Golfing News & Blog Articles

The 2024 Masters field could be the smallest one in more than 30 years. 

Is it a sign the tournament should tweak its qualification? 

The Masters has had the smallest field of all four men’s majors throughout most of the modern era. There have been fewer than 100 players at every Masters dating back to 1967. The field size has regularly dipped slightly below 90 players including last year when there were 88. 

However, this year’s might be well short of those typical numbers. 

The tournament has far more stringent qualification criteria than the other three majors. There are normally around 156 players in the U.S. Open, Open Championship and PGA Championship. 

You’ve heard it by now: golf saw a huge boom during the pandemic. More players mean more money being injected into the game from the grassroots level through the professional ranks, more buzz around tournaments, more funding for municipal courses and more creative minds lending their expertise to every aspect of the game. 

Golf style is no exception. Basketball shoes are now golf shoes, slim-fit polos are on their way out and hyped-up golf shoes are just as hard to get as their street-worthy counterparts. New blood in the world of golf style is staking a claim in the feverish, innovation-starved minds of today’s golfers, adding some much-needed competition for the old heads (who, as it happens, are very much keeping pace with the new guys). Sometimes, the old heads and new kids on the block even link up and make something we couldn’t have imagined a few years ago. What a time to be alive. 

Read on to get our take on the biggest trends in golf style in 2023 and a bit about what we think is coming in 2024.

Brand Collabs

2023 carried on the recent tradition of brand collaborations in the golf world. Whether it was an upstart designing gear for a PGA Tour tournament, two relatively unknown brands collaborating on eye-popping vintage golf bags or one of the new leaders in the game linking up with an industry stalwart for a limited run, this was the year you probably noticed your favorite brand making a splash with your new favorite brand. 

These collabs are great for the game. They let a golfer concerned with performance express themselves in ways that were unimaginable a decade ago. You may not have liked the slim-fit chinos of five or 10 years ago but mix take performance fabric and tailor it to ‘90s vintage specs? Bam, you’ve got your new favorite trousers. 

Our Forum members were super excited to kick off the 2023 testing season with the Callaway Golf Paradym family of irons. Callaway fans talk about artificial intelligence in the driver being a factor in creating distance and forgiveness. In this case, Callaway brought AI to the forefront of iron design, saying they combined their “Forged 455 Face with the all-new Speed Frame, giving golfers the best of incredibly long distance technologies and premium forged feel.” Our testers could not wait to put Callaway’s claims to the test.

Side note: If you’re looking for information on the new Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Irons, you can find that here.

Selection Process

Our Forum staff handpicked two testers each for Paradym and Paradym X irons. We tasked them to thoroughly test the performance and features of Callaway’s new game-improvement and player’s distance irons.

Once our testers submitted their specs, they didn’t have to wait long to get the irons in hand. Then it was time to get out on the course and see what the Callaway Paradym and Paradym X irons were capable of and if they were leaders in  player’s distance Irons or game-improvement irons.

Insights from Testers

Initial Impressions and First Swings

First impressions are huge in life and in golf. The Callaway Paradym Irons did not disappoint in this category. Between the shiny chrome finish and striking blue badge, our testers fell for the irons straight out of the box.  Funkyjudge, who tested the Paradym model, said:

Sahith Theegala made six straight birdies to start the back nine and finished with one last birdie for a 9-under 64 and a one-shot lead in The Sentry as the PGA Tour season began Thursday.

Pro Camilo Villegas finished in a share of the lead at the Sentry, despite one funky hook. “That was just a dead smother.”

The post ‘That was just a dead smother’: Pro is flawless at Sentry, minus 1 funky hook appeared first on Golf.

For the second straight year, NBC is trying an innovative commercial-free strategy at The Sentry thanks to a partnership with Callaway.

The post NBC experiments with more commercial-free coverage at The Sentry appeared first on Golf.

It's time for the 2024 PGA season! Check out how to watch the Sentry Tournament of Champions now.

In response to PGA Tour star Rory McIlroy's comments that he was too judgmental of golfers who jumped to the LIV Golf League, LIV Golf captain Phil Mickelson urged fans not to "pile on" McIlroy and suggested it was time "to let go of our hostilities."

For a right-handed golfer, a draw shot goes from right to left; vice versa for lefties. A draw goes a little further and can get to that tucked pin. And let’s not forget it looks good. Here are three different approaches to learn how to hit a draw. 

To make things slightly simpler, we will assume you are a right-handed golfer throughout this guide.

Draw Ball Flight- What To Know Before You Start 

You can hit a large or small draw but if it misses the target and ends up in the bunker or the water hazard, it likely was a hook (an exaggerated draw).

In order to hit a draw, the clubface should be closed relative to the clubhead’s path but open relative to the target line at the moment of impact.  If the clubface is pointing a little right of the target, but still more left than the direction the club is moving, you’ll get draw spin.

Option 1: Adjusting Your Stance and Alignment 

Adjusting the position of your feet and clubface is the easiest way to hit a draw. If you get this down, you can move along to a fade and be working the ball both ways in no time. 

Going back to the days when Ely ran the show, Callaway Golf has sought to create products that are pleasingly different and demonstrably superior.

That last part will be judged in testing and, I suppose, by each of our individual experiences with the Paradym Ai Smoke driver.

The first half?

Well …

There’s an element of subjectivity to that, though I will say that, relative to its competitors, Callaway’s 2024 story is different, perhaps even pleasingly so.

The new Wilson Staff Model golf balls may very well be early contenders for the unofficial 2024 Ball Speed Championship, Golf Ball Division.

We don’t say that lightly, of course. Wilson’s previous Staff Model balls, as well as the woefully underappreciated Triad, performed well in our MyGolfSpy’s ball tests. For 2024, Wilson Staff is giving the original Staff Model ball an upgrade while introducing the new and firmer Staff Model X.

And if past measurements serve as a guide, it’s possible the Staff Model X might just wind up being the firmest Tour-level ball in golf.

Wilson Golf Balls: Solid and Then Some …

Golf balls evolve. In our 2021 test, the Wilson Staff Model finished half an eyelash behind the Titleist Pro V1x Left Dash in ball speed for high swing speed players. Two years later, however, new models from MaxFli, Srixon, Titleist and PXG leapfrogged the Staff Model. Not by much, mind you. The difference between the top-ranked Left Dash and the sixth-ranked Staff Model was only 7/10ths of a mile per hour.

The Staff Model also proved itself in the mid swing speed driver test (100 mph), finishing eighth in distance and fifth in ball speed, just 3/10ths of an mph behind Left Dash.  Additionally, the Staff Model was among the firmest balls in our test at 99 compression. Of the top performers, only Left Dash (102) and the MaxFli Tour X (101) were firmer.

The Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke fairway woods and hybrids likely won’t be the first reason many golfers take a gander at the brand’s new line of metalwoods.

That said, perhaps they should be.

Last year, I opined that the Rogue ST Callaway Rogue ST fairway woods offered a more compelling tech story than the 2022 Rogue ST drivers. I won’t make the same assertion this time around but it’s not because the fairway woods (and hybrids) are tech-lite. 

In fact, the same AI and machine learning that is foundational in development of the Paradym Ai Smoke drivers provides the basis for the accompanying fairway woods and hybrids. (AI is “artificial intelligence” unless you’re Callaway, in which case it’s Ai.)

2024 Fairway Trends

The dialogue regarding this year’s slate of drivers is trending to more often include terms like “downrange accuracy” and “dispersion”. So, if 2024 is the “Year of Straight” for the longest club in the bag, the tea leaves suggest a “Year of Choice” is the fairway wood and hybrid category.

The Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke irons are a new and rather interesting release but they raise a question I’m not entirely sure we can answer.

What are they replacing?

The easy answer is the Paradym Ai Smoke irons are the obvious replacement for the year-old Paradym and Paradym X irons. That’s the easy answer but it might not be the right one. Callaway, along with TaylorMade and COBRA, has an every-year release cadence for game-improvement irons but Callaway has done so with a twist. It has had two separate lines of game-improvement irons, each with its own two-year product life cycle and different enough attributes to justify their existence.

Sound confusing? It kind of is but that doesn’t mean the Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke irons aren’t worth a whack or two. And they do continue last year’s Paradym release in giving you a cleaner, sleeker look.

Do they fit your game?

Callaway’s 2024 transition from Chrome Soft to Chrome Tour + Chrome Soft might be the second-most significant evolution in the history of Callaway’s golf ball business.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the decision to ditch Speed Regime (Remember that? Thought not.) for the Original Chrome Soft. Billed as the “Ball That Changed the Ball”, the original red-box offering inarguably transformed Callaway’s golf ball biz from one among a handful of also-rans to the clear No. 2 in the market.

So, while maybe not the birth of Chrome Soft-big, 2024 is a stake-in-the-ground moment for Callaway’s ball franchise that brings core-to-cover enhancements across the entire lineup. Beyond the performance improvements, changes include a shedding of the “soft” branding from its high-compression offerings, dropping “LS” from the lineup and shifting focus toward better players who perhaps haven’t taken Callaway golf balls as seriously as they should.

It’s all part of a larger plan built around the objective of creating the most advanced tour balls the world has ever seen. And, yeah, if it sounds at all like Callaway is ready to stand toe-to-toe with Titleist in a way that it hasn’t since before the first Chrome Soft hit shelves, it’s only because that’s exactly what’s happening.

2024 Chrome Lineup

Callaway’s 2024 Chrome golf ball lineup consists of the familiar (though not unenhanced) Chrome Soft along with the Chrome Tour X and the entirely new Chrome Tour.

PGA Tour members voted Scottie Scheffler as player of the year for 2022-23 over Jon Rahm, who is headed to the Liv Golf League.

Parker McLachlin, aka the Short Game Chef, is known for his prowess around the greens — but he's much more than just an instructor.

The post ‘Golf came along and stole my heart’: Parker McLachlin dishes on his journey appeared first on Golf.

Scottie Scheffler beat out new LIV signee Jon Rahm for PGA Tour Player of the Year honors, while Eric Cole was named Rookie of the Year.

The post PGA Tour names Player of the Year, but not without whiff of controversy appeared first on Golf.

Rory McIlroy says he regrets being too quick to judge players who joined LIV Golf and accepts that the Saudi-backed tour is part of the sport.