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NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
BROUGHT TO YOU BY GOLF PRIDE, THE #1 GRIP ON TOUR
There usually is a significant gap between the equipment used by professionals and recreational players, but that isn’t always the case.
Take Keegan Bradley, the past PGA Championship winner who started deploying the TaylorMade draw-biased SIM Max D driver, a club intended for weekend hackers who can’t get rid of their nasty slice. With all other variables being equal, the Max D model moves the ball 7 yards left of where the SIM Max would finish, so it’s a fairly meaningful change.
TaylorMade reps said that Bradley likes hitting the ball closer to the toe with his driver and he prefers a deeper face as well, a combination that has led to him picking up 8 yards off the tee and achieving a higher launch angle.
Bradley isn’t alone in the draw-biased driver arena. Chris Kirk now uses Mizuno’s ST200X with an upright setting that gives the face roughly 9.5 degrees of loft.
In the iron arena, Justin Rose surprised Honma’s reps by eschewing the tour-only TR20B irons that resembled his Rose Proto blades by choosing the retail version available to the public. There are small differences – the bounce and lie angle aren’t standard – but it still was an upset for Rose to go in another direction.
“There were a few models,” Rose told Golf.com. “There was a 001, 002 and a 003 ... and I kind of landed on their standard production shape. I looked at it and kind of took what I thought were my preferences, like the pinched toe that I was playing in the Rose Proto and said, ‘Actually, I kind of like what you guys have done.’ ”
Boosted by Brooks Koepka’s decision to switch from the TaylorMade M5 to the Callaway Mavrik Sub Zero, the low-spin version in their new lineup, Callaway is off to a hot start in 2020. Phil Mickelson has opted for the 9-degree Mavrik driver and 13.5-degree 3-wood, while recent Farmers Insurance Open winner Marc Leishman told Golf.com it only took three balls for him to figure out the Mavrik is the right driver for him.
In the putter world, Matthew Wolff is hoping a switch to the TaylorMade Truss TM1 putter can ignite a sluggish start to the year on the greens. Meanwhile, a change to the new Bettinardi BB56 Hexperimental Prototype putter has buoyed J.B. Holmes to a pair of strong finishes early in the year.
Titleist led the ball count at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (74 percent) and at the ISPS Handa Vic Open for both the men’s (83 percent) and women’s (82 percent) competitions. The brand also led in every equipment category at Pebble Beach, including drivers (24 percent). Meanwhile, FootJoy took the shoe count at Pebble (60 percent).
Sean Fairholm