Deep-faced drivers clash head on

Ping Si3 340cc driver.

Ping Si3 340 v Integra Viktory II Forged Titanium

Price: Ping £399 (graphite shaft), Integra £149 (graphite)

During the last few weeks I've been trying to get to grips with two recent additions to the plethora of drivers which seem to be competing for our attention.

In the last 12 years, I've tried more drivers than a long-suffering British School of Motoring instructor and have yet to find one with which I have been totally happy.

My golf was initiated in the 1970s, when I bought a set of second hand clubs, which included a steel shafted, persimmon-headed Ben Sayers driver. I carried it in my bag for years, but rarely used it - the big fluffy yellow pom-pom head cover merely identified that I had one.

I'm still none the wiser after comparing Ping's Si3 340cc and the Viktory II 370cc from Integra - neither of which I could strike with any real consistency.

Unlike a number of the latest ball-thumpers with claimed lower centre of gravity, neither was easy for me to get airborne. Granted, I'm a handsy type of golfer who delivers a low, penetrating flight with my irons most suited to links courses. But shots with these two clubs rarely flew higher than a bungalow chimney pot.

On occasions my ego was massaged with drives that bounded along as if on an airport runway but in the recent dry conditions, against mates who are not usually longer than me, I was still playing my approach shots first.

Let's look first at the Ping with its thermoplastic hosel which allows club fitters to match a driver or fairway wood to any golfer's swing with different lie angles, helping them correct hooks and slices to achieve the best possible ball flight. Mine was supplied based on info provided, as best I could, over the telephone, so perhaps wasn't perfect for me.

The sound off the deep forged 340cc face ( a new 380cc version is soon to be released) was almost as quiet and soft as the persimmon heads I remember and the blue grafalloy light weight shaft was certainly easy to swing.

But, contrary to the claims that the head was confidence-inspiring, I didn't find it so, or particularly forgiving. Mishits finished where mishits should - shortish and rightish, with the occasional straight nobbler off the bottom of the club, which stung the fingers.

Integra Viktory II.

The Viktory II comes from the same stable as the monster Integra Super Forged 450 Bti driver and at a more affordable price than most big-hitting weapons on the market.

Integra Golf UK even offers your money back if the Viktory II doesn't strike the ball longer and straighter than your current driver.

Head to head it was 5-10 yards longer than the Ping Si3 but again didn't inspire confidence and was even less forgiving. Several others of similar stature and handicap wouldn't swap it for their Cobra SS 430s.

One told me: "Once you've got used to a big flat head sitting there, the 370cc head on the Viktory II, with its deep face, makes it look more like a 3-wood and you've really got to hammer it to get the distance. And that leads to mishits."

Integra's Vinnie Ball makes a sound point when he says: "We think 'good value for money' has been overlooked in golf club retail. It's insulting to the golfer to be charged up to £450 for the latest offering only to see it on sale for £150 in the golf discount superstores six months later. That's why we offer a money-back guarantee if customers aren't satisfied."

My final benchmark was to try to hit both off the deck - which has become a bit of an obsession, if not a speciality of mine. Neither performed well but to be honest I didn't expect it. Hitting off a tall tee peg was difficult enough.