Same Distance, MORE Spin?? CALLAWAY APEX UW vs ELYTE 7-WOOD

The new Callaway Apex UW features the best features of a fairway wood and a hybrid, blending perfectly into a Utility Wood that a wide range of golfers can play. The Callaway Apex UW is designed with a larger footprint than a hybrid, but slightly smaller than a fairway wood. With that said, how does the Callaway Apex UW compare to a 7-Wood at the same loft?

0:00 Intro
2:22 Testing (Callaway Elyte 7-Wood)
10:55 Testing (Callaway Apex UW)
15:00 Data & Conclusions

In this video, 2nd Swing’s Drew Mahowald and Tyler Fitzel test and review the new Callaway Apex UW in comparison to a Callaway Elyte 7-Wood.

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Seven woods are all the rage in 2025, but is a Callaway Apex Utility Wood actually maybe better for your game? Today, we’re going to test the brand new 2025 model of the Callaway Apex utility wood against a Callaway Elite 7wood to see what those differences are and perhaps maybe see if the utility wood is actually better for your game. Master club fitter Tyler Fitzell is with me. Um, sevenwoods been a big deal in 2025, Tyler. Um, a lot of really good performance. We’re seeing a lot of golfers, both new new golfers, mid- handicap golfers, and even at the tour level. Yes. Playing seven woods. Why do you think that is? There’s a couple of things that are different between hybrids and fairway woods. So, when you start talking about a fairway wood, you can get a little bit more launch. You’ve got a deeper uh you’ve got you’ve got mass that can go a little bit further back. You can get it up a little bit more. you’ve got a larger head that allows for a little bit more MOI and forgiveness. So, it’s kind of this ultimate tool of get that ball up, get it to go far, get it to stop. And we’ve seen the best players in the world start to put these clubs in their bag. Yeah. And we’re seeing it because they like to have that higher launch in certain scenarios, much more height, much more spin and stopping power as well that these golfers can get. So, now I got to ask you about the utility woods. So, when the first one was released in 2021, super high ball speeds, very explosive, and a lot of people were very impressed. This is now the third iteration of it. What have you seen from this? What have you been most impressed with? And then also, what might we see today in this test compared to a sevenwood? Well, we’re also looking at the same idea with this because it’s trying to blend a hybrid and a fairway wood together. But this usually offers more control. And I say that because it’s got a shorter shaft. It is the same loft. It’s a little bit of a smaller head. You probably have some more use out of it. Could have been a, you know, could be a bunker. It could be the fairway. Could be the rough. Could be a T- box. You can do the same with something like a sevenwood. But that’s going to be a lot easier to do all of those things with. Sure. Sure. Okay. Well, what we’re going to do is going to have you swing a few times today with each. Again, the same loft, both at 21 degrees. Yep. As you mentioned, the shaft is going to be a little different and it’s also going to be different in length as well, just because of the playing length. As you mentioned, a fairywood versus kind of a hybrid type club, but I’m very intrigued to see what we find out today. Yeah, me too. All right, so Tyler, we’ll start with the Elite 7wood. We talked a little bit about kind of the specs and 21 degrees. Um, you know, this is sort of the standard, I guess, you know, 7wood length that they offer. And of course, it is a bonded huzzle as well. So, in terms of adjusting and stuff, we couldn’t really do that. Um, but so is the UW, but yeah, the UW is bonded as well. So, we’re a little bit limited in that regard. But, nonetheless, I think this will show some pretty big differences. And there is something to that too in terms of this the shaft stability, right? So, it’s like this piece when it’s bonded is pretty very stable and that plays into Yeah. um part of the shaft as well. So, well, let’s see what we can do with something like this. I had a sevenwood a long long long time ago. That might be a little left. Just a little little bit left. Um and I It was uh It was a Callaway. It was the original Warberg. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it was one of those where I got that and um played it for probably about 10 years. Loved it. Really, really loved it. A little off on the toe there or a lot to That’s actually very interesting that on those two swings I know they weren’t they were very different in terms of the flight and where they ended up. Yeah. But your spin and your carry were almost the exact same on those. Interesting. I mean it was couldn’t have been could have been closer in those two. My spin rate was seven RPMs different. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean the in that regard That’s good. There’s some consistency there. That’s really good. That one felt like and sounded a little bit better. Yeah, that was a little bit more crisp. Okay, there we go. So, now you know, I asked you this in a previous video that we did on Apex um UWS, but what would you anticipate for like a distance, you know, any distance or spin or launch or anything? What would you anticipate with a 7wood here? Well, I’d like something around 20° like this to go somewhere around that 200 mark. Okay. And then it’s really about the launch and spin after that in terms of getting it to stop maybe a little bit quicker. So if you know playing something where it’s been dry for a long time, it’s rolling out. Um I might want something that’s actually a little it goes a little higher with a little bit more spin, right? So even having some choices would be would be nice. Um as I say is, you know, I can um I can fit 20 clubs, right? But we just only carry 14 at a time, right? Right. Yep. Absolutely. I mean that’s a very common thing for pro players is to have you know, maybe those pro players carry with them 15 or 16 clubs and then just make decisions based on the round or the tournament. It’s another good ball there. Yeah, that actually um I like this. It’s got a little bit of a muted feel. Um I think the elite lineup, especially with uh the new um speed wave that they’ve implemented in terms of getting weight forward and then also the step pattern that they have on the bottom of the Yeah. And actually, you’ll see that with this apex utility wood as well. There’s kind of this step feature there. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s similar where there’s that step so sle and also the speed wave is kind of packed in there a little tighter on the utility shape, but still there. A thing for me too is like visually like I’m a little bit off in terms of the the darker face with the white lines. I’d prefer to have nothing. Yeah. Or to have it all one color. Sure. Would be more my preference to it. Interesting. So when I look down at this, I can see the lines. That doesn’t That doesn’t do anything for me. Yeah, it might for some people though. I thought I felt I hit hit that pretty solid. Okay. Didn’t see that going out to the right. But so that’s interesting, too, cuz that carry number, the spin was very different on that one, but this carry number was still pretty pretty much in your window there. Yeah, it was. So, I haven’t really deviated a whole lot from that. I had one that was really short, but skin skinny. Okay. Skinny. That’s kind of the the myth, so to speak, when you Yeah, it low in the face. Yeah. And I I don’t know. There’s maybe it’s just something about me or where the where the lines are for this, but I normally hit this a lot straighter. That’s That’s a little interesting. All right, let’s try one more. Well, I will say one thing you noted right at the beginning was that this club, you know, in some ways it’s easier to control because it probably has a little more launch, a little more spin, right? But on the other side, this is what you noted is that it’s also a longer shaft. And so because of that, it’s a little harder to square up, right? And and get this, you know, your swing numbers and your swing path on on plane. Yeah. um typically going to be more inconsistent there. It’s always, you know, the longest club and the least lofted clubs are the ones that are the hardest to hit straight. So, um from that regard, it’s also maybe tougher to control than than what you’ll have with the Apex W. Yep. So, let’s see what we got here in terms of our numbers. There’s our dispersion there. We’ve got we got seven swings up there and we can kind of maybe narrow that down. I know there’s a couple that you didn’t love up there for sure. Um I guess overall, what did you just think about the the Sevenwood? I mean, again, you’re not playing one now. You’ve played one before. Um, what I played before, it’s like, this is one of the things that is a great conversation point to have as we talk start talking about this is what’s going to happen in the fitting bay versus what goes outside. I had a 7wood. The last time I had a 7wood, the size of that thing, I have hybrids bigger than that now. Yeah. Right. So, when you go back in time and you start looking at the size of the driver, how they got bigger and they’ve continued to get to their um legal size. Same thing with fairway woods is now all of a sudden we sort of say a few years ago, well, instead of having just a three-wood, why don’t we make a mini driver? So, they just they just expanded it. And even like Titus right now has the the GT280, which is it’s a fairway wood. It takes a fairway shaft, it’s a fairway loft, it’s they’re that’s just a little deeper face basically. Yeah. And that’s one of the things that I find so intriguing and I think this is a great com uh combination to to put together is I think the UW is going to present a little bit more consistency for me. Yeah. I don’t know that I’m going to see a ton of difference out of it in terms of its numbers. Okay. But so for me maybe this dispersion shrinks a little bit for you. Yeah. For me personally what I feel with this club, this club is too long in my hand for the distance I want to hit it. Sure. Yeah. Because I So here all we’ve got all seven shots. That’s our dispersion, right? I did, you know, obviously again what we like to do sometimes is, you know, take the best, you know, maybe five or six of these, right, and do the kind of our comparison, so to speak. Yeah. So, like, for example, you know, this would be, you know, to me kind of the outlier shot there. You could look at these numbers here in particular. Um, but I think, you know, there’s a very clear four really good swings here, right? That would probably be considered your your stock swing or stock shot with this club, right? I mean, right. And those ones are all in that high 190s for carry. 199 197 196 and then it’s sort of like your misses are basically all 187. So yeah, there in that regard there’s kind of a you know what to expect a little bit out of the club. You know it’s going to and and then also we’ll have to pay attention to some launch and some height numbers as well because those are going to change I would imagine with this other club your average. Yeah, that’s right. And that’s one of the things about this is so for instance if I come in and I said hey I really need to get some more launch. I’m going to carry this about 200 yards. That’s what I was doing before. Yeah. But I needed 200 yards up in the air. I don’t need 200 yards low to the ground because low to the ground when I need to carry something is not going to help me in any sense. So, I’m going to put something that is going to get me a little bit more launch to it. That’s what I’m looking for. I didn’t use this off a tea yet, which definitely would have got a little bit more. It’s on a T. Um, but the other side of it is we’re basically trying to take every um technology we’ve got in this club and maximize it. That that’s one of the reasons like this is a phenomenal tool. Yeah. It’s become super popular. I love it. Yeah. Like this is this is people should really really really um if you haven’t ever tried one of these, you should absolutely try. Yeah. It’s and there’s a reason as you mentioned it’s taking over and we’re seeing you know more Sevenwoods fit into the bags of players of all kinds of players uh more than ever this year. It’s been been phenomenal to see. Nice and crisp too. Yeah. So let’s now we’re going to switch. So again, this is the 2025 Callaway Apex UW that we’re switching to here. Before hitting any shots, I just want to get your thoughts on I mean, there’s clearly a difference in the appearance of the of the club and address and size and stuff. So, talk to me about what you see there. I love the length already. So, I set this down. I feel like I have more control with it right in here. Y and that to me is one of the things I’m looking for. I’m pretty much going to hit this 200 yards in the air. I already know that it’s a pretty solid hit. The question for me is what does a launch and spin do and what does the dispersion do? Yeah. Right. We talk about this all the time. Ball speed, launch, spin, and dispersion. Those are the things we’re trying to tackle with this. So, um, generally I have a I have a 21 degree hybrid right now. It normally is carrying in that 200, but it’s still coming in a little too flat. Okay. I think it has to do with shaft. I still have a steel shaft in my hybrid. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So that’s one of the things is like I need something different and this might be a great replacement for that. Yeah, this maybe this is the difference because again this is a little bit of a blend between a fairywood and and a hybrid. Right. Right away we’re seeing that that distance is right in that window. That’s a very efficient one, too. I mean, you actually surpass How’s the smash factor? Yeah, I know. We actually surpassed one on that one. Yeah, that’s a pretty good ball. It’s just there’s something about the control aspect of this. Yeah. Right. So, yeah. And for you also mentally, it could be part of just a confidence thing, too. Like I’m I’m used to, you know, the shorter club at this with this, you know, this part of the bag. Shorter than a seven would. What I would even do with with my uh hybrids is they’re actually just a little bit shorter as well. So they they actually have a lightweight iron shaft in them and they play to the length of what would be a four iron and a three iron. Yeah, that’s the way that I play them. So there’s also just something a little bit about the about the ease. Yeah. Through here. So for me, I found like I found something that that has uh is very comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. I think uh I wanted to note too, I mean you’ve mentioned kind of a control thing, a confidence thing. You’ve gone 150 smash factor with your first two here. Yeah, I did it again. Technically 151 with that first one. So you’re hitting this thing very very efficiently. Yeah, look at that again. Yeah, it just fits. It’s it’s a great window. It just sits in a really good it just sits in a really good spot in terms of what I can feel with my swing. And this is the reason you go get fitted. Yeah, it’s absolutely um we can try, you know, four or five different models and all of a sudden this model is really really good. There’s one that clicks. Yeah, but I I also like it for its dispersion, too. It’s not I’m not really far off. Now, that was off the toe. We’ll see what happens here. Yeah, this is okay. Wow. Look how straight that is going. Yeah, not planned. That was not a I do not have the ability to plan for shots off the toe. Well, and one thing I want to note too, and we’re still again, we got a couple shots to hit here, but your miss hits with the sevenwood were all in that 187 range, right? Yes. In terms of carry number, that was 192 on that miss. So, the first three you hit were like absolutely almost perfect contact. And so, again, that’s just I wanted to make note of that. We have a couple more swings here, but I know part of the equation always is going to be what the club does when you don’t hit it perfect. Yep, it is. What’s the miss look like? That’s another one that’s hit really well. Yep. Yep. That one actually went over 200 yards. Mhm. You know, I told you I really like my hybrids. I’m seeing it. I’m seeing it right now. Yeah. I was off the toe as well. All right. Well, we get another chance to see. Yeah. Again, I mean, you didn’t lose any distance. Nope. Good to shot. All right. See, do we got is that seven with each? Oh, let’s get one more with the this one. We technically had seven with the other one. All right. So, we’re going to go for the try to carry it 210. Oh, are we now? Yeah. Well, I mean, might as well, right? That was hit well there. And that’s your best swing of the day. Well, that’s you know, it was okay. I don’t know if it gets better than that. That was Yeah, it is. You get put Kevin Craft in here. Well, there’s a nod to Kevin Craft. So the these and again with the sevenwood I took one out. So we’ll probably grab uh Man, you hit these you hit it too good. I think Well, and I actually think I think the last one is the one that you take out. You’re probably right. I mean this you stepped on it a little bit. You swung four miles an hour faster. Yeah, you’re I did. But it also it it helps show us a little bit more about the what I was talking about the consistency for me in something like this. Yeah. I mean, look at you can see first of all the dispersion and how like I like to call it the north and south dispersion, right? But basically the variance in your carry distance, you can see it by the shape of the oval is much better, more it’s it’s tighter, more consistent than the Elite 7 would. Um, and then there’s a certain, you know, confidence level for you where the smash factor was so consistently near 150. Yeah. And again, that’s not going to carry over for every player. like not every player is going to step up to a a you know utility would or a shorter club and just automatically get this sort of extra boost of confidence the way you did. But I think it’s worth noting that you mentioned it right away. Sometimes a shorter club or shorter shaft is a little easier to control. Yeah. Despite maybe all these benefits that Sevenwoods have been giving players all year long, which is that’s also a pretty long list of benefits, right? So worth noting. So we talk about a couple of different things. We talk about a fairway wood generally having a little bit more launch. Yes, it did. Yes. We also talk about a fairway wood maybe being a little bit longer for some more club speed. Yes, it was. When we look at what I was doing with it though, this as a the uh UW was for me it fit better because of the shorter nature. Yeah. The kind of more compact. I feel better with it. I feel more control with it. I swung the club slower but hit the ball better. Yeah. And even from a ball speed perspective, we can see is like I actually had more ball speed with this. Yeah. With less club speed and and that’s one of the reasons why the smash factor, the efficiency factor is there. But like this feels more comfortable. That’s why you have to try these things is like this this is a sevenwood. It’s kind of a hybrid sevenwood, but it’s a sevenwood. Yeah. It’s the same loft. And for you, I mean, even we can take a look at it. The carry number is so close, right? And you were saying you want something that carries in that 200 range. Pretty darn close. And so I think what it comes down to, I think you have your verdict here is that if you had to pick between one of these, you’re going to go with the Apex utility wood. Uh it was more consistent for you. You were hitting the ball way more efficiently, better contact, and that’s, you know, some of the length of it, some of the look of it all mattered there. Mhm. But I don’t want to gloss over the fact that if you are a player that wants more height, more spin, more launch from this club in the bag, or maybe you need that, maybe you’re already a low launch player. The sevenwood did generate 17 feet higher average peak height. Yep. The spin was 700 RPM higher. Launch was a degree and a half, almost two degrees higher. So, that stuff also does matter. And if that’s something that you need as a golfer, 7wood probably still is the better club. And so, it’s just whether or not I need it. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, it it’s player dependent in a sense. I think we say for you Tyler today, the Apex W did perform better. But golfers, if you need to get fit or maybe you’re interested in a sevenwood or in the 2025 Apex W, come see us at Second Swing, schedule a fitting with one of our experts like Tyler. We’ll get you dialed in and it could be the Apex W like it was for Tyler today or maybe it is a 7wood for your game. So, Tyler, thank you so much. Um, this was this is a good test here. Some pretty big differences, I think. Pretty awesome. Thanks, Yeah. Heat. [Music]