Today, PXG unveiled the tech behind its brand new Lightning metalwoods — four drivers, two fairway woods and a hybrid all aimed at giving the best PXG performance you’ve ever tested. You’ve probably seen the pictures and videos on my or Johnny Wunder’s (@johnny_wunder) Instagram pages, and we’ve been very bad about hiding how much we like the new gear. There’s lots of reasons for that, so let’s dive in and see what PXG is bringing to the table in 2026. I’ll mainly focus on the new drivers here because I know that’s what most of you want to hear about, but there’s some specific notes about the fairway woods and the hybrids I feel are important as well.
Johnny and I were both lucky enough to attend the PXG media event earlier this year where they unveiled the product and fit us into the best options for our games (and let us have some fun while we were at it too). PXG had nearly full bags built overnight for more than 25 players that were there testing, including a new bag for every single attendee. Wild.
What’s new with PXG Lightning?
PXG’s Lightning launch follows a successful Black Ops series of products. Black Ops was sort of universally seen across the industry as the first legitimate driver and fairway options from the PXG brand. They’ve always made a respectable hybrid offering, but the industry hasn’t been quite sold on their top-of-the-bag metalwoods.
It’s worth noting that the entire lineup has a glossy finish from top to bottom. The crown and the sole are both polished carbon fiber, and it absolutely passes the eye-candy test. I’m someone who prefers the gloss finish on my woods and this implementation is definitely high on my list of favorites. The gloss really brings out the shaping in the sole so you can not only see the spine on each driver, but also the different shapes and areas where they clearly are attacking some aerodynamic opportunities.
When I asked JW about PXG and what he’s seen from the company since he got started in the golf industry, he came back with this: “Specifically to drivers, I’d say PXG went from a company who dabbled in drivers just to satisfy the loyalists to now how having a bona fide driver that will compete with anyone. The company shifted a ton the moment they nailed this Lightning series. They are now a legit FULL BAG company. Huge step forward.”
With Lightning, they’ve surpassed Black Ops in every way possible, and frankly, it’s so far beyond Black Ops that PXG has now put itself in a competitive space right along with the big dogs in Callaway, TaylorMade or Titleist. And they’ve taken an interesting approach in the design.
Frequency Tuned Face
The big tech story with PXG Lightning is their Frequency Tuned Face. The very first thing most of us at the media event noticed and questioned when we first saw the heads was the ridge on the bottom of each model. A very pronounced ridge. A ridge that had to have a story. And for the first day of the event we all started to speculate what this ridge did. We all went through our fittings for new drivers getting zero technical details, which to their credit was a really cool way for us to dive into the gear. It was a purely feel- and performance-based look at the new stuff that let us wonder about the reasoning behind it. But on Day 2, everything was unlocked. Which brings us back to that Frequency Tuned Face.
Essentially what PXG did is find the optimal frequency that the club head vibrates at to create a marriage between face flexion, ball compression, sound and feel. The aforementioned back ridge plays its part by stiffening up the carbon fiber sole plates in each model so that they don’t negatively affect the overall modal frequency. By finding this perfect frequency they are able to optimize speed and launch off the face so that a fitted golfer sees the most performance possible out of their PXG Lightning metalwood. This goes for the two fairway models and the hybrid as well.
Sound and Feel
A quick note on sound and feel: these drivers sound so cool. They’re unapologetically loud offerings, but with a deeper tone than you might expect from this volume. There’s no piercing ting, but rather a nice crack that’s incredibly satisfying when you get one right in the center. Off-center the pitch is going to drop just a tad and you’re able to get feedback on how badly you may have missed off-center. This is probably my favorite sounding driver I’ve tested so far as 2026 launches are concerned.
Additional Improvements
While the entire launch revolves around this Frequency Tune Face, PXG has stepped it up in nearly every category. They weren’t afraid to admit their downfalls when it came to the Black Ops lineup, showing us charts that had the Black Ops lineup behind its competitors in nearly every category, including speed, launch, spin and down-range dispersion. Lightning, however, turns over a new leaf for the company. They can confidently say that the decision in performance to play a PXG Lightning product over the competition is going to come down to the fit. It may be harsh to say, but fitters simply weren’t pulling Black Ops off the shelf to compete in fitting bays; but they’re ready to pull Lightning into more bay battles in 2026.
Each head also has an increased amount of carbon fiber, and with their Spined Sole technology that carbon fiber’s strength has been improved even further, creating a more stable driver lineup while increasing MOI in each model by allowing PXG engineers to more strategically place their adjustable weighting systems. On the Tour head you’ll notice a 67% increase in the carbon fiber sole plate over the 0311 Black Ops Tour-1, and the Tour Mid and the Max 10k+ have a 74% and 84% increase, respectively, over the 0311 Black Ops driver. Yes, you read that right. The “middle” model has a 74% larger carbon fiber surface area than the more forgiving model of the last generation. More on this in a bit.
Black Ops was touted as a very forgiving lineup, almost to a fault, but by adding more carbon fiber to the Lightning lineup, PXG is able to move weight more strategically and squeeze every bit of MOI out of these heads. The Max 10k+ head sees a 5% MOI boost over the 0311 Black Ops for a total combined MOI measurement of 8290; the Tour Mid sees a 12% MOI boost over the 0311 Black Ops Tour-1 for a total combined MOI measurement of 9122; and the Tour sees a 2% jump above the Tour-1 as well for a total combined MOI measurement of 8290. It’s worth noting that the new Lightning Max Lite also sees an impressive MOI measurement of 9667 MOI points, just missing out on that commonly marketed 10k MOI measurement.
The Lightning Tour Mid Driver — The Special One
By finding this optimal modal frequency, they’re able to fine tune each driver into the proper segment for the golfer the product is aimed at, which is how we get the introduction of the brand new Lightning Tour Mid: a head aimed at supporting a larger bell curve of players who may find themselves at a lower handicap but need a bit of help with launch and spin. The Tour Mid is, for lack of a better term, the new core head in the lineup or the middle ground between the low spin Lightning Tour and the High MOI Lightning Max 10k+. I think about 80% of the better players at the PXG event got fit into the Tour Mid, and none of us were really surprised. Both Johnny and I got fit into the Tour Mid and played a full round with it the next day. We were both extremely impressed, and Johnny will tell you it was one of my better driving rounds he’s seen me have.
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The head has a better player’s inspired shape, feel and performance with just enough added forgiveness to make it playable for a rather large bucket of golfers. Charles Howell III was actually the first person to get into Johnny’s ear about the new Lightning models, and if you know Johnny at all, that was more than enough to get him pretty amped going into our testing.
I think what makes the Tour Mid so great is the spin and launch window it finds itself in. The Tour model this year moves into more of a niche tool. It’s great for players looking to kill spin and launch the ball a bit flatter. Players who want to work a big cut are going to love the Lightning Tour. But for players who may need a little help getting the ball up in the air or naturally produce a little bit of a draw off the tee, the new Tour Mid hits a really nice sweet spot.
During my fitting, paired with a Ventus TR Black 6x (which was a complete surprise for me) the Tour Mid never fell below 2100 rpm and never skied above 2800 rpms, which for me hits a perfect sweet spot. I am actually OK if certain misses spin up on me and reach that 3000-ish mark, but I get terrified as I get closer to that 2000 rpm number. My horror miss is the low-spin duck hook. (I get chills just typing that out.) But the Tour Mid held strong, and it threw up some really impressive ball speed numbers as well. I was sorta feelin’ it the day I was getting fit so I was swinging closer to 116 mph down in the Scottsdale National sun and was seeing ball speeds right around the 170-mph mark. Plenty of speed to compete with anything else I’ve tested. And these numbers weren’t just full-bore swings on the range. Johnny and I got a chance to immediately take our fit drivers out on course and test them out, and we saw the exact same playability we did in our fits.
Lightning has struck
The new PXG Lightning lineup is a very welcome addition to the PXG family. On the surface, it’s a great new option in fitting bays with a reliable hybrid, two new fairway woods and four new driver models — particularly the Lightning Tour Mid. As PXG celebrates a decade of success and growth, the Lightning product is the perfect display of what its team is capable of and how it’s trying to push the company forward.
The drivers are priced at $649, with the fairway woods $379 and hybrid $329.
Looking to get fit for your 2026 bag? Visit your local True Spec.
