Is Callaway About to Launch A Driver with a Rear Spoiler?

As is often the case with this sort of thing, credit goes to Dave Dawsey over at Golf-Patents.com for tracking down this recently published Callaway patent for a “golf club head with improved aerodynamic characteristics“.

Dawsey suggests this could be the next Optiforce, and all reasonable logic says that he’s probably right.

The Prior Art referenced in the patent drawings looks unquestionably like last season’s FT Optiforce, and the aerodynamics/spoiler thing certainly fits within the FT Optiforce concept.

A Forgettable Q2

We’re hearing that Q2 was absolutely miserable. That’s hardly a Callaway-exclusive problem. By nearly every informed account, the industry got smacked around pretty hard over the last 3 months. Toss in the recent $100 price drop on Big Bertha Alpha (so much for holding the line), and the signs are that Callaway is ready (and likely needs) to move on to whatever is next in the pipeline.

There are decent odds that the next thing will have a rear spoiler attached. As Dawsey astutely points out, wings, and fins (and I suppose Turbulators qualify) have been tried before, but like PING, Callaway has the potential to bring the technology into the mainstream.

What’s a bit more difficult to predict is how golfers, particularly the traditionalist crowd (generally not Callaway guys anyway) will respond to a driver that looks like it was inspired by a Hyundai Tiburon.

I’m pretty much of the whatever crowd, and hell, I really liked Optiforce, so I wouldn’t be opposed to having a go with an updated, spoiler-enabled model.

For those of you who think such things are a distraction…I promise you, if you focus on the ball you won’t notice a spoiler, or Turbulators, or even a giant white crown swoosh. These things are only actually distractions if you want them to be…and I suppose that’s not so much an actual distraction as it is an excuse, but, as usual, I digress.

More Speed = More Speed

As with the original Optiforce, the PING G30, and other aerodynamically-inclined designs (Adams), whatever the head speed increase, it exponentially benefits higher swing speed players (they gain more than slower swing speed guys).

Some have tried to help the low-to-average speed crowd out by reducing the weight of the head, but there invariably MOI trade-offs that come with that approach. Should this product come to life it will be very interesting to see what Callaway’s approach, and storyline actually is.

If we assume a 1 year release cycle, the timing is certainly right for the next Optiforce, or perhaps a Big Bertha Optiforce (that’s branding, people), so I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see these drawings become reality…and likely very soon.