Callaway Big Bertha Alpha 815 Driver Review Thread

That's Bertha long dude!!

It's alright. I am really happy with this head. There seems to be a perfect amount of spin. Enough spin to help keep it straighish and yet roll out.
 
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Is that setup in your basement/house? A dream. That's awesome!
 
Is that setup in your basement/house? A dream. That's awesome!

no no no. I am not that good at my job. It is at my home course's teaching academy.
 
I love that sound not many other drivers i have hit sound any where near that good
 
Love it Blue. Well done.

And yea you can rip it.
 
no no no. I am not that good at my job. It is at my home course's teaching academy.

Ha I was going to ask the same thing. None the less great setup they have there.

And I LOVE the sound. Although I'm sure the 109 mph swing has something to do with that as well.
 
ha i was going to ask the same thing. None the less great setup they have there.

And i love the sound. Although i'm sure the 109 mph swing has something to do with that as well.
hey!!!

109.9! :D
 
I hit this with custom weights last time. 3g in the toe 9g in the heel with speeder 661 shaft and results speak for themselves!
 
Joe hit ball far
#cornfed
Let's be fair to the great state of Wisconsin. It's mostly cheese and beer.

It would have been nice to have my current swing in Hilton Head.
 
You guys are making me more and more antsy for mine to arrive. Very solid numbers Joe! I will be thrilled if I can get in the same ballpark with those numbers.
 
Now this is purely based on feel so take it with a grain of salt till I produce numbers.

When it came to the office today and I unpacked it and gave it the waggle test I was really disappointed with the way the 565 felt. It felt like a noodle.

But just now I gave some swings with it and some waffle balls in the basement. Again no sience to back this up. But the 565 felt great.

What I also liked was how the head shape gives you confidence. It gives you a feeling that you can't do anything else but rip it.

Another odd thing was how heavier the BBA 815 felt. It felt like it had a heavier swing weight then the BB & BBA. For me that's good cause I play a heavy swing weight. But if it truly isn't heavier and it gives me the sensation that it is then that's a bonus for me cause we all know this equates to more club head speed.

I always intended to confirm the stock swing weight. But If I see I'm hitting it well I just might not bother to. Don't want to get ideas stuck in my head if it's a lower SW Than I'm used to. So we'll hold off until the first round of testing.
 
no no no. I am not that good at my job. It is at my home course's teaching academy.

I would never have guessed. You smacked that ball like you owned the place and everything in it.
 
So here is my review. Intro followed by Part 1 of 2 & pics. So a lot of fluff in this early visual review.

Actual test results will be posted after December 10th.

Introduction:

So here is my contribution to THP trusting me with a review of the Callaway Big Bertha Alpha 815 (BBA 815).

I want to thank THP for giving me this opportunity. I have done reviews in the past but this is the first time THP has selected me amongst many hundreds of qualified members to do one. I hope I meet all your expectations and don’t let any of you down. Feel free to ask me any questions in this thread if I possibly missed something and I’ll gladly try to get an answer for you. If I can’t maybe one of the other reviewers has the answer or I will ask Callaway directly to help us answer your question.

Though a little later than the other members that where selected to contribute a review that’s solely due to the fact I am a Left Handed golfer and there wasn’t one readily available. I’m not going to lie. I was ecstatic when I was notified and asked to review the BBA 815. Then I said “Oh Crap”. Do they know I’m a lefty? Are they going to say they’re going to move on with someone else? But JB quickly assured me they knew I was a lefty and all was accounted for. I have to say that was really awesome of him & THP. History has shown I have very bad luck with Callaway new releases, they never have LH clubs in stock for me to review, I even made a trip once to Carlsbad to review the new line and they didn’t have one single club of the new product in LH. Man did I get owned on that one. And this is why a recommend Ethan Ganot and Scotty Goryl run the company. Lefties would be produced and circulated first. I know very well JB & GG went to great lengths to get me one asap and greatly appreciate their efforts. I even contacted my friends and Callaway Golf Canada hoping they had one for me to try so THP wouldn’t be left in the dark and waiting for my review but no luck. No lefties had come through their door as of yet. So we agreed that whoever gets the lefty first calls the other to set up a sim session. Yes the guys there are lefties also so they are dying to give this a whack. I think if I show up there with a LH BBA 815 in hand I’ll be more popular than Phil M himself walking through the door. Lol With this I also want to thank the guys at Callaway Canada for letting me use their facilities to do my testing and conduct my review. Thank you Bruce Carroll (@BruceCarroll11), Brent Mallard (@BrentMallard) and Mike LeFevre.

Methodology:

I’m going to break this review down to 2 segments. Part 1 will be solely based on first impressions, visual examination, observations and thoughts crossing my mind before we move on to Part 2

Part 2 will consist of a detailed sim analysis and a detailed review of the BBA 815 vs. my current gamer the 2014 Callaway Big Bertha Alpha 9*(BBA 14) with Aldila RIP Alpha S60 @ 45.5” and D8 Swing Weight, yea the big stick is heavy. I like my drivers feeling like I’m swinging a Mjölnir (Thor’s hammer guys). I tend to go all out with my driving so the added weight helps my fast tempo and control things. I’ll talk more about this in Part 2 But don’t think I’m a long driver. Haha no way. I am at 95-100mph swing speed. Therefore all the comparison will be against the BBA 14. Is this the ideal candidate to campare to? We’ll find out. Maybe a better comparison would have been the BB 14 vs BBA 815 or the BBA 14 vs. BBA 815 DBD. Time will tell.

Knowing very well what type of swing I have and my needs I will comment appropriately on each aspect of the club. I am a high spin player, Negative Approach Angle, Need a low torque low spin shaft, I get best results when the ball is tee’d up LOW and my misses are on the toe resulting in ballooning push slices. Yes I have a slight OTT swing. I love the low heat seeking drives. Just a low piercing flight is all I want. To add to all this I game a low spin 2 piece surlyn cover ball that helps band-aid my excessive spin rates.

Part 2 which is the awesome hard-core stuff I know must of you will be interested in will be on an About Golf simulator for immediate review. Let’s call this Part 2A. Unfortunately due to my geographic location just outside of Toronto (Brooklin, Ontario) everything without a roof is shut down for the year and the Polar Vortex has moved in and it takes 5 minutes to warm up my car. So my golf now is limited to Simulators and rug divots in the basement which my wife isn’t too happy about. But don’t be too disappointed. I will definitely follow up with an outdoors review on the range and on the course once the 2015 season begins Part 2B.

I will post up my review of Part 1 on the forum before I proceed with Part 2A. I don’t want the results of Part 2A unintentionally skewing my views of Part 1 or me forgetting to add more detail in Part 1 if I hold off posting the review in 1 shot. Thus once the club comes in I will proceed and post Part 1.

And I believe this is the foundation of the review and most important of all. I will break down my views in the following 4 categories. Good Vibes, Bad Vibes, Pros & Cons. I’ll try and avoid using the pros & cons terms as much as possible. I believe there is no golfer with the same swing or can obtain identical results or has the same preferences and tastes. Thus please take this review with a grain of salt and if this club is on your radar for your next big stick purchase please do your homework and try it out before you give away your hard earned money to anyone, this is my opinion for any club manufacturer and club out there.

The next two posts will cover Part 1 and pictures.
 
PART 1 (Visual Review & Initial Thoughts):
All my visual review comments in Part 1 are based off of comparing to my current gamer.

The Head:
Good Vibes:
It’s gorgeous, finally back to the black/red/white colours the way all drivers should be. I’m big on this. I’m OCD on a few things like colour matching. The 2014 Big Bertha line looked great but the blue didn’t look too great for me. The black paint finish on this year’s BB 815 line is perfection with a hint of sparkles along the top depending on the lighting. The dark chrome finish on the face and sole makes it look mean. It just looks good.

The head shape from the top looks like a big confidence builder comparing to the BBA 14. Footprint is definitely bigger and the shape is more traditional. Gives you the sense it’s going to make that ball fly far no matter how good or bad you hit it. The footprint is very similar to the 2013 RAZR FIT.

Gravity Core moved forward. This is good for me. Less spin with mass more forward. Great for this high spin player that hits low on the face. That means the mass will be even closer to the face & ball right behind the ball when I drill it.

I’m also very happy with the seam between the forged cup face and the composite crown. There is no sign of this seam that some reports have brought up in the past about other Callaway Forged Composite models. I’ve been fortunate also with my RAZR FIT & BBA 14 not to have this issue.

Pro’s:
I’m very pleased they went with the same fitment Optifit weight system. I can’t stress this enough how important this is for me and you’ll understand in Part 2 of the review. You can change the flight pattern as you see fit, ok we all know this from the RAZR FIT days. So I won’t bore you with those details because you can visit Callaway’s website and it has been covered here on THP. But for someone who is looking to fine tune the flight of the ball or adjust the swing weight with ease this feature is paramount. I’m popping in the 15gr in the heel and 1gr in the toe for a new Mjölnir. And I have over 20 different weights in my bag that will help me fine tune this club to fit my swing and needs. And for those asking where can one get these weights, you can purchase alternative weight sets on Ebay. Even the older black ones from the RAZR FIT work with the BBA 815.

Neutral General Observation:
Gravity Core (GC) in the BBA 815 is about 1-2 mm longer. From that alone one would assume the BBA 815 GC will have a bigger impact on the spin rate change between the two settings. Up vs down. We all know how the GC works and it works. Not going to reiterate what’s the main feature of the club and how it works. It’s everywhere. But I just wish they made alternative weighted Gravity Cores available to the public. Now from a design and marketing stand point I can see why they wouldn’t. They don’t want people tinkering with it and then claiming the results are not what Callaway advertised. This makes total sense to me. To somewhat rectify this lack of alternative Gravity Cores one could always tinker with the Optifit Weight system to “Simulate” the effects of a Gravity core. But the downside of that is you really can’t mimic the Gravity Core because the weighting would be positioned on either side of the club (which has its merits in regards to stability and heel or toe miss hits) and not down the centre. As a high SW, high spin rate, high launching, hit low on the face player, having the added weight of a heavier GC down the middle would be a blessing for me.

Bad Vibes:
Something that doesn’t have me excited is the face depth. I know if this was the BBA 815 DBD I wouldn’t be saying this. But the BBA 815 face depth is less compared to the BBA 14. Not a confidence booster. The difference between the two isn't much. Only 1mm. But the BBA 14 has much more face at the heel & toe. Yes it is said the BBA 815 is more forgiving. We’ll find that out throughout the course of Part 2A and later on in Part 2B. I have measured the two and here are the results.

BBA 815 = 54mm
BBA 14 = 55mm
RAZR FIT = 53mm

Another Bad Vibe I’m getting is the 10.5* of loft. This has nothing to do with the design and the club but a preference which can be adressed later on. I need low loft drivers. Until I found the right shaft for my BBA 14 I could even balloon that driver. But I’ll reserve final judgment in Part 2 of the review. If it doesn’t work for me but everything else is spot on I might look for a 9* head. But this is all premature at this point. If it arrived with 9* loft that would have made me feel more optimistic. So there will always be a shadow of doubt during Part 2 of my review due to the loft, unless somehow we see huge gains at this loft and all I knew until now gets tossed out the window. I guess with the optifit hosel we can drop it down to 9.5*. We might try that if the review warrants this. Also considering I hit it low in on the face I suspect I’m not even hitting the BBA 14 at 9* taking into account the convex construction of faces and how it is less loft on the low side. (Assuming it is at 9* actually, which now makes me want to find out for both the BBA 14 & BBA 815)

Alignment aid. Bad Vibe. I try to avoid them as much as I can. I love the clean look on drivers. It’s no biggy. This is the last thing I’m going to let bother me if the club is a hit and kicks out of the bag the BBA 14.

Cons:
No additional 5gr & 3gr weights that came with the BBA 14. Maybe these weights don’t make that big of a difference at these intervals. Maybe it was a cost savings decision. I can respect that also. But you spoiled us with additional weights on the BBA 14 and now you don’t. Only alternative is to buy online if anyone wants more weights for further fine tuning.

Noticed they used the same shaft screw in the BBA 815 as they did on the BBA 14. That's not good. The one in my BBA 14 rusted. The one in my RAZR FIT with more than 100 rounds looks new.

At this point and time from a visual standpoint the only cons I see have to do with the Dark Chrome finish on the face and the sole and the Callaway logo on the bottom of the sole. I know I’m splitting hairs here. But this is the visual component of the review and optics could be important for some people. Like OCD guys like myself. Now you’ll ask and point out that I said the Dark Chrome gave good vibes and looks mean. It does. It looks sweet. But after 10 round it’s going to look like blah... The face and sole will be all marked up with scratches and the club will have terrible optics after a short period of time. That’s what I loved about the RAZR FIT & BBA 14. Chrome face and sole. Even after 100 rounds they looked fantastic. RAZR FIT Xtreme, X Hot & X2 Hot on the other hand looked really bad after 10 rounds. My X Hot 3Deep looks awful on the face and sole.

The Callaway logo on the bottom of the sole. I know I know. OCD. But I have an eye for detail. It’s how I am and part of making my living. I’m an engineer so fine detail is second nature to me. This is your flagship club. Don’t paint it on. You did the same with the BBA 14. Stamp it on the sole like you did on the BB 14 & X2 Hot lines. That logo will wear out along with the dark face and sole. I know every penny counts and you have to cut corners to drop the price or make the price reasonable in order for it to sell. But this is you’re flagship driver. People are going to spend $499.00 Canadian on it. That’s like $22.99 USD. Lol What’s the big deal with the additional $2-3 it would cost to do that? Plus the painted logo cheapens the look.

Shaft Talk:
I love shaft talk. I’m a shaft guy. I’ll try and focus on the shaft that came with the BBA 815 with some talk generally about the shaft offerings and what my plan is. I think I went through 5 different shafts to finally go back to my old and trusty Aldila RIP Alpha. This shaft always beats out the rest for me regardless of which head I’m trying or gaming. I worked that BBA 14 for 4 months and 5 different shafts. Nothing was working. Had some good times but mostly bad. I’ve covered this in my other review thread. It finally all came together for me with this shaft. Same with my RAZR FIT and same with my FT-iZ. This shaft is the girl that was always there for me but I just have a hard time not straying and being faithful. Then I always come back crawling. And you know I’m putting this shaft first in it to try after I give the stock shaft a chance.

So the BBA 815 delivered to me came with the stock Fujikura Motore Speeder 565. This is a new offering from Fujikura and no details are on their website. Initially I was a little skeptical. Well I still am but for other reasons. At first I thought this was a made for shaft since no info was floating around about these shafts. But that soon went to rest when info started coming out that they will be a premium offering soon by Fujikura and that Callaway pretty much had first dibs on them.

However If I had an option to go with something else I definitely would have asked for the Matrix Ozik Black Tie 7M3 or 6M3 or something with a high bend point and tip stiff. Playing a high SW does not help with spin rates either. More head heavy will increase spin rates. That’s something I don’t need. So I try to offset this with a low spin shaft and low spin ball. Nothing wrong with the Speeder 565, I have Fujikura shafts in my 2 BB FW’s. But driving is a different animal and I described before my need for a low spin shaft.

Good Vibes:
Fujikura makes a good shaft. They are leaders in the industry. No denying that for the off the shelf offering. The colours match the over theme which is good and the graphics look very impressive (the gilry side of me again). The rest we’ll find out in Part 2A & 2B of the review.

Also when I hit some waffle balls in the basement the club felt heavy-sh. That's something I like.

Pro’s:
Callaway again this year went with retail and multiple shaft options at no upcharge. How can you not give double thumbs up for that? Get fit and pick what works for you. If you know what your needs are then pick a shaft that you think will fit your game. It’s as simple as that. Well played here Callaway.

The Optifit Tip. I don’t know if this should be under the head or the shaft heading. Or a heading of its own. But I guess as long as we cover it we are good. And they kept the Optifit tip from the original FT Optiforce until now and this has me excited. 1 because the darn thing works and is simple to use. 2 most importantly I have 5 shafts that have those tips that I can try out. If they changed it that would be a royal pain in the butt to source out Left Handed tips and then mounting them on. Not something I look forward to doing again after they went with this tip from the RAZR FIT tip. But the tip works and the adjustability it offers compared to the RAZR fit one is night and day 100 times better.

Also a little bit of info for my fellow lefties. If you find a tip that has all the markings underlined that’s a LH tip. Keep it and don’t let go of it.

Also they have gone with an all metal tip and got rid of the plastic bit from the 2014 tip. Both are compatable. But you don't have to worry about breaking the plastic piece.

Neutral General Observation:
Shaft Length. 45.5” this isn’t the new standard length. This is the standard length and has been for a few years now. Now I know many don’t like that length. Many will trim them right away. For me this length works. I have tried shorter lengths before. I tried the BBA 14 with two identical shafts at 44.5” and stock 45.5”. In theory and I know the theory, you will have better accuracy and dispersion with the shorter shaft. I just didn’t feel and see that happening to me. So for now I’ll stick with the Macho Man 45.5”.

The good thing is if some of you want to trim it down without the side effects of reduced swing weight that can be addressed with the use of additionally Optifit weights we talked about above and you don’t have to go get hotmelt or whatever other methods you can think of to increase the SW.

The grip looks good. Feels good. But this is all about personal preferences. I believe it or not love the old Callaway XF factory grips. They are like the Winn Dri-Tacc grips. Soft feels good in my hands.

Bad Vibe:
Torque has always been on my mind. I never have had success with high torque rated shafts. And with little info on the Speeder 565 I was concerned. Fellow member mikeg_74 sourced out the rating and it confirmed my fears. It’s rated at 4.1 degrees in X and 4.2 in S flex. Thanks for that info Mike.

A high torque rating feels great in my hands and in the swing. But that’s as far as it goes. The best results I’ve has was with 2x4 feel shafts. They feel terrible but the end result is what matters.
So I’m going into this thinking this shaft won’t work. Combined with the 10.5* head I’m going to send balls to the moon. On Callaway’s site they say its mid launch mid kick point. But knowing my game that won’t do. But to be fair we’ll reserve final judgment for the testing in Part 2A & 2B.

Cons:
Can’t come up with any cons now. The colours match perfectly with the head. Lol
I’ll put the Speeder 565 through its paces. But I do intend to outfit the BBA 815 after the first comparison with what works on the BBA 14. So that means 15gr heel, 1gr toe, GC down and Aldila RIP Alpha. Then we’ll get a better Idea on a head to head.
 
OLD SCHOOL Head Cover:
What you thought we weren’t going to talk about the headcover? How could we not? Look at it. It’s gorgeous.

At first I must say I was thrown back. Thrown back as far as the time these where considered fashionable. I scratched my head at first. I asked how could they put so little effort into the headcover? This driver is gorgeous and sets the bar for technological advancements. What relation does this cover have with this driver?

Then again it looks to be the latest trend because another OEM just followed up with a release that uses the same type of headcover.

Good Vibes:
Then it grew on me fast. Then I realised this opens up an entire new dimension for me. If it stays in the bag I want the old school theme throughout. What better way to do it than getting custom covers made on my fairway woods. I already have designs on my mind I want to go with. I already started talking with Delila over layouts and themes. lol

Bad Vibes:
Also from an overall aesthetics point of view on its own the cover might look great and bring an Old School aura, I can’t see it matching well with other newer generation covers. Yup OCD guy here.

Con’s:
No sock comes with this cover so expect shaft rash on your shafts caused by the driver bouncing around in your bag.

PART 1 Closing Remarks:
I hope you all enjoyed the first installment of my review. It’s purely based on opinions and assumptions with no actual testing involved. That will follow up in 2-3 days and I hope I won’t let you down with my findings.

I’m sorry for the long winded review. I love doing this stuff and might have got a little carried away. If I see this approach wasn’t well received I’ll cut down Parts 2A & 2B down to the bare essentials.

And as a reminder always understand there is no “De facto” when it comes to these reviews and to the golf club industry. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and not every club works for everyone and not everyone’s swing and tastes are the same.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will make every effort to answer them. Though I suspect the questions will start once I complete Part 2A.

Take care everyone. I'll post pics in the next post.

Kostas
 
Big Bertha Alpha 815 vs. Big Bertha Alpha vs. RAZR FIT

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A lot of solid observations and good analysis in there OUZO! Thanks!
 
Pics are up. Oh and forgive me if I screwed up somewhere. Did this all with an iPhone. Not a fun task.
 
Nicely done Ouzo!
 
OUZO you did an awesome job pal ! A ton of work put into your reviews .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
OUZO you killed the write ups. You can see the OCD coming out...I like that. Can't wait to read your part 2 reviews.
 
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