Dave Neville Podcast #332 – Callaway EPIC Speed

Worldwide Golf Shops INSIDER PODCAST #332! In this installment, we chat with the Senior Director, Brand & Product Management - Callaway Golf, Mr. Dave Neville! Dave talks Callaway's new EPIC Speed! Please Enjoy this INSIDER Podcast. Callaway Epic Speed Driver What happens when the undisputed ball speed leader goes out and creates a NEW formula for speed that doesn’t even seem possible? The answer is.... you get the new Epic Speed, our fastest driver ever. Epic Speed is built on a simple equation that’s going to make a profound impact on the category. A.I. + Jailbreak + our new Speed Frame = more distance for every player. The future of driver technology and performance is here, and it’s about to change the industry forever. Extraordinary Ball Speed From NEW Jailbreak A.I. Speed Frame: Epic ball speeds start with our new A.I. Jailbreak Speed Frame. Previous Jailbreak designs stiffened the body in the vertical direction. By applying Artificial Intelligence, the new design improves stability in the horizontal and torsional direction as well. The result is exceptional ball speeds all across the face.Fast Ball Speed From A.I. Designed Flash Face SS21 : Our advanced A.I.-designed Flash Face promotes fast ball speeds across a more expansive area. Each face and each head geometry are uniquely optimized in Epic, and the super strength titanium promotes optimal speed, forgiveness, and spin robustness. This all results in a greater emphasis on center and off-center ball speeds.Our Fastest Driver Head From A Cyclone Aero Shape: This advanced aerodynamic head construction promotes lower drag for higher head speed and ball speed. The taller ribbon and flatter crown are engineered for a new shape that can help golfers generate more speed from their swing.Increased Forgiveness From Advanced Composite Design: Our proprietary Triaxial carbon covers a larger portion of the crown, leading to weight savings of over 18 grams vs. a titanium crown. Callaway engineers have redistributed that saved weight to enhance forgiveness versus previous Mavrik designs. An additional Triaxial carbon toe patch adds draw bias while saving weight to promote a powerful shot shape. Shop EPIC Speed Drivers, Fairways, Hybrids and Irons at https://www.worldwidegolfshops.com/ Podcast Transcript: Welcome to the Worldwide Golf Shops Insider podcast.  Episode 332.  Hello everyone, Tom Brassell here. Thanks so much for joining us.  So glad you did.  Whether you're a first-time listener, longtime subscriber or somewhere in the middle, it doesn't matter. You're here with us today and we appreciate it. Our special guest joins us from out in Carlsbad, CA. He's a senior director of brand and product management for Callaway Golf.  Mr. Dave Neville and Dave. If there's anybody that should be earning frequent flyer miles or reward points for being on our show with you man. Thanks for joining us again we.  Love it, love having you man.  Yeah, thanks for having me on Tom.  I don't think anybody's earning frequent flyer awards very much these days, but frequent zoom awards or something like that.  First of all, Dave, tell us how it's crazy times how's your health?  How's your family everybody good?  Yeah, I mean it has been challenging.  We've been had a huge lockdown out here in California and we've been very fortunate to be healthy.  But there's a lot of people who are struggling so you know our hearts go out to them.  Callaway has bounced back.  We had a really challenging year last year, but as you know, golf has been a sport that's been arrested for a lot of people to be able to get outside be with their family socially distance.  And so we've been really supporting that and we've got some really nice momentum coming into this year.  Yeah.  Yeah, golf has been the silver lining in this cloud that we're in and getting outside playing distancing outdoors.  But when we talk to you Dave, it's always something new and that's what's fun.  And now it's the new epic speed we're talking about the future of speed.  Tell us what went into this.  This is pretty cool stuff.  Yeah, so there's been a lot of work behind it is, you know, time.  We've been a leader in artificial intelligence for a number of years now.  So with the epic Flash driver that was the first driver that we brought AI to the to the flash face to the actual face.  Now we're bringing A-I to the jailbreak system and this is really, really huge for us.  We're calling it the jailbreak A I.  Speed frame so it just to let your listeners know about jailbreak.  Again, we've talked about it before but it basically stiffens the body of the driver.  It connects the Crown and soul together to make the body stiffer, which allows us to put more energy back into the face.  Now we're combining that with the AI design. New Jail brake system that not just helps you in that vertical direction, but also horizontally and torsionally, meaning twisting on off center impacts as well.  So you're getting all that ball speed, but you're getting forgiveness and really spin robustness when you when you miss off center as well.  Yeah, this is like jailbreak 4.0 for you guys and it's not even 2.0 'cause you just really just maximized it since the beginning and I think it was about five years ago. I think the first one.  Yeah, so 2017 with the GBB epic is when we first brought jailbreak and really that was the technology that got us to number one and drivers we had been kind of in 3rd and 4th place and drivers up till epic and it was such a leap forward in performance and ball speed for players and it was number one on tour. It was number one in wins it was number one.  In global sales.  You know the perfect score from the hotlist. I mean incredible in an incredible performance of that TV epic. And then we've continued to evolve the jailbreak system. But now this is a totally new system and you could see it out online if you go out to callawaygolf.com you go out to any of the worldwide sites there as well. You can see that.  In that frame there are more contact points with the soul and the Crown.  The bars are spread out there thinner.  There are different shapes, and with the AI we were able to test a number of different systems to find the one that was the best performing for each of the heads.  And you have three different offerings in the driver line, correct?  Yeah, so we can go through those.  So the first one is the epic speed.  This is going to be our fastest epic ever. It has that Cyclone Arrow shape so it's very very fast through the air. It's got the AI in there.  It's got a composite Crown and also a composite to Patch and what that does Tom is it allows us to take some of the weight out of the toe which gives us some more draw bias but allows us to put that weight.  In the center back with.  As MY so it's going to be a lot more forgiving than the Maverick standard model, so that's the epic speed we feel like that's going to be right for a lot of golfers. You know, 50% plus of golfers would be into the epic speed. Then we have the epic Max and if you go back to the maverick Max we first introduced last year that was a runaway hit for us. So I really forgiving. Kind of traditional MY driver, this one we're taking it to another level. We're talking 9000 MOI is the measure of forgiveness really, really high forgiveness?  On this, the adjustable parameter weight or the sliding weight tracking back, so that's going to let people tune their shot shape.  Very forgiving.  Of course, it has the jailbreak AI speed frame in there as well, so if you struggle if you kind of hit it all over the face or you're fighting a slice or you struggle with the driver, the Max is the one to be in.  And then we have a third model and this one is all-new, totally different from anything we've done before.  We've had the sub-zero model for several years now.  Really low spin option.  This is a little bit different.  We're calling it the Max LS so it's a lower spinning model of the Max.  Really, for your better player, so it's in neutral shot shape versus the draw. But you still have the adjustable weight in the back as well. It's going to be lower spinning than the Max, but it's not as low spin as the sub zero because one of the things we found out on tour is the tour players actually like a little more spin than you would expect. Most people think. Oh there, you know they're hitting with 1800 RPM spin.  Not the case the the average spin rate on the PGA Tour is 24 to 2600 RPM, so we wanted a driver that's really playable very for.  I think 8500 + M Y, but it's going to be a little bit lower spin and really for that better player. So three really distinct models. I think that's one of the things I'm most proud about of this line. We have a different model and something that's going to fit everyone.  Dave, just out of curiosity, what was the feedback like when you put these out in front of your tour staff?  It's been absolutely incredible, obviously.  We've got two wins already in back-to-back weeks out on tour.  Si Woo Kim with a new epic speed.  Last week we signed Jon Rahm in the offseason and he's part of Callaway now.  The number two player in the world, so we're really excited about that.  He immediately went into an epic speed driver.  Xander Schlauffele is in the epic speed driver.  Phil Mickelson and we've had it just an incredible response to these.  So you're going to see him out on tour and hopefully more wins.  I mean, we've got our local hometown event this week at Torrey Pines.  The Farmers Insurance Open and we got a lot of Callaway guys on the leaderboard there so very excited about that.  That's pretty interesting.  Yes.  Out of the ones you mentioned, you mentioned epic speed, so not necessarily epic maxl for them, right?  Oh well, we've got.  We've got a lot of guys in Max LS.  It just happened to be the guys that I mentioned were in epic speed,...