I am a very big fan of Cobra Golf drivers. I've written glowing reviews of the last two generations of higher-end drivers, including the King LTD. It feels great, looks sharp and goes far with the ball flight I like. I loved the driver so much that I asked the folks at Cobra Golf to take a fairway wood for a spin. They kindly obliged, and so I put the King LTD 3/4-wood into the bag for a test.
I really like this fairway wood.
For the longest time, I've struggled to find a fairway wood that I want to hit off the tee and feel good hitting off the fairway. The amount of offset in a number of fairways on the market is just too much, and, inevitably, I hook the ball a lot. That's not the case with the King LTD (as well several recent releases of fairway woods, so perhaps offset in a fairway wood is starting to go away). I can address the ball however I want and feel like the club isn't working against me to achieve what I want. That's what a fairway wood should do.
The King LTD has a larger footprint that some fairway woods, which may incline a player to get a little steeper with it off the fairway. However, the face is not deep for the category, so a player who sweeps the ball won't feel uncomfortable coming in off turf. The face is also good for hitting a little stinger off the tee.
The fairway woods have the same Spaceport feature found in the driver, which is a screw-in weight, developed in part on the International Space Station, which moves the center of gravity low and back so that it sits below the imaginary Zero CG line that runs from the back of a wood through the center of its face. The feature, though it may look a little goofy, adds stability while saving discretionary weight to improve ball flight and moment of inertia. The carbon-fiber crown carries through from the driver to offer additional weight savings, while the Speed Channel surrounding the face allows it to flex more at impact to improve the coefficient of restitution (how much energy transfers from the club to the ball) for added distance.
The King LTD fairway woods come in two models, a 3/4 (13-16 degrees of loft) and a 4/5 (16-19 degrees) which can be dialed in to loft and lie using the eight-way MyFly adjustability system.
These fairway woods have a sharp look with a really clean sound. They sound like fairway woods, not mini-drivers. It feels, well, precise, at impact. As mentioned, I felt comfortable teeing the ball almost at ground level for a low bullet or lifting it up to flight the ball higher and softer for position. The King LTD is a little bit on the heavier end of headweights (it's a D4 swingweight), and that's not a negative, but something a few golfers may notice if they're putting several potential fairways through the wringer. The stock Aldila Rogue Black shaft is my favorite on the market, so that was an easy win.
I wouldn't call the King LTD the longest 3-wood I've ever played, but that's not really what I'm looking for in a 3-wood (though some are). I want my 3-wood to be a position club with a reliable distance for holes where there's a danger in going too far off the tee. I need my 3-wood to go a consistent length from the fairway because, since I prefer to swing an iron-looking club, I might only use it once every few rounds on a par 5. The King LTD does both of those things.
With the birth of my second child and getting ready for her to come into the world, I haven't been able to put this club on a launch monitor. However, now that she's here, I'm planning to do that in the next few weeks and will update here.
At $300 each, the King LTD fairway woods are an investment. However, if you're a player who needs a good fairway wood in their life, especially to use as an approach club, this line should be worth your consideration.
