Callaway are entering 2025 on the back of a successful 2024 which saw Xander Schauffele, one of their biggest Tour players, win two majors in a summer using the Paradym Ai Smoke Driver.
This year sees the introduction of the Elyte range, the name of which is inspired by the company’s founder Ely Callaway, and features a design which might look familiar to Callaway fans from the last decade or so…
Who Is It Aimed At?
Most golfers will probably suit the standard Elyte as it has a combination of forgiveness and distance and ball speed benefits.
It also has the adjustable weighting at the back of the head which makes it adaptable for golfers who desire different ball flights.
Watch On YouTube…
The Tech
There are four different heads available in the new Elyte line for 2025 – the standard Elyte, a higher launching and more forgiving Elyte X, and the low-spinning, tour preferred Elyte Triple Diamond, as well as the Max Fast for slower swing speed golfers. As you might expect, there are a few new pieces of technology within the range too.
Callaway have worked to improve the aerodynamics of their heads, designed to maximise club head speed whilst still improving forgiveness and launch conditions.
Over the last few years we’ve heard a lot about different materials in driver design, and Callaway have a new Thermoforged Carbon crown which is said to again help with faster club head speeds.
Last year we had an Ai Smart Face, this time around it’s an Ai 10x Face, which gets its name because it is said to offer 10x more control points than the previous generation for better dispersion and launch on strikes right across the face.
Finally, a new weighting system sees a 13g movable weight at the back of the head, which can be switched into a neutral, fade or draw setting.
Callaway Elyte Driver Review
Looks
The design and colourway of the driver reminds me a lot of the Epic Driver which I used to use a few years ago which was a nice throwback.
There’s a pleasing look at address with a standard size footprint, along with a matte crown and carbon pattern as well as the Chevron logo for the alignment aid. If you’ve used Callaway drivers in the last few years, this is another similar shape which should look pretty familiar to you. It’s a bit more understated than the two Paradym drivers of the past two years, but still very smart.
It does say Elyte on the heel of the crown which I actually found to be a bit off-putting at first because it made me want to align the ball more towards the heel.
At address I found that it looked as if there wasn’t a lot of loft on the club head, which was a little bit unnerving at first although I did get used to it.
Feel
The first thing that I noticed when I started hitting balls on the range to warm up was the sound – it was very loud. I am not very used to loud drivers however I did like the sound that it made at impact.
It just sounded like a well struck driver, with a clean and powerful noise that also feels like it comes off the face nice and hot, it actually helps with giving you a bit more confidence because you feel like you’ve got a little more power at your disposal.
It’s quite a firm feel at impact, and the weight was nicely balanced which made it easy to swing freely.
Performance
I was really impressed with the numbers produced when I tested the driver on the GCQuad – with an average ball speed of 134mph which is towards the top end of what I’d expect to see from a driver.
An average carry of 223 and total of 242 pushes the upper limit of what I’d usually see, and I even had one shot which was out at 235 carry and ball speeds in the high 130s mph which is really impressive for a ‘standard’ head.
Dispersion was pretty good with a nice consistent, gentle draw which was very controllable, and I also felt as if it was pretty workable too.
I really liked the ball flight, it didn’t balloon up but rose nicely and seemed to cut through the air very nicely even whilst testing on a windy day at Praia Del Rey.
It felt really stable across the face and this allowed me to really commit to hitting it confidently, which is probably why I saw some good numbers.
We set up to hit a few tee shots from a driveable par 4 at around 245 yards and with my third tee shot I was able to land it on the green and it rolled to 6 feet away from the pin, which pretty much sold me!
Callaway Elyte Driver Verdict
The performance was great, my only reservation would be about the carbon crown and the Elyte script on the crown which was a little bit off-putting at address for me.
I had an Epic Driver in the bag a few years ago and this did feel like a big upgrade on that, with plenty of distance and good levels of consistency too.
It gave me one of the longest shots that I have seen in my time testing drivers, which is a pretty good endorsement and a strong start to 2025 for Callaway!
Would I Use It?
In terms of performance then definitely yes, although I’m still not completely sold on the looks. I could probably get used to it though!
