I spent a good 45 minutes looking over the new Ben Hogan PTx metal woods when they arrived last week. Something was up, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

It finally came to me. With the good folks of Plano, Texas, as my witness, the new Hogans look eerily similar to offerings from Adams Golf before TaylorMade bought them out.

Before you start bleating “copy!” at me, remember the MyGolfSpy Thinking Reader’s Credo: Looks like isn’t same as.

No, this is not just recycled 15-year-old technology in a new package. Be curious, my friends. There’s much to learn here.

 Spoiler alert: Be prepared for another entry in the 10K sweepstakes.

Ben Hogan PTx metal woods: The Adams fam-uh-lee

If you just snapped your fingers twice and said Tish, that’s French, you and I can be forever friends.

Even though TaylorMade owns the brand name, the spirit of Adams metal woods is alive and well and living in Las Vegas. Take a good look at the new Ben Hogan PTx Max and PTx LST drivers. Do they remind you, at least a little, of a 2009 vintage Adams Speedline and its patented aerodynamic “airfoil shaping?” Adams may have patented the shape, but Hogan now calls it the “Speed Slot,” a callout to a Hogan driver feature dating back to the 1950s.

The PTx MAX hybrids, meanwhile, are an echo of classic Adams hybrids with their high, squared-off toe. The fairways? Well, they look like fairways.

“We know Ben Hogan clubs are supposed to be a piece of jewelry,” Hogan owner Simon Millington tells MyGolfSpy. “But we wanted to make sure we made something as good as anything out there.”

Direct-to-consumer brands can compete with big OEMs on anything from blades to players’ distance irons. Metal woods are tough, however, as that’s where the big OEMs flex their muscles. While you can find solid to exceptional-performing DTC metal woods, mainstream OEMs have R&D teams armed with supercomputers. Lower-tier DTC brands don’t.

Hogan, however, qualifies as an upper-tier DTC brand. It custom assembles everything at its Vegas headquarters, and it’s also one of the only DTC brands with an in-house club designer, former Adams veteran Gavin Wallin.

That might help explain the familial resemblance.

The Lurch of hybrids

While the new Hogan PTx MAX hybrids will remind you of the old Adams Idea hybrids, be prepared for some girth.

It’s so big you’ll expect it to say, “You rang?“

“We named it a ‘mid-brid’ because it’s a bigger head,” says Millington. “These fit somewhere between a seven- and a nine-wood head, so there’s a lot of confidence behind the ball.”

“It’s bigger than most hybrids, but that’s by design,” adds Wallin. “It lets us move weight around to reduce spin. If you cut it open, you’ll find weighting in the heel and toe to optimize the center of gravity and MOI.”

The Ben Hogan PTx MAX hybrids are made from maraging steel and are not adjustable, with cost the most likely reason. An adjustable hybrid might make sense for a bigger brand with a network of fitters. For a DTC brand such as Hogan, it doesn’t.

PTx MAX fairways: Crowned with carbon fiber

Even though they’re from the same family as the hybrids, the new PTx MAX fairways are a brother from another mother. Where the hybrids are stout and distinctive, the fairways are sleek, slender and traditional looking. They feature a maraging steel face and body and a carbon fiber crown.

“I spent years studying carbon fiber crowns at Adams,” says Wallin. “They don’t make sense on hybrids because there’s so much other material needed just to support the crown. In fairways, however, they allow us to lower the center of gravity and move weight to increase MOI for more forgiveness and a better ball flight.”

You’ll also find a signature Ben Hogan Speed Slot on the toe, plus an exaggerated sort of T-rail on the sole to help with turf interaction. Size-wise, it’s similar to a Titleist GT2, with a similarly shallow face. The head shape, however, is Adams-adjacent.

Hogan himself was the king of the 4-wood, and Hogan’s previous generation GS53 fairways featured a 16-degree 4-wood. This new line, however, stays true to the traditional 3-, 5- and 7-wood lineup.

Like the hybrids, the PTx MAX fairways are not adjustable.

Speedline meets Speed Slot

As mentioned, the new Ben Hogan PTx MAX and PTx LST (Low Spin Technology) drivers do resemble the old Adams Speedline drivers. However, if you think Hogan is just copying a 15-year-old driver and calling it new, you’re trying way, way too hard to be cynical.

For those with fading memories, those old Speedlines were under-the-radar rocket launchers, so the resemblance isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Make no mistake; there’s plenty of new tech in these things. The thin titanium face features variable face thickness to optimize ball speed on off-center strikes. Using carbon fiber for the crown and Speed Slot gives Wallin valuable grams of discretionary weight to optimize CG, MOI and launch properties.

“We wanted to create a really forgiving club and a really low spinning club,” he says. “We optimized the CG in both using carbon fiber, titanium and tungsten weighting.”

As mentioned earlier, the PTx MAX is the latest driver to crash the 10K MOI threshold. When combined with variable face thickness and a tungsten weight placed low and back, even your worst swing sins will still be playable.   

The PTx LST features tungsten weighting right behind the face for a forward CG and enhanced ball speed. It’s less forgiving than the PTx MAX, but that doesn’t make it an unforgiving driver.

“We just wanted a really good, high MOI driver with a little bit of draw bias with the MAX,” says Wallin. “The LST is designed to go straight, and it’s pretty forgiving, too.”

Do they stand up to the big guns?

If you care about yards-per-dollar as a performance metric, the new Ben Hogan PTx metal woods should deliver you some dandy value.

On the golf course, the Hogan PTx MAX driver performs as advertised. It’s forgiving and wants to find the fairway, which is everything a 10K driver should be. I was even outdriving my long-hitting playing partner for most of the day (not by much, but a win’s a win). Both drivers carry the classic titanium-face sound despite the carbon fiber crown. I’d describe them both as sound-neutral.

Oddly, the sound and feel are consistent, no matter where you hit the ball on the face. The feedback, if any, is very subtle. The good news is that on shots I know I hit toward the toe that would normally hook into the weeds tended to land in the short grass.

In short, the PTx MAX is long enough, pretty forgiving and you can play good golf with it. At $379.99, it’ll also save you a couple of hundred for your Pebble Beach fund.

I’ve only hit the PTx LST on the range. Sound and feel are similar to the MAX, and while it’s less forgiving than the MAX, I wouldn’t call it unforgiving. A little less tolerant of your bullshit, perhaps, but even a mid-swing speed player like yours truly could game it.

The fairways did their job and are well worth the price of admission, particularly the 5-wood. It took two range sessions and a round to get the feel of the hybrids, but they were worth the effort. They’re large, but they do fit the bill as a long-iron replacement. The 26-degree 5-hybrid in particular is a cheat code. It just wants to launch high, land soft and go straight.

Ben Hogan PTx metal woods: Specs, price and availability

At $379.99, the new Hogan PTx drivers are a relative bargain considering where pricing is in 2025.

Hogan builds everything custom, so there are no stock shafts or grips for the PTx line. No upcharge driver and fairway shafts include the UST Helium NCT (SR and Ladies flex only), HZRDUS Smoke Black and the Tensei CK Blue. The UST Helium NCT is a $20 upcharge in R, S and XS flexes, while the HZRDUS Smoke Black RDX is a $50 upcharge.

Hogan-branded Lamkin Z5 grips are standard. Various popular grips from Lamkin, Golf Pride and Winn come with varying upcharges.

Both drivers are available in 9o and 10.5o lofts with adjustable hosels (+/- 2o, in 1o increments). The PTx LST is right-handed only, while the PTx MAX driver, fairways and hybrids are available for lefties and righties. The left-handed models are due in mid-June.

The PTx MAX fairways include a 15o 3-wood, an 18o 5-wood and a 21o 7-wood. They’re $219.99 each.

The PTx MAX hybrids are $199.99 each, and feature an 18o 3-hybrid, a 22o 4-hybrid and a 26o “cheat code” 5-hybrid. At launch, the only shaft option is the UST Recoil in all flexes. We expect more options to be added soon.

If you’re an “If I ain’t trying, I ain’t buyin’” kind of golfer, Hogan does offer a $50 “trial and return” demo program. The new line will be added to the program in the coming weeks.

The Ben Hogan PTx metal woods are available now on the Ben Hogan website.

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