[BerntR]

As far as wind influence goes, I guess it depends on your driver.

I play with a very hot 8* driver. Something that is quite low loft for my moderate swing speed. So I have to hit it close to low point or on the upturn to get a proper carry. Therefore I get very moderate side spin. And because it has so little loft it also has very moderate back spin.

With the driver I never see my drives baloon up in the air and I hardly see the ball being blown sideways by the either either. This is very different from my fairway woods and irons of course, and pretty much due to the low loft.

I probably see slightly less carry in windstill conditions than I would have with a carry-optimised driver, but I think addded roll makes up for it. And besides - it's with the wind in the face that distance becomes a scarce resource. So I like to use a driver that produces max carry with the wind in my face.

I play with a Bangster head. The face is so hard and so smooth I can still use it as a mirror after some 5 years of usage. The only bad thing about this head is that I hardly get any backspin and thus very little carry whenever the clubhead and ball gets wet. Then I have to use a 3 wood instead. So this is not a driver for rainy days, but it is perfect in windy conditions and good conditions.

IMO, finding a driver that really fits the player is extremely immportant both for distance and consistency.