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Chip’s Challenge Results in Epic Irons

Callaway CEO Chip Brewer’s Challenge to Doc Hock Leads to Soon to be Released Epic Irons

It all started with a challenge.  A “what if?”

A few years ago, Callaway CEO Chip Brewer posed the question to Dr. Alan Hocknell (aka Doc Hock, the head of Research and development), “If you could design the very best iron that you would play, if you wanted maximum performance without any limits to the cost or engineering process, what would that be?”

Doc Hock is a passionate golfer, and he was blown away by the endless possibilities for such an ambitious project where money is no object.  After he determined what exactly the iron should be, he dedicated more than 70 of the best engineers in golf to the project with two key messages:

  • There were to be groundbreaking innovations
  • There are no boundaries or constraints

The team had the freedom to give the irons every performance advantage by using the most ultra-premium materials and advancing some of the most revolutionary technologies in the industry. And they determined that the irons deserved to be called “Epic.”

The irons had to provide the absolute best combination of ball speed, distance, forgiveness, accuracy, control and feel. And to go beyond that standard, we had to be extremely meticulous, creative and committed to carefully crafting each material.

In the development, they began by improving the technologies that made Callaway the category leader; Internal Standing Wave and Face Cup Technology.

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Every iron in this set is uniquely constructed to promote optimum performance. During development, new ways to enhance launch and trajectory were tested, and succeeded by introducing an incredibly high amount of MIM’ed tungsten (over 664 grams in the set) into their Internal Standing Wave technology. MIM’ed stands for Metal-Injection Molding, an injection-molding process using finely powdered metal to create intricately shaped parts with tremendous precision.

Tungsten is relatively heavy, which allows control the head’s internal weighting to give each individual iron its own optimized CG location. To do this, a precise amount of tungsten was engineered for each club. The CG could then be lowered in the long irons for easy launch and high, long carry, and raised in the short irons for a lower, more controllable flight. The left-right CG positioning could be better controlled in tandem with the hollow hosel that creates weight savings. This is an expensive alloy to manufacture, but it’s integral to enhancing performance in the Epic Irons.

We’re told that what truly sets this iron apart is the Exo-Cage head construction that Callaway first applied to an iron in the Big Bertha OS, the only iron to earn five stars in every category of the 2017 Golf Digest Hot List. The high-grade steel structure in the center of the cavity stiffens the body, especially the topline and sole, so that the face can take on more impact load.

This is known as “energy lensing”, and in the irons energy lensing allows the face to behave more efficiently to promote faster ball speed and distance, dramatically enhancing performance. In fact, it helped the engineers raise the COR right up to the limit in each iron, which has never reached that level of speed in a full set.

Callaway has been kind enough to provide us with photos of these beautiful new irons.  As soon as information regarding release date and pricing is available, we will immediately pass along to you.

Congratulations to Chip, Dr. Hocknell and his team on what is about to come!