I went inside the Callaway tour truck at their 2024 launch to test out the new gear. Then sat down with Johnny Wunder to learn what makes the new 2024 Callaway PARADYM AI Smoke driver and Chrome Tour ball so innovative. This is for the gearheads who love the tech side of golf.
where we stand apart is what we can do to a driver to not make it work but to get it to perform douge fresh live from the Callaway Tour truck it is another great launch for Callaway look I’m not sponsored by anybody but I tell you what if I had to pick somebody right now be Callaway we’ve got the new AI smoke coming in hot right now who wants to smoke me I want all of it when I get this thing built hopefully Greg puts that magic Callaway Tour truck dust on it you know I love you money um you know I might have to go out and be some more people but we’re going to get Johnny Wonder in here to talk through some of the Dynamics of this new driver and they got new balls too so we got to talk to the ball and the driver figure it out soon what’s up man I want to talk about the driver first sure then I want to talk about the golf ball you got to tease the golf ball a lot of people a lot people coming but the driver it looked like in all the videos we saw it had little trampolines all over the face I get what it’s supposed to do the marketing behind it but what have you seen um through player testing and your own testing that makes this thing stand up Paradigm as a platform was really really hard to beat like that was a really awesome driver so AI smoke what I feel like they did was they took a driver that was really good out of the middle which this one AI smoke one is they’re all really good out of the middle it got substantially longer I don’t want to say better because Paradigm was really good at out of the toe and really good out of the heel as far as the number like keeping the spin in check and the and the start lines are really good this one’s the same but there’s a ball speed uptick now so what I’m noticing and what the guys on tour are noticing if you hit it out of the toe it does what it’s supposed to do like the gear the gear effect works the way it should well out of it out of the toe it still starts right and floats left it doesn’t Dive Dive left out of the heel it’ll get up in the air a little bit it doesn’t increase the spin as much um but it’s the ball speeds there’s a ball speed increase so like you’ll see a video with Steph where he was getting 3 or 4 milph more out of the heel on the toe than he was with his Paradigm what is it about either the tech or the R&D or the people that that is really setting this brand apart well the the first thing is our R&D chip is is very heavy in in R&D like it’s we spend a lot of money on R&D and make sure we have the best people and and you see with our golf ball program is a perfect example our golf ball program went from something that was kind of on its last leg to being a serious Contender you know besides you know obviously tile is such a big brand but like we compete every year and we’re getting better and better and better and better so that that just shows you the commitment the financial commitment that they make to R&D um but what we’ve done in the driver space par like again I’ll go back to Paradigm Paradigm was a huge leap for because of what they were to do with that carbon chassis so where we stand apart is what we can do to a driver to not make it work but to get it to perform so we had seven or eight more grams of weight to work with every other company in them out there I wasn’t going to ask you this but I guess I kind of have to when we’re looking at AI faces and you’re taking in all these data points where these I forget the the technical term for how The Ridges work on touch points strike points whatever you want to call it micro deflections are we getting to a point with Callaway or any other OEM where we’re going to start to see uh a player tendency built into the face for the AI you talked to anybody in R&D that’s essentially where it can go so the original idea was for tour if we can AI tune a face to where if it’s Xander Schley and Xander schley’s Tendencies if his Miss is like high toe to add support to the to add support to the face and the high toe to make that more more of a center hit to get it to gear and do what he needs it to do out of that then so be it then we’ll do then we’ll do that we’ll create a face that’s a Xander face a Sam face a ROM face what we have now on on tour is not specifically designed for Xander because we’re not they haven’t perfected that yet but what I think is when they’re able to do it for those guys by the point they were able to do it specifically and really really at a high level for a Xander shley they’ll be able to do it for a Doug Smith or a Johnny Wonder golfball it’s changed biggest piece it’s new yeah totally new it’s fresh and new cover new core new B everything’s like that’s a lot of money John well they put substantial amount of money into chicka and then we got Eric ler we took him from Taylor Maid couple like three years ago so he came in and he got chrom soft x22 which was a great golf ball great platform um knowing that Chrome tour and chrome tourx was coming so that was his uh sort of soft opening into what was to be knowing that Chrome tour and this new platform was going to come so these new balls have the cover that everybody’s going to want because it’s it’s that that cover that sticks to the face there’s plenty of spin that tour balls wild so let me ask you this it’s a little inside the curtain not a lot of people going to know this last two years ago we talked about chrom soft x dot yep that was out on tour Chrome t or now is that ball so that is now Chrome T that’s that’s that ball cuz I’ve been asking you about that ball which is a ball that sits in between xn LS from a spin perspective I like that but it spins more with a short iron so it spins like X around from like 120 yards and in and it’s slightly firmer around the greens and X’s tour feels just like chrom soft X’s off the F now you now you have a ball it’s like oh that’s a tour ball okay that ball feels like cuz the one thing with ls is it got a little clicky around the greens this one does not you got one thing to look forward to in 2024 what is it I was going to say watching John R hey y’all heard it here Johnny w
