loft up campaign. So TaylorMade recognized what essentially
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was a mistake and they reacted with a brilliant, brilliant marketing campaign, which essentially
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encouraged people into higher lofts than they were ordinarily used to. So if you were being
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fitted into an SLDR driver at that time and your standard loft would have been about nine degrees
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then you might have been in an 11 degree or even a 12 degree head with SLDR
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Right, sorry to interrupt. If you are enjoying this video and you like the retro review series
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please hit the like button. It really helps us out. Subscribe to the channel and comment down below. So anything you'd like me to review
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So that was the answer with drivers. You had a lot of these people struggling with spin, now lofted up so their launch was higher but the spin was still under control
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So that was really the birth of what we now know as optimal driving conditions of high launch and low spin But onto the fairways and hybrids now these suited brilliantly a specific type of player that might have some excessive spin would often balloon their fairways and hybrids before All of a sudden this low spin profile produced some absolute rockets and one
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of those players in particular was two-time major champion Martin Keimer. So at his peak
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Keimer was a serial fader of the golf ball. He hit down on it quite a lot and generated an awful
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lot of spin so this SLDR range was absolutely perfect and for ages he had the full complement
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of driver, fairway wood and hybrid in his bag including his 2014 players championship and US
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open wins. Now believe it or not to this day Keimer still has the hybrid in his bag and I
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recently caught up with him at the Live Golf JCB UK event and here's what you had to say about his
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hybrid. You want to go to the hybrid? Yeah let's move down then so perfect so we're going through we've got driver three we're into the hybrid now we've got a really old model here i love this one
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we've got a tailor-made sldr and this has been in your bag for quite some time and may i say
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2013 2013 so we're past the decade now may say you're looking after it very well it's not looking
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too bad is it we changed the shaft two or three times because obviously you know they can a few
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things happen to the shafts over the years um but the head still looks pretty good um this is a club
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that i trust the most i know exactly what it does and i think when taylor made brought out the sldr
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woods they were the best woods the last 15 years but obviously the drive-in three wood I mean I
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don't have them anymore they don't do them anymore so we need to move on that's what you used the I
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think US Open wasn't it Pinehurst remember SLDR driver fairway was this in the bag that week it
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was in the back since 2013 I never took it out I tried a few other hybrids but they were not as
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as good as this one it's pretty strong this it's base loft of 17 degrees you've got it on the lower
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loft sleeves setting as well so it's depending on whether this is a one and a half or a two degree
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This could be 15, 15 and a half degrees. So it's quite strong. It's a strong hybrid, but I would say I can
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I can take maybe 15, 20 yards off it. So, you know, I can still hit it high and soft
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So that's why, even though it says lower and there's very little love for a hybrid
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but I can still hit those soft fades into the green A versatile old favorite That what Martin Keimer thinks of this hybrid but I want to know what I think of the hybrid So I come out to the practice ground I bought my full swing kit launch monitor I just want to get some numbers and get some
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shots away and get my initial impressions. Well that was really interesting, I really enjoyed testing that. I've actually used this
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product before in my own bag, so it's a bit of a trip down memory lane for me
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And I had it in the standard setting there, and this is the two hybrid, it's 17 degrees
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base loft, and that's what I left it at there. And what I was getting out of that from a data
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point of view. It seems a little bit spinnier than I thought but that's generally my sort of
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the way I err. I'm a bit of a high spin player so I was getting kind of 4,800 revs per minute out of
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that with a 109 foot apex. My average carry was about 238 yards. In terms of the unquantifiables
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the feel was just as solid as I remember. There was no sense of tinniness or clanginess just a real
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solid third and I really like the way it frames the golf ball at address. But one thing I did
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noticed when I spoke to Kymer, is he had his in a very very strong loft and with
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these loft sleeves from TaylorMade, this is a one and a half degree sleeve, I can
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actually take this from 17 all the way down to 15 and a half or up to 18 and a
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half. So I'm really keen to do that now and see what the data says
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Well there was some really interesting data when I nudge that loft sleeve about Firstly in the lower setting or the Martin Keimer setting as I going to call that my carry distance didn change at all It was identical 238 yards but with a significantly different flight So 76 feet of peak height compared to that 109 in the standard setting
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and basically 1,000 revs less spin. So 3,810 revs per minute. So as you can imagine from that
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and you've probably seen from the traces, a significantly more piercing ball flight
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and the total distance was up significantly there about 15 yards further so that's a really
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interesting weapon say on a links course or in the wind to be able to bring the flight down like
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that and take the spin off that could be a real weapon for me then when I changed it up and I
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tuned it up by a degree and a half to that 18 18 and a half loft number my carry distance went up
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quite considerably so 10 yards further nearly 250 248 yards peak height as you would imagine 115
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15 feet, but the spin didn't get out of control. It was only 100 revs more than when it was in the
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standard setting. But again, that could be a real weapon for me. If I was playing somewhere
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with a lot of forced carries into par fives over water where I need a steep descending angle
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but without the spin getting out of control, that higher loft setting could be really
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really useful. So a very, very versatile setting and something I've always loved
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about that tailor-made loft sleeve, the ability to personalize that golf club
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Well, I really, really enjoyed that. Essentially, what I found here is a great feeling, a great
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sounding and great performing hybrids, almost three hybrids within one. Just tuning that loft
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sleeve about really manipulated that ball flight, that peak height and that spin number
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So it's a really, really versatile club. I think if I was going to use it, I would probably have
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it in that Kymer setting, the lower. I really enjoyed that piercing ball flight with very little
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spin. It's going to really sort of navigate its way through any headwind and give me that roll out
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that I like and sort of driving iron style performance. But as always, the purpose of these videos
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is to find out whether some of these older products have a place in today's game. And I think just by virtue of the fact
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that Martin Keimer, a multiple major champion, is still using it, that should be validation enough
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But from what I found there as well, for 64.99, all of the launch monitor numbers
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are comparable with anything else I've tested in the hybrid range recently. So I think there is some genuine value to be had
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