Equipment
Spotted: Callaway Mack Daddy 4 prototype wedges, X Forged driving iron
Tinker season has returned!
With the 2016-2017 PGA Tour season ending at the Tour Championship on Sunday, it’s technically the offseason despite some of the best players in the world competing in the 2017 Presidents Cup at Liberty National Golf Club. Although it’s an important and patriotic competition, it still marks the start of new equipment releases, and PGA Tour players trying out new equipment.
On the range at Liberty National, we spotted new Callaway Mack Daddy 4 wedges — the company says they are in the prototype phase — and a new Callaway X Forged prototype driving iron in the bag of Phil Mickelson.
Callaway Mack Daddy 4 prototype wedges
The Mack Daddy 4 wedges look similar to the company’s previous MD3 Milled wedges, which also had four weight ports in the rear cavities that were said to reposition center of gravity (CG) higher in the wedges for a lower launch and higher spin. The overall look of the wedges, however, bear more of a resemblance to its Mack Daddy 2 wedges. The photos also show that “milled” is stamped on the hosel of the Mack Daddy 4 wedges.
Maybe the Mack Daddy 4 is a best-of-both-worlds design that draws from the constructions of both the Mack Daddy 2 and 3 wedges. We’ll have to wait and see, for now.
“This is a Callaway prototype wedge that we are currently testing with our professional staffers,” a Callaway representative told us. “It is a prototype as of now.”
Callaway X Forged Driving Iron
In Phil Mickelson’s bag, a well-known club tinkerer, we spotted a Callaway Epic Pro iron, X Forged 2017 irons, Callaway Apex MB irons, and a never-before-seen X Forged 18-degree driving iron. Unlike Callaway’s previous Apex UT driving iron that had a weight port in its sole, the X Forged driving iron we spotted in Phil’s bag has a clean sole. It does, however, sport an expectedly wider sole than the new X Forged 2017 irons that were recently unveiled in Japan.
“These are Callaway prototype irons that we are testing with our professional staffers,” a Callaway representative told us. “They are prototypes as of now.”
Discussion: See what GolfWRX members are saying about the Mack Daddy 4 prototype wedges
Neal Shipley was the first to admit that he enjoyed his food while in college. But since his days at Ohio State, he’s slimmed down and earned a PGA Tour Card.
That hasn’t stopped him from having fun with his wedge stampings, though it’s led to some misunderstandings.
On the 54 (degree), we have ‘Big Fudge,'” Shipley told GolfWRX. “It was supposed to be ‘Big Fridge,’ so this happened a little while ago. ‘Big Fridge’ was a nickname between my college teammates and I, with ‘fridge’ meaning stomach, a big stomach.
“We told the Ping guys to put … ‘Big Fridge’ on it, and I think maybe some bad cell service or something, and they thought I said ‘fudge,’ so they put fudge on it.”
On Shipley’s 50-degree he also continues the food theme, this time with his go-to order at the “Golden Arches,” and his stamping “DONS 7.”
“The number 7 meal, the two cheeseburger meal, that was my McDonald’s order, back when I would have McDonald’s frequently,” Shipley shared.
At GolfWRX, we are a community of like-minded individuals who all experience and express our enjoyment of the game in many ways.
It’s that sense of community that drives day-to-day interactions in the forums on topics that range from best driver to what marker you use to mark your ball. It even allows us to share another thing we all love – buying and selling equipment.
Currently, in our GolfWRX buy/sell/trade (BST) forum, @raw10628 has a L.A.B. DF3 putter and Masters putter cover up for grabs.
From the listing: “Some great items here today, time to thin out and make room for next set of gear. All prices include shipping.
LAB DF3 Purple 33.5” 68° lie with TPT – $725. LAB Masters release DF3 cover – $150.”
To check out the full listing in our BST forum, head through the link. If you are curious about the rules to participate in the BST Forum, you can learn more here: GolfWRX BST Rules
Driver: Ping G440 LST (9 degrees)
Shaft: Accra TourZ Green 5-M4
3-wood: Ping G440 Max (15 degrees)
Shaft: Accra TourZ Green 6-M4
5-wood: Ping G440 Max (19 degrees @18)
Shaft: Accra TourZ Green 6-M4
Hybrid: Ping G440 (23 degrees)
Shaft: Oban Isawa Red Hybrid Shaft 04 Flex 70 Gms
Irons: Srixon ZXi7 (5-P)
Shafts: Aerotech SteelFiber Private Reserve i80
Wedges: Cleveland RTZ (50-MID, 54-FULL, 58-MID)
Shafts: Aerotech SteelFiber Private Reserve i105
Putter: L.A.B. Golf OZ.1i
Shaft: ACCRA Putter Shaft
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet
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Charles Schwab Challenge Tour Report: MacIntyre, Åberg and Spaun all switch putters, TaylorMade launches new Spider
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Photos from the 2026 Charles Schwab Challenge
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Photos from the ShopRite LPGA
Maria Torres WITB 2026 (June)
Driver: Ping G440 LST (9 degrees) Shaft: Accra TourZ Green 5-M4 3-wood: Ping G440 Max (15 degrees) Shaft: Accra TourZ Green 6-M4 5-wood: Ping G440...
Eric Cole WITB 2026 (June)
Driver: PXG Lightning Tour Max (9 degrees) Shaft: Project X Titan Yellow 70 TX 3-wood: TaylorMade Qi4D (15 degrees) Shaft:...
Si Woo Kim WITB 2026 (May)
Driver: Callaway Quantum Triple Diamond (8.5 degrees) Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 6 X Mini driver: Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Mini...
Wyndham Clark’s winning WITB: 2026 CJ Cup Byron Nelson
Driver: TaylorMade Qi4D (10.5 degrees) Shaft: Project X Titan Yellow 60 TX 3-wood: TaylorMade Qi4D Tour (15 degrees) Shaft: Project...
gunmetal
Oct 1, 2017 at 9:14 pm
It wouldn’t be Fall if Callaway weren’t debuting their new and improved wedges from a few months back. My oh my, how do Titleist, Ping, Mizuno, Cleveland and dare I say Taylormade compete in the wedge segment? They only release new wedges every 18-24 months.
Overengineering? To a T.
FWIW, I do like that they’re not even bothering with rebadging.
Mad-Mex
Sep 27, 2017 at 10:25 pm
Read this “article” three times and have not figured out what makes these BETTER than Mack Daddy 2 wedges? It says it ” reposition center of gravity (CG) higher in the wedges for a lower launch and higher spin” How much lower and how much spin?
Gearhead
Sep 27, 2017 at 11:22 am
Mmmmmm I love my gear
Golf Engineer
Sep 26, 2017 at 5:34 pm
From Wikipedia:
“Overengineering (or over-engineering) is the designing of a product to be more robust or complicated than is necessary for its application, either (charitably) to ensure sufficient factor of safety, sufficient functionality, or because of design errors. Overengineering can be desirable when safety or performance on a particular criterion is critical, or when extremely broad functionality is required, but it is generally criticized from the point of view of value engineering as wasteful. As a design philosophy, such overcomplexity is the opposite of the less is more school of thought (and hence a violation of the KISS principle and parsimony).
Overengineering generally occurs in high-end products or specialized market criteria, and takes various forms. In one form, products are overbuilt, and have performance far in excess of needs (a family sedan that can drive at 300 km/h, or a home video cassette recorder with a projected lifespan of 100 years), and hence are more expensive, bulkier, and heavier than necessary. Alternatively, they may be overcomplicated – the design may be far more complicated than is necessary for its use, such as a modern text editor asking whether files should be saved in ASCII, EBCDIC or various multi-byte formats. Overcomplexity reduces usability of the product by the end user, and can decrease productivity of the design team due to the need to build and maintain all the features.
A related issue is market segmentation – making different products for different market segments. In this context, a particular product may be more or less suited for a particular market segment, and may be over- or under- engineered relative to an application.
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The golf club industry and over-engineering…. so true.
Boss
Sep 27, 2017 at 2:53 am
From Wikipedia:
IDIOT
An idiot, dolt, dullard or (archaically) mome is a person perceived to be lacking intelligence, or someone who acts in a self-defeating or significantly counterproductive way. Along with the similar terms moron, imbecile, and cretin, the word archaically referred to the intellectually disabled, but have all since gained specialized meanings in modern times. An idiot is said to be idiotic, and to suffer from idiocy.
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You are the definition. So true//