TOUR EDGE EXOTICS WOODS
Tour Edge Golf President and Club Designer David Glod knew that Exotics CBX and CBX T3 hybrids each were exceptional when they launched in 2017. But as the year went along and he interacted more with Tour Edge Golf’s players across the professional tours, Glod kept getting ideas for an even better hybrids and metal woods.
He created what he calls the “Speed Ramp Sole’’ that was widened by 15 percent to create higher MOI and an even higher CG. The higher CG, Glod said, helped to reduce spin even more than in the previous iteration and created more wind-defying distance.
“Reducing spin is the number one key to adding distance to a lofted club like a fairway or a hybrid,” Glod says. “If we will lower the spin significantly, we will win the distance battle. This is not as easy as it sounds. It’s tough to lower spin in combination with loft. We knew we had to concentrate on CG manipulation and the only way to do this was to make the only fairway wood and hybrid ever made with titanium face, combo brazed on to stainless steel and with carbon fiber on the sole for even lower spin rates than what we had accomplished before.”
Tour Edge Exotics staff player Tom Lehman won the PGA Tour Champions’ season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, with an 18-degree Exotics CBX hybrid and a No. 2 Exotics CBX Iron-Wood in play. The CBX 119 found its way into other players’ bags for the first time at February’s Champions’ Oasis Championship in Boca Raton, Fla.
The EXS driver, meanwhile, was introduced back in October 2018, but it continues to pick up accolades for the technology packed into a truly affordable package.
“Pound for pound, nobody comes close to us,” said Jon Claffey, Tour Edge director of marketing. “Every millimeter is technology; we’ve got move-over weights. Nine grams here and two grams there — it comes with a draw bias but you can switch to a neutral bias. You’ve got the adjustable hosel, plus two to minus two degrees, so you can get the nine degrees of loft up to 11 or down to seven point five. You’ve got the roll face technology, which is modified bulge and roll, so you’re going to have straighter shots on mis-hits off the toe. Variable face thickness, carbon crown, carbon toe, slipstream sole, so the thing’s loaded … and it’s $299.
“We put it on TrackMan, all independent tests, and we’re better than $600 drivers. We did a lot of research. There’s 24 million golfers, eight million core golfers. We believe about three million of those are on a budget — discerning golfers on a budget. With this club we definitely have something for them. They care about shapes, care about innovation, care about performance, but whether it’s a younger guy or the older guy, they don’t have $600 for a driver.
“This is everything they want at $300. It’s got a $140 after-market shaft. We threw the kitchen sink at it.”
