After personally crowning the Callaway Pardym Ai Smoke Max fairway wood the best model on the market last year, I eagerly anticipated the launch of the new Callaway Elyte fairway wood to see what progress could be made over its predecessor. The name Elyte derives from the brand wanting to combine the worlds of distance and forgiveness to create a family that rivals the best in both, as well as a gentle nod to Callaway’s founder - Ely Callaway Jr.
The Elyte fairway is one of three models in the Callaway Elyte range and is the one that will appeal to the majority of golfers. From a looks standpoint, I can’t help but think the Elyte is slightly underwhelming compared to the stunning aesthetic of the Ai Smoke family but that’s by no means to say it looks bad. I do think it looks a touch bland on the sole but apart from a couple of seconds when the headcover is first taken off, you’ll spend most of the time looking at the club in the address position and that’s where the appeal goes up several notches.
The new Thermoforged carbon fiber crown has been designed to help with weight saving and redistribution and I think looks great when sat behind the ball. Most of the technology within this fairway wood however is on the sole. A new tungsten Speed Wave has been introduced in the 3-7 wood lofts, which is a 34g weight positioned behind the face to bring the center of gravity lower and forwards. This promotes faster ball speeds but fights against a loss of speed and yardage with shots struck low on the face - something I found particularly beneficial when hitting this club into par fives during testing and is what I think will see it become one of the most forgiving fairway woods of 2025.
As far as flight and feel go, I loved the Callaway Elyte fairway wood. I saw really impressive numbers while testing indoors at Foresight Sports HQ in Guildford on a GCQuad launch monitor and 2025 Pro V1x golf balls. The Elyte fairway wood produced a high towering ball flight which felt easy to turn over from right to left, producing a tight draw shape. Through impact, the face felt powerful and compressed the ball well, which produced impressive speed and distance. I averaged 155mph ball speed and 257 yards of carry when striking the ball off the deck - numbers not to be sniffed at.
My testing would not be complete without heading out to the golf course and seeing how the Elyte fairway wood coped in real-life scenarios. The first thing I noticed, not so much when striking this club from the tee but the fairway was how smooth the turf interaction was. The new Step Sole design on the Elyte fairway woods sees the sole raise up halfway back towards the rear of the club. This helps minimize any digging through impact and encourages the club to glide through the turf. I found this also came in handy when hitting from the first cut of rough and the ball popped up in the air with ease for the most part, rivalling any of the best fairway woods for playability.
The biggest miss for most golfers with a fairway wood is a shot struck low on the face and both the Speed Wave technology and the new Ai 10x face worked wonders on this mishit as well as others across the face. This new clubface was designed through the use of Artificial Intelligence the same as on the previous Callaway metalwood lineup but now with considerably more data input to create their most stable clubface to date. To pay testament to this, from a six-shot average in the simulator, I only averaged 11.7 yards left of my target. While this would be poor with a wedge in hand, the same cannot be said when striking a fairway wood with a total average distance of 276 yards.
While Callaway has arguably taken a small step back in regards to the aesthetics of the new Elyte fairway wood range, the performance certainly does the talking. New technology across the clubhead has resulted in what I feel is a more consistent and well-rounded performer compared to last year's model and considering that was my favorite pick of all the fairway woods released last year, I think Callaway will see huge success with this club in 2025 and beyond.
