American Golf: Callaway Ai Smoke Review

With a name like Ai Smoke, the immediate thought is of us smoking our drives with Callaway’s latest creation.

Using this club, it is easy to imagine the Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Driver being tested by the boffins close to their base in southern California. Heading into the desert, the ball should travel miles when it is launched into the hot and sunny atmosphere and the thin air. Maybe testing in the old wild west, the analogy would be the whiff of smoke emanating from a cowboy’s pistol as he exited the saloon bar. Of course, no smoke emerges when we hit with a golf driver, but the point is the same. Everyone we are playing with will stand to attention, or step back, when we have smoked a drive right out of the middle with this latest offering from Callaway. We establish our golfing credentials as a serious player at the point the ball soars into the air and lands miles down the middle of the fairway as we mean business.

Now for a second, we need to step back from the images or Top Gun or famous westerns that may be running through our heads (or at least mine). Our testing was carried out on a damp, cold day in the north west of England - we all know the type - conditions that could not be further than the deserts of south west USA. But given that most of us play nearly all our golf in classic English conditions than Californian ones, it is still possible to make a judgement on how this club will perform for the typical club golfer.

So read on for AMERICAN GOLF’s review of Callaway’s latest offering, the Paradym Ai Smoke.

Callaway Ai Smoke Driver:

With the Paradym Ai Smoke, Callaway have looked to push the boundaries even further in terms of technology and artificial intelligence to produce their most advanced golf clubs to date. The Ai Smart Face uses a combination of actual player data and cutting-edge machine learning to generate a whole host of sweet spots across the entire club face. As Callaway themselves are proclaiming about their new product, it is ‘sweeter from every spot’.

Specifics:

With its 460cc head profile, it is almost impossible to stand over the ball at address and not feel confident with a Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Driver in our hands. It has a high MOI (moment of inertia) or put more simply, ‘forgiveness’ to us, and is ready for golfers to launch their balls down fairways across the country.   

The 360° Carbon chassis has been refined to promote increased weight redistribution. An internal titanium support structure has been added, making this club around 15% lighter. This weight has been moved into the head to improve launch conditions and add extra forgiveness – always welcome for golfers whatever the ability!

The Ai Smart Face optimises the performance of this driver by using swing dynamics from thousands of golfers. A Swing Code has been produced, consisting of swing speed, club delivery and face orientation just prior to impact. Again, this is to promote optimal launch conditions – the initial angle of ascent of the golf ball – so that we can get the ball travelling long distances at the perfect height.

The Paradym Ai Smoke has a series of micro deflections on it, which are activated upon impact. This helps to optimise the launch and spin on shots which are off-centre on the club face. The result is that the club face has sweet spots in many different places rather than just in the centre.

Finally, the fixed rear weight on the Ai Smoke driver will stabilise the head and is another factor in providing the perfect launch conditions.

Callaway Ai Smoke Driver data:

Now a bit of background information, I am a rather rusty 11-handicap left-handed player. With two young children at home, I do not play as much as I would like. I would describe myself as a golfer with an eye for the spectacular, on both ends of the scale good and bad, as many of my family and playing partners could attest to over the years. The driver is not my favourite club in the bag and it’s certainly not the most reliable. On a good summer’s day and playing nicely, I would expect it to go somewhere between 240-250 yards off the tee (if straight). However, for a better understanding of the data, it is important to factor in the conditions which were damp and cold January, so the ball is not going to travel as far through the thicker air. Any golfer would probably lose around 10% of their usual distance in those conditions.

Callaway Ai Smoke Driver Review:

The Paradym Ai Smoke proclaims itself to be ‘sweeter from every spot’ and it felt very light in my hands. When I first picked up the club, I could not believe how light it was, considering its length and the size of the club head. But with the lovely graphite shaft, it sat very comfortably in my grip.

When I hit a couple of big drives, the shot really took off. The ball flight and trajectory were high and the Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke would be perfect for someone who bombs their drives down the middle. When I think of Callaway, I automatically think of Spain’s Jon Rahm doing exactly that with that quick tempo, muscular swing of his.

Standing over the ball, something inside me was telling me to really go after the drive, ie swing as hard as I can to try to generate that magical combination of distance, accuracy and high-ball speed. Probably in the way that US star Bryson DeChambeau has got everyone thinking about in his obsessive quest for maximum distance.

I would regard my best drive as the one that went 222 yards with a ball speed of 140mph, as the height and hang time had the trajectory that I assume Callaway would want to promote – soaring high into the air but losing nothing on distance, and an imposing shot when stood on the tee with our playing partners.

I enjoyed testing with it and I would suggest that this driver would really suit someone who is a big driver. I can imagine it being easy to generate even higher ball speeds than I managed. And I don’t think a good driver would lose anything in the way of accuracy in that effort. If the driver is our preferred club, investing in a Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Driver would be a great investment in our quest for improvement.

Callaway Ai Smoke Steel Golf Irons:

At American Golf, the Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Steel Golf Irons are available in a set of seven – 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9-irons along with two wedges. Purchasing this would enable us to hopefully transform our golf ahead of the spring and summer season with this new set. 

Specifics:

Callaway is proclaiming that their Paradym Ai Smoke Steel Golf Irons possess the most advanced iron-face in Callaway history. A bold statement, indeed! The American golf manufacturers describe it as a ‘revolution’ in iron performance. The new modern shape of this iron includes longer blade lengths, thinner toplines and optimised sole widths. This is all designed to create a more streamlined view when we are stood over the ball, as well as that all-important forgiveness.

The Ai Smart Face has used data taken from thousands of real golfers to factor into its performance. Swing speed, club delivery and the face orientation just prior to impact have all gone into the swing dynamics with two principal aims – to maximise distance and increase accuracy with our shots into the green.

The Paradym Ai Smoke Steel Golf Irons have a pre-worn leading edge that helps to cut through the turf with real efficiency. That is crucial as we want to feel like we are hitting through the ball at impact, rather than getting stuck in the turf and making a less-than-perfect contact. This dynamic design is aimed at exactly that with crisp contact and an exceptional level of forgiveness its driving forces.

Callaway Ai Smoke 7-iron data:

Again, a bit of background information needed. I tested with the 7-iron, so my Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Steel Golf Irons review is based on how I performed with that particular club. A 7-iron was the first club I ever played with when I first started hitting balls on a golf course, which is more years ago than I care to remember. I learned to hit lots of different types of shots with it (although obviously nowhere near Seve Ballesteros-standard, otherwise I would not be writing this column, we would be watching videos of me!) Joking aside though, it has always been an old faithful for me as a club whatever make or model I have been playing. Testing Callaway’s latest offering is a good parameter of how the club works for me, a fairly competent player but with a few obvious faults.        

Callaway Ai Smoke 7-iron Review:

Picking up the Callaway Ai Smoke Steel 7-iron, my overriding impression was that this is a proper golf club for a proper golfer. It is the type of iron I have seen countless times down the years in pros’ golf bags at big tournaments. When I think of hitting with irons, I think of pure shots – we all know the type – that are like velvet off the club. In the modern game, Tommy Fleetwood and 2021 Open Champion Collin Morikawa spring to mind as players who generate that feeling.

So it is with all this running through my mind that I settled over the ball, hoping to do myself justice. Hitting a great drive is all about power and distance. Iron shots feel different. They properly fizz off the club. I wanted to hit a couple that fizzed, but in all honesty, looking over the data, I am not sure that I achieved that. Despite all the manufacturers’ talk about forgiveness, I found that some of my shots were unforgivable! The first couple of those shots used in the data were taken out of the ‘rough’ in the bay and the last two were from the fairway aspect. I would normally expect a seven-iron to go somewhere between 145 and 155 yards, depending on the conditions. While I managed to really cream that last shot, (and also factoring in winter conditions), I was worried about a lack of forgiveness in the club. A couple of shots were badly pulled and I felt that the club exaggerated the bad shot.

Hitting out of the rough, I felt that I tried to go for too much ball speed, I lost a bit of control and my swing got out of kilter and the clubface almost turned over at the point of impact. As a result, shots descended into very big pulls, which is absolutely disastrous when trying to hit an approach shot. There were also a couple of shots that were so poor that I did not bother recording the details as data would have been irrelevant in this case. On a real course, it would have been a reload with a fresh ball!

My gut instinct was that I was hitting with iron clubs more worthy of a very low single-figure golfer whose margin of error is far less than mine. However, I have no doubts that these would be a fantastic purchase for the right player. As I remember from what we were told about hitting with bladed irons when I took up the game all those years ago, hitting them well requires a real degree of skill. If we are confident enough in ourselves to believe that we have that, go for it!