The HX Tour 56 is Callaway’s Premium tour ball. As with all balls of this type, it’s got a three piece construction, with a solid core, a boundary layer designed to increase driver distance,  and a thin, soft cover for feel and spin.

Two features set this ball apart. The first is Callaway’s concentric core technology, which is supposed to produce a precisely centered core. This shoudl make the ball fly more consistently.

More evident is Callaway’s use of hexes rather than dimples to produce the lift needed to keep the ball in flight. While Callaway has been using hexes for a couple of years now, the new design has six “sub hexes”, deeper depressions designed to further reduce drag and create lift.

I think that the hex technology works. The HX Hot is by far the longest ball that I play with on a regular basis.

The Warbird has been reintroduced by Callaway for the 2007 season.

Very reasonably priced at around $16, the Warbird is a two piece ball designed for distance. Callaway says that the new core produces lower driver spin with a softer feel.  The surlyn ionomer cover is designed to offer higher ball speed and durability. The ball uses dimples instead of Callaway’s innovative hex patterns.

With the X-Forged irons, Callaway offers a players iron packed with technological advances. Forged from 1020 carbon steel, they feature a notched back design for stability at impact. The flighted center of gravity design positions the CG low in the long irons and progressively higher as the clubs get shorter. Callaway says that this design offers consistent trajectories and distance control throughout the set.

Of course, as with any iron that claims to be a “players club,” they have a thin top line, narrow sole, shorter blade length and minimal offset.

There is no way I could play a set of these. 

I heard an interesting line the other day: That Augusta National is America’s Home Course.

Most of us will never play there, but thanks to The Masters, Augusta National is the course that is indelibly burned into our collective consciousness. When your average guy dreams of a golf course, it’s one with azaleas and dogwood and towering pines lining the fairways. It’s the Amen Corner and the Hogan Bridge. Every brook we encounter is Rae’s Creek; every driveway is Magnolia Lane.

My home course is a classic track that dates to 1899. It’s beautiful and challenging. But it’s still Augusta I dream of.

Sporting one of the most recognizable names in golf, the Big Bertha 460 is new this year from Callaway golf. Like so many of the clubs this year, this one is all about geometry. The shape is designed to create a 460cc clubhead with a shallower face, flatter crown. This, Callaway says, results in the highest moment of intertia ever for ones of its clubs. The stretched head design also lets Callaaway position the center of gravity deeper in the clubhead for optimum ball flight and forgiveness.

The club also incorporates Callaway’s “core technologies”, including VFT to maximize ball speed, and the classic Tru-Bore for improved feel and clubhead control.

It’s the Year of the Strangely Shaped Driver. Square, Triangular, Scoop Backed, ... clubmakers are looking for new ways to create stability and forgiveness.

From Callaway comes the FT-i Tour, a square driver which Callaway says is designd to be the straightest driver ever. The composite body and square shape, Callaway says, allows allows them to move weight to the extreme corners, producing a high moment of inertia (resistance to twisting). The square shape apparently is mroe than a gimmick. The shape apparently is designed to allow Callaway to stabilize both the horizontal and vertical axes.

Callway says that “the FT-i Driver also incorporates Callaway Golf’s proprietary OptiFit® Weighting System, which produces three center of gravity configurations—Draw, Neutral or Fade—and enables golfers to choose the configuration that best suits their individual game. It also boasts Callaway Golf’s largest, most robust CT/VFT titanium cup face, which is designed to the legal limit to dramatically increase ball speed, distance, forgiveness and stability for longer, straighter drives.”

It’ll be interesting to see how these new designs play when they all finally arrive. I’m looking forward to trying them.

Callaway’s first graphite body driver wasn’t particularly well received. I remember golfers who tried it tellime me that it felt and sounded funny. And in fairly short order, they were in the bargain bins at the local pro shops.

The new FT-5 Draw, on the other hand, was named an Editor’s Choice in the 2007 Golf Digest Hot List.

The key to this clubhead is the carbon composite material which—being much lighter than titanium—allows Callaway to redistribute fifty grams of weight to the perimeter. This is the holy grail of current clubhead design, as the weight helps to increase the Moment of Inertia (resistance to twisting). Twenty five grams located at the rear of the clubhead lowers the center of gravity to improve the trajectory.

The club also features Callaway’s Variable Face Thickness Technology, which helps to maximize the sweet spot. Callaway says that makes it the hottest clubface yet.