Okay, let’s talk about fiddling with the Callaway Rogue 5 wood loft. I got my hands on one a while back, heard good things about it being forgiving, which, let’s be honest, I need.
So, I took it out to the range, standard setup, whatever it came with out of the box. Hit it okay, mostly. But sometimes it felt like the ball ballooned up a bit too much, especially into the wind. Other times, maybe off a tight lie, felt like I couldn’t get it up enough. You know how it is, always something.
I remembered reading it had this adjustable hosel thingy. Honestly, usually I don’t mess with that stuff much. Set it and forget it, that’s my usual style. But this time, I thought, what the heck, let’s see what it actually does. Felt like I was leaving something on the table, you know?
Getting Started with the Wrench
First step, actually finding the little wrench tool. Knew I had it somewhere. Dug through my bag, checked all the pockets, finally found it mixed in with some old tees and ball markers. Typical.
Then I had to figure out the settings. Looked at the hosel, saw the little ‘+1’, ‘S’ (for standard, I guess?), ‘-1’ and ‘D’ (for draw?). Didn’t come with a manual, or I lost it. So, I just went for it.
- Loosened the screw near the head. Easy enough.
- Pulled the head off carefully.
- Looked at the little rotating cog thing inside.
Okay, seemed straightforward. You turn the cog to line up the setting you want with the mark on the shaft adapter.
Hitting the Range for Testing
My thinking was, ball flight’s too high sometimes, right? So, let’s try lowering the loft. I set it to ‘-1’. Tightened the screw back up, made sure it clicked.
Went back to the range with a fresh bucket. Started hitting. Immediately noticed a difference. The ball definitely came out lower. More piercing, felt like it cut through the wind better. That was good.
But, and there’s always a but, it also felt a little harder to launch cleanly off the grass. Maybe needed a bit more speed, or just a perfect strike? Hit a few thin ones. Not horrible, but not as easy as the standard setting.
Okay, phase two. Let’s try the other way. Loosened the screw again, twisted the cog thingy to ‘+1’. Tightened it back up. Hit some more balls.
This time, super easy to get the ball airborne. Felt really forgiving off the deck. Pop! Right up it went. Downside? It felt like I was losing some distance. The ball went high, yeah, but maybe too high, kinda floated down softly instead of driving out there. Especially noticeable on the better strikes.
Finding My Setting
So, I spent a good hour just switching between ‘S’, ‘-1’, and ‘+1’. Didn’t even bother with the ‘D’ setting, wasn’t really fighting a slice with this club.
Here’s what I landed on, for me anyway:
I actually went back to the ‘S’ or Standard setting. Yeah, after all that messing around. Why?
- The ‘-1’ was great into the wind or off the tee, but just a bit too demanding off the fairway for my consistency.
- The ‘+1’ was easy to hit high, but I felt like I sacrificed too much distance and control in windy conditions.
- The ‘S’ setting felt like the best compromise for my swing. It wasn’t perfect every time, nothing ever is, but it gave me the most playable results across different situations. Decent height, decent distance, reasonably forgiving.
It was a good process, though. Really understood what those settings actually did to the ball flight, rather than just reading about it. Took some time, hit a lot of balls, but now I know. If I’m playing a really windy day, maybe I’d consider tweaking it to ‘-1’ beforehand, but for general play, ‘S’ is my spot for this Rogue 5 wood. Worth messing with if you have one, just gotta put the time in on the range.
