Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Irons

The Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke irons are a new and rather interesting release but they raise a question I’m not entirely sure we can answer.

What are they replacing?

The easy answer is the Paradym Ai Smoke irons are the obvious replacement for the year-old Paradym and Paradym X irons. That’s the easy answer but it might not be the right one. Callaway, along with TaylorMade and COBRA, has an every-year release cadence for game-improvement irons but Callaway has done so with a twist. It has had two separate lines of game-improvement irons, each with its own two-year product life cycle and different enough attributes to justify their existence.

Sound confusing? It kind of is but that doesn’t mean the Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke irons aren’t worth a whack or two. And they do continue last year’s Paradym release in giving you a cleaner, sleeker look.

Do they fit your game?

Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Irons: Where Do They Fit?

It’s a chore keeping track of Callaway’s iron offerings. The Apex is the forged line made for combo sets, ranging from better player’s cavity-backs to wide-soled forgiving. But we’ve often had dueling game-improvement lines, with various Big Bertha iterations, the Epic and Epic Star premium lines and the original Rogue, which came out in 2018.

We then jumped to Mavrik in 2020, to Rogue ST in 2022 and to the original Paradym last year. But Callaway says Paradym Ai Smoke isn’t replacing those irons. Instead, it’s a replacement for the Rogue ST family.

As a family, the Rogue ST was a mixed bag and maybe not in a good way. The line featured four distinct irons but the naming structure was unconventional to the point of being confusing. The Rogue ST MAX was the mainstream iron, even though with most OEMs “MAX” means “most forgiving.” With Rogue, it was third-most forgiving behind the lighter Rogue ST MAX OS and lighter-still Rogue ST MAX OS Lite.

All three were obvious GI irons with deep cavities, black accents and busy graphics. The Rogue ST Pro was much more understated: a hollow-body blade-like design aimed at golfers who like the Apex look but longed for a touch more forgiveness.

The Rogue ST line stayed current last year even with the new Paradym and Paradym X. But as Callaway says, the Paradym Ai Smoke irons aren’t replacing those.

That would lead one to believe the original Paradyms will stay current for 2024, but Callaway discounting the originals by $200 per set might indicate otherwise.

So we can safely say the new Ai Smoke is definitely replacing Rogue ST and may or may not be replacing Paradym and Paradym X.

Glad we were able to clear that up.

Ai Smoke: Different Enough

 If both the old and the new Paradyms will be current, it’ll be important to know where the old Paradym ends and the new Paradym begins. According to Callaway, much of the difference can be found in the name.

“We wanted to really push for (a breakthrough) with an Ai Smart Face design and see what we could get out of an AI-led approach on these irons,” says Callaway’s R&D VP Brian Williams. “And we want to make sure we have clear differentiation in our offering.”

The three new Paradyms are the standard Ai Smoke, the lighter and higher-launching Ai Smoke HL and the lightest and highest-launching Ai Smoke Max Fast.

“Players with speed and players with slower speeds had fundamentally different outcomes with today’s irons,” says Williams. “When we look at stronger-lofted modern spec packages, players with speed can generate plenty of launch and spin but players that are slower can often struggle to get optimal launch conditions.”

The good thing about having only three models (compared to the four Rogue ST options) is that differentiation becomes a little clearer. According to Callaway, if you carry your 7-iron 130 to 135 yards, the standard Ai Smoke is designed for you.

“They’ll be able to activate the face,” says Williams. “They’ll get really good launch and spin.”

Anything below that, it’s a fitter’s playground with the higher-launching Ai Smoke HL and the lighter Ai Smoke Fast.

Artificial Intelligence and Real-World Data

Virtually every OEM uses AI as a design tool. And that’s led to the industry’s newest buzzword: optimize. It’s a word we’ll grow tired of writing and you’ll grow tired of reading over the next month. But optimization is the whole point behind artificial intelligence. It’s very good at is marrying real player data and advanced machine learning to, well, optimize performance.

Callaway says its new Ai Smart Face design is an industry first, using swing data from thousands of real golfers. Callaway calls these data sets a “Swing Code” consisting of swing speed, club delivery and face orientation just prior to impact. These Swing Codes are then fed into the computer and out comes an optimized face design for a specific player type.

“(AI) allows us to harness power and speed and to really work on dispersion control,” says Williams. “As we’re adding distance, we’re working to control downrange dispersion that helps this be a longer and more accurate golf club.”

The golfer controls the club path and face angle. But a supercomputer can iterate the bejesus out of the face design to minimize the fallout of your bad swings. And that should optimize the joy of your good ones. It won’t turn a hosel rocket into a baby draw and it won’t turn a 20-handicap into an instant stick. But it might keep that hosel rocket out of the forest and it might help that 20-handicap get to 18 or even 15 or at the very least having more fun being a 20.

“We can have a face that can flex, control launch and spin and manipulate ball trajectories,” says Williams. “By using AI and controlling our face deflections, we can improve those outcomes, tighten our dispersions and help golfers hit more greens.”

Where There’s Smoke …

The mainstream Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke sits on the player’s distance side of the game-improvement category. It’s a sleek, modern hollow-body design with a thinner topline and a thinner sole than you’d expect. The loft structure is standard for a GI iron with a 28-degree 7-iron.

The Ai Smoke HL and Ai Smoke Max Fast are more traditional cavity-back models. Both feature tungsten weighting to drive the CG as low as possible, as well as a weaker loft structure to help slow and moderate swing speed golfers get the ball up in the air.

“If we had simply weakened the lofts, we’d have a short iron,” explains Williams. “But we asked AI to optimize for launch and spin. We wanted to get face deflection that would help this player get the ball up, hit peak apex heights and land steeper into greens. We’re looking at this product to help improve carry distances as well as stopping power.”

Think of it as a sort of reverse loft-jacking.  The Smoke HL features a 30-degree 7-iron while the Max Fast 7-iron is 31 degrees. Combine those lofts with a subterranean center of gravity and it’s easier for the slow swing speed player to get the ball to fly high. For that golfer, it’s a major victory.

“The Max Fast player will be obvious to fitters,” says Williams. “And we’ve gone lighter in head weight to promote extra speed. And we’ve asked AI to prioritize high launch and spin for this player.”

Smoke-y Final Thoughts

While some players saw last year’s Paradym offering odd-looking, they did represent a noticeable – and, dare we say, welcome – departure from Callaway’s decade-long game-improvement aesthetic. While not quite the classic “shovel’ of days gone by, the X Hot-XR-Steelhead-Big Bertha-Rogue-Mavrik-Roque ST continuum had a certain look that many found off-putting.

But despite (or maybe because of, depending on your tastes), the smoky badging, the Paradym Smoke Ai will certainly appeal to better players looking for distance and forgiveness. The Ai Smoke HL and Max Fast have an almost Mizuno JPX look to them.

OK, so maybe it’s a stretch, but it says here these are the best-looking Callaway game-improvement irons in at least a decade.

And while this year’s MyGolfSpy irons testing will tell us more, we can say Callaway’s emphasis on accuracy is welcome. The original Paradym was last year’s second-longest player’s distance iron but it fell flat in forgiveness and accuracy, ultimately finishing 13th out of 15 irons tested.

The Paradym X had similar results in game-improvement testing. It was third overall for distance but it underwhelmed in accuracy and forgiveness, ultimately finishing eighth overall. Top 10, yes, but only 11 iron sets were tested.

Clearly, Callaway has the distance code cracked. But distance without at least a dash of accuracy and forgiveness doesn’t lead to hitting more greens. Callaway is saying the right things and there’s no reason to doubt its emphasis on accuracy and forgiveness. Our testing will ultimately tell us how well the computer did.

Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Irons: Specs, Price and Availability

Both the standard Ai Smoke and the Ai Smoke HL irons will be available for lefties and righties. They’ll be sold as a seven-piece set but the entire range covers 4-iron through sand wedge. The Ai Smoke Max Fast, however, will be available in right-handed models only for men and women. The men’s model goes only as low as a 5-iron while the women’s version stops at the 6-iron.

Each iron set features a distinct stock shaft. The Ai Smoke features the True Temper Elevate 95 while the Ai Smoke HL goes lighter with the Elevate 85. The Project X Cypher (70-gram stiff, 60-gram regular, 50-gram light) is the stock graphite offering.

The stock Ai Smoke Max Fast set comes stock with the 40-gram Tensei Blue while the women’s set comes with the Callaway-designed, Mitsubishi-made 40-gram Eldio shaft.

The stock grips are the Lamkin Crossline and the Winn Dri-Tac 2.0.

All three Paradym Ai Smoke irons hit retail on Jan. 26 with pre-sale starting Jan. 12.  They’ll be offered in seven-piece sets starting at $999.99 in steel and $1,099.99 in graphite.

For more information, visit the Callaway website.

PS. If you don’t want to wait, or don’t want to spend the money on the latest offering, 2023 Callaway Paradym X Irons have been reduced to $1200.

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