Callaway Big Bertha B21 Driver Review

The slice.  It chips away at your dignity.  You step into the tee box hoping for a ray of sunshine, but instead experience another power outage.  The slice is an epidemic.  Or at least it used to be.

Callaway's new Big Bertha B21 driver takes away the right side as well or better than any anti-slice driver I've ever hit or tested.  And I tested B21 hard.  Poor grip, chicken wing, over the top, and deliberately open face,  B21 turned all these slice swings into very playable, and surprisingly long drives.

In the looks department B21 is unmistakably Big Bertha.  Big head, large face, wider body.  Every 460cc driver head isn't the same shape of course, and B21 has a face that plays larger than the head size with more hitting area in the high toe and low heel (which not surprisingly is where a lot of amateurs miss).  And in fact, B21 is a miss all over the face kind of driver (more on that in a bit).

 

The carbon weave crown (like GBB Epic) is back, but combined with a deeper, darker blue than I've seen on any Big Bertha's in the past.  It's a glossy finish, but wouldn't call it shiny and doesn't create any unwanted glare.  The thin red stripe (at least to my eye) tends to hide or soften the toe in bias at address.

B21 has a muted thwack sound at impact similar to the Callaway Mavrik, but it's just a tad louder.  Definitely not the titanium thump sound of the old Big Bertha drivers.

 

You can read all about the B21 features and tech on Callaway's here, I won't get into that very much.  But I can tell you this is a driver that does what Callaway claims it does.  There's a clear draw bias to B21 that predominantly corrects most right-based shots back inside the center line, and keeps the whippy banana ball misses right significantly more in play.  In fact, on open-face shots where I delivered the head down the line, as well as open-face shots from an over-the-top move, I could feel the toe turn in at impact.

There are two type of slice-swings I tried hitting that I think are the most common for golfers who battle the right side.  The first is the slice that starts down the middle and then shoots off right.  This is usually the result of a swing that comes into impact from the inside (perhaps even making center contact), but the face itself is open or points out to the right.

  

B21 excelled in minimizing the slice on this type of swing.  I saw shots that ranged from baby fades that stayed very near center line, to fades that went a little further right but still stayed in the fairway.  Some shots even started straight and became baby draws.  And just as important as direction in these shots, B21 produced a launch that still maximized distance.  They weren't shots that straightened out but just went higher in the air and dropped weakly into the fairway.  These were strong distance shots with a very real feel of a crack through the ball and very fast rebound.

The other slice swing is the slice that starts left and then bananas off the planet in the other direction.  And this usually results from a swing that comes over the top at impact (either with a face square or open to the desired target).  B21 did an excellent job straightening this type of slice as well, but (fair warning) it also potentially creates a different kind of miss for some swings.

 

B21 changed the banana ball flight into tighter (what I'd call more half-moon looking) shots.  Drives with these types of swings generally still started off left, but didn't curve far right nearly like they would otherwise.  They also didn't lose speed or sort of billow out to the right.  Flights were strong and long again.  And many of the shots even remained on the left side of center line (hence, half-moon looking description).

The issue you could possibly have if you're coming over the top with B21 (or have an inconsistent swing swing that closes the face naturally sometimes), is you're going to get some terrible duck hooks because the head does want to close left.  If your miss is a bad shot left, this isn't the driver for you.  But at the risk of stating the obvious, B21 isn't going to morph you into a god-like driver of the ball every single swing.  It will however produce dependable more obedient ball flights on most slice swings as well as on good ones.

 

And speaking of good (or non-slice swings), I also played around with the settings wondering if B21 is a good driver choice for someone who doesn't slice.  And I'm absolutely convinced it is.  First of all, if you're a good ball striker in general, B21 is going to give you a straight flight to a baby draw without any changes at all.  And again worth mentioning, it's a long driver.  I'd say in fact it's every bit as long as Mavrik.

Reducing the B21 loft allowed me to hit little baby fades on good swings, and when I tried to turn it over more I could still accomplish that as well.  For golfers with faster swings, I could see some absolute monster long, low spin drives at these lower lofts.

 

Misses out on the high toe with B21 were impressively forgiving with very negligible distance loss.  If you hit driver 250, high toe misses on otherwise good swings will probably still get you 240.  And those toe hits still turn over nicely.  There's definite forgiveness built into B21 that players of all skill levels and swing types can benefit from in addition to the primary benefit of being a slice-buster.

 

If you wallow in the deep oblivion and certain doom of slicing the ball to infinity and beyond, B21 is going to put some swagger back in your driver game.  Golf is supposed to be fun, and for at least a few more drives every round, it will be.