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Big Bertha Alpha Driver Review

SuperStroke
ChristopherKee said:
Finally got the chance to hit the ZT in X-Stiff and OMG I'm selling my kidney to get this driver. Not sure if I can wait for the 10.5 to be released. If any of you have the ZT X-Stiff Alpha and the honeymoon is over let me know, I'll take it off your hands.

On the real range I let a couple rip and the ball just carried forever. GC2 gave me 15 degree launch with 1950 spin 167 ball speed. We have a marker at 295 and I carried it to the marker.

I actually launched the ball higher with the X-Stiff vs the Stiff ZT. I think the Stiff just never gets around to unloading. When I took some off and hit it with an easy 105 swing the X still performed a nice strait flight shot.
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The x flex in this just works so much better than the stiff. I don't know why or how but I picked up about 20 yards of carry on the sim with it. It may not be the best performer for everyone but I think everyone who is looking at a stiff should try it and see if it's a better fit.
 
So last night I went to the range to hit a small bucket with the driver. Decided after warming up that is all I would hit. Spent time with some impact tape to see where I was missing and fortunately for me, most were near the center. I deviated up and down a bit and a few were a half inch towards the toe, but outside of that, the impact was solid.

And the results were as expected and as they have been. Good ball flight and great carry distance.
 
JB said:
So last night I went to the range to hit a small bucket with the driver. Decided after warming up that is all I would hit. Spent time with some impact tape to see where I was missing and fortunately for me, most were near the center. I deviated up and down a bit and a few were a half inch towards the toe, but outside of that, the impact was solid.

And the results were as expected and as they have been. Good ball flight and great carry distance.
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Which one was better suited for your game? We're you still able to play your cut or a more straight ball flight?
 
Thechosen1 said:
Which one was better suited for your game? We're you still able to play your cut or a more straight ball flight?
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No problem playing the cut or a straight ball.
 
JB said:
So last night I went to the range to hit a small bucket with the driver. Decided after warming up that is all I would hit. Spent time with some impact tape to see where I was missing and fortunately for me, most were near the center. I deviated up and down a bit and a few were a half inch towards the toe, but outside of that, the impact was solid.

And the results were as expected and as they have been. Good ball flight and great carry distance.
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That's the main reason I'm so excited to get this club, Idk why but I can find the center of the club weight so much more consistently with the Alpha vs any other driver I've ever tried or owned. I've demoed it a few times now just to make sure it wasn't pure luck on the first try but its like the club sucks the ball into the middle of the club face and sends it rocketing out. At first I was very skeptical of all the things Phil and Callaway were saying about the Alpha and was sure the regular Bertha was right for me but I sure am glad I put those thoughts aside and gave the Alpha a go.
 
mark blanchard said:
Ahhhh, I see something here. With your SS, you have fairly low launch angles and a great spin number. I'm a fairly low launcher myself and would love those spin numbers. Peak height of 32 yards is fine. Your carry distance is right about what I'd expect. But a 30 yard roll out? That seems high and with a GC2 it's only a guesstimation, of course. Looks like the guy has got it set to 'rock hard west texas fairway' setting. In spring out here we're seeing about 5 yards roll out right now, so that would perhaps account for why I'm only seeing 275.

Also that offline spread is pretty big. Three fine shots, but three that are 20 yards offline. That didn't bother you? It would me.

I'll try to snap a shot of the GC2 monitor like this one tomorrow and we'll see what we see.
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Mark, I don't really pay much attention to the rollout on launch monitors. Also, I was intentionally hitting big draws. Notice how the balls started right of the target and then finish left.

And 275 with 100 mph swing speed sounds like you are "compressing the stiff face" just fine.
 
jlukes said:
Mark, I don't really pay much attention to the rollout on launch monitors. Also, I was intentionally hitting big draws. Notice how the balls started right of the target and then finish left.

And 275 with 100 mph swing speed sounds like you are "compressing the stiff face" just fine.
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I can see by the numbers how your shots mostly drew, but I don't see how you can tell they started right and then came across. Was that on another screen that traces the path?

I'm agreeing that I'm probably doing "okay" with BBA when I strike it solidly. The old guys I was playing with on the first 18 were saying I hit it long and I was usually past them -- when I wasn't hooked into the drink, which was about 4 or 5 times. But I wasn't reaching my Opti spots, so I wasn't happy. And when I finally switched it out on 18 I nailed one and it was like going home for christmas.
 
Didn't realize the Gravity Core was down in my driver and my tendency is to hit higher on the face. Moved to the up position and dispersion and ball flight improved.
 
Azimuth is the angle the ball originally started. Positive is to the right
 
Shaft adapter is same as the optiforce. You can order it from Golfworks
 
@Mark
With your swing speed to where you are putting it out distance wise, you are pretty much spot on to maxing any driver that meets standards out.
Hooking the ball is not a driver issue (based on adjustable), it is a swing issue.
If you are hitting the previous driver further, it is because of fitting and proper launch angles.

Just because one tests club heads with the same shafts, does not mean that fitting is done. Driver heads have different shapes, styles and "ingredients" and because of that, putting the same shaft in all does not test out the driver for distance so to speak. It tests out whether or not that driver and shaft combo fits the person swinging.
 
JB said:
Just because one tests club heads with the same shafts, does not mean that fitting is done. Driver heads have different shapes, styles and "ingredients" and because of that, putting the same shaft in all does not test out the driver for distance so to speak. It tests out whether or not that driver and shaft combo fits the person swinging.
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I agree. The 'ahina 70 X-Flex is my go to shaft and I tried it in the Alpha and it wasn't as good as the stock ZT X-Stiff shaft. It just didn't produce the launch and spin the ZT could (ZT higher launch with same spin as 'ahina). I'm starting to think the Alpha was designed with the ZT shaft in mind. They fit so nicely together.
 
JB said:
@Mark
With your swing speed to where you are putting it out distance wise, you are pretty much spot on to maxing any driver that meets standards out.
Hooking the ball is not a driver issue (based on adjustable), it is a swing issue.
If you are hitting the previous driver further, it is because of fitting and proper launch angles.

Just because one tests club heads with the same shafts, does not mean that fitting is done. Driver heads have different shapes, styles and "ingredients" and because of that, putting the same shaft in all does not test out the driver for distance so to speak. It tests out whether or not that driver and shaft combo fits the person swinging.
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I agree completely. My numbers match what I should be getting out of SS. So to go further I have to up my SS. And of course the hooks are my fault. Well, I'm not hooking so much with other clubs, so lets say that the hooks are something of a compatibility issue. All drivers take getting used to.

Also it feels "heavier" in my hands and I think that is affecting my take-away, which is affecting my ability to bring it back to center, which of course leads to the greater dispersion. This is odd because my Opti is actually about 4 grams heavier overall and it has 10 grams of lead tape on it! But I can take the Opti away better and return it to center better. The BBA does perform better for me core up, perhaps that is due to my higher face hits. I rarely hit low on the face on any driver, so that makes sense. I probably just found a really good shaft to head pairing for the Opti. I've hit this shaft in the RFX, Xhot, and the Opti 440 and results were good, but it really popped in the 460. I should probably just act like Kenny Perry who played one shaft for about 4 years (not one brand, one shaft) until he broke it and was forced to search for a replacement. Don't mess with what ain't broke. But I have one other shaft to try on the GC2 this afternoon. I'll let you know.
 
mark blanchard said:
I agree completely. My numbers match what I should be getting out of SS ... But I have one other shaft to try on the GC2 this afternoon. I'll let you know.
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I'll try to make this quick and this will be my last BBA post, since I've taken up too much space in this thread already.

On the GC2 monitor, the BBA performed no worse than the Opti. Not measurably much better, but certainly no worse. I wasn't bothered by its sound and the look felt fine. It launched a little lower generally, but it was certainly as straight. Statistically I could not see any numbers that favored either club or any shaft combo. If all you care about is the BBA, read no further, because the rest of this is a rant on the GC2 and the guys running it.

This was my first time on a GC2, which I've been told is the very best of all the "photographic" systems. However I've also read Tom Wishon's recent article that says that everything but the Trackman and Flightscope (doppler radar) systems are crap because the photo systems have to guesstimate so many outputs based on such a small data sample occurring near impact. If they are off by even a small amount in this sample, all their data gets skewed. With that in mind, I was able to play with this GC2 for about an hour. Here are some of the problems I noticed:


  • A very long warm-up and adjustment time is needed to really get used to hitting on a monitor. It took me the equivalent of a full bucket of balls and what felt like a few swing adjustments before I got my shots to track "normally". Without this extended warm up and tune in, I don't think I could have relied on any of my early feedback.
  • The monitor seemed to greatly exaggerate hooks and slices. Its height guesstimations seemed good though.
  • A sample size of six drives, be they cherry picked or just taken as they happen, MEANS NOTHING statistically. Any small slice will give skewed data. To get meaningful comparison data, I think I would need about 50 good drives per club (taken after full warm ups) and then average those. To do this and really look at the data produced would have taken me a half day at least. Sadly, I didn't have the time or the money for that.
  • Once I got things loose, I was getting swing speeds right around 105 (everything was between 98 to 110 mph) with ball speeds 145 to 155. Launch angles around 13. This is pretty close to Jlukes data, right? Now here's the kicker -- I couldn't come close to his carry distances or roll outs. For me a 105 ss strike with baby draw produced a carry of maybe 255 with a 272 total. For Jlukes the same SS produced 270 carry and 300 yards total. My best was a 109 SS bomb that carried 268 and rolled to 285. Hmmmmm. If the inputs are the close to the same and the outputs are substantially different, might something in the presets of the machines be producing the difference?
  • I looked to Smash Factor as the possible culprit. I found that the GC2 does not calculate it, YOU PRESET IT. They call it "efficiency" on the GC2 and its one of many presets (like elevation, wind, etc.) that you can punch in to affect your outputs. In short, the GC2 is like Madden NFL, you can dial yourself up to a "All Pro" or a "rookie" setting. I found this out by accident. Before he abandoned me, the manager showed me how to "switch colors" between two drivers on his menu so I could compare them. I found that no matter which driver I hit first (blue) or second (green), the green one went shorter. So I poked around in the sub menus and found that the "smash factor" of his green driver was set to 1.36, while the blue was set 1.45. Hello! I don't know if they rigged this little trick on purpose to use in their "fittings", but there it was.
  • Once I saw this, I confess I lost all confidence in the machine and I began to look at EVERYTHING skeptically. I checked my Spin numbers and sure enough, I never hit a shot with spin over 3000. Even my bad balloons were like 2950, my line drives were 2100. Now that's just ridiculous, as most of you will agree. (BTW, I brought in my own new ProV1x's to use for the test, another tip from Wishon.)

When I reached that point, I was done. I think the machine was was pretty good at SS and BS and launch angle calculations, but I think without substantial pre-session double checking and set up by an impartial guy who really knows his machine, you'll get garbage in, garbage out. I really wish I'd brought in my 7 iron that I know I can hit in a 5 yard spread to use as a control, but I didn't.

That's it. I'm going back to my testing on ranges and courses using eyes, feet, and lasers; and will jump on a Trackman or Flightscope if I can get so lucky.
 
I did a little range testing with the Optiforce and BBA today. I lasered the fence at the back of the range at 255 yards. I was one-hopping the fence with the Optiforce (set at 10*). With the BBA set at 10* I was flying to the ball to the bottom of the fence.

The thing I love about the BBA is that there was noticeably less backspin than the Optiforce. Because of the low backspin, I decided to up the loft to 11*. At 11* the ball was flying a bit higher, but with a pretty flat trajectory. The ball was flying 1/2 to 3/4 of the way up the fence. I would estimate that these shots were 10 to 15 yards more carry than the Optiforce.
 
jdub said:
I did a little range testing with the Optiforce and BBA today. I lasered the fence at the back of the range at 255 yards. I was one-hopping the fence with the Optiforce (set at 10*). With the BBA set at 10* I was flying to the ball to the bottom of the fence.

The thing I love about the BBA is that there was noticeably less backspin than the Optiforce. Because of the low backspin, I decided to up the loft to 11*. At 11* the ball was flying a bit higher, but with a pretty flat trajectory. The ball was flying 1/2 to 3/4 of the way up the fence. I would estimate that these shots were 10 to 15 yards more carry than the Optiforce.
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Okay, bring both your Opti and BBA when we play and I'll bring both mine. Sounds like our driving distances are similar. That's the only way we'll hash this out.

I agree with you on the flatter trajectory bit, that I can see with my eyes. Even at the max, the BBA doesn't balloon. But my range has no back fence and it has a bit of a hump at 250 so we can't really tell driver distance. All I can do is walk out to the shots on the course for distance. I'm hitting like 4 drives per hole to get as much data as I can.
 
Im very confused about this GC2 rant, because I have one sitting next to me and it has none of those settings.

What you are ranting about is not the actual GC2 launch monitor. But the software program side of it (completely separate).
The actual launch monitor does not have ANY of those things or flaws that you discussed.
 
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Mark,

The GC2 doesn't measure club head speed, the software calculates it based on whatever smash factor you preset. The camera system only captures the ball after impact. It does a very nice job of accurately capturing that data though. The reason they let you set smash factor is to give you an idea of swing speed that would be representative of different clubs you'd be hitting. In our golfsmith, it's set to 1.45 for drivers.

So, with the GC2, look at ball speed, launch angle, azimuth and spin. Those are quite accurate in my experience.

Also, the software may have a "boost" setting which can crank up the results. In our Golftec they set it at a boost of 7% as they use these 2piece balls that are indestructible but low flight. When I want to truly measure a club I bring my own balls and put boost at zero and usually get more ball speed than with the practice balls set with the boost.

Sounds like your boost was set to zero anyways.

And as with any launch monitor, it's calculating carry and rollout based on your launch numbers.
 
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Thanks g4l. Thought I was going crazy because our system has. One of that. Those are settings on a separate package to turn it into a simulator for the most part.

None of which are found on the gc2 launch monitor.
 
Anyone have friends at Callaway? I've been eyeing the udesign Big Bertha Alpha 9* in Pink with Black accent and the X-Stiff ZT shaft. The $599 price tag on that config is hard to swallow though =).
 
ChristopherKee said:
Anyone have friends at Callaway? I've been eyeing the udesign Big Bertha Alpha 9* in Pink with Black accent and the X-Stiff ZT shaft. The $599 price tag on that config is hard to swallow though =).
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On udesign stuff, even the people at callaway cant discount it. That's what I've been told...

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
 
kc720 said:
On udesign stuff, even the people at callaway cant discount it. That's what I've been told...

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk
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Thanks ="(

I'm going to have to ask myself how important a pink driver really is to me... They let you engrave something on the side, maybe I can sell that as advertising space =)
 
Just got back from Golfsmith after a golftec lesson. I got the BBA in the stock X-stiff shaft all to myself on the monitor for about 20 minutes. I started hitting some nice, 12.5 degree launch, 160 ball speed BOMBS with it, but they were all curving too far left. I happened to glance over at the table and there lay a Callaway torque wrench. I promptly switched the 1 and 7 gram weights, checked to see if the gravity core was down (it was) and had at it again. Also, the driver was set at +1 loft and neutral lie. I left that as it was.

And.... Nirvana!! 8 or 10 swings and had averages of 13 degrees of launch, 159-160 ball speed, 2050 spin, azimuth of +2, side spin about -300 (draw), carry of almost 280, total distance 309! This included one bomb of 325 yards that landed 1 yard off center. Dispersion was much better too, average of 6 yards left of center. And this was with a fairly smooth swing to boot.

I don't know if I can do much better than this, but maybe I can get a little more carry by putting it up to +2 on loft. I'm VERY psyched to get to game this bad boy shortly. #theKing can't come fast enough!
 
g4L, you are going to love this driver. Having played with you a few times and our apparent likeness to similar equipment, I can picture this one in your hands. Although you do out drive me by about 40 yards...
 
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