No sooner had TaylorMade guessing what the ‘red heart’ meant on their line of golfing caps and they brought out caps featuring the number ’17’.

The ’17’ caps were on show at last week’s WGC – Cadillac Championship and Justin Rose gave the U.S. golf manufacturer the best publicity possible in winning the event at Doral.

Just as the ‘red heart’ line of caps was introduced with the catch phase ‘Love your driver’ to promote the company’s new line of R11 drivers, the ’17’ caps are a marketing ploy to promote the RocketBallz fairway woods. 

Justin Rose delivers TaylorMade's '17' promotion a first up victory.

TaylorMade claim the 3-wood can increase a golfer’s distance by 17 yards, hence the big green 17 on the hats.

TaylorMade’s Senior Director of Product Creation said:  “We’re advertising 17 yards because legally that’s all we’re allowed to advertise, but most times when we’ve done 1-on-1 testing, it’s been 20 to 26 yards.

“When we tested it during our demo day in Orlando at the PGA Merchandise Show, the average was 28.6 yards longer. We’ve never had a jump like that. Never.”

The real difference with the RBZ fairways is the COR, or coefficient of restitution, or trampoline effect of the ball off the clubface.  

The legal limit is 0.830 but fairway woods by design usually only get to approx 0.780 whereas the RBZ fairway which clocks in at 0.810.  

It suppose to all help the ball come off the face faster with less backspin.  

And that naturally translates to more distance!