It’s been said before, fairway woods are the most difficult clubs in the bag to replace. Look at any touring pro’s bag and you’ll most likely find an ancient fairway wood there amid the new irons, wedges and putters. Fred Couples played a prehistoric Callaway Big Bertha 3-wood for most of his career and never swapped it out until he started his career on the Senior Tour.
My RBZ Stage 2 TP fairways are still very effective weapons but the 80-gram, Tour-stiff shafts were getting a bit heavy for this old body to motivate, which is what prompted a search for replacements. Callaway has been a leader in fairway woods since the Big Bertha hit the market in 1991, some 26 years ago. In that time Callaway has established itself as one of the friendliest, easiest to hit fairway woods on the market.
Their latest offering, the Callaway Epic Sub-Zero fairway woods build on the technologies that Callaway has established over the years and add tricks like a carbon-fiber crown, aerodynamic aids and what surely must be the hottest face in a fairway wood on the market today to assert its dominance.
What the Epic fairways don’t have that the drivers do is Jail Break technology. The fairway woods don’t seem to need it since the shorter sole-to-crown distance (when compared with the driver) isn’t as great and thus the head doesn’t distort as much as impact thereby robbing you of ball speed and distance.
What the Epic Sub-Zero fairways have is an extremely lightweight triaxial carbon crown that weighs in at less than 6 grams. This enabled Callaway engineers to use the weight saved to help launch height and ease of use. It also makes this one sexy fairway wood.
There is also the Speed Step crown to improve the aerodynamics. In this size of head, the effect of the Speed Step will be positive, but not as much as the driver and probably equal to its role as an alignment device.
Callaway’s Opti-Fit adjustability hosels offer golfers a 3-degree range of loft adjustability, as well as two different lie angles (standard and draw). The Epic Star comes with a fixed hosel and better suits golfers that don’t like to tinker with their clubs.
Callaway’s forged face cups are now in their fourth generation. What’s different about this iteration is that the Face Cups now have a thinner rim on their inside edge. Callaway says it flexes and releases more uniformly and efficiently at impact to increase ball speed across the face.
Just like the Epic Sub-Zero driver, the Sub-Zero fairway has adjustable weights. The weights weigh 3 and 22 grams—a huge difference over the 2 and 12-gram weights that come with the driver. That huge jump in discretionary weight means that, although this is a head meant for the better player, Callaway have made the Epic Sub-Zero fairway remarkably user friendly.
The Callaway clubs that make it to our market do so by way of Japan. This means access to some of the best shafts on the planet. We chose Fujikura’s 60-gram Evolution IV fairways in ours. They’re light, stout and yield very impressive results.
Those that need more help would be advised to check out the Callaway Epic Star fairway wood. The glued hosel, a slightly more draw-biased internal wieghting and 50-something gram shafts shafts make this even friendlier and more accessible than the Epic Sub-Zero fairway.
We took the 3- and 5-woods to Navy for our Pinoygolfer Facebook group’s rookie and legends game at the Navy Golf Club in Makati City. From the first to last hole, the Epic Sub-Zero fairways were nothing if not impressive.
It is very easy to hit for a pro-type fairway. Ball flight was high but not inordinately so. You can lower that ball flight by swapping the position of the sole weights, but I suspect that you’ll need serious clubhead speed to make that work.
The Sub-Zero fairways acquitted themselves very well in all facets of the game. They are workable. If you have the skill to do so, you can bend the ball with these things on demand. The 60-gram Fujikura Evolution IV fairway is just stout enough that you can swing with abandon without fear of the ball going too far to the left on you while giving the feedback that we all crave.
They performed admirably in some unusual conditions. They dug the ball out of the rough and picked the ball off the tee with similar ease. This is a very, very good club and I expect that it will stay in the bag for several years at least.