Callaway Golf plans to release its first adjustable club early next year. The RAZR Fit driver, which PGA Tour pros Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, and Alvaro Quiros have had in their bags since the Fall Series, will offer two ways to adjust the draw bias and three settings for the angle of the club face, Tim Buckman, Callaway’s senior director of global communications, told us Thursday.
Two weight screws in the heel and toe will let golfers switch the head to either a neutral or draw bias, while adjustability in the hosel will help straighten out slices or hooks and otherwise affect the interaction of the club with the ball at impact. Callaway, which will enter the adjustable-club market several years after TaylorMade, Titleist, and other manufacturers have settled in, chose to limit the number of settings to make it easier for golfers, according to Dr. Alan Hocknell, the company’s senior VP of research and design.
Other adjustable drivers’ many varieties of seeings are useful “only…if you can understand the difference between each one…and you can see the difference between each one…when you adjust the driver,” Hocknell told Today’s Golfer. To make the driver “simple to use, simple to understand,” Hocknell said Callaway chose to offer three hosel settings — open, square, and closed — and only two draw bias settings — draw or neutral.
“The combination of those things is easy to understand, it’s easy to make the adjustments,” Hocknell said, “and when you do, those adjustments will be distinct from one another so you’ll actually see the club perform differently.”
The club, which Callaway will introduce in late January, will sport the company’s new “Speed Frame” face that’s a combination of “hyperbolic shaping [and] precision thickness control” for a larger sweet spot, Buckman said. It is also lighter than previous faces.
“This new technology optimizes stress distribution and increases ball speeds across the face,” Buckman noted.
The crown of the club consists of the same strong but light-weight Forged Composite material featured in the RAZR Hawk and Diablo Octane drivers. Because it’s lighter than titanium, the technology compensates for the weights of the adjustable hosel without compromising performance, according to Hocknell.
Callaway will offer the RAZR Fit, which will retail for $399, with a 45.5-inch Aldila RIP NV shaft (stiff, regular, and L-flex) and Golf Pride New Decade Multi Compound grip.
While Callaway, based in Carlsbad, Calif., and with a plant in Chicopee, Mass., may be later to the party than its rivals, Hocknells said consumers will believe it was worth the wait. “We didn’t really want to be in the category until we could produce a driver that didn’t compromise the performance in any aspect,” he said.
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. View all her articles here. You may also follow Kay on Twitter @golfexaminer.)
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