Callaway Great Big Bertha Driver Review

The golf industry like any marketplace is constantly changing. In the late 1990s Callaway was as hot as any golf company could be. They were the first to really embrace titanium driver heads in a big way. Over the years that stranglehold on the top spot was lost. Callaway seemed to lose their way.

That is until the last few years where Callaway has gone back to utilizing the brand name that was so popular for them, Big Bertha. The last few drivers released by Callaway have been outstanding, and the latest release – the Great Big Bertha for 2015 – is the crème de la crème. The marketing campaign for this driver, “Leave no yard behind,” is really a great theme. Because we are constantly blasted with marketing nowadays it might not get as much attention as it deserves, but if I were to sum up the performance of this club and someone mentioned that tag line to me, I would wholeheartedly agree.

Callaway has packaged almost all of the really good technology that they have developed in the past few years and threw it all together into one awesome driver. For the review I was given a 9° driver with a stiff shaft. With that introduction, let’s get started with the review.

Technology
As I said in the introduction, the Great Big Bertha driver is packed with almost every pieces of technology that has been beneficial to Callaway woods in the past few years. The most influential is the R-MOTO face. I have tested a few other Callaway woods and the R-MOTO face was one piece of technology that seemed to have a real affect on the performance of the clubhead. R-MOTO allows the designer freedom to change the thickness of the face which provides different characteristics particularly speed and forgiveness over more face area. To us golfers this means more speed even on our mishits. Ridges that are visible on the bottom of the clubhead allow the designer to move weight around to put the energy where they most want it.

Callaway has always been a leader in utilizing multiple materials in the clubhead to move the weight of the club to areas that give the most benefit to the golfer. Mostly it allows the clubhead to be lighter and therefore faster but also allows the MOI to be moved around as well. Callaway has also been utilizing weight in the clubhead by adding a core weight in the center of the club that comes from the 815 design. This again allows the designer to move the weight of the club to targeted locations for maximum speed.

Another key piece of technology that is a nice addition is the Adjustable Perimeter Weighting (APW). This is a moveable weight placed between the hosel and the very backside of the club. The weight can be moved around with the wrench that is provided for hosel and shaft adjustments. This provides golfers the capability to move the weight not only to a draw or fade position, or multiple points between to adjust the club to hit the desired ball flight or to correct an undesired ball flight.

Another feature that has been a standard for Callaway on recent woods is the dual cog Optifit adapter for hosel club adjustments. The Optifit adapter allows the golfer to change the loft from -1 to +2 degrees and also allows for lie adjustments to be made as well. This adjustability plus the APW leaves little chance that you cannot find a setting that will help you hit it straight. The other great piece of technology is what Callaway has done to allow so many different shaft types (very near to 20 different options) without an upcharge. Because of the Optifit system you can easily switch out the shaft with the wrench that comes along with the club. This gives the golfer some freedom when then are demoing the club during a fitting.

Esthetics
There is a move afoot amongst golf companies to provide drivers with matte black finishes and I for one am a big fan of this movement. As I have said before, matte black just makes drivers look fast. The top of the Great Big Bertha is done in that matte black and it simply looks fast. The head is very traditional in shape and has the chevron logo as a simple alignment aid raised from the clubhead. It seems that Callaway has had positive feedback from the XR Pro driver that had the matte black finish and moved that over to the Great Big Bertha as well.

When you turn the driver over you are provided with a black and red color scheme. The look of the driver from the backside is very similar to the XR Pro in that your eyes are immediately drawn to the weight that is placed in the middle of the clubhead. The weight done with a chrome finish with a red paint outlining its placement in the clubhead. The middle of the weight has the screw which matches the screw hole in the hosel and APW, but I don’t think the weight is meant to be removed or changed. The APW is done in red and after your eyes move away from the weight it is likely the next thing you will see on the clubhead. The remainder of the bottom of the clubhead is a mixture of gray’s, red and metallic black done to make the club look fast. All of the lines seem to emanate from the weight screw which really makes the whole design look stellar.

The club itself is not as deep a face as the XR Pro but it does feel a bit wider than the XR Pro. I prefer the wider club face because it gives me a feel of more forgiveness, but that is really up to personal preference. The face itself is done in more of a darker satin finish which I prefer because it tends to hide an minor scratches that can occur on the face. The XR Pro was done with a black face, the GBB was a slight change from this.

The headcover is done in red and is more of a classic or retro type where it looks more like a ski mitten (without the thumb of course) with no sock at the bottom of it. Callaway and others have started to move to this type of cover and I am fan of both the look and performance of this kind of headcover. The sock which in the beginning was used to protect the graphite shaft is really no longer needed because of the improvements in bag technology.

Performance
Sometimes the first time you hit a club on the range it can provide you with an unbelievable feeling. For me the Great Big Bertha immediately provided that feeling. Boom, went the first drive, straight, long. I was hooked. My previous review was with the XR Pro which I had been gaming until this driver arrived. Boom, went the second one. I was in love after two drives. In my second round with the club I shot a personal best that I had to go back twenty years to find the last time I had shot a round that low. It is one of those experiences that makes you believe in love at first site.

The weighting of this club feels really wonderful. It is in a place I can only describe as not too light, but not too heavy. Really just right. Many of the drivers on the market today fall to one side of the equation. I find that the lighter ones I hit farther, but the heavier one I hit straighter. The XR Pro fell on the heavier side. I was quite accurate that driver, but it was at the expense of some distance. I feel the GBB is a perfect mix between the two. Again, with the different shaft options that can be used the weight can be dialed in with some work in a fitting session.

Mishits also perform quite well. Toe hits had a very minimal distance loss and heel hits lost a bit more but still surprisingly good. The R-MOTO face really does a nice job in allowing less distance to be lost when not hitting the ball squarely on the sweetspot. The ball flight was perfect. It was high but not too high and the ball really felt like it was fired off the face. The acoustics were good as well. It seems that Callaway has put a great deal of thought into how a driver will sound and the GBB is no different. It is muted but still sounds like the ball was well hit.

The GBB also reduced my spin from the XR Pro as well. I found that often I would have plugged lies in the fairways with the XR Pro, and even on wet days here in Portland (of which there are many) I have not had any plugged balls with the GBB. With this I was able to add some roll on drier days which helped out with more distance.

The Adjustable Perimeter Weighting (APW) also performed well. I will say that the draw position seems to have a much greater affect on ball flight than the fade does. I think this may be a artifact of the APW being placed nearer to the heel of the club than some other weights. For me the complete draw position was not useable, I was fighting a hook that started left and went lefter. When I moved the weight to the fade position I did not notice a big difference, maybe a few that faded in that position. Callaway states that a golfer can get eighteen yards of movement on the ball, I did not see that, but I will say that at least for the draw, the weight did have an affect. I think if you were a golfer fighting a hook the fade position might be able to help to to start hitting it straight.

Conclusion
When perusing my local golf shop one can see that Callaway is promoting the Great Big Bertha as a club where the golfer can go get themselves a proper fit in order to ensure that no yard is left behind. Because they are now offering so many different shaft options to help you find the one that works best for you. Custom fitting centers becoming more prevalent combined with increased availability of launch monitors make it easier than ever for golfers to find the club that is love at first sight. With so many options I find it hard to believe that a golfer couldn’t find a set up with the GBB that worked for them.

I cannot recommend trying the GBB enough. I rarely am this excited about a new club. But frankly this club deserves a try. There will be some people who don’t like it, but my sense is that the overwhelming majority of golfers will like this driver.

Callaway has created a club that has put all their best innovations into one club. Then named this club something very recognizable to almost all golfers. I applaud the comeback that Callaway has made over the past few years and this club is now the masthead for that return. I highly recommend you give it a try.