Equipment
What IS that on the back of Rickie Fowler’s Cobra King wedge?
Rickie Fowler is no stranger to using wedges that are custom-made… and with wild, Oklahoma State-orange stampings on them.
Back in 2015, I spoke to Ben Schomin, Cobra’s director of tour operations, about Rickie Fowler’s special Tungsten-plugged Cobra irons and wedges. Schomin told me that since Fowler likes his wedges a half-inch short and at a swing weight of D3, Cobra developed a special fixture to mount the wedges in order to be able to insert conical Tungsten rods into Fowler’s wedges to make them heavier. He also said that each wedge took to 2-to-3 hours to make.
Flash forward to 2018, and Schomin has a bit different, more time-efficient process to add weight.
As we spotted in his recent WITB, Fowler has new wedges (56 and 60 degrees) with metal protrusions on the back cavities that look like caterpillars. To find out more about Fowler’s new Cobra King wedges, I again spoke to Schomin to get the lowdown. Here’s what he had to say.
“The grind is a specific shape I’ve been making for Rickie the last couple of seasons. Since he plays his irons 0.5 inches short, we need to add weight to those clubs to get the swingweight back up… Typically we’ve added tungsten internal weighting for both, but for testing purposes, I’ve added weld beads to increase weight over the years, which helps speed up the weighting process. Now I clean up the weld heat tint and re-blast the head to make it look good.”
Here are the specs on Fowler’s new 60-degree wedge.
- Shaft: True Temper Dynamic Gold S400 Tour Issue
- Length: 34.5 inches
- Swing weight: D4.5
- Grip: Golf Pride Tour Velvet .600 Rib 1+ .5 RH
Next time you see Fowler get up and down using a wedge, know that he has a bead-welded, torched caterpillar on it helping out.
See all of the clubs in Fowler’s bag here.
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Whats in the Bag
Kevin Streelman WITB 2024 (April)
- Kevin Streelman what’s in the bag accurate as of the Zurich Classic.
Driver: Titleist TSR3 (10 degrees, D1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black 6 X
3-wood: Titleist TSR3 (15 degrees, A1 SureFit setting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Blue 8 X
5-wood: Ping G (17.5 degrees)
Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD DI 10 X
Irons: Wilson Staff Model CB (4-9)
Shafts: Project X 6.5
Wedges: Wilson Staff Model (48-08, 54-08), Titleist Vokey Design WedgeWorks (58-L @59)
Shafts: Project X 6.5 (48), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 (54, 58)
Putter: Scotty Cameron TourType SSS TG6
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet
Ball: Titleist Pro V1x
Check out more in-hand photos of Kevin Streelman’s clubs here.
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Equipment
Choose Your Driver: Which 2012 driver was your favorite?
The year was 2012. Gangnam Style ruled supreme, its infectious beats and ludicrous horse-riding dance moves hypnotizing us with their stupidity. Everyone was talking about the Mayan calendar, convinced that the end of days was near. Superheroes soared on the silver screen, with the Avengers assembling in epic fashion. Katniss Everdeen survived The Hunger Games. And the memes! The memes abounded. Grumpy Cat triumphed. We kept calm and carried on.
In much the same way that automotive enthusiasts love classic cars, we at GolfWRX love taking a backward glance at some of the iconic designs of years past. Heck, we love taking iconic designs to the tee box in the present!
In that spirit, GolfWRX has been running a series inspired by arguably the greatest fighting game franchise of all time: Mortal Kombat. It’s not “choose your fighter” but rather “choose your driver.”
Check out some of the standout combatants of 2012 below.
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Nike VRS
Often harshly critiqued during its years releasing golf equipment (right, Phil Mickelson?), Nike’s tenure in the club-and-ball business gets a gloss of nostalgic varnish, with many of its iron and putter designs continuing to attract admirers. Among the company’s driver offerings, the 2012 VRS — or VR_S, if you will — drew high marks for its shaping and toned-down appearance. The multi-thickness, NexCOR face was no joke either.
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
Callaway RAZR Fit
Callaway’s first foray into moveable weight technology (married with its OptiFit hosel) did not disappoint. With a carbon fiber crown, aerodynamic attention to detail, and variable and hyperbolic face technologies, this club foreshadowed the tech-loaded, “story in every surface” Callaway drivers of the present, AI-informed design age.
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
Cleveland Classic 310
Truly a design that came out of left field. Cleveland said, “Give me a persimmon driver, but make it titanium…in 460cc.” Our 2012 reviewer, JokerUsn wrote, “I don’t need to elaborate on all the aesthetics of this club. You’ve seen tons of pics. You’ve all probably seen a bunch in the store and held them up close and gotten drool on them. From a playing perspective, the color is not distracting. It’s dark enough to stay unobtrusive in bright sunlight…Even my playing partners, who aren’t into clubs at all…commented on it saying it looks cool.” Long live!
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
Titleist 910
While there’s no disputing Titleist’s “Titleist Speed” era of drivers perform better than its 2010s offerings, sentimentality abounds, and there was something classically Titleist about these clubs, right down to the alignment aid, and the look is somewhere between 983 times and the present TS age. Representing a resurgence after a disappointing stretch of offerings (907, 909), The 910D2 was a fairly broadly appealing driver with its classic look at address and classic Titleist face shape.
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
TaylorMade RocketBallz
The white crown. The name. You either loved ‘em or you hated ‘em. TaylorMade’s 2012 offering from its RocketBallz Period boasted speed-enhancing aerodynamics and an Inverted Cone Technology in the club’s titanium face. Technology aside, it’s impossible to overstate what a departure from the norm a white-headed driver was in the world of golf equipment.
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
Ping i20
Long a quietly assertive player in the driver space, Ping’s i20 was more broadly appealing than the G20, despite being a lower-launch, lower-spin club. Ping drivers didn’t always have looks that golfer’s considered traditional or classic, but the i20 driver bucked that trend. Combining the classic look with Ping’s engineering created a driver that better players really gravitated toward. The i20 offered players lower launch and lower spin for more penetrating ball flight while the rear 20g tungsten weights kept the head stable. Sound and feel were great also, being one of the more muted driver sounds Ping had created up to that time.
Check out our coverage from 2012 here.
GolfWRXers, let us know in the comments who “your fighter” is and why!
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Equipment
Coolest thing for sale in the GolfWRX Classifieds (4/29/24): Krank Formula Fire driver with AutoFlex SF505 shaft
At GolfWRX, we are a community of like-minded individuals that all experience and express our enjoyment of the game in many ways.
It’s that sense of community that drives day-to-day interactions in the forums on topics that range from best driver to what marker you use to mark your ball. It even allows us to share another thing we all love – buying and selling equipment.
Currently, in our GolfWRX buy/sell/trade (BST) forum, there is a listing for a Krank Formula fire driver with AutoFlex SF505 shaft.
From the seller: (@well01): “Krank formula fire 10.5 degree with AUtoflex SF505. $560 shipped.”
To check out the full listing in our BST forum, head through the link: Krank Formula Fire driver with AutoFlex SF505 shaft
This is the most impressive current listing from the GolfWRX BST, and if you are curious about the rules to participate in the BST Forum you can check them out here: GolfWRX BST Rules
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sid
May 9, 2018 at 10:19 am
Cobra club designers must wince painfully to see all that ugly weld bead on the back of their beauties. It’s a total rebuke by Rickie that must really sting… lol
William King
Feb 2, 2018 at 11:21 am
Is that club on the USGA and R&A approved list? No doubt the original is, but I think that the rules prohibit alterations to an approved club.
Milton Gombo
Jan 31, 2018 at 7:20 pm
He used as little welding heat as possible, so as not to warp the club head. Weld will crack and fall off if not ground down and finished properly.
Lesson learned: if you like a heavy wedge, look elsewhere.
George
Feb 2, 2018 at 5:18 pm
You don’t have a clue what you are talking about.
Milton Gombo
Feb 2, 2018 at 5:51 pm
Professional Certified Welding Inspector and consultant here.
Heard we can all learn something from everyone. Please elaborate.
M-Herd4
Jan 31, 2018 at 5:38 pm
If it doesn’t bother Ricky it doesn’t bother me. Most pros don’t care how pretty the club is as long as it feels right in their hands and they can hit the shots they need to on command.
Blake
Jan 31, 2018 at 4:55 pm
Did people not know this?
farmer
Jan 31, 2018 at 3:36 pm
Not a very good job of welding. Ugly, but it works. No way to clean up those welds and make them look good.
George
Jan 31, 2018 at 3:20 pm
It’s a tool. All these idiots that sit around looking at their clubs obviously have no idea how to use them.
Piney
Jan 31, 2018 at 1:57 pm
“Now I clean up the weld heat tint and re-blast the head to make it look good.”
If that’s your definition of “good”, please don’t ever touch my clubs. It looks ridiculous. Also, there’s physically no way that bead welding, then removing a finish, then re-blasting his clubs is faster than adding or removing a few strips of lead tape…
Ed
Jan 31, 2018 at 1:20 pm
What’s wrong with a neat patch of lead tape? The weld bead makes the Cobra wedge fugly.
Will Cobra provide me with a custom weld bead or do I have to go to a local muffler shop for a weld bead? 😮
deeo
Jan 31, 2018 at 2:01 pm
Maybe it‘s inefficient to use leadtape because of all the adhesive?
I honestly don‘t know, but this torched caterpillar seems more … condensed than adding layers upon layers of lead tape.
Zach
Jan 31, 2018 at 1:16 pm
Are those 56 and 60’s really those lofts? He has some 54 and 58 stamps on them that would elude one to think they are 54* 58*??
Brian
Jan 31, 2018 at 1:55 pm
They’re probably bent to 56/60 for bounce and/or offset purposes.
Zach
Jan 31, 2018 at 3:55 pm
Or is it the other way around? Looks to me like the stock on them is 56/60 and he has bent to 54/58?