MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED: Callaway Big Bertha Alpha driver fitted with a stiff-flex graphite shaft. The adjustable elements were set to add two degrees of loft (to 11°), while the lie angle remained neutral and the tungsten Gravity Core weight was set to standard. The centre of gravity bias seven-gram weight was placed in the heel and the one-gram weight in the toe.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I like the style of the head, the colours and the design. It’s not a big, broad club and is a typically Callaway driver for appearance. It does look a little offset to me – neutral appears slightly closed – but I like how you’ve got the opportunity to change the components to get it to act differently.

VERDICT: I didn’t hit a bad drive with the Big Bertha Alpha. It gets out there without being significantly longer but I drove the ball far straighter. The sound of impact was very genuine – there wasn’t a tinny, unusual noise and the sound seemed to match the quality of the strike. The ball felt almost a little soft on the clubface, and I played with both a softer and harder ball. That’s a nice feeling to have because you sense you’re controlling the ball. I would like to experiment with the various settings, especially the centre of gravity height.

MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED: Callaway Big Bertha driver fitted with a regular-flex graphite shaft. The adjustable settings were set to remove one degree of loft (to 9.5°), with the lie angle and sliding weight both set to neutral.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: It’s an easy driver to feel comfortable over. Setting the slide weight and lie to neutral perhaps triggered a mental feeling that it won’t hook or slice.

VERDICT: The Big Bertha gave a beautiful, dull ‘thud’ at impact. It’s not ‘ting-y’ like a lot of metal woods. With minimal effort it really shot off the clubface. It’s very forgiving. I hit a couple off the heel and one drive off the toe that still flew straight.

Distance-wise, it was comparable to my driver yet it was straighter – whether or not that was mental because I felt comfortable over it. The feel of the ball on the clubface gave a sense of not having to muscle it to get the most out of it. It’s easy to feel as though you have to hit a driver hard to make it go a long way but with the Big Bertha it does the hard work for you. It’s a great driver for a mid-level handicapper, particularly when you can use the adjustability to correct your bad shots.

Facts & Figures

SUITABILITY: All golfers. The Big Bertha Alpha is best suited to faster swing speeds, however the adjustability of both models provides options for all players.

SHAFTS: The stock offering is a Mitsubishi Fubuki Zeta Tour shaft for Big Bertha Alpha and Fubuki Z in Big Bertha.

LOFTS: 9° and 10.5°, plus 13.5°HT in Big Bertha (when adjusted).

LEFT-HANDED MODELS?: Yes.

HOW MUCH?: $599 for Big Bertha Alpha; $499 for Big Bertha.

CALLAWAY SAYS: “Big Bertha Alpha is the first driver to enable independent adjustments of four significant performance characteristics, optimising trajectory, control and distance for individual golfers. The four independent variables are loft, lie, centre of gravity (draw) bias, and most innovatively (and for the first time ever), centre of gravity height. The Big Bertha Alpha represents the most advanced engineering Callaway has ever commercialised in a driver, and our most flexible and comprehensive fitting platform ever.

“The Big Bertha is a total-performance driver that debuts our Adjustable Perimeter Weighting (APW). The APW allows golfers to precisely locate an eight-gram sliding weight at any location on a five-inch track to help optimise shot shape and control dispersion. The placement of the APW along the perimeter of the head is critical in giving Big Bertha its high moment of inertia, which helps retain ball speed and accuracy on off-centre impacts.”

Contact Callaway Golf on 1800 217 777 or visit www.callawaygolf.com