Ernie Els was using a Titleist 905T driver this past weekend. I have reported on this club in the past; it is 400CC, looks basically the same as the current 983K and is also available in a 905S model. I will try to get more info on these clubs but Titleist is notorious for being very tight-lipped on their tour stuff.
Cleveland is going to go ahead with the Composite Launcher. There was a lot of talk about this club back in the spring and Cleveland thought about scraping the whole project. Word has it that this new driver will be available shortly at select retailers. Chad Campbell is one of the Cleveland staffers that has been testing this club for a while.
Cleveland will also be offering their CG1 irons in the new Black Pearl finish. This finish was initially only available on wedges but it will make the CG1’s even better.
I saw the Callaway X-18 and Fusion irons today. The X-18’s look awesome. They are similar to the current X-16’s but the cavity is totally filled by a metallic blue medallion with a huge “X” on it. I think this iron is going to fly off the shelves next year. It will also be available in a reduced offset Pro Series as well (Note to my friend that thinks I am biased to Cleveland – I may be playing the X-18 Pros next year!) The Fusion Iron is just kinda weird looking! The whole cavity is filled in with a composite plug and the iron has a titanium face. The top line and sole are really thin (by Callaway standards anyways) and it looks great at address. It will take over from the Hawkeye iron that needed to be retired.
I also saw the Callaway Big Bertha 454 Titanium driver too. Picture the current Big Bertha Titanium and then make it bigger. Otherwise it looks the same. The one I saw had a red Callaway shaft and I think that is the stock one.
Continuing on my tour of “things I saw today”….. I saw the Nike Distance Series Irons as well. I reported a while back that Nike was introducing these as a low price point iron. They are a standard cavity style club with a huge amount of weight on the heel and toe. Think of the Callaway X-16 notch weighting but with even more weight on either side.