Xander Schauffele is still the only PGA Tour professional who uses the Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond driver.
Callaway’s new family of Paradym Ai Smoke drivers hit the USGA Conforming List at the start of the year and shortly thereafter Schauffele adopted the club.
Surprisingly he still stands alone in that regard.
Four different Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke drivers were available for PGA TOUR players to test on the ran at the Plantation Course at Kapalua ahead of the season-opening Sentry.
Those included Schauffele’s choice the Triple Diamond (a compact, low-spin head profile), a Triple Diamond Max (a slightly bigger model), a Triple Diamond S (a slightly smaller model), and a Max head, which boasts a large head profile and a sliding weight in the rear portion of the head.
Callaway PGA TOUR Rep and player fitter Kellen Watson lined Schauffele up with the Triple Diamond, which was an interesting choice but has seen him improve greatly in his driving stats.
Schauffele has always been aggressive off the tee so it might follow that he would want something that offers greater forgiveness, but, as Watson explains, the move was all about tightening up the dispersion on those near-misses.
“At the end of November, I went down to The Grove and fit [Xander Schauffele], and his spin rates were probably 30 percent tighter, shot-to-shot-to-shot, compared to the Paradym,” Watson told GolfWRX.com in Hawaii.
“And the Paradym wasn’t bad, either. Forgiveness has a different meaning for these guys compared to consumers, right? When PGA TOUR players miss the center of the face – and it’s not very often – they miss by a millimeter or two.
“So, for them, it’s more about tightening the disparity in spin rate from shot to shot. These faces are faster everywhere, but we want the spin rates to be within a 200-300 rpm window, and I think that’s what we’re seeing based on feedback and working with each player.”
Watson expected that the Triple Diamond would take off with Callaway staffers, but that is yet to really pan out.
“The Triple Diamond itself will probably be the majority model when it comes to Tour usage, but there are a couple of guys that have done some work with our Max version, which is our sliding-weight version, with one weight in the front,” Watson said.
“Harry Hall and Alex Noren, for example, both really liked it. They really liked the speed on this Max version versus what they saw last year. The speed just crept up since the last few iterations, which is huge, because usually what you see with the bigger driver and bigger footprint is you see higher launch, you see more spin, and you see a little less ball speed out of it, but maintaining or even gaining ball speed compared to what they’ve seen in the past is quite huge…my guess is that there will be four models in play on the PGA TOUR this year.”
It will be interesting to note if this changes and more players take on the Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond driver.
Noren wound up adopting the Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Max D in March.
Callaway Driver Tour Players
| Model | Players | Bag Date |
|---|---|---|
| Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Max D | Alex Noren | March 2024 |
| Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond S | Sam Burns | February 2024 |
| Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond S | Min Woo Lee | January 2024 |
| Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond | Xander Schauffele | January 2024 |
| Callaway Paradym | Erik van Rooyen
Danny Willett |
November 2023
February 2023 |
| Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond | Nicolai Hojgaard
Christiaan Bezuidenhout Chris Kirk J.J. Spaun Siwoo Kim Talor Gooch Abraham Ancer Emiliano Grillo Phil Mickelson Dylan Frittelli Jon Rahm Francesco Molinari |
January 2024
January 2024 January 2024 August 2023 August 2023 June 2023 June 2023 May 2023 May 2023 April 2023 April 2023 March 2023 |
| Callaway Rogue ST Triple Diamond S | Adam Svensson | November 2022 |
| Callaway Rogue ST Max LS | Akshay Bhatia | April 2024 |
| Callaway Rogue ST Triple Diamond LS | Marc Leishman
Branden Grace |
March 2022
February 2022 |
| Callaway Epic Speed | Marcus Armitage | June 2021 |
| Callaway Epic Max LS | Danny Lee
Kyoung-Hoon Lee Henrik Stenson |
November 2022
May 2022 February 2022 |
| Callaway GBB Epic | Kevin Kisner | October 2023 |
| Callaway Epic Speed Triple Diamond | Kevin Na | March 2022 |
The post Every Tour player to use a Callaway driver – and why Xander Schauffele stands out with his choice appeared first on Golf365.
Article Link: Every Tour player to use a Callaway driver - and why Xander Schauffele stands out with his choice - Golf365