VIDEO: Callaway Rogue Driver Review

March 29, 2018 | by AmateurGolf.com Staff

The new Callaway Rogue Sub Zero driver<br>(Callaway photo)

“The Jailbreak Effect” helps combine exceptional ball speed with a new, MOI-enhancing shape to deliver extraordinary forgiveness

CARLSBAD, CA (March 29, 2018) - The year is young, and Callaway's new Rogue Drivers have already won dozens of Tour events, and shown huge success at retail.

The new drivers -- Standard, Sub Zero, and Draw -- have many of the technologies in 2017’s GBB Epic drivers plus even more forgiveness and stability.

Callaway’s GBB Epic drivers were a runaway hit and the most widely sold driver in the United States last year. Now, with the release of three new Rogue drivers, Callaway is borrowing several key design features from those clubs while making the Rogue family slightly different. (The Epic line still will be available – Rogue doesn’t replace Epic.)

At the heart of the Rogue drivers are two features that work together to provide more distance: an updated Jailbreak system and a re-designed variable-thickness face.

“This is really the next generation of Jailbreak,” said Evan Gibbs, Callaway’s director of research and development for metalwoods. “There are two titanium rods that connect the crown and sole inside the head, and their purpose is to add stiffness to the body and minimize the amount of deflection in the body during impact. This minimizes the amount of energy lost in the body and focuses that energy to the face.”

The internal Jailbreak rods in the Rogue
drivers are hourglass-shaped and lighter
(Callaway photo)

The Jailbreak rods in the Rogue drivers have an hourglass shape and are each 25 percent lighter. At the same time, the Rogue drivers were given a face that is thicker in the center and thinner around the perimeter. The thicker areas form an X.

“The focus is really to increase ball speeds when you don’t hit the center of the face,” Gibbs said. “Working in tandem with Jailbreak, the new face delivers higher and more consistent speeds across the face.”

The Rogue drivers have a triaxial carbon-composite crown, as did the Epic drivers, but the carbon-fiber piece is larger to help lower the Rogue’s center of gravity and create more discretionary weight. That allowed Callaway designers to shift more of the Rogue’s overall weight to the back of the head and increase the moment of inertia. The Rogue’s 8,800 kgm2 total MOI dwarfs the MOI of the driver it replaces in Callaway’s line-up, the XR16, which has an MOI if 7,500 kgm2. It’s also higher than the Epic’s 8,000 kgm2.

To help golfers create more clubhead speed, Callaway teamed with aerospace company Boeing to develop a design that keeps airflow moving efficiently over the leading edge and the seam where the hitting area and crown meet.

Aside from the standard Rogue, Callaway is offering a Rogue Draw driver with the same features and benefits, but its 5-gram external sole weight was shifted from the back-center area of the sole toward the heel. This should help the face close more easily on the downswing and square more easily, reducing the severity of a slice. Compared to the Epic with its sliding weight affixed all the way to the right, Callaway says the Rogue Draw has 7 more yards of right-to-left bias. Compared to the standard Rogue, it has 17 yards of draw bias.

For golfers who create excessive spin, Callaway offers the Rogue Sub Zero. This club has two weight screws, a 2-gram in the back and a 14-gram in the front, directly behind the leading edge. They can be swapped, but when the heavier weight is forward the club produces about 200 rpm less spin. Shifting the 14-gram weight to the back further increases MOI and stability. The Rogue Sub Zero creates 300 rpm less spin than the standard Rogue, and also less spin than the Epic Sub Zero.

Club: Callaway Rogue drivers
Price: $499.99 with Aldila Synergy or Quaranta, Project X EvenFlow and HZRDUS Yellow shaft; Golf Pride MCC grip.
Specs: Titanium face and chassis with carbon-fiber crown. Lofts: 9, 10.5, 13.5 degrees
Available: Feb. 9

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