Do golf drivers hold their value?
Poorly. A published guide puts first-year depreciation around 53% once the next generation launches, reaching 75-80% after five years, and a nine-retailer comparison recovered 51-65% of retail on a one-year-old flagship traded in.
Brand changes the slope. PING retains roughly 15-20% more value than the category average, while COBRA and Mizuno fall faster. Direct-to-consumer brands have the thinnest resale market of all, because the buyers who shop used are shopping familiar model names.
Where you sell matters nearly as much as what you sell. Offers on the same PING G440 MAX ranged from $224 to $294.94 across nine retailers in November 2025, a $70.94 spread, and store credit generally beats cash.
The practical consequence is that a flagship bought new and sold after a year costs its owner roughly $300-$350 in depreciation, which is close to the whole price of a good last-generation head.
Confidence: multi-source · Based on 3 cited sources.
Products discussed
- PING G440 MAX
- COBRA OPTM Max-K
- Titleist GT2
Sources
Read the complete guide
What Driver to Buy, and How Much to SpendBy Purchasd Research. We used independent robot-and-human testing as the primary performance evidence, manufacturer and retailer pages for prices, specifications and warranty terms, a published used-price guide for depreciation, a nine-retailer trade-in comparison for resale recovery, and owner forum discussion — one Golf Monthly thread and twelve Reddit threads read in full — for real-world upgrade, fitting and durability experience. Test figures are quoted with the outlet, sample and equipment that produced them. Prices are list or observed street prices on the dates given, not transaction prices, and several are post-launch discounts. Purchasd received no manufacturer payment, review units or affiliate consideration for this research. Most of the best-documented testing in this category is published by affiliate-supported outlets, and retailers and fitting chains supply much of the remaining public data; each source is labeled by bias. Purchasd has not hit a single shot with any of these clubs.