Callaway FT-5 Driver Review

Callaway golf has long been known for its long, forgiving drivers. They started the oversize driver rage in the early 90's with their original Big Bertha driver and have since seen over 10 new drivers come out since then. Over the years, Callaway has gone from simple hickory shafted wedges to some of the most technologically advanced golf equipment on the planet. Callaway has continued its dominance in the mid to high handicap market with its line of drivers, throw in their irons, wedges, and recent purchase of Top Flite and Odyssey Golf, new "players" equipment and a great line of Callaway branded golf balls and you have the makings of a monster that will now be in the forefront of golf technology and design for years to come.

The FT-5 came from two designs actually. The old Callaway C4 driver, a composite driver featured a metal skirting around the perimeter which helped drastically on off center hits. While this driver was extremely accurate, it lacked hitting power due to the softer face material. Callaway has long been known for its long hitting Titanium drivers and the consumer wanted both designers in one! Introduce the Fusion Series beginning with the original ERC Fusion to the FT-I, Callaways high performance drivers have incorporated Fusion Technology. The FT-5 is an update to the popular FT-3 driver.

The FT-5 features a larger head than the original FT-3. Just in the past couple of years Callaway has begun to make their drivers at the maximum 460cc size and the FT-5 is one of them. The advances in technology have allowed the designers at Callaway to "fuse" an entire face area of a Titanium driver to the body similar to the C4. This makes for not only a very forgiving driver, but one that goes long as well! The technology frees almost 50 grams of weight to be distributed to the perimeter to create a high launch low spin driver designed for todays golf balls. Callaway has also incorporated a new feature where this weight is put in the center of the club, to the toe or to the heel. This will created a fade or draw biased head that will be more prone to opening or closing at impact to help reduce or create a different ball flight for the player.

The driver itself looks a little cleaner than the origional FT-3, it was a little longer from front to back that gave it a little more modern shape without going to extremes like the FT-i. When I hit it, boy did it hit hard! The ball went high and straight as advertised and had more carry than any other driver I had tried. I was testing the 9* Stiff version and also got to hit their tour model. The tour model features a higher center of gravity, square to open face with neutral to fade weighting. This allows the better player to work the ball better and really get through the ball without the fear of hitting a big hook! I was able to work the ball with both, but had a better time hitting a draw with the standard version and a better time hitting a fade with the tour version for obvious reasons.

Other than the size however, I did not get any real feedback to say that this is better than the original FT-3. Now, the FT-i is a totally different story, stay tuned for that review!