I've always wondered this myself.  I only hit my driver on Friday's (before my typical Saturday round) and then only 10 or so swings.  I practice at the range every night (fortunate enough to live in Florida) - and play once or twice a week.  I used to hit my driver a lot at the range and then, like you, found the pop goes right out of the driver for the oddest reason.  I do think it has to do with those hard range balls.  I would certainly like to hear from the folks at Titleist.  Hey, maybe there is a new market for a "Range Only Driver"!  Same swing weight and shaft, but harder face for practice purposes.

Mike

um, believe me or not, there is a ton of truth to that, mostly because of sand and dirt and cracks in the balls,not the ball itself. c'mon a golf ball is a golf ball, if he were right then he'd be saying that you have to hit a pro v1 or prov1x or some other tour ball for every swing with your driver to preserve the club. a driver is a driver, its going to get worn out over time with the amount of balls hit with it. you'd be downright dumb to not practice with your driver on the range, thats the only way to get better at hitting it. a ton of people every golf season buy tf distance ROCKS, if they were proven to wear out to destroy the face then there would be some type of warning that the company selling you the club would have to tell you. 

a golf club is made to hit a golf ball, that is fact, all you need to do is stop worrying about dumb statements like that one and just play the game of golf. 

lastly, you were talking to a tour player right? dont tour players hit tens of thousands of rangeballs/golfballs a month? how many do the weekly golfers hit? probably about a quarter of the amount a tour player does, so yes, with the amount of balls they hit, it can wear a club, but with the amount of balls we hit, absolutely not.

if im wrong and hes right, tf needs to be sued and club manufacturers do to for making something that can not withstand what it was made for.

Sam, TF was called Top Rock because they were the widest used ball, the "rock" was simply a term for ball, it didn't mean they were hard as a rock. The TF distance balls were the same compression as the top of the line balls. The reason TF was Top Rock was pretty simple, top of line was $15-20, TF was $5.

Range balls are made for durability, the cover is much thicker and harder.

If they wear the face of the driver more than a regular ball, I don't know.

Of course I doubt a tour player uses the same range balls we do, I know the college players have different range balls than we do.

A harder ball will compress the face of a spring face more than a softer ball, this may make a difference to someone that hits the ball 300y, because a spring has a limit, and if a spring gets sprung it loses its ability to spring.

my point being that tour players hit 10x the amount of golf balls a week than the average player hits, so really nobody should base anything of a tour player, were not the same as them and neither is the equipment..

im saying that people referred to the ball as a rock, because its like hitting an actual rock. i dont care wether it was the top ball, im saying if you bounce the tf on the ground it sounds like glass hitting the floor. im not an imbesile, i know what the term "rock" means. but they dont use that term in golf really. its mostly basketball, ive never heard an announcer say "and tigers rock ends up in the long grass" or "he just hit the long rock." 

in basketball they say "pass me the rock."

ive never ever ever heard somebody use the term rock in golf unless theyre referring to a real rock.

and besides i never said anything about it being called "TOP" rock in the first place, all i said was its like hitting a rock.

Titleist Staff... I appreciate my fellow golfers comments but a scientific or testing answer would be great on the Range Ball question  - I'm sure there has been testing at Titleist site with thousands of hits on a driver face and wonder if there was any degraded performance after X number of balls.  

The 910 driver was tested for face durability by simulating very high speed swings thousands of times.  The performance of the driver after this extreme testing does not degrade.  In addition, the average golfer will not wear out the face of his/her driver.   This is due to the fact that golf balls are significantly softer than the titanium face of a driver.  

It is important to hit clean golf balls to prevent surface scratches on the face of a driver from debris.  Surface scratches caused by debris have no significant impact on the face performance of the driver and are considered normal use/wear.

 Titanium driver faces are significantly harder and stronger than the polymers used in golf ball construction.  Driver faces do not become thinner after hitting range balls and the face is under warranty if you happen to experience a cracked face under normal usage conditions - so hit away and enjoy the performance of your 910 metalwoods!

Hi David,  Personally, I have replaced my driver every two or three years and not just because I can :).  It really depends on how many balls you hit and how often you play.  Many of my friends also replace theirs every couple of years.  Part of it is because we are club junkies and the other part is that we are always in search of the 10 extra yards!  

every 2-3 yrs is not a club junkie. 2-3 yrs would be reasonably sane.

You are absolutely right,  but we only bring out new products every two years :)