Callaway’s FT driver a winner on Tour

Callaway’s FT driver line has had quite a year. To be sure, Phil Mickelson’s third Masters win with the FT Tour in his bag was a highlight. But Ernie Els and Jim Furyk have each won twice with their FTs, and at one point the driver racked up seven PGA Tour titles in nine weeks.

So, what’s it all about?

The FT comes in two models. One is the more traditionally shaped FT Tour, which Philly Mick used with such great success at Augusta. It boasts a 440cc head that combines an ultra-lightweight, carbon-composite body with a titanium clubface. With a full-length hosel, open face angle and less face progression, it offers the sort of traditional look at address that better players prefer. And the club’s External Web Weighting is designed to position the center of gravity in a way that it generates longer and more penetrating ball flights as well as greater workability.

“Finally, we have a commercial version of a driver that we’ve had on the pro tours for about a year,” says Dan Stevens, Callaway’s manager of industrial design. “The pros liked it so much that we decided we had to make it for our consumers.”

The FT-iZ has a very different look, with a triangular, multi-material head that is designed to reduce aerodynam­ic drag. According to Stevens, a proprietary design feature called Polar Weighting, which locates weight at the front and back of the clubhead, is designed to optimize stability at impact and also enhance ball speeds.

“We are able to get that critical Moment of Inertia (MOI) right up to the USGA limits with this club,” says Stevens. “We had been able to attain very high MOI with our square-headed drivers, but with the FT-iZ we have found a way to do that with a look that is more triangular. It gives us the high­est performance in terms of forgiveness of any club we’ve ever designed, and the chemically milled, hyperbolic face cup delivers our most consistent ball speeds ever.”

Whatever the technical specifica­tions, the combinations appear to be quite effective, as the FT’s run of PGA Tour wins so far this season indicates.

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