Xander Schauffele changes to Callaway Elyte Triple Diamond driver, 3-wood at The Sentry

After winning two major championships in 2024 and recording a whopping 15 top-10 finishes on the PGA TOUR, you wouldn’t think Xander Schauffele would be in a rush to make too many changes.

When he arrived to The Sentry at Kapalua Plantation for the new year, however, there was a new Callaway Elyte Triple Diamond driver and new Callaway Elyte Triple Diamond 3HL fairway wood in his bag.

To be fair, he's a particularly stress-free guy, but he couldn’t have been less phased about the club changes.

“I’ve been with Callaway for, it feels like six or seven years now, and I would say it was probably the easiest [transition into new woods] – I’ve been testing the Elyte driver for two months, and I literally have the exact same driver that they gave me in Vegas as my first look thing they did for their social media team,” Schauffele said on Tuesday in Maui. “So it’s been such an easy, super easy transition, and I really haven’t felt like I thought much about it. Looking down and it’s good to go.”

Working a new driver into the lineup – and especially a new fairway wood – isn’t always so easy.

Was he just being a good company man, speaking highly of the new Elyte lineup?

For that answer, GolfWRX.com spoke in-depth with Kellen Watson, a PGA TOUR rep for Callaway and a personal club fitter for Schauffele.

“It really wasn’t a long process, but he’s very happy,” Watson said. “He showed a little uptick in ball speed [with the driver], but consistency of his spin from high to low was probably the No. 1 factor that made a huge difference. We’re looking at 10.5-degree launch, 2400 rpm spin rates up to a nice flat cut at 2700 rpm, which we haven’t seen as much before when he was hitting more down on it and getting into the low 2800s, 2900s, into the 3000s. That spin window being smaller is probably going to help him a lot more. Not like he needed any more help, but, just getting a little more help out of this.”

In 2024, Schauffele was ranked 10th on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, but he averaged just 95th in Driving Accuracy. So, the tighter spin dispersion and resulting forgiveness off the tee was surely a welcome upgrade.

No wonder Schauffele was so calm about making the change.

Schauffele also ranked 11th in Approaches > 275 yards, using his previous Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond (16.5 degrees), but he’s switching into Callaway’s new Elyte Triple Diamond 3HL (16.5 degrees), too.

For Watson, this switch may even be less of a surprise than the driver switch.

“The fairway wood I’m probably the most excited about because we’ve made some drastic changes. … We just see more consistency spin-wise and ball-speed-wise all over the face, which I believe in the past we’ve kind of lacked just a touch,” Watson said. “They’re easy to launch, the spin is in a small window, and then the forgiveness of it is just phenomenal.”

As Watson admitted, fitting PGA TOUR players into new fairway woods can typically be more difficult than meets the eye – probably because it’s a club that requires so much versatility, which in turn requires confidence that’s built up over months and years.

For Watson, though, the excitement over the new Elyte fairway woods for TOUR players is palpable this year, which is making the transitions especially easy.

“I don’t think the layman or the consumer really understands how difficult it is to fit guys into a new 3-wood or 5-wood,” Watson said. “It’s much more difficult than you’d think. … The process was easy getting most of these guys to convert.”