Callaway Full Toe SP wedges: What you need to know
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Callaway's Full Toe wedge profile has been part of the company's short game lineup for years. What started as the Phil Mickelson-inspired PM grind eventually became a full-blown offering around a usable full-toe design that appealed to everyday golfers and tour players alike.
The new Full Toe SP maintains the popular shaping but pairs it with the highest center of gravity (CG) the company has ever put in a wedge, a change made possible by the largest Spin Pocket Callaway has produced. There's noticeable offset in the head as well.
Jacob Davidson, Callaway's VP of global product strategy, was candid about what the company has learned selling the shape to golfers.
"We've had some shapes that started with a strong point of view," Davidson said. "We've had some where we've tried to slowly evolve them into more of an aspirational shape. But really, as we did a lot of research through this, we found this wedge is sticky for a lot of people, and when it has a strong point of view and serves a purpose, a lot of people see a lot of benefit from it."
Translation: Callaway tried to make this shape more palatable and found that palatability wasn't the draw.
In this case, the stated target isn't just the shotmaker. It's the golfer who shortsides himself and simply needs a get-out-of-jail-free club.
PRICE: $200 each. The wedge will be available at retail on Sept. 4. Lofts run 54, 56, 58, 60 and 62 degrees. Stock components are True Temper's Dynamic Gold S200 shaft and Golf Pride's Tour Velvet 360 grip.
3 Cool Things
1. Get groovy. Let's start with a fact about how open-faced shots are executed. For most golfers, contact tends to drift high and toward the toe. It's not a centered strike, and it isn't supposed to be.
"When people are hitting it out there on a traditional wedge, that's starting to get to the area where the grooves stop," Davidson said.
Full Toe SP features Spin Gen 2.0 grooves heel to toe across the face, with the pitch spacing tightened by 17 degrees, for what Callaway says is 44 percent more groove area than a conventionally shaped wedge. It winds up being more grooves, covering more of the face, with more edges in contact with the ball.
The goal is to help maintain consistent spin, regardless of the lie and face position, something Brian Hurr, Callaway's R&D manager for wedges, confirmed Spin Gen 2.0 groove geometry can achieve.
"We find that if you're out in that thick rough and you come across the ball with an open face shot, there's a chance you're going to miss the grooves," said Hurr. "This product will help you maintain some of that spin that you would lose otherwise on a shot like that."
2. Aggressive CG. Instead of moving mass down and back to improve launch and heel-toe stability, SP goes the other direction. Callaway's Spin Pocket construction—introduced on Opus SP, which is where the SP comes from—removes material low in the head and relocates it up the face.
This is the largest pocket the company has built: 18 percent bigger than Opus SP+ and 35 percent bigger than the standard Opus SP. The tall toe is what created the real estate to do it.
The result is Callaway's highest wedge CG ever, and the payoff splits depending on how you're playing the shot.
On a square-faced shot, a high CG sits above the strike zone, which holds launch down and spin up, like the flighted, one-hop-and-stop shot. On an open-faced shot, where contact migrates high on the face, the strike lands closer to the center of mass, and the offset in the head adds launch back.
"Kind of the Swiss Army knife here of wedges, where you have the best of both worlds," Hurr said. "The high spin, low launch on those square face and then that high launch, high spin on the open face shots."
Say the trade-off out loud, though. Mass shifting up is mass no longer low, and low mass is what helps thin strikes. Thankfully, Callaway's answer to that conundrum lives in the sole.
3. A helpful sole. Sole camber, the front-to-back and side-to-side curvature built into the bottom sole, can help improve impact consistency. Callaway added it in both directions to allow the sole to glide through the turf.
"If you hit behind the ball a little bit, you're not going to lose as much speed," Hurr said. "Continue to make a closer shot to the pin."
That's Callaway's direct answer to the CG trade-off above.
Then there's the JW grind, which goes the other direction entirely with a wider sole and more bounce at 62 degrees.
"The JW is one of the most fun soles we have ever played with. It's the ultimate in forgiveness," Hurr said. "You take that thing in the bunker, you don't even have to open it up. You can just throw your hands in it. It pops it right out."
A conventional bunker shot requires you to open the face and trust the bounce to do the work, which is a learned skill and the reason most golfers are unsure in the sand. A wide, high-bounce sole does that job for you.
"JW stands for a wide sole version of the J," Davidson said. "It really is for that golfer that needs help getting out of the bunker. Maybe they're just starting the game of golf."
Full Toe SP isn't a full wedge set—it starts at 54 degrees—but a sand and lob wedge option for golfers whose scoring problems live inside 40 yards.