NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
BROUGHT TO YOU BY GOLF PRIDE, THE #1 GRIP ON TOUR
Like the vintage Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups ads – “Hey, you got chocolate in my peanut butter; you got peanut butter in my chocolate” – Callaway engineers decided to see whether two of its staple driver models would play great together. The result is the Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond Max.
As the name indicates, the TD Max combines the workability and control of its Triple Diamond model with the larger 460cc head construction and corresponding forgiveness of its Max drivers to create a club that blends the desired qualities of both. Those traits have prompted PGA Tour pros to start putting the TD Max – which becomes available for retail this week – into their bags. Wesley Bryan, Kevin Yu and Carl Yuan among others played it at last week’s RBC Canadian Open.
The more neutral-biased TD Max offers more spin than the standard Triple Diamond, making it easier for players to draw. But the larger Max head with shot-shape-correcting perimeter weighting offers greater forgiveness, encouraging tour players to swing harder and thus generate more speed and distance without fear of the ball straying offline.
The split-sole weighting in the Ai Smoke Triple Diamond Max features 10- and 4-gram interchangeable weights for more stability instead of the 14- and 2-gram in the standard TD. Tour players who have been gravitating to more forgiving drivers have been testing the TD Max prototype since November.
“What we’ve seen through our testing is that this driver plays incredibly neutral,” said Nick Yontz, advanced research and development manager at Callaway. “It can be played by players that want to draw the ball, want to fade the ball.
“They would continue to split the fairway, and what that caused them to do was to start swinging faster. They had this excitement that this thing doesn’t go off line. I can keep swinging harder and harder and it maintains that straight flight. We were seeing players that would have small gains in ball speed from just the driver head alone, but then the swing speed would increase the more and more swings they made. By the end of it, they really saw meaningful gains in ball speed and distance.”
Meanwhile, Lexi Thompson announced before the U.S. Women’s Open that she will retire from full-time tournament golf at the end of the season. That prompted Golfweek’s David Dusek to dredge up an interview he had with Thompson in 2022 regarding her Cobra S2 irons, which she first put into play when she turned professional at age 15 in 2010.
“I have been using them my whole career,” said Thompson, who in fact was still using those Cobra S2s last week at Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Country Club.
“With irons, I’m not one to use a blade, but the S2 is super forgiving and super soft coming off the face,” she said two years ago. “I know that when I hit them solid, they are going to go the distance I need them to. They are going to be steady in the wind. … My golf swing is set up for them and every time I have tried something new, it doesn’t come out right. It’s just not the same.
“I try all the new irons that Cobra makes, and they’re great. It’s just that once you find something you love, it’s hard to replace.”
Scott Michaux