00:00Okay, I'm here at Ryder Cup venue, the Celtic Manor Resort and I've got two
00:04drivers with me from Callaway. I've got the original Paradigm and I've got its
00:082024 iteration, the Paradigm AI Smoke Max. Now I'm going to compare and contrast
00:15these drivers for looks, feel, performance and I'm going to see how, if at all, the
00:20Paradigm AI Smoke Max has moved things on.
00:31Okay, so what's actually changed? Well, from an aesthetics point of view, quite a
00:35lot to be honest. First thing you notice is obviously the original Paradigm was
00:39quite a dark, deep navy colour and on its own that didn't bother me at all. I just
00:43never was quite convinced by the clash between the main crown and the sort of
00:48dark grey banner strip at the front where the navy and the grey met, didn't
00:51quite suit my eye. So when I pulled out the AI Smoke, I was delighted to see that
00:56the crown is now a light grey colour and that light grey blends beautifully
01:01into that dark grey strip at the front. So from an address position point of view,
01:05that's a real plus point for me. I know it's only colour but things have to suit
01:08your eye, I think. On the underside, the shelf appeal I think again has improved.
01:12So in the AI Smoke, we've got that lighter grey colour and I think that
01:16really highlights the sort of smoky effect that's on the bottom again and
01:21I really do like the blue colour they've chosen for the font and the
01:25front and back weights. I think that pops really, really well with the grey. So
01:29again, from an aesthetic point of view and a shelf appeal point of view, I think
01:33this will fly off and really catch people's eye. From a tech point of view,
01:37well the main story here is, well their tagline is sweeter from every spot.
01:42So Callaway have taken thousands of swings from real players, they're not just
01:47robot tested, they've tested thousands of pieces of data from real golfers and
01:51basically created what they call their swing code. They've inputted that into
01:55their AI supercomputer which has spat out an all-new face. So that's got
01:59variable thickness across the board and what it does is essentially, Callaway
02:03are telling us, creates numerous sweet spots across the face. When you hit it in
02:07certain areas, the new face creates micro deflections, so extra flex basically, that
02:13helps the ball bounce around and creates that springy effect from
02:17more places so you retain more ball speed and it also helps dispersion. Now I
02:22don't hit it in the middle all the time, so I really like the sound of that.
02:26Rambo's keen too, so let's see how it looks in practice. I'm just gonna hit a few
02:30shots away here, we've got top tracer technology here in this studio at Celtic
02:34Manor. Good hit, nice high draw, yeah good launch window, not spinning up too much
02:44and that's pretty much what I see with the Paradigm that I've tested before
02:48here. Similar ball flight, maybe six, seven yards left of the first one. Just left
03:02that one a little bit out to the right. Face stayed a little bit open on that.
03:09Okay so that's the baseline numbers done with Paradigm, let's have a little look
03:13at the Paradigm AI Smoke and see what that's producing for us. As I've spoken
03:18about, a little bit of a different look down behind the ball which I like. Good
03:27solid hit, very similar flight window to what I've seen with Paradigm. From a
03:32field point of view there's not huge amounts in it, I would say, let's go again,
03:37but the first one I've hit there felt a little bit more muted. Another good hit,
03:46it's not moving much that. Very stable ball flight there, a little bit higher
03:51that one I think than the first one and yeah again from a field point of view
03:55it's difficult to quantify but probably just a slightly less harsh, slightly more
04:01muted would be fair I think. Another decent hit there, just turning over a
04:14fraction but a good really similar flight window to what I saw with the
04:19original Paradigm. It's been really interesting to compare those numbers and
04:22see if there has really been any progression or whether it is just more
04:25aesthetic. However before we look at those numbers I wanted to dive a little
04:30bit deeper into the forgiveness story that Callaway are telling this year.
04:35Okay so I've come to the studio here at Churston Golf Club and I've brought both
04:40heads with me and my gamer shaft and I really wanted to test out some of those
04:44off-center hits. So we've got GC Quad with its impact location technology and
04:48I'm going to be hitting a lot of heels, a lot of toes, I'm going to see if there is
04:52much difference in the story they're telling. So I'm going to start out with
04:54the original Paradigm, let's hit a few away.
05:06Okay so I've dragged a number of shots there, a little selection from everything
05:10I've just hit. I've got with each driver, I've got a couple out the toe, a couple
05:15out of the heel and a couple of fairly centered strikes to go into that
05:18comparison mix. So generally speaking what you expect to see when you miss the
05:22middle heel or toe is a little bit of a ball speed drop-off, which I'm certainly
05:25seeing with both drivers here. The story around the AI Smoke Max has been more
05:30about the consistency of that drop-off, that's the story Callaway are
05:33telling and I'm pleased to report it's looking true from what I've seen. The
05:38original Paradigm here, if I take the two toe strikes at the bottom, I've got ball
05:42speeds of 167 and a half miles an hour and 163.6 miles per hour
05:48compared to my sort of centered strike average is about 169 miles per
05:53hour. So the differential between those two drop-offs, that 167.5 hasn't
05:59dropped too far but obviously the 163.5 is quite a big drop-off and a
06:02four mile an hour differential between the two, which is significant. If I go up
06:08into the AI Smoke Max, which has its newer face and the micro deflections
06:12that Callaway are telling us will sort of neutralize that drop-off a little bit,
06:16it looks to be the case here. My two toe strikes were 168.3 miles an hour and
06:21167.5 miles per hour, that's within one mile per hour of each other. I saw the
06:27same in the heel strikes that are up in front of you there, again with the
06:31Paradigm I dropped to 166.7 but then my really poor one was 162.8, so again that's
06:38sort of four mile per hour differential, which is going to cause you some
06:41problems over time. Whereas with the AI Smoke Max, it was again less than one
06:46mile per hour, around that one mile per hour mark, which is really interesting. If
06:50I pop it over to the to the club data here and look at the club efficiency,
06:55whilst the average is coming out very similar or exactly the same 1.41, how the
07:01two clubs are achieving those averages are very different. So the Paradigm AI
07:05Smoke Max, my lowest efficiency was 1.40 and my highest was 1.42,
07:13that's a very very tight window. With the Paradigm I saw some slight bigger
07:17differentiations than that, so whilst I got my most efficient strikes with the
07:22Paradigm at 1.43, so that's the most ball speed relative to the clubhead speed I
07:26was putting into it, I also got my lowest at 1.37, so again what I'm seeing here is
07:32from those misses probably a little bit more consistency, which over the course
07:37of a season is going to be really beneficial. So in summary what have I
07:41found? Well to be honest I find the AI Smoke range a lot better looking, I've
07:45already touched on the aesthetics, the new colourway and I think it's oozing
07:49shelf appeal, so from an aesthetic point of view I think they've done a great job.
07:52From a performance point of view, am I going to see massive gains from centred
07:56strikes? No, I'm not to be honest, but would I expect to? Again probably not,
08:01that isn't the story about this driver, the story about the AI Smoke range is
08:05all about forgiveness, remember that sweeter from every spot tagline. And from
08:10my testing that was true, I retained more ball speed on off-centre hits more
08:14consistently than I did with the Paradigm, so in essence it's doing what
08:18it's supposed to do and over the course of a season that's going to put you
08:21further down the hole, closer to the hole generally means lower scores, so they've
08:25done a really good job. I hope you found that video informative, if you have
08:29please give us a like, comment down below, let me know your thoughts on the
08:32new AI Smoke range and hit that notifications button so you can see all
08:36of our other videos coming out. That's all from me, I'll see you next time.
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