Callaway Paradym Super Hybrid

The new Callaway Paradym Super Hybrid is the answer you’ve been waiting for. That is, if you’ve been asking the right question.

That question, of course, is, “What’s bigger than a hybrid, smaller than a fairway wood and less expensive than a BMW?”

The new Callaway Paradym Super Hybrid is actually Super Hybrid 3.0.  The first edition came out in 2019 and the second edition, the Epic Super Hybrid, debuted in 2021. Whether Callaway succeeds in making the Super Hybrid a new club category is an open question.

But you can’t say they aren’t trying.

A Different Kind of Crossover

Are you a fairway wood failure? If so, Callaway thinks the new Paradym Super Hybrid is for you.

“A lot of people struggle with fairway woods,” says Callaway R&D Vice-President Brian Williams. “This is something that a golfer can make more consistent delivery with in different types of conditions.”

The recipe is simple: Mix one part fairway wood with one part hybrid and voila! You get a Super Hybrid. And the secret sauce in that recipe isn’t so secret. First, the shaft is a tad longer than your typical hybrid shaft, but shorter – and theoretically easier to hit – than your typical fairway wood shaft.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the head features trickle-down driver technology. It has an AI-designed titanium face and body, a Triaxial carbon crown and strategically placed tungsten weighting to combine forgiveness with a low-forward CG. And it’s all in a package that, predictably, is bigger than a hybrid head but smaller than a fairway wood head.

“It’s a powerful club,” says Williams. “We’re going for driver-like power here by using titanium. We wanted something that still feels like a 3-wood or a distance club but one that’s going to be easy to launch and get up in the air down-range.”

The Tale of The Tungsten Tape

This wouldn’t be a Callaway release without a significant amount of tungsten. There’s up to 91 grams of tungsten in the Paradym Super Hybrid, in what Callaway is calling Triple MIM Weighting. A significant portion of that tungsten is strategically placed in the rear of the club head, which boosts forgiveness and helps the club get the ball up in the air easier.

The balance of the tungsten is low and forward, which is a recipe for distance and a more penetrating trajectory.

“The titanium all around the perimeter is very lightweight,” says Williams. “What that allows us to do is to strategically place our (tungsten) weighting.”

Like its predecessors, the Paradym Super Hybrid is hosel adjustable. Lofts can be adjusted incrementally two degrees up or one degree down.

Are Super Hybrids Officially a “Thing?”

To help answer that, here’s a quote for you:

“This hybrid will more than replace the hybrids currently in the bag. It will have golfers questioning if they need a fairway wood.”

That little ditty, friends, didn’t come from Callaway’s crack marketing team or even its R&D machine.

That’s a quote from Tim Reed, VP of R&D for the original Adams Golf. Reed was talking about the Adams Super LS hybrid, back in 2013. So, yeah, this idea has been around for a while.

Three generations of Super Hybrids tell us this is a category Callaway thinks is worth creating. After all, the hybrid itself is a relatively new creation. Hogan was experimenting with a hybrid-looking club in the early ’60s but the COBRA Baffler of the mid-1970s may be the original utility club. It wasn’t until the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, however, that OEMs made hybrids a thing, replacing hard-to-hit long irons.

Should You Play a Paradym Super Hybrid?

That, of course, depends.

“There are a lot of players, even with the modern forgiveness technologies out there, that struggle to hit a fairway wood,” says Callaway Irons and Hybrids Product Manager Zack Oakley. “If you’re one of those players, this might be the solution you’ve been looking for.”

Of course, that flies in the face of the “get lessons” crowd. It’s easy to say, “Learn how to hit a fairway wood.” Hell, back in the early days of hybrids, it was easy to say “learn how to hit a long iron” but here we are. The fact is an awful lot of golfers have demanding jobs, families to tend to and don’t consider golf an ongoing test of their personhood. A good many of them don’t have the desire to work long-term with a coach, practice daily and systematically incorporate those lessons into a top-to-bottom swing rebuild and reap the long-term benefits.

They play golf for – gulp – fun.

And if there’s a piece of equipment that might take a bit of angst out of a part of the game they struggle with, what’s the harm?

If, of course, they can pay the freight.

The Elephant in The Room

The new Callaway Paradym Super Hybrid carries a price tag worthy of the name “Super.”

It’s $399.99.

Which is also known as $400.

At this point, we’re beyond the point of even discussing whether any hybrid is worth that kind of money. And debating whether a $400 hybrid is going to make you a better golfer is, well, ridiculous. It might help you play better golf, which is not the same thing.

So “worth it” in general isn’t really worth discussing. “Worth it to you,” however, is. If it fills a hole in your bag, makes the game easier and more fun and you have the cabbage to acquire it, then that’s your answer.

And before we start with the moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth over OEMs getting “out of control” and pricing the “average golfer” out of the game, we did some checking. There are plenty of hybrids out there for a hell of a lot less money. They include:

• Sub 70 949X (ranked #2 for 2023 by MyGolfSpy): $189
• Sub 70 939X/949X Pro: $129
• Wilson Dynapower (ranked #4 by MyGolfSpy): $219.99
• PXG 0211: $139.99

Heck, you can even get an entirely serviceable MacTec X from the new MacGregor for $79.99.

We’ve said it before but it bears repeating: Golf equipment isn’t a zero-sum game. The introduction of a high-priced product doesn’t mean a lower-priced option is being taken away.

And, yeah, at $399.99, the Callaway Paradym Super Hybrid is a high-priced option.

Callaway Paradym Super Hybrid: Specs, Price and Availability

The Callaway Paradym Super Hybrid comes in five lofts: 16, 18, 21, 24 and 27 degrees. As mentioned, they are adjustable using Callaway’s OptiFit 3 hosel. Each model can be incrementally adjusted one degree down and two degrees up.

 The 16-degree 2-hybrid and the 27-degree 6-hybrid are available in right-handed only.

The UST Recoil Dart is the stock shaft while the Lamkin Crossline 360 is the stock grip.

Presale beings Aug. 18. They’ll be available at retail starting Sept. 1.

For more information, visit the Callaway website.