Not even an avowed equipment freak like Phil Mickelson can define the new Callaway X Hot Phrankenwood that he will put into play at this week’s Masters.
Callaway's X Hot Phrankenwood
“It’s a driver, but it just looks like a 3‑wood, because our drivers are so big now,” Lefty said. “But this one is smaller, because it’s an enhanced 3‑wood.”
To be as exact as possible, the Phrankenwood has 8.5 degrees of loft, which makes it a driver, and is 45 inches long, about the standard length for today’s 3-woods. The difference, at least for Mickelson, is that he’s been hitting it as far as his Callaway RAZR Fit driver. And if you remember, Mickelson crushed his drives en route to victory at the 2013 Waste Management Phoenix Open.
“The following week I put in our 3‑wood, our X Hot 3‑wood – and I hit it as far as my driver,” Mickelson said. “I couldn’t believe it – it like shot off the face. It had, you know, the optimum spin that a driver would have, and I hit it as far as my driver. And if you’ve noticed, as I’ve played Doral and I’ve played Houston and I’ve played these last few weeks, I hit it off almost every tee because it’s so easy to hit, and it just bores through the air. I don’t have to manipulate it and it just goes so far.”
Mickelson said he asked Callaway’s club designers to take that 3-wood technology (Forged Speed Frame Face Cup made of high strength Carpenter 455 stainless steel that is up to 40 percent thinner than previous fairway wood face) “and
just put it on steroids.”
“That’s probably not the best way to say it, but I wanted to make it more like a driver,” Mickelson said. “So it looks like‑ 3‑wood, but it’s bigger than our 3‑wood. And it’s almost like a small driver, but it’s the 3‑wood technology of our X
Hot into a driver. What it’s done is taken a lot of spin off of it. And if you watch, you’ll see a lot of the shots off the tee that I hit have a lot more scoot on them.”
