Starting with the original Big Bertha, Callaway has always been associated with quality, high-performance drivers. Nearly every company has rushed to the 460cc limit, although Titleist took their time getting the 905R out. Callaway quickly released the Big Bertha Titanium 454 and came close to the limit but the Fusion
FT-3 was actually the first Callaway driver to reach 460cc. So what could Callaway possibly do to improve on the already popular 454 and, more importantly, does the X460 pass the grade?
Golfers all seemed to like and praise the 454, including David Mobley who used a 454 to blast a 377-yard drive to win the 2004 RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship. Callaway wanted a driver to not only replace the 454 but to also improve performance and provide an alternative to the FT-3. The FT-3 remains Callaway’s flagship driver, but not everyone can get used to the corked sound of the titanium-composite driver. So the engineers sought out to make not just a replacement to the 454 but a quality, tour-performing driver.
Callaway Golf’s HX Tour golf balls are among the best-selling balls at retail and also enjoy strong usage numbers on tour. While the HX Tour and HX Tour 56 still look longingly up at Titleist’s Pro V1x and Pro V1, Callaway’s flagship balls have actually outpaced Titleist in major championship wins on the PGA and LPGA tours over the last two years (thanks to Annika Sorenstam, Phil Mickelson, Michael Campbell, and even Nike-using Tiger Woods).
Annika Sorenstam needed 90 holes to do it, but she wins the U.S. Women’s Open. This week, talk of Annika’s win, Geoff Ogilvy on distance, Greg Norman’s advice, Carolyn Bivens’ reign of terror, the flaws of the FedExCup and Ryder Cup, Seve on the U.S. Open, and two chips by Jeong Jang. Tune in to this episode of Golf Talk for more.
The Open Championship at Hoylake is less than two weeks away and I can hardly contain my excitement for golf’s oldest and grandest stage. Some of golf’s greatest champions (Vardon, Jones, Hogan, Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods) have won The Open and I’m looking forward to seeing which winner will be revealed in 2006.
The month of June was much better than May when it comes to quality golf. The PGA Tour and LPGA Tour held their respective second major championships of the season in June, and both came down to the last shot. They left impressions on the golf world and the Bunker’s Dozen.
Thanks to the (not-so-) modern miracle of cascading style sheets (CSS), today we’re introducing a long overdue feature here at The Sand Trap: printer-specific style sheets for cleaner prints.
Few PGA tournaments have as storied a past as the “Cialis” Western Open. This tournament, in one form or another, has been played since 1899 when Willie Smith beat Laurie Auchterlonie (of St. Andrews descent) in extra holes. The Western Open has been played in many places since its debut, including sites as far from Chicago (the hometown of the tournament) as Texas, Pennsylvania, and California.
As I write this, a ticker at 
Odyssey’s Two-Ball Putter is the world’s best-selling putter model over the last five years. While the unusual-looking putter has spawned scores of imitators and ignited the high-MOI, alignment-based putter craze, it takes an equipment nut with a sense of history to remember that it is a descendant of Dave Pelz’s 3-Ball putter from the 1980s.