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NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
BROUGHT TO YOU BY GOLF PRIDE, THE #1 GRIP ON TOUR
As four of the best golfers in the world put their games on display Sunday at Seminole Golf Club, it makes sense to compare and contrast the equipment they used.
Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson and Matthew Wolff are full TaylorMade staffers, but all three of their bags have meaningful differences. Rickie Fowler plays a TaylorMade golf ball, the TP5 pix 2.0, and has a full Cobra bag except for a Scotty Cameron putter.
Starting with the overall makeup of each set, the most noticeable difference is that McIlroy and Johnson both play 19-degree SIM Max rescues, while Wolff and Fowler don’t carry a hybrid. Wolff goes old-school with a P790 2-iron while Fowler’s lowest iron is a 20.5-degree Cobra F9 Speedback 4-iron.
No player has a true 3-iron, which opens the door for each of them to carry four wedges in their bag at standard degrees of loft, save for Wolff who has a 50-degree gap wedge instead of the more commonly seen 52-degree gap wedge.
McIlroy and Wolff both have 10.5-degree SIM drivers, while Johnson opts for a 10.5-degree SIM Max. The SIM Max has a higher MOI and comes with a slightly larger face, offering more forgiveness for off-center hits. Fowler operates with a lower loft, playing a 9-degree Cobra King F9 Speedback with 14g of weight toward the front of the head and 2g toward the back.
There is a large overlap with irons among the TaylorMade players, as McIlroy and Johnson both use P730 clubs for 5-iron through their pitching wedge. Those irons are true blades, while the P750 irons that Wolff uses have a slightly wider sole and a bit of trailing edge relief.
For the first time in competition, Fowler played irons named after himself – the Cobra Rickie Fowler Prototype MB – that will be available to the general public in October. The attention-grabbing gold heads have a thin topline for a crisp look.
Johnson, Wolff and McIlroy are all in the Milled Grind 2 wedge family. “Raw Face Technology” allows the face to rust over time as the rest of the club maintains its original finish – and that allows for increased spin and feel. Fowler, meanwhile, uses the Cobra King V Grind that allows for extra versatility in different turf conditions.
McIlroy and Wolff both use a Spider X putter and Johnson has a Spider Tour Mini; the Spider X is 10 percent larger than the Spider Mini. Fowler uses a Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS, the only one of the foursome to use a blade as opposed to a mallet.
As for golf balls, McIlroy, Fowler and Wolff play a TP5, while Johnson plays a TP5x. The main difference is that the TP5x has a firmer cover that allows for a higher trajectory and less spin.
Sean Fairholm