Thomas Detry birdied TPC Scottsdale’s first hole in all but one of the four rounds during his win this past week at the WM Phoenix Open. But for all four rounds, the tee shot was the only opportunity Detry took to unleash the oldest club in his bag.
After his one-year-old Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke driver and 4-wood, Detry’s next longest club is a Callaway Epic 2-hybrid, which was originally released eight years ago in 2017. The 18-degree hybrid has a Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro White 100 TX shaft at a finished length of 40.25″ for a swing weight of D3.
Detry said the club has been in his bag for a long while and the paint on the top is actually damaged, although that wasn’t by his doing.
“A couple years ago I gave it, for a week, to one of my friends and he just kept skying it,” Detry told GOLF. “He just kept going underneath and the paint is pretty much gone on top but doesn’t matter it just seems to work.”
Many pros and better players shy away from hybrids due to their tendency for a left miss. But on the contrary, Detry loves the Epic because his misses seem to self-correct.
“The slight heel miss just kind of takes off a little bit left and cuts back into the middle and same with the toe miss,” Detry said. “It just kind of pushes right and then goes back into the center.”
The Epic hybrid was originally released in 2017 and was one of Callaway’s first hybrids to incorporate a carbon crown to allow engineers to move weight lower and out toward the perimeter. While it’s now commonplace in most metal wood designs today, carbon fiber was just starting to make its way into golf club technology eight years ago.
With that freed-up weight, a Metal Injection Molded tungsten weight was incorporated into the bottom of the club to lower the center of gravity and make the club easier to launch. It also allowed Callaway to use an adjustable hosel in the hybrid, which was still rare in rescue clubs at the time.
Detry uses the D/S setting on the OptiFit hosel, which means standard loft in the draw setting.
His caddie, Lee Warne, says the club’s stock carry number is 250 yards but Detry can trap one to get it out to 260 or hit one “chippy” that carries 245.
When it comes to testing new gear, Warne said he and Detry never even consider swapping out the Epic 2-hybrid.
“We have never tested anything else because it does everything we want it to,” he said.
That can be frustrating to Detry’s equipment sponsor, but Callaway Tour rep Johnny Thompson said, with Detry, he knows that if it’s not broken, there’s no need to fix it.
“Tommy has always had this Epic Hybrid in the bag and frankly it’s not worth switching out until the face caves in,” he said. “As Tour fitters, we have to keep in mind that sometimes our players have security blankets in the bag that just work and there’s no use trying to force something when the player is comfortable. Thomas kills this thing and has full trust with it under any conditions.
