CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 3, 2005--Callaway Golf Company (NYSE:ELY) today announced the latest addition to its successful HX family of golf balls: the HX(R) Hot Golf Ball, with a new 3-piece construction that delivers blistering ball speed and surprisingly soft feel. HX Hot also features the revolutionary HEX Aerodynamics for the consistent ball flight that has driven the HX Tour Golf Ball to success on the worldwide tours and at retail.

Ball speed is the key to extra distance. Additional yardage can be achieved either through added clubhead speed -- a difficult proposition for most golfers -- or through added ball speed. For the HX Hot Golf Ball, Callaway Golf design engineers focused on finding ways to increase ball speed while adhering to United States Golf Association (USGA) rules limiting initial ball velocity. They came up with a ball that rockets off the clubface at impact, achieves major hang time due to the revolutionary and now enhanced HEX Aerodynamics, and has superior feel because of the super-soft boundary layer between its hot core and aerodynamic cover.

"The HX Hot Golf Ball demonstrates how Callaway Golf ball engineers can create a Demonstrably Superior and Pleasingly Different product by focusing on unique, untraditional solutions in design and development," said William Baker, Callaway Golf Chairman and CEO. "Differentiating our product in the cluttered distance ball category called for just this type of creativity and we are very pleased with the outcome."

The new HX Hot Golf Ball boasts significant improvements over traditional 2-piece distance offerings. The new, highly resilient core -- essentially the ball's engine -- is super-fast, and kick starts a chain reaction that produces explosiveness off the clubface. The revolutionary HEX Aerodynamics on the cover also are improved, with the hexagons and pentagons optimized to reduce drag, increase lift and maximize distance.

Golf ball designers will tell you the essence of a ball's performance lies in the interaction between its layers. In creating the HX Hot, Callaway Golf engineers successfully added feel to a distance ball by separating the high resilience core from its fast cover with a soft, thin boundary layer that reacts like rubber -- interacting at impact with the cover to ignite velocity while maintaining feel. The ball flies fast off the face and goes long -- really long.

The cover of the HX Hot Golf Ball also has been improved to reduce spin off the driver for a penetrating trajectory. Like other balls in the HX family, the HX Hot has 332 geometries on the cover, blanketing the surface of the ball with 100% coverage -- unheard of in competitors' golf balls and critical to the superior flight properties and overall performance of the HX Hot Golf Ball. Achieving 100% surface coverage allows Callaway Golf engineers to tune lift and drag properties of the ball in order to reduce distance-robbing initial drag and increase length-promoting lift during flight.

The HX Hot Golf Ball from Callaway Golf will ship to retailers on January 15 and carry a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $32 per dozen.

Callaway Golf Company makes and sells Big Bertha(R) Metal Woods, Irons and Hybrids including ERC(R) Fusion(R) Drivers and Fairway Woods, Great Big Bertha II 415 Titanium Drivers, Big Bertha Titanium 454 Drivers and Big Bertha Stainless Steel Fairway Woods, Big Bertha Heavenwood(R) Hybrids, Big Bertha Stainless Steel Irons, X-18(TM) and X-18 Pro Series Irons, the Game Enjoyment System(TM) of GES(TM) Golf Clubs, Callaway Golf Forged+ Wedges, and Callaway Golf Tour Blue(TM) Putters. Callaway Golf Company also makes and sells Odyssey(R) Putters, including White Steel(R), White Hot(R), TriHot(R), DFX(R), Dual Force(R) and 2-Ball Putters. Callaway Golf Company makes and sells the Callaway Golf(R) HX(R) Tour Balls, HX Blue and HX Red Balls, HX Hot Balls, Big Bertha(TM) Blue and Big Bertha Red Balls, and the Warbird(TM) Balls. Callaway Golf also owns and operates The Top-Flite Golf Company, a wholly owned subsidiary that includes the Top-Flite(R), Strata(R) and Ben Hogan(R) brands and Bettinardi Putters. For more information about Callaway Golf Company, please visit our websites at www.callawaygolf.com, www.topflite.com and www.odysseygolf.com.

CONTACT:
Callaway Golf Company
Larry Dorman, 760-931-1771
SOURCE: Callaway Golf Company