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Duel In Dublin

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After a lengthy run through Texas the PGA Tour emerges in Ohio this week with a riveting field set to face off at The Memorial Tournament.

Phil Mickelson made a great charge in the last few weeks, closing the gap on the lead of Tiger Woods in the Official World Golf Rankings, and accordingly, much attention will fall on the pair this week in Dublin.

This time last year Phil was dealing with family matters and in his absence Tiger shook down the Jack Nicklaus/Desmond Muirhead collaboration for a final round 65 and his 4th tournament title. That included what appeared to be an unprecedented performance by Woods that saw him hit 14 of 14 fairways on the tree-lined layout. (He had actually last hit the stat in 2003 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational) It was the first win in the tournament for him since his three year consecutive winning streak from 1999 through 2001.

Whether he can transform his driving from the poor display he had at Quail Hollow back to 2009 Memorial-like numbers is hard to fathom but the man who still holds World’s #1 ranking said in a press conference Wednesday prior to the Memorial Skins Game that he is ready to go.

“Life is moving forward. The last 6 months were pretty tough,” admitted Woods who looked relaxed, mixing in several self-effacing jokes with the media corps. “I’m now starting to get into a routine of playing.”

That included 54 holes in a single day over the weekend at Isleworth alongside Arjun Atwal.  “We played in carts..and fast.”

As for two of Tiger’s latest issues – his coaching separation and his neck injury Tiger revealed little on Wednesday other than that he has no plan of a replacement coach right now and he will continue to work with videotape to re-establish his swing. He is obviously still recovering form the neck injury, challenging one media member that he did not have to tell him how good or bad the neck currently is but asserted, “I’m good enough to play.”

With the U.S. Open on the horizon Tiger has his eyes on his 15th major win and the conditions at Muirfield Village, announced Wednesday as the host for the 2013 Presidents Cup, will provide great preparation. “It will be nice to get four rounds, get in contention and win this thing. I would like to see where my game is at going into the Open.”

And so will the rest of the field, many will be tangling with Woods at Pebble Beach later this month.

That includes a number of players that should garner close attention this week. Among them will be Rory McIlroy definite contender considering his win on a similar layout at the Quail Hollow Championship. It will be his first start at The Memorial so that might be the mark against him earning his 2nd PGA Tour win this week.

Only 2nd to Tiger in wins at The Memorial is Kenny Perry who returns for his 22nd appearance. In those showing he has 3 wins and 6 top-tens among his tally. He has made the cut in his last 16 trips to Muirfield Village.

The winner this week will have to be out on a favorites list for the U.S. Open in a few weeks. They will also have the luxury of earning just over $1,000,000 for the win – just enough to get them a nice room at The Lodge when they head to the Monterey Peninsula.

With many of the top players and the 2010 winners in the field this week, it should be a nice run to Sunday to see who can add a Gray Jacket to their wardrobe and a much-cherished tour title to their resume.

This report provided to GolfWRX.com by Flagstick Golf Magazine (www.flagstick.com)

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Equipment

Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter

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Tommy Fleetwood has been attached to his Odyssey White Hot Pro #3 putter for years now. However, this week at the Wells Fargo Championship, we did spot him testing a new putter that is very different, yet somewhat similar, to his current gamer.

This new putter is a TaylorMade Spider Tour X head but with a brand new neck we haven’t seen on a Spider before. A flow neck is attached to the Spider head and gives the putter about a 1/2 shaft offset. This style neck will usually increase the toe hang of the putter and we can guess it gets the putter close to his White Hot Pro #3.

Another interesting design is that lack of TaylorMade’s True Path alignment on the top of the putter. Instead of the large white center stripe, Tommy’s Spider just has a very short white site line milled into it. As with his Odyssey, Tommy seems to be a fan of soft inserts and this Spider prototype looks to have the TPU Pure Roll insert with 45° grooves for immediate topspin and less hopping and skidding.

The sole is interesting as well in that the rear weights don’t look to be interchangeable and are recessed deep into the ports. This setup could be used to push the CG forward in the putter for a more blade-like feel during the stroke, like TaylorMade did with the Spider X Proto Scottie Scheffler tested out.

Tommy’s putter is finished off with an older Super Stroke Mid Slim 2.0 grip in blue and white. The Mid Slim was designed to fit in between the Ultra Slim 1.0 and the Slim 3.0 that was a popular grip on tour.

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Rickie Fowler’s new putter: Standard-length Odyssey Jailbird 380 in custom orange

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Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article. 

…The Jailbird craze hasn’t really slowed down in 2024, either. According to Odyssey rep Joe Toulon, there are about 18-20 Jailbird putter users on the PGA TOUR.

Most recently, Akshay Bhatia won the 2024 Valero Texas Open using a broomstick-style Odyssey Jailbird 380 putter and Webb Simpson is switching into a replica of that putter at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.

Now, Fowler, who essentially started the whole Jailbird craze, is making a significant change to his putter setup.

Fowler, who has had a couple weeks off since the 2024 RBC Heritage, started experimenting with a new, custom-orange Jailbird 380 head that’s equipped with a standard 35-inch putter build, rather than his previous 38-inch counter-balanced setup.

According to Fowler, while he still likes the look and forgiveness of his Jailbird putter head, he’s looking to re-incorporate more feel into his hands during the putting stroke.

He told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Championship that the 38-inch counterbalanced setup “served its purpose” by helping him to neutralize his hands during the stroke, but now it’s time to try the standard-length putter with a standard-size SuperStroke Pistol Tour grip to help with his feel and speed control.

Although Fowler was also spotted testing standard-length mallets from L.A.B. Golf and Axis1 on Tuesday, he confirmed that the custom Odyssey Jailbird 380 is the putter he’ll use this week at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article. 

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Details on Justin Thomas’ driver switch at the Wells Fargo Championship

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Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article. 

So, with a couple of weeks off following his latest start at the 2024 RBC Heritage, Thomas sought to re-address his driver setup with the remote help of Titleist Tour fitting expert J.J. Van Wezenbeeck. About two weeks ago, Thomas and Van Wezenbeeck reviewed his recent driver stats, and discussed via phone call some possible driver and shaft combinations for him to try.

After receiving Van Wezenbeeck’s personalized shipment of product options while at home, Thomas found significant performance improvements with Titleist’s TSR2 head, equipped with Thomas’ familiar Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX shaft.

Compared to Thomas’ longtime TSR3 model, the TSR2 has a larger footprint and offers slightly higher spin and launch characteristics.

According to Van Wezenbeeck, Thomas has picked up about 2-3 mph of ball speed, to go along with 1.5 degrees higher launch and more predictable mishits.

“I’d say I’d been driving it fine, not driving it great, so I just wanted to, honestly, just test or try some stuff,” Thomas said on Tuesday in an interview with GolfWRX.com at Quail Hollow Club. “I had used that style of head a couple years ago (Thomas used a TSi2 driver around 2021); I know it’s supposed to have a little more spin. Obviously, yeah, I’d love to hit it further, but if I can get a little more spin and have my mishits be a little more consistent, I felt like obviously that’d be better for my driving…

“This (TSR2) has been great. I’ve really, really driven it well the week I’ve used it. Just hitting it more solid, I don’t know if it’s the look of it or what it is, but just a little bit more consistent with the spin numbers. Less knuckle-ball curves. It has been fast. Maybe just a little faster than what I was using. Maybe it could be something with the bigger head, maybe mentally it looks more forgiving.”

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article. 

 

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