Callaway Chrome Tour Review

Callaway spent four years developing the material in the layer beneath this ball's cover, and it is the rare equipment claim that survives contact with a launch monitor. The new mantle is substantially more rigid than the one it replaces, which lets it behave like a stiffer spring at impact, and in robot testing across the speeds a good player swings it adds close to two miles an hour of ball speed and roughly four yards of carry over the previous generation.

On the course that reads as a flatter, more penetrating flight that holds its line in wind. Driver spin is low, close to the number where a fast swinger starts worrying about a ball falling out of the sky, and it does not fall, because the aerodynamic pattern is doing work to keep it up. The urethane cover is unchanged in intent and the short game behaves the way the Chrome family always has, which is to say a full wedge checks and a delicate pitch takes whatever spin you put on it.

Feel is soft for a ball this fast. It is the most expensive dozen Callaway sells and the value grade says so, but this is a genuine step forward and it reached shops in January to broad agreement.