Equipment
Tour Report: Seeding week for Ping G425
As we saw just a few weeks with the tour launch of the Titleist TSi, whenever a big OEM teases their new gear out on Tour, it’s a huge deal—especially for the gear heads. Is it better? Longer? More stable? Who is putting it in play, and on and on…
This week in Vegas (Shadow Creek CC) at the CJ Cup, it’s Ping’s turn to throw their hat in the ring with the new G425 woods. It’s just that time of year: All the heavyweights come out swinging with new ideas, and tech which hopefully results in better scores for the rest of us.
From where I sit, the Ping G410 was/is hands down the most stable brick wall of a driver on the market. If you look at the players that lean towards this profile (LST or MAX), they tend to be high-speed players (Finau, Champ, Watson, Woodland). At that speed, extra distance isn’t necessarily a priority—stability is up always front. Not to say those drivers don’t pack a punch, they are plenty long, but as a golf club built for accuracy, it sits as king of the mountain.
The big question is, “What direction did Ping go in with the G425?” My hunch is they found a way to keep the stability and crank up the distance volume even more.
As its too early to get into the tech story, I did want to get a feel for what early testing was looking like, so once again I tapped my old buddy Kenton “K.O” Oates from the Ping tour team to get the inside look.
JW: First reactions across the board…what are players saying?
KO: First, the amount of work and effort that went into this launch from everyone at Ping worldwide was simply incredible. It is hard enough to launch a full line of clubs across multiple tours across the globe under normal circumstances, and I think we can all agree 2020 has been far but normal.
In Phoenix, I think we knew from early testing results with a few of our staff players that this was going to be overall a very well-received launch this week in Vegas and across the pond in Scotland. If we needed any further fuel for the fire for this launch, look no further thann Tyrell Hatton winning at Wentworth with three new G425 metal woods the first week in play.
JW: Max vs. LST. What are guys leaning towards at first testing?
KO: Players right away loved the clean rich look of the G425 Max and LST drivers. The biggest takeaway is how forgiving these drivers are with zero sacrifices to playability or speed. Ping drivers have long been known for their stability, and the G425 takes that baton and keeps running. The coolest thing we noticed was how easy it was to control and optimize the launch and spin of the bigger super stable G425 Max and how straight the smaller, sleeker low spinning G425 flew. We will see more G425 LST in play due to its extreme forgiveness in a lower spinning package—felt like you could give a player G410 Plus forgiveness with G410 LST launch conditions.
JW: How are the reactions to the new Fairway woods?
KO: From a looks standpoint, players were generally shocked to see fairway woods and hybrids without turbulators for the first time since G25/I25 fairway woods and G30 hybrids. Along with a fresh new look, players saw nice performance gains in terms of ball speeds, launch conditions, and distance with both our G425 Max and LST fairways with the same forgiveness, playability, and stability of their G410 fairways. Both players who put G425 hybrids in play this week needed the same adjustment…more loft as it was flying too far in the standard-setting.
JW: Any fun testing stories?
KO: In previous months, both Viktor Hovland and Cameron Champ tested longer driver length options. Both players gamers are short, 44 3/4 for Hovland, to very short 44 1/4 for Champ. In the previous testing, Hovland could not control spin or right miss enough to feel comfortable gaming longer option and Cameron could not find enough stability out of his preferred LST head option at his speeds.
Right away with Hovland, 425 reduced his right miss and lowered his spin at his gamer length, it wasn’t long into the fitting he looked at us and goes, “We need to build the longer one with this head.” So, we left Viktor both options, and over the last 10 days, it was fun to get screenshots of Trackman from Viktor as he approached and then surpassed 180 mph ball speed.
In Cameron’s case, he has wanted to play a longer shaft but to do so, he felt he needed to switch into our 410 Plus head to give him the extra forgiveness and stability. We started Cameron’s G425 testing with slightly longer options and were able to optimize his launch conditions with a 9-degree LST in the small plus setting. Tuesday, we tested his gamer, shorter length on Trackman, and course. The longer length gave him additional 10 yards of carry, 4 mph of ball speed, and was still more stable than his old gamer.
All said and done Hovland will play a driver an inch longer at 45 3/4 and Cameron will go with a 45-inch shaft.
Ping G425 woods in play this week at CJ Cup
Staff
Champ LST Driver Max 3w 19* Hybrid
Conners LST 3w 19* Hybrid
Hatton LST Driver LST 3w Max 7w
Hovland LST Driver
Hughes Max Driver Max 3w Max 5w
Munoz Max Driver
Niemann Max 3w
Oosthuizen Max 3w Max 7w
Thompson LST Driver Max 3w Max 7w
Watson LST Driver Max 5w
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Whats in the Bag
Matthieu Pavon WITB 2024 (May)
- Pavon’s WITB accurate as of the Wells Fargo Championship. More photos from the event here.
Driver: Ping G430 Max (9 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black 6 X
3-wood: Ping G430 LST (15 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black 7 X
Hybrid: Ping G430 (19 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 10 X
Irons: Ping i230 (3-PW)
Shafts: Nippon Modus3 Tour 120 X
Wedges: Ping Si59 (52-12S, 58-8B)
Shafts: Nippon Modus3 Tour 120 X
Putter: Ping Cadence TR Tomcat C
Grip: SuperStroke Claw 1.0P
Grips: Golf Pride MCC Align
Ball: Titleist Pro V1
Check out more in-hand photos of Pavon’s gear here.
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Equipment
Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter
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.
- Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship
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Equipment
Club Junkie WITB, league night week 4: Some old, some new
We enter week 4 of Thursday night men’s league feeling a little more confident in the game. BK is hoping to go a little lower and reduce the mistakes out there with these clubs in the bag. Watch the video for the full breakdown of why these clubs are getting the starting nod this week!
Driver: Titleist TSR2 (10 degrees, neutral setting)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana WB 63 X
3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 (15 degrees)
Shaft: UST Mamiya Lin-Q M40X TSPX Blue 7F5
7-wood: Ping G430 Max (-1 degree, flat Ssetting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 8 S
Iron: Mizuno Pro Fli-Hi 4
Shaft: Aerotech Steelfiber hls880 S
Irons: PXG 0317 Tour (5-PW)
Shaft: LA Golf A-Series 105 Low (4)
Wedge: Titleist Vokey SM10 (50-08F)
Shaft: UST Mamiya Dart V 105 F4 Wedge
Wedge: Ping S159 (56-10H)
Shaft: Ping Z-Z115
Wedge: Ping S159 (60-08B)
Shaft: Ping Z-Z115
Putter: PXG Battle Ready II Brandon
Shaft: BGT Stability Tour Spec One
Ball: Callaway Chrome Tour X
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Delta1
Oct 18, 2020 at 12:48 pm
This website is not secure. Beware!
Delta2
Oct 19, 2020 at 10:22 am
omg, what do we do!
matt
Oct 16, 2020 at 6:59 pm
do we have head size info on these… I assume the LST is less than 460?
Kev
Oct 17, 2020 at 12:29 am
445cc
Carolyn
Oct 16, 2020 at 6:39 pm
Great new drivers that will give the over 110 MPH Swing that benefit of face “COR”…I think it is so funny that guys swinging up to 130 MPH or more are getting added benefits and hitting the ball 350 yards or more while the guy with the 85 MPH or less and paying $500 or more for his/her driver are only gaining a few yards if the club is adjusted right for their swing. You want to stop this horrible distance problem in Pro Golf just change the legal limit of “COR’ and within days those 350 or more drives will come back without changing current ball limits. If the face does not rebound fast enough even Bryson will be swinging out of his shoes to get 320…
The dude
Oct 17, 2020 at 5:53 am
Someone needs a box of Kleenex….
Clay
Oct 19, 2020 at 1:13 pm
I don’t really want to see any changes, but if a change was made it’s easier to change the ball because they are cheaper and everyone goes through multiple boxes over the course of a season. Telling everyone to start buying the new, legal ball would go over much better with the golfing public than telling every golfer in the world they need to buy a new $500 driver because their gamer is now illegal.