Submitted by Bill Phillips on Thu, 02/05/2009 - 21:34
Featured in the “What’s New” section of a previous month’s Popular Science is a new system from Callaway called the I-Mix. You can change your driver’s club head and shaft in about 20 seconds. If it’s windy out, and you want your drives to go low, you can put in a club head with a lower loft. If the fairways are wet, and you know the ball won’t roll very far, you can change to a higher-lofted club head. Tour pros can adjust their clubs to fit their game and the course, because the manufacturers make sure to give them every advantage they can.
This is the newest trend in golf club technology, and I’m sure many other manufacturers will develop similar systems. Nickent Golf already has such a system, which is called “Evolver”.
The I-Mix system currently works with the FT-5 and FT-i club heads. There are many shafts that will work with the system, including most of the big brands, like Grafalloy, Aldila, Mitsubishi Rayon, Fujikura, Graphite Design and UST. The I-Mix system requires a special torque wrench that has a window that turns red when the torque reaches 5 foot-pounds of torque. The threads that connect the shaft with the club head are made from titanium alloy, and they are supposed to never rust or strip.
Callaway has been on the cutting edge of golf clubs technology for a long time. They’re the biggest golf company, and has 1/3 of the golf club market. It got started in 1984 when Ely Callaway bought a company named Hickory Stick for $400,000. With the introduction of the 190 cc Big Bertha Driver in 1991, Callaway became a big name in golf clubs. They even took the company public on the NYSE (symbol ELY). In 1997, the already big Big Bertha grew bigger to 290cc. Callaway clubs are now among the most popular.
