Gear: Callaway Big Bertha B-21 fairway woods
Price: $299.99 each with Callaway RCH graphite shaft and Golf Pride Tour Velvet Soft grips
Specs: Carbon-fiber crown with stainless steel bodies. Available as 3-, 5-, 7- and 9-woods
Available: Sept. 10
Elite golfers use their fairway woods as alternatives to driver off the tee and occasionally off the turf when attacking a long par 5. Recreational players, however, reach for their fairway woods more often, including on par 4s, and some slower-swinging golfers might need a fairway wood to reach a long par 3. The challenges are that fairway woods are long and club players make contact with the ball all over the face, leading to inconsistent performance.
With the release of the Big Bertha B-21, Callaway focused on creating clubs that are extremely easy to hit and forgiving to help golfers who struggle with fairway woods.
Looking down at address, golfers will see a significant amount of offset, and they will notice that the Big Bertha B-21 fairways are … big. The look was designed to inspire confidence.
To increase the quality of the strike, Callaway designed the Big Bertha B-21 fairway woods to be slightly shorter in length than a standard fairway wood. The 3-wood is a quarter inch shorter, and the other clubs are approximately half an inch shorter.
At the same time, the clubs’ profile is also shallow, so more of the hitting area is below the top of the ball. And the leading edge was designed to be lower to the ground without digging into the turf. Combined, these elements should improve contact for players who struggle to hit fairway woods solidly.
The face of each club was designed by a supercomputer using artificial intelligence. Engineers told the computer to prioritize different traits in each club, with greater emphasis placed on getting the ball up into the air with the 3-wood and increased forgiveness in the 5- and 7-woods. For that reason, each of the stainless steel faces is slightly different based on the loft.
Callaway also gave the Big Bertha B-21 fairway woods a triaxial carbon-fiber crown and Jailbreak bars on the inside of each head. The bars connect the sole and the crown, stiffening the chassis. Callaway said that at impact, more energy is returned to the ball instead of being lost in the deformation of the head, so players can expect more distance.