Since Nike burst onto the golf equipment scene roughly a decade ago, they have been one of the more forward-thinking, technologically advanced companies around. They were among the first manufacturers to introduce square drivers with their SasQuatch line and jumped into the adjustability game early on with the original version of the Str8-Fit hosel.
Lately, all of the rage has been making the drivers as light as possible. The idea is is that the lighter they are the faster they can be swung and therefore the further the ball will go. The VR_S is Nike’s newest entry into this category of driver. The claim by Nike is that there are “none faster” and the company even held “speed trials” at golf shops around the country letting golfers around the country compare their current driver to the VR_S. Read on to find out if Nike has winner.
Test Model Details
The model that I tested out had 10.5°, with the stock shaft (Mitsubishi Rayon Fubuki K) in stiff.
Technology
Nike has packed the VR_S driver full of technology. To start, there is the new and improved Str8-Fit hosel that allows the golfer to fine tune their face angle and ball flight.
Beyond the adjustability of the club is the redesigned head which takes the club to the 460cc limit. While the club is as big as it can get, Nike has worked hard to make the club as aerodynamic as possible to brings swing speeds up. To further enhance the golfers ability to swing this club fast, the stock shaft (the Fubuki K) is both light (57 grams for my stiff shaft) and slightly longer at 45.75 inches.
Nike is second only to Cobra in making hosel adjustments easy to understand. Their STR8-FIT adapter has two rings: one for selecting loft, the other for selecting face angle (left, right, or straight). The loft is adjustable across five degrees. In this exclusive video, Tom Stites explains what went into the design and creation of the new Nike VRS driver. VR-S STR8-FIT Driver. Buy the Nike VR-S STR8-FIT Driver Now! The Nike VR-S STR8-FIT Driver features NexCOR technology, which was originally only featured on the VR Pro Limited Edition Forged drivers. The NexCOR Infinity face on the VR-S driver uses a multi-thickness design with a bridge that makes it ultra-thin and ultra-hot. VR-S STR8-FIT Driver. Buy the Nike VR-S STR8-FIT Driver Now! The Nike VR-S STR8-FIT Driver features NexCOR technology, which was originally only featured on the VR Pro Limited Edition Forged drivers. The NexCOR Infinity face on the VR-S driver uses a multi-thickness design with a bridge that makes it ultra-thin and ultra-hot.
Nike also has a variable face thickness technology which it calls NexCOR. By varying the thickness of the face, Nike is able to create a more forgiving club that allows shots hit somewhere other than dead center have decent results.
Esthetics
Esthetically, the VR_S is one of the better looking drivers that Nike’s released. It still maintains some of the modern, techy look of past Nike drivers like the SasQuatch and Machspeed but has also brought in more of the classical look (if you can call it that) found in the VR line. The crown is a dark gray and if you look closely, you’ll see that it sports subtle graphics along the edges. However, absent from the top is any sort of alignment aid, which, I personally liked as I ground rather than hover my driver and have the ball set up on the toe.
Another nice change to the looks of the driver from previous offerings from Nike is the updated Str8fit hosel. The new hosel uses a screw on the sole of the club like most adjustable drivers and because of this it is now much closer in size to a normal, non-adjustable hosel. Adjustable drivers from Nike in the past always looked a bit unbalanced to me because of the larger hosel and this is no longer the case. In fact, if you didn’t know already that it was adjustable, I don’t think you’d be able to tell by looking at it at address.
Beyond the subtle graphics on the crown and lack of an alignment aid, the VR_S sports the typical silver face with the NexCOR logo in the center and a few grooves on either side of it. The face is relatively deep and gave me the feeling that I had a lot of room to make contact with the ball.
The driver has a black/gray paint scheme with touches of red on the sole and the stock shaft (a Mitsubishi Fubuki K series) matches it quite well, with it’s black and silver color. The shaft has the typical snowflake design found on Fubuki shafts.
I find the head cover that comes with the driver to be both good looking and a poor performer. Instead of the more traditional sock style head covers (which Nike employees on the fairway woods and hybrids of the VR_S line), they opted for a magnetic closure for the driver. The part that fits over the driver fits snuggly, which is nice, but it can be a little tough to get on, and I’ve noticed more than a few times the irons in my bag knocking the magnetic closure loose. It also seems like the stock head cover does little to protect the shaft from damage, especially compared to a sock style one.
Performance
There are a number of things to talk about with regards to the performance and playability of the VR_S driver.
First, let’s quickly talk about the stock grip. I’ll admit that at first, I absolutely hated this grip. It is Nike’s version of a Tour Velvet, however it has much less grip than you’d typically find on a real Tour Velvet or Lamkin Crossline grip. However, as I am currently playing in temperatures reaching over 100 degrees, I’ve been keeping an ice cold wet towel in the cart to cool myself down and I got tired of having to take off my glove every time I wanted to use it and as such I started playing sans glove. This is when I discovered that this grip is better than I thought… it provides more grip than I initially thought it did (they do seem pretty slick) but not so much that it tore up my hands. I’ve grown accustomed to this grip over the last few rounds on on shots when I use my hybrid or wedges (which have standard Tour Velvet grips) I find myself wanting this one instead.
The one real complaint I have about the driver is the sound. I’ve played previous Nike drivers as well as offerings from other manufacturers and each company tends to have it’s own sound. It just so happens that the sound of the Nikes is like an aluminum baseball bat. It is loud and ear-piercing and tends to gather looks on the range from time to time.
That being said, I’ll gladly deal with the obnoxious sound for the results that I’ve been getting. With my previous driver (a Titleist 910D2), things were either very good or very bad. And when I say bad, I mean it. With the VR_S driver, I feel that I am much more consistent than I was previously. My misses aren’t as far offline as they were before and I am hitting it well more often. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a magic stick and won’t turn you into a great driver, but the NexCor face is suppose to be more forgiving and I believe that it actually is.
Each company that has come out with an adjustable driver has their own unique way of implementing it and I think that Nike’s version is among the best available. The new Str8fit hosel actually reminds me a lot of the one I had on my TaylorMade R9 460. Since the time of the R9, TaylorMade has come out with the R11 (and then R11s) and increased the number of ways that the club can be adjusted, but along with that brought more confusion into the process as there are almost too many options.
The Titleist I had before was also nice, but with settings like A3, B1, or D4 you had to have the chart to make any sense of it. This is not the case with the VR_S. There are two neutral settings (one regular, one flat) and then you can either adjust the face to be more open (R) or closed (L) in various degrees with the maximum setting in either direction being right on the letter. This is pretty simple and it’s nice not to have to refer to a manual to figure it out or have so many choices that it becomes confusing.
The VR_S falls into that new category of light drivers that is suppose to make it so y0u can swing faster and therefore hit the ball further. I, myself, haven’t really noticed an appreciable gain in distance over my previous big stick but I haven’t lost any either. The claim is that there are “none faster” and while I really do like this driver, that hasn’t been my experience as, according to a launch monitor, I swung this and my old driver the same speed, topping out in the mid 90s.
Conclusion
I believe that the VR_S driver is a definite winner for Nike. Before, with Nike, it seemed like they had their techy and more forgiving clubs that were ugly (remember the SasQuatch) and then their better looking, more of a players type club, like the VR Pro. With this driver, Nike was able to incorporate a bunch of great technology as well as forgiveness into a club that maintained the good looks that golfers have come to expect from the Victory Red line of clubs. Beyond that, the club performed great even if it didn’t sound it. If you are in the market for a new driver, especially if you are looking for adjustability or something light weight, than you owe it to yourself to take a look at the VR_S driver.
Use this guide to find out how much your Callaway, TaylorMade, Titleist, Ping and other golf clubs are worth plus where to trade in or sell golf clubs for cash.
Golf club prices: How much they’re worth
Get a ballpark idea for how much your golf clubs are worth by comparing offers between golf club trade in stores and eBay recent sales. For consistency, the table below compares drivers and iron sets manufactured in 2014 and 2015.
Resale and Trade-in Prices for 2014/2015 Golf Clubs (retrieved 11/2/2020)
| Golf Club | Golf Club Trade-In Stores (PGA Value Guide) | Online Marketplaces (eBay, after fees) |
| Callaway Big Bertha Alpha Driver | $33 | $75 |
| Callaway X2 Hot Pro Steel Iron Set (4-PW) | $106 | $169 |
| TaylorMade SLDR S Driver | $23 | $67 |
| TaylorMade Tour Preferred MC Iron Set (3-PW) | $109 | $204 |
| Titleist 915D3 Driver | $63 | $82 |
| Titleist MB 714 Steel Iron Set (4-PW) | $123 | $208 |
| Ping i25 Driver | $32 | $76 |
| Ping S55 Iron Set (4-PW) | $90 | $180 |
| Nike VR-S Covert Tour Driver | $18 | $65 |
| Nike VR-S Covert Graphite Iron Set (4-PW) | $51 | $136 |
| Cobra Bio Cell Pro Driver | $26 | $70 |
| Cobra Bio Cell Silver Steel Iron Set (4-PW) | $72 | $199 |
| Cleveland 588 Altitude Driver | $13 | $33 |
| Cleveland CG Gold Graphite Iron Set (4-PW) | $33 | $156 |
Newer golf clubs are generally worth more than older models. For example, a used 2019 Callaway Epic Flash driver can sell for more than $350 on the private market and up to $250 on trade in. Compare that to a 2005 Callaway Big Bertha 454, which will net around $20 to $40 on the private market and $10 to $15 on trade in.
| Did You Know? Some bicycles can be worth $1,000+ See what yours is worth |
That general axiom doesn’t apply to vintage golf clubs, which can be worth anywhere from just a few bucks to more than a thousand dollars. For example, an original Scottsdale Ping Answer Version 1 putter sold in an April 2019 auction for $1,405.
How to find the value of your golf clubs
There are two types of values applied to golf clubs: the private market value and the trade in value. The private market value is what individual buyers will pay and the trade in value is what companies that intend to resell your clubs for a profit will pay. Here’s how to find them:
Private market value: Search eBay and filter by sold items. Compare matching club models and conditions to see how much private buyers will pay.
Trade in value: Use the PGA golf club trade in value calculator. Select your club type (driver, fairway/wood, hybrid, iron set, wedge or putter), brand, model, specs like shaft material and iron count, and finally the condition to get the trade-in value for your golf clubs.
Golf clubs not worth much? Many phones are worth $100+. Find the value of your phone.
| iPhone | Samsung | |
| OnePlus | LG | Motorola |
What affects the value of golf clubs?
Used golf club values are affected by a variety of factors, including:
- Brand
- Type of club
- Shaft material
- Completeness (irons)
- Age
- Condition
Brand
Golf clubs manufactured by the following brands typically have value and can be traded in or sold for cash:
| Adams Ben Hogan Bettinardi Bobby Grace Bobby Jones Brainstorm Bridgestone Callaway Cleveland Cobra Cure Edel Evnroll Fourteen | Happy Putter Honma Kevin Burns MacGregor Maxfli Miura Mizuno Never Compromise Nickent Nike Odyssey Orlimar Ping PXG | Rife Scratch SeeMore Srixon TaylorMade Titleist Tommy Armour Toulon Design TourEdge Wilson XXIO Yes Yonex |
| Do you have old Payne, Gillum, Orvis or other fishing rods? They could be worth $1,000+ Find out |
Type of club
In general, drivers are the most valuable types of golf clubs, followed by fairway woods and then hybrids, putters and wedges. Irons are typically sold as sets – the more complete the set, the more valuable it is. This comparison of trade in prices for a set of 2018-2019 Titleist golf clubs illustrates the differences in club values:
- TS3 Driver: $221
- TS3 Fairway Wood: $131
- 818 H2 Hybrid: $63
- T-MB 718 Graphite Iron Set (3-PW): $595 ($74 per iron)
- Vokey SM7 Brushed Steel D Graphite Wedge: $47
- Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Detour Putter: $60
Shaft material
Modern golf club shafts are composed of graphite or steel. Graphite clubs are generally more valuable, though the difference is often negligible. For example, the trade in value for an 8-piece set of Callaway Big Bertha 2019 irons with steel shafts is $500. With graphite shafts, it’s $504.
Nike Vapor Driver Adjustment Instructions
Completeness (irons)
Everything else being equal, the more clubs in an iron set the greater its value: a set that has 8 irons will be more valuable than a set that has 6 irons. It’s also important for the clubs to be in consecutive order. Thus, an iron set that includes the 5 iron through the pitching wedge will generally be more valuable than a set that includes the 4 iron through the pitching wedge but is missing the 7 iron.
Some golf club trade in companies won’t accept iron sets that aren’t in consecutive order. For those that are in consecutive order, sets are valued according to the number of clubs. The PGA Value Guide offers the following valuations for complete and incomplete iron sets:
- 8 consecutive clubs: 100% of the value
- 7 consecutive clubs: 87.5% of the value
- 6 consecutive clubs: 75% of the value
- 5 consecutive clubs: 62.5% of the value
- 4 consecutive clubs or less: 0% of the value
Age
As noted, newer clubs are generally more valuable than older clubs, though other factors such as brand, completeness and shaft material play a role.
| Do you have autographed sports memorabilia? See what it’s worth |
For example, a 2019 Cobra King F9 Speedback driver has a trade-in value of $185 (original MSRP $449), while a 2003 Cobra SZ 440 driver has a trade-in value of just $12, even though it originally retailed for $369.
Condition
Condition plays a major role in golf club values. The PGA Value Guide assesses two conditions: used and damaged.
- Used clubs have no noticeable gouging, rusting, dents, deep scratches, paint chipping or excessive wear. Iron sets must include at least 6 consecutive clubs. Loft or lie adjustments must be less than 3 inches from the manufacturer’s standard
- Damaged clubs have dents, gouging and/or deep scratching, paint chipping, rusting or excessive face wear. Iron sets may be nonsequential. Clubs with loft or lie adjustments greater than three inches from the manufacturer’s standard are considered damaged
Where to sell your golf clubs
Used golf club selling options include:
- Online golf club trade in stores
- Online marketplaces & forums
- Local golf club selling options
Online golf club trade in stores
Trade in stores let you sell your golf clubs for cash or credit that can be used to upgrade your sticks. They won’t pay full market value because they need to resell your clubs for a profit, but they do offer quick, convenient sales and – in many cases – free shipping. Examples include:
| PGA Value Guide | 2nd Swing | Callaway Pre-Owned |
Online marketplaces & forums
You might be able to get more money by selling your golf clubs via online marketplaces and forums. eBay’s auction format can drive up the price, for example, though you’ll still need to pay selling and PayPal fees.
| Declutter and make money? Here are 25 things you have stored away that could be worth a small fortune |
Many golf forums have buy/sell/trade classifieds threads, and there are no middlemen to pay. However, forums typically aren’t moderated so you need to be sure you have cash in-hand (or at least escrow) before you ship your golf clubs. Examples include:
- Facebook golf buy/sell/trade groups like Golf Clubs/Equipment Buy & Sell America
Local golf club selling options
Local golf retailers and pro shops generally offer quick sales without the hassle of shipping your golf clubs. They won’t pay full market value because they need to resell for profit, though some will sell your golf clubs on consignment for a commission. Private buyers will pay more, though the pool of potential buyers is limited and you might need to wait for the right buyer. If you’re selling to an individual, protect yourself: take a friend along and meet in a well-lit, busy public venue. Examples of local selling options include:
- Craigslist
- Facebook Marketplace
- Apps like LetGo and OfferUp
- Local pro shops
- Local golf retailers and sporting goods stores like Play It Again Sports
- Pawn shops
Compare your golf club selling options to find the best fit for your goals. If you want a quick and convenient sale, online golf trade in stores are probably your best bet. Want to get the most money? Online marketplaces, forums and local private buyers might be worth the wait. If you need fast cash today, local pro stores and golf retailers are good options. Make sure you understand all the terms before you sell, including selling and shipping fees, so you can get a fair price and enjoy a pleasant golf club selling experience.
Related Help
Nike Vrs Driver Adjustment Guide
> How to sell a bike and get what it’s worth
> The complete guide to how much your diamonds are worth and where to sell them
> Your electric guitar could be worth thousands: here’s how to tell and where to sell
Nike Vrs Driver Adjustment Guide
> Classic cameras: what they’re worth and where to sell them
> More selling guides
Previous:Sell Designer Clothes: What They’re Worth & Best Places to SellNext:
Nike Vrs Covert Driver Settings
Now You Can Sell Locked Phones on FlipsyTop Cell Phone Insurance Providers Compared
Nike Vrs Driver Adjustment Guide Fade Video
Third party phone insurance can be a cheaper alternative to carrier insurance or a way to continue protecting your device if you switch to an MVNO or prepaid carrier, but it’s hard to know which company to choose. To help you decide, we read the fine print and compared eight options to detail what you […]
How to Save $1,000 a Year with Cheap Family Phone Plans (Step-by-Step Guide)
Nike Vr Driver
MVNOs are touted as inexpensive alternatives to major wireless carriers, but savings don’t always add up if you’re looking for cheap family phone plans. That’s because many MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) don’t offer multi-line discounts, so if you have a family of four you could wind up paying even more than if you stick […]
A Very “Apple-y” Christmas: Will iPhone Holiday Sales Shatter Records?
iPhone sales could reach record heights this Christmas, as Apple expects to sell between 75 and 80 million iPhones during the 2020 holiday season. The current holiday sales record is 78.3 million, set in 2016. Here’s how many iPhones Apple has sold during previous holiday seasons. 2019: 72.9 million 2018: 62 million 2017: 77.3 million […]