Callaway Irons – Page 3 – Syndication Server

Callaway X Forged UT irons

Callaway’s newest utility iron is designed to create more ball speed without sacrificing control for accuracy off the tee.

Gear: Callaway X Forged UT irons
Price: $250 each with Project X U steel shaft or HZRDUS Smoke Black graphite shaft and Golf Pride Z grip
Specs: Forged 1025 carbon steel body with 17-4 stainless steel cup face, tungsten weights and urethane foam. Available in 18, 21 and 24 degrees
Available: Oct. 29

Callaway’s newest utility iron, the X Forged UT, looks similar to the company’s latest cavity-back irons for accomplished golfers, the X Forged CB. But do you remember what your teachers told you about books and their covers? Callaway made the utility irons in a different way to achieve a very different goal.

The X Forged UT, which is only available in traditional 3-, 4- and 5-iron lofts, is for accomplished players who want the precision and lower ball flight of an iron off the tee, but with hybrid-like distance.

Callaway X Forged UT irons — The 17-4 stainless steel cup face can flex more efficiently because the X Forged UT is hollow. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

To provide that, Callaway designed the club using multiple materials, including 1025 mild-carbon steel in the chassis and a much harder 17-4 stainless steel in the club’s cup face. The club is hollow, so the face can flex more efficiently and help golfers attain higher ball speeds for more distance.

Callaway also added a metal-injection-molded tungsten weight inside the head and a second tungsten weight in the back attached to the head by a pair of screws. The extra weight lowers the center of gravity and helps encourage a slightly higher launch angle. It’s higher than a standard better-player’s iron but lower than a hybrid club’s typical trajectory.

To enhance sound and feel, the X Forged UT’s inner chamber has been filled with urethane microspheres suspended in a foam-like material. The spheres are tiny glass bubbles that absorb excessive vibrations created at impact without impeding the face’s ability to flex.

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Callaway Big Bertha B-21 Irons

Callaway’s new max game-improvement Big Bertha B-21 irons are designed to help players find more distance and get more consistency.

Gear: Callaway Big Bertha B-21 irons
Price: $899.99 with KBS CT80 steel shafts and Golf Pride Tour Velvet Soft grips; $999.99 with Callaway RCH graphite shafts
Specs: A super-game-improvement iron with tungsten weights and a urethane insert
Available: Sept. 10

Golfers who generate lots of power and who have repeatable swings want irons that let them carve up a golf course. They want to hit the high draw, the power fade or the low runner. They demand good looks, feel and control.

But the vast majority of golfers are not tour pros, college golfers or elite amateurs. They’re weekend players who don’t take lessons and struggle to hit the center of the face, and all they want is to hit the ball farther and straighter.

Callaway’s newest super-game-improvement clubs, the Big Bertha B-21 irons, are designed for those high-handicap players. And these clubs are designed much differently than better-player irons.

Callaway Big Bertha B-21 irons — The Big Bertha B-21 irons have a thick topline and lots of offset. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

Staring down at the Big Bertha B-21 in the address position, golfers will see a thick topline, a long blade length and significant offset. Flipping the clubs over reveals a wide sole. All these features can be be visually reassuring to higher-handicap golfers.

From the outside, the hitting area looks like a typical iron. Inside, the face is covered by ripples and bulges. It was designed using artificial intelligence to maximize distance and create varying amounts of spin for each club, so the specific thicknesses and patterns for each iron in the set is different.

Callaway also designed the Big Bertha B-21 irons with a cup face, so the hitting area is attached to the body behind the leading edge, topline and toe. This helps broaden the sweet spot.

To drive down the center of gravity, Callaway designed a Visible Tungsten Energy Core (VTEC) into each head, positioning it behind the face. A second piece of tungsten in the toe shifts the ideal hitting area directly into the middle of the scoring lines. There are more than 40 grams of tungsten in each iron.

To soften the feel of impact and enhance sound, urethane microspheres – tiny glass bubbles in urethane foam – were added around the tungsten. The urethane-microsphere piece is compressible, so while it touches the face, it will not inhibit it from flexing or decrease ball speed.

While the lofts of the Big Bertha B-21 irons are strong, with the 5-iron being 22 degrees and the 9-iron at 38 degrees, Callaway is making every iron between a 4-iron and lob wedge available in the set. It’s also worth noting that with such a low and back center of gravity, stronger-lofted irons can still fly higher into the air for slower-swinging, higher-handicap golfers.

Callaway Mavrik, Mavrik Max, Mavrik Pro irons

Using a supercomputer to design each face, along with tungsten weights and urethane inserts, Callaway is delivering more distance and feel.

Gear: Callaway Mavrik, Mavrik Max, Mavrik Pro irons
Price: $799 (Standard, Max)/$899 (Pro) with True Temper Elevate or KBS Max steel shafts and Golf Pride Tour Velvet Soft grips; $899 (Standard, Max) with Project X Catalyst graphite shafts.
Specs: Cast stainless steel with cup face design, internal tungsten bar and urethane microspheres
Available: Feb. 6

A year ago Callaway released the Epic Flash driver family and touted that the faces in those clubs were designed by supercomputers that utilized artificial intelligence. Simulating how more than 15,000 prototypes would perform, the system revealed things to Callaway’s design team that would have taken years to develop.

For 2020, Callaway has used the same method to create a new iron family: the Mavrik, Mavrik Max and the Mavrik Pro.

Callaway instructed the computer to consider ball speed, launch angle and spin as it simulated prototype faces for the new irons. Not only did it come up with different face patterns for each of the three club types, it suggested unique faces for each club in all three sets too. Callaway said the suggested designs for the long irons produce more speed and distance while the short iron designs help golfers control spin and trajectory more effectively.

Each iron also has a unique tungsten weight that helps Callaway tune the center of gravity to benefit players most. Extra tungsten in the long irons helps produce higher shots, while smaller pieces of tungsten in the heads of the short irons help golfers keep approach shots down.

Tungsten is not easily welded to stainless steel, so Callaway encases each of the tungsten pieces in a urethane liquid infused with millions of tiny glass bubbles. After being injected into place, the urethane solidifies. The company refers to the material as Urethane Microspheres, and it not only holds the tungsten weight in place, it dampens vibrations and enhances feel at impact without decreasing ball speed.

All these technologies – the computer-designed cup face, tungsten weight and urethane material – work together to broaden the ideal hitting area and protect ball speed on mis-hits.

The standard Mavrik is the longest-hitting of the three new irons. It’s a game-improvement club that has a moderately thick topline and sole width with some offset. The lofts are stronger than those designed into many game-improvement irons (the 5-iron is 21 degrees and the pitching wedge is 41 degrees) because the tungsten weight helps get the ball up in the air. As a result, shots go farther and hit their apex farther downrange.

Callaway Mavrik Max iron (Callaway Golf)

The Mavrik Max is a super-game-improvement iron for higher-handicap golfers who struggle with consistency. The lofts are not as strong as the standard Mavrik’s (the 5-iron is 23 degrees and the pitching wedge is 43 degrees), but the heads are larger to make them more forgiving.

Callaway Mavrik Pro iron — Callaway Mavrik Pro (Callaway Golf)

The Mavrik Pro irons are the most compact of the three. They have the thinnest toplines and soles, and only moderate offset. The iron lofts are 0.5 degrees weaker than the Mavrik Max, but the pitching wedge and gap wedge lofts are the same as on the Max.