After a nearly seven-year hiatus, Ryuji Imada has finally returned to the PGA Tour; he’ll be teeing it up this week at the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

The last time we saw Imada play in a tour-sanctioned event in the United States was back in 2015, and while he played in the 2021 Zozo Championship in Japan, he’s largely stepped away from the professional game.

Imada, who was born in Japan and is currently 45 years old, captured his lone PGA Tour victory in 2008 at the AT&T Classic in a playoff against Kenny Perry; Imada also won the 2000 Buy.com Virginia Beach Open and the 2004 BMW Charity Pro-Am at The Cliffs on the then-Nationwide Tour.

During Tuesday’s practice round day at Pebble Beach, Imada was greeted with hugs and hellos from fellow players and caddies; he was all smiles catching up with old friends.

He also showed up with a bag full of unique clubs, including an old Titleist Scotty Cameron Bullseye, a new set of Proto Concept (Proto-C) irons, and a lob wedge with a particularly unique grind on it. When Imada arrived to the range on Tuesday, he was carrying a handful of new fairway woods and drivers to test out, too.

While he was knocking some of the cobwebs off on the range at Pebble Beach, GolfWRX caught up with Imada to see what he’s been up to since we last saw him.

“To tell you the truth, not really much,” Imada said. “Been spending a lot of time with my daughter, and that’s about it. Just taking her to school, picking her up, taking her to other after school activities, and by then pretty much the day’s over.

“But yeah, I am [excited to be back out here]. I haven’t played an event in the U.S. in about 6 or 7 years. It’s good. It’s very fresh. Seeing all the old faces I can, it brings back memories.”

Speaking of old faces and memories, Imada still has the same putter in the bag he used throughout the majority of his PGA Tour career: a classic Titleist Scotty Cameron Bullseye.

“I think I got that putter about, I wanna say at least 15 years ago,” Imada said. “I can’t remember where I got it, but I think I just saw one on the putting green and I started putting with it, and it felt really good. I asked to have it, and it’s been in my bag ever since. I actually have another putter that I switch to sometimes – I switch between two putters – and the other one is probably a little bit older. Every time I feel I’m not putting well, I just switch over. But yeah, the [Bullseye] putter has been good to me.”

Of course, not every club in Imada’s bag is 15+ years old. At Pebble Beach this week, he’ll be gaming all-new Proto-C C01 blade irons and a custom Proto-C lob wedge.

“I’ve known (Masashi Kamoda, brand rep from Proto Concept) for a longtime, and he’s been a good friend of mine. He asked if I wanted to give the product a try, and as soon as I hit em, obviously they’re great looking clubs and they setup perfectly for me. I’ve always used blade irons growing up, probably up until almost 30 years old. They’re great looking, and surprisingly they’re very forgiving. I’d been playing cavity backs for the last 10 or 20 years, but these are probably more forgiving to me than the ones I’ve had before. I get more height with the middle irons, a little bit more spin, and they feel really good, they look good, and that’s all I can ask.”

The Proto-C C01 blade irons are unique because they incorporate a 25-gram titanium rod into their forgings, helping to enhance feel and sound. Also, since the titanium rod helps shift CG in the heads – to Imada’s point – they help induce higher launch angles and more forgiveness.

While Imada is playing stock C01 irons, his wedge grind is far from typical. To learn more about his special grind, I caught up with Kamoda, who represents Proto-C and works with Imada on his equipment.

“He’s picky on the wedges…he likes 61.5 or 62 degrees of loft, even though it says 60. He doesn’t like to have bounce on the back of the wedges, but he wants bounce on the front. It’s like 12-14 degrees of bounce on the front, but on the back it’s negative bounce. He likes to have light swing weights, around C7 or C8, and a shorter length: 34.5 inches.”

Being that most lob wedges are around D2-D5 swing weight and 35 inches in length, Imada’s wedge is especially short and light.

As for the rest of his setup, Imada fills out his bag with Jucie wedges (47 and 51 degrees), NexGen fairways (3 and 5 woods), NexGen hybrids (3 and 4), and his driver is still undetermined.

“I’ve been pretty much out of the golf business for awhile, so I’m gonna find out [what driver I’ll be using],” Imada said. “I’ve heard good things about Stealth. I know they’ve done really well this year ever since they came out. TaylorMade’s always made good stuff, and I’ve been using TaylorMade drivers the past 8-10 years or so, so hopefully it’ll be an easy switch for me. I haven’t even seen the head yet. When I found out I was coming, I wanted to give them a try so I got in touch with some TaylorMade people and asked if I could try some out.”

It’s been a long time away from the PGA Tour for Imada, so we’ll give him some time to test the new stuff out. Should we see Imada again, though, we’ll make sure to get an update on how the driver testing went.

With new perspective on life inside the ropes, Imada is tampering expectations when it comes to his results this week. When I asked him how his game is at the moment, he replied, “That, we’re not going to talk about. We’ll see how it goes. If I can make a few birdies, it’ll be a good day.”

Birdies or not, Imada will certainly have one of the most interesting gear setups in the field this week.

To see Ryuji Imada’s full bag setup at the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, click here!