We have four extremely lucky members visiting TaylorMade’s Global Headquarters in Carlsbad, CA to experience their new Carbonwoods and irons for 2023 before they launch to the world. These members will be the first to experience TaylorMade’s new 2023 products. Follow along in the GolfWRX forums!

The four lucky WRXers — @Olde Maroon, @Kylekoz17, @gticlay, and @MFBach — got the full Kingdom experience as well as fittings for TaylorMade’s new Stealth 2 woods and irons.

Read more about the Stealth 2 family, below.

• GolfWRX Launch Report: 2023 TaylorMade Stealth 2 drivers
• GolfWRX Launch Report: 2023 TaylorMade Stealth 2 fairway woods, hybrids
• TaylorMade introduces all-new Stealth HD irons

And check out some product introductions straight from The Kingdom.

TaylorMade Stealth 2 drivers

TaylorMade Stealth 2 fairway woods

TaylorMade Stealth 2 Rescues

And here are a few of the members’ comments.

@oldemaroon: “I’m sure you are all inundated with Stealth 2 content given the embargo date being today. I know personally I woke to about ten review video notifications up on YouTube, so I’m guessing you have all watched at least one of those (probably more). What can I offer you that those pros can’t? Well, for better or for worse, I can share the entire TM launch experience and the fitting experience from the perspective of a middling golfer.”

“So, a bit about me. I’m 41 with a couple kids and a busy job (like many of you), so golf has fallen to the back burner for me in the last five years or so. I currently sit at a 16 handicap (up from a low around 10) and I play about 15 rounds per year lately. I’m pretty sure I buy more clubs/shafts here on BST each year than rounds I play… As you might expect, I struggle with consistency. I’ve been a member of the GolfWRX forums for a bit over a decade, learning a ton, spending a ton, and enjoying the enthusiast environment.”

“Coming into this trip, I had never been fit before. My bag prior to the fitting was as follows:

• SIM Max 9*, Tensei 1K 65x
• Cobra F9 3w @ 15.5*, GD IZ 7s
• Cobra F9 19h, 22h, GD IZ 85s
• Titleist TS2 25h, Ventus Velo 8s
• Srixon ZX5, MMT 105s
• Cleveland CBX 2 wedges (50/55/60) Recoil 110 F4
• Odyssey Stroke Lab 2-Ball

“As you can see, it’s a real mix of what I guessed would be correct for my skill level (limited).

“I’ll skip to the punch line and let you know where I ended up after my fitting with Chandler (who was incredible – more on that later):”

• Stealth+ 9.0 (down to 8.75* and one click upright), Fuji Ventus Blue TR 6x
• Stealth HD 3w (lofted up to 16*), Fuji Ventus Blue TR 7s
• Stealth+ 4h, Fuji Ventus Blue HB 8s
• P790 5-7, MMT 105s
• P770 8-PW, MMT 105s
• P770 GW (bent to 49*)
• Milled Grind 3 (high bounce) 54 (bent to 53*) and 58*, MMT 125s wedge shafts

“Spider putter that shall remain a secret…but I can say that I went with a slight toe hang, which helped prevent a slightly closed face at impact.”

“I know I’m going to be jumping around, but I want to get straight into the fitting experience with Chandler (who also gave us the launch presentation for the new line of SGI irons). Chandler has worked in several roles around Taylormade and is a hell of a golfer himself, so he offers great perspectives on everything we covered. Most importantly for me, he was great at working me through my initial nerves and getting me comfortable quickly (except when the drone would buzz over my shoulder mid-swing).

“We dove straight into the big stick, which was my preference. I hoped to swing hard and punch through those nerves. Chandler had me hit my current driver (again, SIM Max 9* with Tensei 1K 65x). Historically, my preferred shot is a slight draw, and my miss is when I’m trying to control it and I get tight – then it’s a duck hook and I’m OB left. I swing around 105, a bit higher if I warm up and/or have a beer. Today, I had a bit of a block right, but the contact was okay. Launch was low at around 9* (pretty common for me). My launch angle was around neutral or even slightly negative, which isn’t typical for me but that’s the challenge with an inconsistent player.

“Chandler put me straight into a Stealth 9* lofted up one setting with a Tensei Orange 65s (because I have historically played counterbalanced shafts to help my AOA). This felt smooth and helped increase my AOA a bit, but it was a bit too loose for me and my dispersion suffered. It also spun up to above 3000 which killed my distance.

“Next up was a Graphite Design AD-XC 6s. This shaft felt great to swing and helped a bit with the dispersion, but launch was too low and spin remained too high. The result was low risers, which combined with the headwind at The Kingdom, meant loss of distance. We could do better.

“Chandler stuck a Ventus TR Blue 6s into the Stealth+ 2 head, and we saw some immediate results. The spin dropped a few hundred revs and the flight was more penetrating. Launch also went up a bit to just about 11*. The shaft felt great. I’ve previously tried the original Ventus Blue and it was a bit too spinny and loose for me. The Black was too manly for me. The Ventus Blue TR really hit that Goldilocks zone. Still, my flight started just a bit too right. Chandler said he had another tweak to make.

“He then switched it up completely, giving me a Hulk shaft. I’m pretty sure he just needed a quick pick-me-up so he wanted to watch me struggle to keep the ball on the planet. We had some fun laughing at block after block, and he casually handed me his real plan.

“Stealth+ 2 with the Ventus Blue TR 6x. When he gave me the club back, I didn’t notice that he had gone up a flex (I tried to never look at any changes he made). I immediately started belting drive after drive straight down the middle (which I cannot stress enough is not something I am usually capable of doing). Flight was noticeably higher and more penetrating. Turns out he had set it upright one degree, put the weight towards the heel, and dropped the loft a touch. With those changes, we had found the winner.

“Coming into this, I would never have guessed I would have ended up in the plus model. The tweaks Chandler made improved my strike so much, and the club has so much inherent forgiveness, that I had better dispersion than I’ve ever had.

“Chandler was an absolute genius throughout, spotting flaws and making tweaks to address my needs. He was full of surprises, too, but more on that in a bit (typing on my phone is so slow that this report is going to take about as long as the fitting itself).”

@kylekoz17: “As for the driver, I hit a few shots with my 9* TSi3 to establish a baseline. Was hovering around 165 ball speed and ~2500 spin, something I am pretty happy with for my January swing in the north east. One thing we wanted to do was improve my descent angle which was around 40. The goal was sub 35. We tried the 8,9, and 10.5* heads. The 10.5 wasn’t a fit right away, so we spent our time finding the right combination of head and shaft between the 8 and 9 heads. For my swing yesterday, the 8* was probably the right fit, but we were also talking about a mid season swing and taking that into account when ultimately deciding on which one we would go with. In the end we went with the 9* head with Tensei Orange 65x as it was a good combination of spin, ball speed, and descent angle that we think will also be a good fit in the summer. The 8 was awesome and the 30* descent angle would run forever, but I think spin was was just a touch too low.”

“Two things about the driver that really impressed me:

“1. the efficiency of ball speed as I started slowing down after hitting a lot of balls. A couple mph swing speed less as I got tired and the ball was still jumping off the face and distance really hadn’t changed

“2. forgiveness. If I remember correctly, I was as high as 167 ball speed with the Stealth 2 Plus at the same swing speed as my TSi at the same loft, so the couple MPH gain was nice, but my misses were so good. My miss is a high spinny right shot, so when I caught shots low on the face or heel, I would always go back and check to see what spin and distance were doing. It was shocking to see the ball speeds at 162-164 with spin staying below 3k. That is unheard of for me and frankly had my fitter questioning where I actually caught the ball on the face when I said I missed it, but we confirmed my strikes with trackman. Carry distances were about 10-15 yards shorter than solid strikes.”

@gticlay: “I was most excited about hitting the Stealth2+ fairway offerings. They threw us a curveball by introducing a new model – the Stealth2HD model. It’s a new large head, mid height faced 3w that will get the ball up fast. This was almost immediately after I thanked the presenter for keeping their fairways with a deeper face, so foot in mouth on that except for it’s built for someone that is newer to golf, or that has always struggled with getting the ball up with a fairway wood.”

“I hit both the 3w and 5w’s. For the fairways, we started with the 3w and based on my irons and driver fitting, my guy already had a shaft picked out for me – the Graphite Design Tour AD DI 7X shaft. At 75g, it’s only slightly lighter than the Ozik Black Tie 80M-X that I am playing in my TI R9 “paint break” 3w now. We started with the weight in neutral but ended up with it all the way forward to help the head work for my swing. I also hit the IZ-6 shaft but it just didn’t have that feel I like in a shaft (I hadn’t known I had such a strong preference for a certain type of shaft before this). In order to see the ball flight he wanted, my fitter put the weight all the way forward saying that he didn’t think I’d have a problem losing the forgiveness the rear position offers. The sun was in my eyes so it was difficult to see my shots when they started off but by the end of the 3w fitting I was hitting it at a white aiming pole as well as my swing allows with very good numbers.”

“When we hit the 5w, I was starting to get a little tired but he came out, gave me the club and said “I think you are going to love this setup”. I hit two perfect shots and one that leaked a little right – the club was maybe the most solid feeling fairway I’ve ever hit…. well ever. I allowed myself to look at what shaft it is and it was the Blue Ventus 9-X. I hit another shaft just to be sure but no, that 9-X was love at first flight. I’ve never even hit a Ventus shaft before, so that was a nice hello nice to meet you moment.”

“Although I hit it first, the Driver was my first wood fitting. He set something up similar to my current gamer – an Epic Max LS. I hit a few different shafts but the last one was the one and it was actually something that I gamed last part of 2021 and first 2/3rds of 2022 – the Tensei Orange 65-X. Due to the very obvious graphics, I knew exactly what it was (I tried not to look at the shafts when I hit them) and it instantly felt familiar and comfortable. With a 10.5* head turned down a notch we ended up where my fitter wants me to “live” and that’s 12* launch and high 1700, low 1800 RPM. The one time I looked at the numbers it said 12.1*, 1776rpm. I have to say it felt good when the fitter next to us watched, commented how the flight looked really good and asked “how many yards did THAT one go!”. It’s not like my SS is so high but the ball was really out there on a few nutted shots. Compared to the empty aluminum can feel/sound of my previous driver the Stealth driver sounds so very nice and solid.

“So if I were to describe the Stealth2 Carbonwoods in one word – I would say SOLID. Solid feel, solid flight, solid sound. I can’t wait to game them.

*one last note – the gen1 fairway woods did NOT have the inverted cone technology “donut” in the face but they have added that to the gen2 fairways so they should be more forgiving on more of the face.

*ok one more last note – I’m not sure if they changed the white line on the top of the face, but I can’t even remember seeing it during the fitting. I never hit gen1 Stealth fairways so I can’t speak to those, but I think you have to look for the line if you want to use it vs. it being “in your face” at setup.

Follow along in the GolfWRX forums for more!

Read more about the Stealth 2 family, below.

• GolfWRX Launch Report: 2023 TaylorMade Stealth 2 drivers
• GolfWRX Launch Report: 2023 TaylorMade Stealth 2 fairway woods, hybrids
• TaylorMade introduces all-new Stealth HD irons