Callaway Golf is continuing its tradition of innovation in metal woods with this week’s launch of an exciting new line of titanium drivers with a legendary name and revolutionary performance. The new Great Big Bertha® II+ Titanium Drivers have all the playability and forgiveness golfers experienced with the original Great Big Bertha line.
“The original Great Big Bertha was the best-selling titanium metal wood model of all time in the U.S. and around the world,” said Ron Drapeau, chairman, president and CEO of Callaway Golf. “It was recognised as one of the main contributors to the enjoyment of the game for amateur and professional golfers alike, and made Callaway Golf the recognised leader in golf club technology. We are proud to bring golfers this great new driver that exceeds the performance and satisfaction of the legendary Great Big Bertha – and is worthy of carrying its name.”
“We’ve taken a modern classic and revved it up,” said Richard C. Helmstetter, senior executive vice president and chief of new products for Callaway Golf. “We started with the design concept from the original Great Big Bertha – to use titanium to make a driver that is large and forgiving. Then we brought it into the future using everything we’ve learned about hot-faced drivers from our experience with the ERC® II Forged Titanium Drivers. The result is a vastly improved series of drivers that lives up to the Great Big Bertha name while taking titanium driver performance to yet another level.”
The Great Big Bertha II+ Titanium Driver fully conforms with the Rules of Golf as published by the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, which stipulate no limitation on Coefficient of Restitution (COR) in the R&A’s jurisdiction through 2007. Callaway Golf will also offer a new driver with a 0.830 COR to comply with limits that will apply at certain elite events (e.g., the Open Championship and possibly major professional tour events) beginning in 2003, and which will become the general standard in 2008. This version of driver will be known as Great Big Bertha II, without the ‘+’.
The Great Big Bertha II+ and Great Big Bertha II Titanium Drivers all feature a powerful 380cc clubhead that measures more than 130cc larger than the original. That’s a remarkable size increase of 52 percent over the original Great Big Bertha Driver that leads directly to a high Moment of Inertia (MOI) and enhanced forgiveness. Callaway Golf employed an advanced cold-forming process to create the clubface of the Great Big Bertha II+ Titanium Drivers – each of which is precisely designed to maximise allowable performance. This technology allows the clubface to be both extremely thin and strong without any impurities that could impede performance. This combination of maximum COR and high MOI enhances ball speed and potential distance on shots hit across a large area of the clubface, potentially increasing ball speed even on off-centre hits.
The Great Big Bertha II+ Titanium Drivers have also been designed with a precise centre of gravity geared to produce the most favourable launch angle and spin rate for each particular loft. This is accomplished through advanced production processes that tightly control the wall thickness and weight placement within each clubhead. As a result, the Great Big Bertha II+ Titanium Drivers help golfers hit drives with high launch angles and optimised spin rates to create a distance-enhancing trajectory and greater potential distance.
“There’s much more to building a great driver than just a high COR,” Helmstetter said. “I think we really nailed every design aspect with the Great Big Bertha II+. Each loft is designed with the most beneficial combination of bulge and roll, centre of gravity placement, COR and MOI to produce a hot, strong ball flight and forgiveness across the face of the driver. If you miss a shot a little to the left or right of centre, you’re still going to see the benefits of using a Great Big Bertha II+ Titanium Driver.”
Amateur and professional golfers alike have extensively tested the technology built into the Great Big Bertha II+ and Great Big Bertha II Titanium Drivers. Feedback has been exceptionally strong from golfers of all skill levels, including tour professionals. The winner of the recent World Golf Championships event, the NEC Invitational, used a Great Big Bertha II Titanium Driver to win his first U.S. tour event. Meanwhile, Callaway Golf staff professionals Seve Ballesteros, Niclas Fasth, Eduardo Romero and Phillip Price are among the many PGA European Tour players who have already put the new driver in play. “I love the way this driver sounds and feels,” said Romero, who averaged 293 yards in driving distance after switching to a Great Big Bertha II Titanium Driver at the PGA Championship. “I can hit it almost anywhere on the face and not lose distance. This is the best driver I’ve played since the original Great Big Bertha.”
Great Big Bertha II+ Titanium Drivers are available in standard lofts of 9, 10, 11 and 12 degrees for right-handed golfers and 9, 10 and 11 degrees for left-handers, while Great Big Bertha II+ Pro Series Titanium Drivers are available in 8.5-degree and 9.5-degree versions in right hand only. The standard versions are designed with progressive draw bias to help golfers square the clubface at impact and hit the ball with a strong, drawing ball flight. The Pro Series models have neutral weighting and face angles designed to help more skilled players shape their shots with greater ease.
All of the Great Big Bertha II+ Titanium Drivers feature patented Callaway Golf technology, including Short Straight Hollow Hosel (S2H2®) and Tru-Bore® Technology. These longstanding design principles play a large part in the performance of these new drivers, helping to optimise the clubhead shape and increase the MOI and forgiveness of the drivers. Meanwhile, the drivers utilise a proprietary series of high-performance graphite shafts. The GBB System 60, GBB System 60 Pro Series and GBB Gems 50 shafts are lightweight, low resin-content graphite shafts with high strength and exceptional responsiveness. The standard shaft for the regular Great Big Bertha II+ Titanium Drivers are the GBB System 60 – available in Light, Regular, Firm and Stiff flexes – and the GBB Gems 50, a ladies flex shaft. The Great Big Bertha II+ Pro Series Titanium Drivers are available with the GBB System 60 Pro Series shaft as the standard shaft offering.
The Great Big Bertha II+ and Great Big Bertha II Titanium Drivers are scheduled to ship to retail accounts in early October at a suggested retail price of £349 for the standard and Pro Series models.
Callaway Golf www.callawaygolf.com