Review: Cobra Darkspeed Adapt – most adjustable driver of 2025

What’s that? You thought driver launches were just for January? Well, you were wrong! Cobra has released details of their new Darkspeed Adapt range of drivers this side of Christmas. But, what are they all about and how do they perform?

This time of year is special for us golf nerds, as lots of major brands launch their new drivers. For the 2025 season, Cobra is the first to show us what it has lined up with its Darkspeed Adapt range.

Having hit these drivers and tested them out, I certainly like what I see, so let’s take a closer look.

The First Look

The first thing to note about this range is that we see four head options. As you would expect, we see the low spin option, the X, or core, model and we have the Darkspeed Adapt Max-D, which is aimed at players who want to draw the ball. The offering that might slightly surprise you here, however, is the Cobra Darkspeed Adapt Max-K model. The Max-K model is made with 10K MOI, something which you’ll be familiar with if you followed the progress of last year’s driver market.

I also noticed the head shapes being a little more shallow in comparison to last year. That, along with some re-imagined face designs, makes these very nice to look at. New laser etching on the face is designed to help frame the ball better at address and I certainly think it works.

New laser etching on the face makes these drivers easy on the eye. (Credit: Cobra)

You’ll find that, particularly compared to last year’s models, these are much more inviting behind the ball. However, and it’s a big however, the most eye catching part of these drivers comes in the hosel. That takes us nicely into the tech.

The Tech

There’s only one place to start and that’s with the hosel on the Cobra Darkspeed Adapt drivers.

The FutureFit33 hosel is genius. As the name suggests, there is 33 different settings on this, which will allow you to refine your shot shape. If you need more height on your tee shots and less movement from left to right you can change the lie angle and loft to get you hitting straighter shots without changing your swing.

Why so many? Well, our performance editor Lewis Fraser explains in more detail here, but basically it allows golfers to decouple the loft and lie of the driver. In traditional drivers, if you loft up or down, you’re going to also change the lie angle, which will change the direction of your ball flight. In DS-Adapt, that doesn’t need to happen.

Next, it’s only right that we touch on the QR Code, which you’ll see at the bottom of the driver head. We certainly haven’t seen one of these on a driver before, but it serves a purpose here. When you scan it, you’ll see a chart which allows you to pick the setting you need on your driver.

As you would expect, with this being a continuation of last year’s line, there is technology here which Cobra fans will be familiar with. The H.O.T face design is one that many will recognise. This features Variable Face Thickness, which helps with launch from mishits.

There is also a continuation of the PWRBridge Weighting, which sits behind the face, optimising the centre of gravity placement to allow for lower spin and faster speeds. The MAX-D has more weight placed towards the heel for a higher MOI in the draw bias shapes.

There is something new with the Smartpad technology, which helps to keep the driver face square, even after the loft and lie has been changed thanks to FutureFit33.

The bunkered Verdict

The last couple years, Cobra have doubled down on speed and distance, and the brand has done incredibly well by doing this. This driver expands on that, while bringing in new stories around forgiveness, too.

FutureFit33 is certainly an intriguing bit of kit. (Credit: Cobra)

This year Cobra has refined that aerodynamic package even more, but advances in the technology around adjustability and fitting has taken this driver to another level. That’s largely down to the FutureFit33 hosel design, which I’m a huge fan of.

On another point, I think the acoustics are great from this driver, which produces a sharp sound at impact.

They look great, largely thanks to the new laser etching on the face, which makes these inviting when they sit behind the ball.

But a big factor in why I like these so much is their forgiveness. Even in the X model, which is designed to fit the widest range of players, you’ll see a lot of forgiveness on off-centre hits. Of course, there’s then the 10K model and if you’ve hit a 10K MOI driver before, you’ll know how they perform.

What brings this driver together is the adjustability with its FutureFit33 hosel allowing you to change your loft and lie whenever you want so you can hit straighter shots.

Even if you go for a lesson you can change it again using the QR code on the driver to make the necessary changes for your new swing. It’s a great bit of engineering and I can see this range being incredibly popular.