Tour Edge Hot Launch C521 Driver

In this Tour Edge Hot Launch C521 driver review, we assess the performance of this no-frills, entry level driver designed for maximum forgiveness

Tour Edge Hot Launch C521 Driver Review

Tour Edge has long been known for selling decent clubs at a great price. While never cheaply made, its Hot Launch series products have progressively gotten quite good in recent years.

They’re made with top materials and technology, look inviting and sleek, and perform adequately against every other brand. Thankfully, the price remains low.

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Case in point: This new 460cc titanium driver sells for roughly half the price of the latest, most notable drivers from other manufacturers. And it’s a driver built for distance.

For accomplished golfers, it’s what Tour Edge bills as a “competition spec” game improvement model that works well with medium and faster swing speeds.

It has classic shaping, rear sole weighting, and a high moment of inertia (MOI) to launch the ball easily with power across the face. Speaking of forgiveness, the inside of the face sports 39 different thick and thin diamond-shaped “mini-trampolines” that aim to produce hotter ball flight and minimise the severity of your misses.

This driver is not adjustable in any way. Thus, it’s designed to be all things to all golfers in the target category with respect to performance right off the shelf and it was an enjoyable club to hit from the very first shot.

For instance, it has a visible fixed rear sole weight plug that minimizes clubhead twist at impact while lowering the centre of gravity (CG). This enhances stability and helps launch drives higher - we certainly noticed a higher ball flight than we were accustomed to.

Also on the sole but up near the face, a “power” channel amplifies ball speed, reduces spin, and enhances forgiveness on shots struck low on the face where many better players tend to make contact when they miss.

The deep cup face boosts face flex on hits made toward the heel and toe, one thing we noticed was that off-centre hits weren't punished severely, maintaining both good distance with accuracy when we expected to miss the fairway.

Acoustic ribbing inside the clubhead makes impact sound noticeably crisp without being too loud. And its standard Aldila Rogue shaft is a mid-high launch, mid-spin model.

In other words, this is a textbook Hot Launch-style driver: It packs in a lot of decent concepts, and does everything fine and acceptable, most notably being easy to hit, without being best in class in any regard.