Equipment

Callaway announces 2026 Chrome golf ball lineup

Published

5 months ago

Jan 6, 2026

Callaway Golf has today announced its 2026 Chrome family of golf balls, again featuring three designs (Chrome Tour, Chrome Tour X, Chrome Soft). A new Tour Fast Mantle, designed to maximize ball speed and distance, is the centerpiece technology.

2026 Callaway Chrome golf balls: Tour Fast Mantle

The standout innovation across the Chrome Tour, Chrome Tour X, and Chrome Soft models is the Tour Fast Mantle, which Callaway is implementing for the first time in its 2026 Chrome lineup. With a 16 percent higher flex modulus than previous Callaway designs, the mantle acts like a stiffer spring at impact, generating increased ball speed across the lineup.

More on the Tour Fast Mantle from Callaway’s Eric Loper, the company’s Senior Director of Golf Ball R&D

“We challenged ourselves to make a golf ball that’s already fast, even faster. What we didn’t want to do is use compression jacking to get to that ball speed. We feel like we’re in a really good spot with the Chrome Tour, Chrome Tour X and Chrome Soft from a feel perspective – it’s not something we want to change. There are subtle differences between the Chrome Tour X and Chrome Tour and even softer with the Chrome Soft.

“To do that you have to have something new, and the way we work with our material suppliers is we see them as an extension of our golf ball R&D team…What we’ve been able to create over the last 4 years is a completely new material, it’s called the Tour Fast Mantle. It’s new to the industry, no one else is using it and it really unlocks the design space for us. And it really enables us to hit speeds that really the industry hasn’t seen before in these types of products.

“The material itself is 16% more rigid or has a higher modulus. That’s important because if you think about a golf ball as a spring, and under impact or under load, that golf ball is going to deform. And if you have a stiffer spring, or a more rigid material that’s acting as a stiffer spring, when that golf ball compresses or rebounds, it’s going to have higher velocity. And that’s extremely important for all golfers and all of our golf balls.

“And it also opens the design space; it helps us with spin separation where we want that. And if you look at the Chrome Tour X, that golf ball is great around the green, it has our highest wedge spin, it has higher iron spin, it’s fast off the tee. But we really wanted to make that golf ball longer off the tee, so to do that we needed to lower driver spin, and this material helps us unlock that. It enables us to get lower driver spin coupled with more speed so we get even more distance off the tee, and it continues to be excellent around the green.”

Callaway Chrome golf balls: 3 models

Chrome Tour targets players seeking speed and distance off the tee combined with a mid-spin profile. This balanced design delivers consistent flight and reliable greenside control.

Chrome Tour X is built for golfers wanting maximum speed with a mid-high spin profile through the bag, offering enhanced workability for shot shaping.

Chrome Soft provides tour-level performance with increased launch and a lower full-shot spin profile, delivering longer distance while maintaining greenside control and the soft feel the model is known for.

Shared performance features

All three models feature Callaway’s Seamless Tour Aero with an Optimized Hybrid Aero Pattern for improved distance and flight consistency.

More from Eric Loper on Seamless Tour Aero:

“The Seamless Tour Aero there’s a couple different aspects to that. It is a combination of Callaway’s hexagonal low drag surface geometry, and what we’ve done is we’ve incorporated circular geometry to help create consistency over the entire ball flight. The second is a combination of design and design for manufacturability. When you think about a golf ball that is produced, when they come out of the cover manufacturing process there is an excess material around the parting line and it’s called a flash.

“Every single golf ball has this and what the industry does is, they use a process called seam buffing. They’re going to go in there and basically grind off that material and as a result of it being an inconsistent process is the dimples adjacent that parting line do get distorted. And that does have an impact on coefficient of drag and lift, depending on the orientation.

“The process we use is not a local grinding operation; it’s something that’s more global over the entire surface of the cover and it does create uniformity. We don’t deform the dimples adjacent the parting line – as a result we’re extremely consistent on shots into the green. If you take that industry-wide problem and you hit a shot into the green in-seam, the ball is going to have a tendency to want to fly lower and longer, and cross-seam it’s going to fly higher and shorter, which leads to inconsistency. Whereas our product, no matter the orientation, will be consistent into the green.”

Club Junkie’s take

When it comes to golf ball innovation, it can sometimes be harder to see the performance differences unless you are on a launch monitor. Callaway let me hit the new Chrome Tour and Chrome Tour X on a launch monitor at their Ely Callaway Performance Center and saw an increase in ball speed with the driver. But then we went on course, and the new technology showed through with the driver, irons, and even wedges. The first thing I noticed was the increased height in my driver, fairway, and iron shots on the course. We had competitor golf balls as well and then new Chrome Tour and Chrome Tour X flew high and long with the top end of the bag.

When you get to the green, you get the high spin and control you would expect from these tour-style golf balls. You can hit shots low or high and still hear the ball gripping the green to stop close to the hole. And of course, Callaway made sure to keep the soft feel and sound that the Chrome line has been known for. The soft feel isn’t noticed just off the putter face or with a short wedge shot. I noticed a difference in sound and feel with the first driver shot out on the course.

Availability and pricing

The Chrome Tour, Chrome Tour X, and Chrome Soft golf balls are available for pre-order now and arrive at retail on January 30, priced at $57.99 per dozen.

Whats in the Bag

Christiaan Maas WITB 2026 (June)

Published

2 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

GolfWRX Staff

Driver: TaylorMade Qi4D LS (8 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 6 X

3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 (15 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 9 TX

Irons: TaylorMade P770 (3), TaylorMade P7CB (4), TaylorMade P7TW (5-PW)
Shafts: Fujikura Ventus Black HB 10 X, True Temper Dynamic Gold X100

Wedges: TaylorMade Prototype (50-SB09), TaylorMade MG5 (56-HB12, 60-LV07)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold S400

Putter: TaylorMade TP Juno

Ball: Titleist Pro V1x

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord

Check out more in-hand photos of Christiaan Maas’ clubs here.

Equipment

TaylorMade MySpider Tour and Tour X: More customizable build options now available

Published

2 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

Alistair Cameron

TaylorMade Golf’s MySpider program underwent a substantial overhaul over the last month. Firstly, the company launched the option to customize the Spider ZT model, and now the program has returned with the MySpider Tour and MySpider Tour X.

The revamped page now gives golfers complete control over every visual and functional detail of their putter on the popular Tour and Tour X head, with every cosmetic idea thought of. In MySpider Tour, golfers can choose from four head finishes, 16 paint fill colors, nine Surlyn face insert colors, three aluminum insert options, six sightline configurations, and four hosel options — L-neck, small slant, double bend, center shaft. Six sightline options are available in MySpider Tour, including the optically engineered True Path alignment system. MySpider Tour X gives builders the option of four head finishes, four hosel configurations, and five sightline options, also including True Path alignment.

One of the more interesting features of the new MySpider program is the availability of three distinct face insert options. Along with the usual Surlyn Pure Roll insert trusted by Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, which can be customized from nine colors, golfers can now also select firmer options. Two are offered with the black aluminum Pure Roll insert, slightly firmer than the traditional insert, or for the firmest feel, golfers can choose from two colors of milled aluminum inserts.

Another fun addition to the MySpider Tour is the ability to use the “Tommy Sightline.” The custom alignment aid design, which was first drawn onto Tommy Fleetwood’s putter by PGA Tour Rep James Holley, is based on the milled sightline on his Spider ZT head. There are five shorter lines on the left and right of a longer central line serving as the traditional short line alignment aid.

See below for the full specifications sheet for MySpider Tour and Tour X:

MySpider Tour

MySpider Tour X

Equipment

Then and now: Comparing Rory McIlroy’s current setup to his record-breaking 2019 Canadian Open victory

Published

5 hours ago

Jun 11, 2026

Alistair Cameron

In Rory McIlroy’s first appearance at the 2019 RBC Canadian Open, he crushed the record books to earn his 16th PGA Tour title in dominating fashion, winning by seven shots over Shane Lowry and Webb Simpson.

McIlroy’s score of 22-under-par 258 is the lowest 72-hole score to date at the Canadian Open, and his closing 61 is also the best final-round score in the history of one of golf’s oldest tournaments. Finally, with his win in 2019, McIlroy became only the sixth player to win the career Triple Crown, adding to his victories at the U.S. Open in 2011 and The Open Championship in 2014, joining Tommy Armour, Walter Hagen, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino and Tiger Woods in a coveted list.

So, with that, why not compare his current setup to the clubs he used to break all the records?

Driver

2019: TaylorMade M5 (9 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 70 TX
2026: TaylorMade Qi4D (9 degrees @8), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 7X (45 5/8 inches)

McIroy led the Tour in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee in 2019; he’s doing the same in 2026. Between now and then, McIlroy has switched from the Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 70 TX (a shaft with slightly more feeling in the tip) to the original Fujikura Ventus Black 7X, having just made the change to the heavier version from playing the 60X.

What’s interesting about McIlroy’s 2019 setup is that the weighting on his driver is actually set in the high-draw setting, using the T-Track weighting system, whereas in the Qi4D, he’s currently using a heavily rear-weighted setup. (Two 13-gram weights in the rear and only two 4-gram front weights.)

The TaylorMade M5 driver he played in during his Canadian Open win was the company’s first head that they claimed to design to initially exceed the USGA’s COR limit, and then injected with tuning resin to bring it back in bounds.

Fairway woods

2019: TaylorMade M6 3-wood (15 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 80 TX; TaylorMade M5 5-wood (19 degrees), Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 90 TX
2026: TaylorMade Qi4D 3-wood (15 degrees), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 8X; TaylorMade Qi4D 5-wood (18 degrees), Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 9X

The TaylorMade M6 fairway wood that McIlroy was using during the 2019 season is still in the bag of some of the best golfers on Tour in 2026. Just check out Justin Rose’s winning setup from the Farmers Insurance Open earlier this year. This year, though, McIlroy has still been searching for his top-end-of-the-bag setup, having played both the new Qi4D and the Qi10, which he won the Masters with.

The same shaft swap can be seen in the fairway woods as the driver, along with slightly less loft on the 5-wood.

Irons

2019: TaylorMade P750 (4) Buy here, TaylorMade P730 (5-9), Shafts: Project X 7.0
2026: TaylorMade P760 (4), TaylorMade Rors Proto (5-9), Shafts: Project X 7.0

The biggest difference between McIlroy’s custom set and the stock P730s is the groove design. While the P730s were constructed with 14 MX-9 grooves on their milled faces, McIlroy’s proto heads instead use the higher-spinning, 16-groove layout of the TW2 grooves. Other big differences between the sets are that McIlroy’s 7- and 8-irons have thinner toplines, are 1 degree stronger in loft, and are 1/4 inch longer than the original P730 builds.

With McIlroy’s 4-iron, the switch from P750 to P760 sees a transition to a two-piece construction with Speed Foam in it, which allows McIlroy to launch the ball slightly higher, with more workability.

Wedges

2019: TaylorMade Milled Grind (48-09SB), TaylorMade MG Hi-Toe (52-09SB, 56-09SB, 60-LB09), Shafts: Project X Rifle 6.5
2026: TaylorMade MG5 (46-09SB, 50-09SB, 54-11SB, 60-08LB @61), Shafts: Project X 6.5 (46-54), Project X 6.5 Wedge (60)

Between 2019 and 2026, McIlroy’s focus on his short game has been much more apparent. It was the reason why he switched back to the TP5 golf ball, to help with launch, spin and control with his wedges leading up to his career Grand Slam victory in 2025. The most apparent changes to McIlroy’s wedge setup are his lofts and bounce. He’s slowly delofted his pitching to a sand wedge, but has increased the loft on the lob wedge, bending his current 60-degree to 61. With that, adding more loft to his lob wedge also slightly increases the bounce and leading-edge sit point, so, as a result, he plays a lower-bounce lob wedge compared to 2019. The MG5 wedges are also softer than the first Milled Grind option from 2019. McIlroy also no longer plays the full-face grooves found on the Hi-Toe.

Putter

2019: TaylorMade Spider X
2026: TaylorMade Spider Tour X

Notice anything similar. Yes, the copper finish on Rory McIlroy’s Spider X putter in 2019 is a slightly more reflective finish than the recently released torched PVD finish. McIlroy was using the True Path alignment system, but now uses only a single white sightline.

Ball

2019: 2019 TaylorMade TP5 (#22)
2026: 2025 TaylorMade TP5 (RORS)

As mentioned above, McIlroy had transitioned from the TP5 to TP5x golf ball since his victory in Canada in 2019, but now is black with the same style of golf ball as his victory at Hamilton Golf & Country Club.

Grips

2019: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord
2026: Golf Pride MCC

Interesting, McIlroy actually used Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet Cord grips during his victory in 2019 (it was during a 2+ year switch to the corded TV) as opposed to his usual MCC grips, which he has played for most of his career.