This is the club that gave the RocketBallz family its name. According to TaylorMade, the engineers who developed the club—and a small number of Tour pros who were given a chance to hit the earliest prototypes—all said that the 3-wood "hit the ball like a rocket."
Having a little fun, the engineers etched "RocketBallz" into subsequent refinements of the prototype, more as a code name than anything else. They never expected the name to stick, but it did, although it was shortened to RBZ on the sole.
Once you get past the name, the first thing you'll notice about the TaylorMade RocketBallz Fairway Woods is a cavity carved in the sole. Positioned just behind the face, it is designed to increase the flexibility of both the face and the sole of the club to help increase ball speed.
Golfers will notice a weight plug positioned directly behind the cavity. In drivers, weights like this one are often positioned in the back to move the center of gravity lower and farther from the face to encourage a higher ball flight. In the TaylorMade RocketBallz Fairway Woods, TaylorMade has moved the center of gravity in these clubs forward.
"Historically, we've always said, let's move the center of gravity back to make the club easier to play" says Tom Olsavsky, TaylorMade's senior direct of product creation. However, Olsavsky notes, most golfers hit their fairway woods and hybrids high in the face. He says the physics that helps you hit longer shots with your 460-cc driver doesn't help you as much with fairway woods because they feature a smaller head and shallower face. In order to get a higher launch angle, more ball speed and more carry distance, TaylorMade says that it moved the center of gravity in to keep it more aligned with where golfers actually hit the ball.
Olsavsky says the combination of the cavity and the forward adjustment of the center of gravity increased the RocketBallz ball speed by 3-4 mph over the Burner SuperFast 2.0.
Like the rest of TaylorMade's 2012 wood and rescue offerings, the RocketBallz line features a white matte finish on the crown and a black face to aid in alignment. But unlike the R11 clubs, the RBZ models are not adjustable—TaylorMade hasn't been able to incorporate moveable weights into a head that features a channel on the sole.
The TaylorMade RocketBallz Fairway Woods will be available in both standard and Tour models. The Tour version has a slightly smaller head, a more open face angle and a fade bias. Similarly, TaylorMade will offer a standard RBZ Rescue club and a Tour Rescue.