Attended the Chysler Classic of Greensboro today. Weather was cold, windy, and a little wet at times, but we still enjoyed the day. Spent the morning watching various pairings, lunch at the range, and then watch a few after noon pairings. I didn’t see any big equipment revelations outside the scope of what has already been shown and talked about on this site, so I am not going to provide a list of each player and what they were playing. If you want to know what a player was playing, you can ask and I will do my best to recall if I saw them. What I will do is provide my feedback on what I saw and learned.
The biggest difference between tour players and good amateurs is accuracy, ball striking and putting in my opinion. If you would have asked me that question yesterday I probably would have said it was distance. Today I watched several groups and many of the players only hit the ball average distance or just a little better. However, they are very accurate with the driver, and deadly with the wedges from 100 yards in. I only saw one putt inside 10’ missed all morning, and it was a lip out. I think many people (including me) focus on distance too much, and I learned today it isn’t that important to scoring. I saw many pros hit bad shots, but they are experts at recovering.
These guys are tremendous ball strikers. The sound that they make when striking the ball doesn’t compare to sound I make at contact. I watched at least 30 players today, with some big names like DL III, Daly, Howell, Pavin, Goydos, K.J., etc….. However three people I saw stood out as true ball strikers --- Elkington, Ted Purdy, and Lucas Glover. The sound at impact for these three players was different and a cut above any other I witnessed today. None of them were that long, but they had complete mastery of their ball striking and flight. Elk was using DW Macgregor grinds, he sets up a little open, and then hit beautiful soft draws. Ted Purdy was using Ping S59s, traditional set and swing, and drove his right shoulder through impact hitting sweet baby draws. Lucas Glover was playing Titty 735s and hit the same sweet baby draws all day.
Speaking of draws, the predominant shot that I witnessed was a draw. Drivers, fairway woods, irons, even short irons, a baby 5 yard draw. The ball starts out just right of the target line and straightens out at the apex and seems to go forever. I only saw two people hit fades all day – Corey Pavin and Marc Calcavechia. I would even call Calcs shots more straight than a fade. I watched him on the range and he hit drive after drive straight as an arrow.
I do have some equipment observations. There is a lot of discussion on this site about shafts, but it was interesting to see that a large number of players were using stock shafts. You can flame away if you want but I saw it with my own eyes, many times from 3-5 feet away ( I also had binoculars! ).
The majority of Ping staffers were using stock Ping shafts. Jeff Maggert was using all Rapture woods for stock TFC shafts, and S58s with ZZ65s. Every Ping player I saw had a Rapture driver, and so did Elkington. Maggert was the only one I saw with a Rapture fairway or hybrid. Ted Purdy was using JZ Extra Stiff shafts, go figure. The exception was Daniel Chopra who had Black Golds in his S59s, and Ryan Moore who had a mixed set of Rapture Irons and S58s with Dynamic Golds.
Taylor Made has to be the king of Drivers. Tons of TM R7s out there in mostly the 425 varieties. John Daly was using an R7 460 and launched every drive over the fence at the back of the range (he hit is old TM 3 Wood, not sure of the model over the same fence also). BTW, JD had Matrix shafts in his wedges. Also saw tons of TM RAC TP Blades, even in Titleist bags. The only exceptions I saw were Kenny Perry with the new R7 TP irons, and Joey Singular with RAC LTs.
Callaway is still the king of fairway woods. Many different players use Cally 3 woods, and I am talking about previous models. Saw mostly Steelhead IIIs and Steelhead Plus models, in many bags. Every Cally staffer I saw was using the FT-3 driver, and the X-Tour Proto Irons. The exception was Mark Brooks who had Big Bertha long irons and Hogan Blades for short irons. Watched Charles Howell III for a while. He has the flattest trajectory I have ever seen. Every shot he hits looks like a bullet taking off. He was at least three clubs longer that his playing partners on a couple of holes. His drivers never got above tree top level.
If I come up with any other feedback I will add it later.
LB