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Callaway Elyte Fairway Review

The Callaway Elyte Fairway replaces the Ai Smoke fairway with a number of significant changes. The face (below right) is a bit deeper than the Ai Smoke (left), but this is offset by a sole that has a step at the back to reduce the areas that is in contact with the turf at impact by over 50%.

The aim of this is to allow the face to get into the back of the ball more easily and from uneven and grassy lies it does this very well. The Elyte head looks a bit deeper at address, but the footprint is actually the same.

The camo style sole of the Ai Smoke is replaced by an all-black look combined with flashes of silver, white and green which looks better, even if it is a little conservative.

Inside the head is the Tungsten Speed Wave, which is a floating 35g weight that sits above the sole to keep the CG lower and the weight close to the face for more ball speed.

The is also an improved Ai10 cup face that wraps around the sole and aims to maximise speed on those lower face strikes that you can get when hitting from the deck.

The Elyte fairways come in a wide range of lofts from 15° up to 27° and there will be a head style and set up to suit everyone. There are standard, slight larger X and low spin Triple Diamond versions of the Elyte fairway depending on your requirement for forgiveness and launch conditions.

Here I have compared the standard version to the Ai Smoke. The sound of the Elyte is very good and maybe a little more solid than the Ai Smoke. Comparing the two heads in the Lyle Studio on Trackman with Titleist ProV1 balls hit outside saw some pretty close performance.

What do Trackman numbers mean?

As you can see for me the Ai Smoke did go a little further and, as my Callaway Ai Smoke fairway review showed, the shallower head enables me to get into the back of the ball more easily and hence generated more ball speed.

Now this does not mean that you should forget about the Elyte fairway, but it just goes to show that different fairways do different things with different players and that is why you should always come to SGGT for a fairway wood custom fitting.

In the defence of the Callaway Elyte, the Ai Smoke is shallower than average fairway and the Elyte is still quite a low profile head when compared to the rest of the market, so it could be a good halfway house for many. Both models will be around for a little bit longer, so now would be a great time to compare them if you are planning on looking at a new fairway wood.

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