Jonathan Wall / Golf
Welcome to Wall-to-Wall Gear, the wrap-up of GOLF’s Gear Editor’s Monday morning gear Jonathan Wall It takes you through the latest trends, rumors and new breakoutss.
Gold standards
Salek and Greens. It’s a boring mix if you enjoy watching the pros blast and slash their way to a major championship, but this might be the best way to tackle the East Course at Oak Hill Country Club, site of the 2023 PGA Championship. With tight fairways and dense roughness to contend with this week, it can The in-form strikers of the ball should have a clear advantage.
Until several weeks ago, Adam Scott wasn’t on the list of star ball forwards entering the PGA Championship. Possessing the most coveted swing in professional golf, Scott finished no higher than T21 in his first eight events at the start of the year. Much of the problem arose from the inconsistent iron play that saw Scott go from the mid-50s on the Tour in St. Germain: coming close to the green the past three seasons to outside the top 150 in the statistical class this year. Something needs to change.
Prior to the Masters, Scott relied on KBS Tour 130X steel for his irons for a very good reason: They were the same shafts he used to win the 2013 Masters. Even weekend golfers can attest that past success greatly influences equipment decisions. When something isn’t working, it’s normal to go back to something that produced positive vibes in the past.
“We always come this full circle every couple of years, and then it’s back to KBS,” said Paul Loughring, Director of Tour Operations for True Timber. “Adam wants to feel the load and the release. He’s groping on impact, so he needs to feel something to help his release and circulation. The other part of that was playing the old man.” [Titleist] Pro V1 – I think it’s been the 2015 model – forever and I didn’t want to change.”
But what happens when you change an important variable? In Scott’s case, the transition from Titleist’s Pro V1 golf ball to the 2023 Pro V1x, prior to the Masters, caused Scott to take a closer look at its iron shafts. Working with Loegering, Scott moved to a Project X LS spinning bottom spinner in an effort to drop spin. However, the change came with some drawbacks.
“Changing the ball required a low spindle, but something just didn’t feel right,” he said. “There will come a time when you want to move the ball more. The people who like Project X don’t want to feel the load and release. They want it to feel one piece. They don’t want to feel it dynamically in their swing.”
What Scott continued to see on the course with the Project X LS was lower spin—but with a noticeably higher top end. In other words, the ball tended to vent on Scott, moving him outside the launch and spin window he was used to seeing.
At RBC Heritage, Loegering suggested that Scott return the True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue—a shaft Scott has won in the past—and regain some of the playability he lost with the PX LS. The moment he put the X100 into his Miura AS-1 Blades, his normally reliable iron game returned in a big way.
“It turned out to be the perfect combination with the new ball,” Loughring said. “His numbers on the launch screen were perfect—and he’s not the big launch watch guy. It’s like coming home again, he said. Not only did he get off the spin with the X100, but the launch went into a window he used to see. For him, you get more control with The perfect launch – and without the swell.
Scott ended up adding the X100 to all of his clubs, with the one exception.
“He was doing an X100 all the way through, but I asked him, ‘How many half and three-quarter shots do you hit with a lob wedge? “I think it should have been [S400] “In the sand and the stake, but he ended up getting put in the lob,” Loughring said.
Returning to the X100 was a total game-changer for Scott, who has yet to finish in the top ten in his last two starts. In high definition, one of the best parts of Scott’s game seems to be morphing into shape at just the right time.
Super Spider
Mention the name TaylorMade Spider Itsy Bitsy and one player might come to mind: Jason Day. The Aussie put Taylor-Made’s hammer of success on the map during his rise to No. 1 in 2015 and played a significant role in Spider Red’s meteoric rise as well.
Day and Spider go together like peanut butter and jelly, but even successful partnerships have rough patches. Over the past few years, the former PGA Championship winner has chosen to go with something other than the Spider while trying to find his game, including the Scotty Cameron TourType SSS TG 6.5 hammer.
While his situation seemed to be clicking for extensions, nothing proved to be a long-term solution. In the Wells Fargo tournament, Day returns as the new Spider Itsy Bitsy but ends up missing. Instead of kicking the bat to the curb, the day of keeping it in the bag ended up at AT&T Byron Nelson.
“I was using a Scotty Cameron and then changed to one of my old Taylor Made Spider racquets last week,” Day said. “I missed the cut, and then…”
Then the belief in the spider bore fruit. The day ended with a bogey-free 62 on Sunday for the first win in five years, confirming what many of us, including the 35-year-old, already know: The spider is for him hang around.
The day ended at week 28 in SG: put (plus 2.703), but the stick was on fire when counted. With a hot racket in tow, Day is undoubtedly a name to watch this week in Oak Hill.
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