Oh to be a fly buzzing around Medalist’s driving range for a Tiger Woods equipment testing session! Golf Digest’s longtime equipment scribe, E. Michael Johnson had that honor, and he filed a treasure-laden report for GD.

If only we could have been along for the cart ride! But alas, we’re left not with FOMO, but rather, SAHMO: sadness at having missed out.

Needless to say, you’ll want to read the full piece. However, we’ve pulled 10 insights from the article that will be of particular interest to GolfWRX members.

1. Tiger Woods has played the same iron specs since he was a kid

2. Woods has also tested equipment in much the same manner for his whole career

3. TaylorMade is developing a TW prototype muscle back iron

…and Mike Taylor, who worked on Woods’ irons at Nike, is helping with the effort.

4. At one point, he said this about the prototype 6-iron

“The look is sweet, but the window is different. But it feels great going through the ground; feels fantastic. Everything is right, we just need to bring that flight down.”

5. Tiger’s preferred iron profile is…

Woods likes “an iron with a longer blade length, thin sole and slightly squared off toe,” according to Johnson.

6.  He’s all about “how the ball flies”

In 2003 Woods told Johnson, “I’m all about how the ball flies, how it looks shortly after it leaves the club…If I look up and don’t see the ball right there—I mean, right where I expect it to be—then we have a serious, serious problem.”

7. “Cheating” with Trackman doesn’t give the full picture, according to Tiger

“It’s nice that we can cheat out here and use Trackman, but ultimately I need to see how it fits on the course,” said Woods. “Can it hit a low cut, can it hit a low draw? I want to ride the wind. I want to challenge this corner. I want to take it over that bunker. Things of that nature.” 

“For instance, right before the Hero, I had a 3-wood I was using last year before I stopped playing. On the range I hit it fantastic. On the course, I couldn’t hit it. It had too much toe droop right before impact. When I tried to turn it over, I’d hit this toe-pop-up. The golf course showed that. I had to hit golf shots. It’s not just about making it look good [on the range].”

8. Tiger was hitting drivers incredibly well

Johnson writes, “His launch conditions habitually included ball speeds of 180 miles per hour, spin rates in the 2,200 to 2,400 range with launch angle between 11 and 13 degrees…His carry distance routinely reached 315 yards.”

9. Tiger knows if a driver will work for him before he swings it

Johnson writes, “As with his irons, look with the driver is vitally important to the 14-time major champion. “I know when I’m waggling it,” he said. “If I feel it matches up to me, then it frees up my swing.”

10. The driver that he seemed to like the most was a 9-degree M3 440

Needless to say this only takes us a few steps into the goldmine that is any first-hand account of a Tiger Woods’ equipment testing session. You should absolutely head on over to Golf Digest and read Johnson’s piece to journey deeper.