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GolfWRX Morning 9: What Tiger benching his putter would mean | RIP Phil Rodgers I The French don’t care about the Ryder Cup?

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Good morning, GolfWRX members. As most of you are signed up for our newsletters, you likely already know that I’ve been sending this little Morning 9 roundup of nine items of note.

In case you’ve missed it, or you prefer to read on site rather than in your email, we’re including it here. Check out today’s Morning 9 below.

If you’re not signed up for our newsletters, you can subscribe here.

By Ben Alberstadt ([email protected])

June 28, 2018

Good Thursday morning, golf fans.
1. The decline and fall of Tiger’s putter

 

Tiger Woods vaunted weapon, his Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS, has betrayed him, as we know (surely it’s the arrow and not the Indian!).
  • Adam Schupak elaborates on the significance…”This isn’t just any putter. Woods played in the pro-am with David Falk, the longtime agent for Michael Jordan, and this putter change felt like the equivalent of MJ playing hoops in tennis shoes rather than his signature high-tops. Aided by a sense of the moment that always seemed to allow him to will the ball into the hole, Woods’s putter has been his sword and his shield throughout his illustrious career. How many times have we seen him strike a putt and the ball die just at the right moment and curl in? The answer is too many times to count.”
  • However, as Schupak writes, those days are distant memories…”It’s time to characterize this for what it is: a full-fledged putting slump. He ranks 89th on Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting and 118th in total putting. His best putting performance was arguably his debut at Torrey Pines, when he hit the ball all over the lot and his putter was his salvation. So what’s changed?”
  • “I don’t know,” Woods said. “That’s been the frustrating part.” MORE
Frustrating, indeed. We’ll see which putter Woods uses today and how he putts with it.

 

2. RIP Phil Rodgers

 

The five-time PGA Tour winner turned teacher who rebuilt Jack Nicklaus’ short game passed away yesterday after a 15-year fight with leukemia.
  • Rodgers helped Nicklaus retool his short game in early 1980. The Golden Bear went on to win the U.S. Open and PGA Championship that year, and he credited Rodgers.
  • “My heart hurts today after the passing of dear friend, Phil Rodgers,” Nicklaus tweeted Tuesday. “I knew Phil for almost 65 years. Terrific ball-striker and great short game, he became a gifted teacher. Phil reinvented my short game in 1980 and I won two majors that year. Miss him already.”
3. A big week for Woods

 

Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard spelled out the importance of this week in Tiger Woods’ year (beyond needing to get his putting back on track).
  • “He has, after all, played well enough so far this season to at least qualify for the first two post-season events, if not the Ryder Cup; and by all accounts seems pleased with his progress during this current comeback from injury.”
  • “But there’s more on the line for the 14-time major champion this week at TPC Potomac than one might expect.”
  • “Although Woods’ climb in the World Golf Ranking has been nothing short of meteoric, moving from outside the top 600 late last year to 82nd, he still has plenty of work to do, primarily his quest to play the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational which will move to Memphis next year.”
4. Ko among the favorites entering a major again

 

Robert Van Royen of Stuff.co.nz points out the Kiwi is getting back to where she belongs.
  • “She’s finished inside the top-10 in four of her last six tournaments, including a ninth (tied) placed finish at the NW Arkansas Championship earlier this week, and a third placed finish at the Meijer LPGA Classic earlier in the month.”
  • “Ko hasn’t missed a cut since March, and appears to only be getting more comfortable with the tweaks coach Ted Oh has made to her swing since taking over at the start of the year.”
5. Inbee Park burglarized

 

An inauspicious start to the Women’s PGA Championship for the World No. 1, Obviously in Illinois for the tournament, Park’s Las Vegas home was robbed.
  • “Talking to police, talking to insurance,” Park said. “It’s so hard when you’re not there trying to figure out what’s lost. I mean, this is the life we get on the road.”
  • Fortunately, she keeps most of her trophies (and her Olympic gold medal) in South Korea.
6. Nobody in France cares about the Ryder Cup?

 

An interview with French pro Michael Lorenzo-Vera on Tuesday ahead of the French Open certainly painted a dire picture of the state of the game in the country.
  • “Golf is not a good thing here. It’s for rich people and spoiled kids. That’s the image we have,” Lorenzo-Vera told the Times. “Golf is a very private thing for people in France. Private courses for only rich families or rich people – that’s it.”
  • Oh, and apparently, nobody cares that the Ryder Cup is coming to France. “People don’t care about the Ryder Cup. Honestly, nobody knows there’s going to be a Ryder Cup in France. Only the golfers know. That’s it. There won’t be many French there.”
Yikes.

 

7. Tour Authentic

 

I talked  with Alexander DePallo, Brand and Marketing Manager for Callaway Apparel about the company’s new high-end clothing line.
  • BA: Where did this collection come from? It’s a departure from Callaway’s usual apparel philosophy. What was development like?
  • AD: Basically, over the past year-and-a-half we…as Callaway Apparel, pivoted in our strategy in adjusting our business model. In the past, we had been very focused on department stores and wider outlets, versus now, we’re pivoting and implementing that pricing, we’ve closed up our distribution we’ve made it more focused on selling full-priced products, golf specialty…honing on on where golfers are going to buy product and elevating the full platform for Callaway Apparel.
  • “We’ve really been building up our green grass presence…We’ve found that at these high-end green grass locations, we didn’t have products that were meeting their needs. Our design team went out and had the task to build a luxury golf line that’s build for high-end green grass. That is what Tour Authentic is.’
  • “They spent 18 months developing the products. They went to five different countries; pulling fabrics from Japan, from Germany, from Switzerland, finding the right materials and coming up with product construction that was not in the market. Looking at the solid poly with the Japanese yarn or the Mongolian cashmere sweaters or the Schoeller fabric in the pants…there’s so much technology but still a refined craftsmanship.”

 

8. Pod alert!

 

For your listening pleasure: Johnny Wunder talked with the great Bob Bettinardi about a range of topics, including making Matt Kuchar’s putter and working on Tiger Woods’ putters back in 1996.

 

Michael Williams talked with Bobby Clampett on the 19th Hole podcast. Clampett discusses the one thing absolutely every golf swing must have to be successful.

 

9. Maverick McNealy’s childhood home for sale…for $100 million

 

If you can just get approved for the mortgage… Maverick McNealy’s father, former Sun Microsystems CEO, Scott McNealy, put the family home on the market. Backyard golf hole, 7,300 sq/ft indoor hockey rink. Gym. Climbing wall. Movie theater. The Silicon Valley crib has it all.

 

 

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Equipment

Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter

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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.

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Equipment

Rickie Fowler’s new putter: Standard-length Odyssey Jailbird 380 in custom orange

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Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article. 

…The Jailbird craze hasn’t really slowed down in 2024, either. According to Odyssey rep Joe Toulon, there are about 18-20 Jailbird putter users on the PGA TOUR.

Most recently, Akshay Bhatia won the 2024 Valero Texas Open using a broomstick-style Odyssey Jailbird 380 putter and Webb Simpson is switching into a replica of that putter at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.

Now, Fowler, who essentially started the whole Jailbird craze, is making a significant change to his putter setup.

Fowler, who has had a couple weeks off since the 2024 RBC Heritage, started experimenting with a new, custom-orange Jailbird 380 head that’s equipped with a standard 35-inch putter build, rather than his previous 38-inch counter-balanced setup.

According to Fowler, while he still likes the look and forgiveness of his Jailbird putter head, he’s looking to re-incorporate more feel into his hands during the putting stroke.

He told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Championship that the 38-inch counterbalanced setup “served its purpose” by helping him to neutralize his hands during the stroke, but now it’s time to try the standard-length putter with a standard-size SuperStroke Pistol Tour grip to help with his feel and speed control.

Although Fowler was also spotted testing standard-length mallets from L.A.B. Golf and Axis1 on Tuesday, he confirmed that the custom Odyssey Jailbird 380 is the putter he’ll use this week at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article. 

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Equipment

Details on Justin Thomas’ driver switch at the Wells Fargo Championship

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Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article. 

So, with a couple of weeks off following his latest start at the 2024 RBC Heritage, Thomas sought to re-address his driver setup with the remote help of Titleist Tour fitting expert J.J. Van Wezenbeeck. About two weeks ago, Thomas and Van Wezenbeeck reviewed his recent driver stats, and discussed via phone call some possible driver and shaft combinations for him to try.

After receiving Van Wezenbeeck’s personalized shipment of product options while at home, Thomas found significant performance improvements with Titleist’s TSR2 head, equipped with Thomas’ familiar Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX shaft.

Compared to Thomas’ longtime TSR3 model, the TSR2 has a larger footprint and offers slightly higher spin and launch characteristics.

According to Van Wezenbeeck, Thomas has picked up about 2-3 mph of ball speed, to go along with 1.5 degrees higher launch and more predictable mishits.

“I’d say I’d been driving it fine, not driving it great, so I just wanted to, honestly, just test or try some stuff,” Thomas said on Tuesday in an interview with GolfWRX.com at Quail Hollow Club. “I had used that style of head a couple years ago (Thomas used a TSi2 driver around 2021); I know it’s supposed to have a little more spin. Obviously, yeah, I’d love to hit it further, but if I can get a little more spin and have my mishits be a little more consistent, I felt like obviously that’d be better for my driving…

“This (TSR2) has been great. I’ve really, really driven it well the week I’ve used it. Just hitting it more solid, I don’t know if it’s the look of it or what it is, but just a little bit more consistent with the spin numbers. Less knuckle-ball curves. It has been fast. Maybe just a little faster than what I was using. Maybe it could be something with the bigger head, maybe mentally it looks more forgiving.”

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article. 

 

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