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NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
BROUGHT TO YOU BY GOLF PRIDE, THE #1 GRIP ON TOUR
Through the years, certain PGA Tour players have earned a reputation for constantly reinventing their equipment setups, while some want to hold on to the past regardless of new technology.
Vijay Singh falls squarely into the first camp. Look no further than the Mizuno MP-20 blades he is puts in play when the game is active, a set of irons that would confuse most casual golf fans.
The clubs feature a secondary stamp, meaning Singh’s 8-iron has one large “8” with a small, red “9” just above it. This is meant to make clear that the big Fijian’s 8-iron plays like a 9-iron, his 7-iron plays like an 8-iron, and so on through the set.
Why the need for two numbers on a club? It comes down to adding more bounce.
“What we have done is, for example, taken a 9-iron which is standard at 42 degrees of loft and bend it to 45 to make it his pitching wedge,” Jeff Cook, head of Mizuno’s PGA Tour operations, told PGATour.com. “By doing this we have added three degrees of bounce and created slightly less offset in the heads.
“Our technician ... stamps the clubs with the new numbers and paints them to make sure there's not a mistake made in club selection."
It’s an intriguing decision given that bounce – the angle between the ground and the sole of a club at proper address – is typically a major consideration only with wedges. That’s not the case with Singh, however, who is a player with a steep downswing. The added bounce with each club aids the head in getting through impact more efficiently.
For every degree of loft added to or subtracted from a club by bending it, there is an addition or subtraction of that much bounce. For that reason, bounce can’t be added to a 42-degree 9-iron without adding loft.
The end result? A set of irons with two numbers.
While Singh continues to tinker, Daniel Berger chooses to play a nine-year-old model of irons he once used while in high school.
Berger used the TaylorMade MC 2011 irons back in the day, and even has used them intermittently as a pro, winning the 2016 FedEx St. Jude Classic with them. However, after a lengthy hiatus, he stumbled across a brand new set of the clubs in his garage and decided to put them in play this year.
Because he replaces his irons frequently, Berger – who is a free agent in the gear world – has connected with strangers on social media to buy their TaylorMade MC irons from them.
It’s hard to believe a PGA Tour pro could use a random recreational golfer’s clubs, but Berger clearly has found something that he believes in.
Sean Fairholm