When Chip Brewer became Callaway Golf president and chief executive officer one year ago, he took a look at the company’s 2013 line of metal woods and basically told his club designers to start over. The result was the Callaway X Hot line of clubs, which Brewer is counting on to help bring Callaway back to metal woods relevance.
Callaway's X Hot fairway wood
If the X Hot 3 wood ($229) is any indication, Callaway is off to a good start. It’s the best Callaway fairway wood I’ve hit in many years – I’ve hit them all – and reminds of the old Big Bertha Steelhead Plus that many players believe was the best of the Big Bertha fairway metals. It even looks at address like those classic Big Bertha fairway metals.
More important, the X Hot 3 wood (15 degrees) performs plays like a classic Callaway fairway wood when the company ruled the metal woods market. The ball is hot (pun intended) off the club face thanks to what Callaway calls a “Forged Speed Frame Face Cup” made of high strength Carpenter 455 stainless steel that’s 40 percent thinner than last year’s fairway wood face – with a 90 percent larger sweet spot. I was consistently hitting shots between 200 and 210 yards without much difference in dispersion.
The club’s wave-shaped weighting design engineered inside the club head projects up from the sole toward the face, creating a lower and shallower center of gravity and higher moment of inertia, making the X Hot 3 wood easier to get airborne than most stainless steel fairway woods.
If you’re looking for a good fairway wood and haven’t tried Callaway for a while, give the X Hot fairway wood a shot. You won’t be disappointed.
