TaylorMade's Qi4D sleeve: 0.75° more loft closes the face 1.5°

Turn the loft sleeve on a TaylorMade Qi4D driver one notch to a higher loft and the loft goes up by 0.75°. With the club soled at address, the face closes by 1.5°. TaylorMade’s own guide to the sleeve gives the same two-to-one ratio at every setting: two notches add 1.5° of loft and close the face 3°, and the last notch adds 2° of loft and closes the face 4°. Turning the other way takes loft off and opens the face by the same amounts. The guide suggests the higher settings for right-handers who lose the ball to the right and says the lower ones may produce more left-to-right movement. A separate position marked “UPRT LIE” makes the lie more upright without changing the loft, which TaylorMade says moves the start line left.

Titleist measures loft with the face square

Titleist’s SureFit hosel has a sleeve numbered 1 to 4 and a ring lettered A to D, which give 16 combinations of loft and lie. On drivers and fairway woods each step is 0.75°; on hybrids it is 1°. A1 is standard for a right-hander. Moving up or down Titleist’s chart changes the loft, and moving across it changes the lie.

Titleist’s chart labels its loft figures as “effective loft with a square face at impact”, and Titleist’s Club Concierge explained why on the Team Titleist forum in 2015. “Our SureFit Tour hosel system mechanically adjusts loft and lie angle, not face angle,” the Concierge wrote. According to the Concierge, adding loft moves the point where the sole meets the ground further back, so a soled face sits closed; reducing loft moves it forward and the face sits open. A golfer who squares the face at impact gets the full change in loft.

TaylorMade’s face-angle figures are for a club resting on its sole, and Titleist’s loft figures assume the face is square. Which figure applies depends on whether you square the face behind the ball or let the club rest on its sole.

What the + settings did on Golf Digest’s robot

Golf Digest had Golf Laboratories’ robot hit the Qi4D range at a club speed of about 95mph and published the results on 20 May 2026. Golf Digest found the Qi4D one of the lowest-launching, lowest-spinning drivers it had tested. “The Qi4D delofts hard at impact, but the sleeve is what puts the loft back,” wrote Golf Digest’s Jonathan Wall.

For the sleeve test the robot made centre strikes with a Fujikura Ventus 6-S shaft. Averaged across seven head-and-loft combinations, moving from standard to +1 or +2 added 0.7° of launch, 263rpm of spin, 10.4 feet of peak height and 7.3 yards of carry. The 9° Qi4D gained most carry, from about 212 yards of carry at standard to about 225 at +2. Four of the seven heads:

Head	Launch, standard	Launch, +2	Spin, standard (rpm)	Spin, +2 (rpm)
Qi4D 9°	7.7°	8.7°	1,978	2,314
Qi4D Max 9°	8.3°	9.7°	2,397	2,762
Qi4D 10.5°	9.3°	10.1°	2,450	2,943
Qi4D LS 10.5°	10.9°	11.1°	2,596	2,896

One notch did not always mean a higher launch. The 9° and 10.5° Qi4D LS heads launched lower at +1 than at standard (9.3° against 9.9°, and 10.2° against 10.9°) and spun more. Of the seven combinations, only the 10.5° Qi4D LS stayed inside Golf Digest’s optimal launch window at every setting, and the 10.5° Qi4D reached it only at +2.

Golf Digest did not report face angle or dispersion for the sleeve test, so its figures say nothing about where the extra closure sends the ball. At this speed we’d buy the 10.5° head rather than wind a 9° head up to +2. On the robot the 10.5° Qi4D at standard launched higher and spun more than the 9° at +2, and its face sits square at address.

Price and availability

The Qi4D drivers went on sale on 29 January 2026 with a UK price of £549, according to National Club Golfer. TaylorMade’s US site lists the standard Qi4D at $649.99 in 8°, 9° and 10.5° lofts for right-handers.

Titleist’s SureFit hosel is on its current drivers, fairway woods and hybrids. Shafts from the GTS, GT, TSR, TSi, TS, 917, 915, 913 and 910 drivers fit any of those heads, so a fitted shaft from a 910 driver will go into a 2026 GTS head.

Sources

• TaylorMade: How to use a loft sleeve in Qi4D metalwoods (Scott Barton, 7 March 2026)
• TaylorMade: Qi4D driver product page
• Titleist: SureFit performance guide
• Team Titleist: Changing loft and face angles (Club Concierge reply, 2 October 2015)
• Team Titleist: SureFit loft adjustment effects
• Golf Digest: TaylorMade’s Qi4D is one of the lowest-launching, lowest-spinning drivers we’ve tested (Jonathan Wall, 20 May 2026)
• National Club Golfer: TaylorMade Qi4D drivers, everything you need to know