NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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Sometimes all it takes is a phone call.
Danielle Kang ranked No. 100 in driving distance on the LPGA Tour last year with an average of 252 yards for her tee shots, but recent months had seen that number decline to the point that she was one of the shortest hitters in the women’s game. Repeatedly, her drives were not reaching 230 yards. In her own words, Kang admitted to “being pretty far back right now.”
Such a severe and sudden drop-off had observers asking questions. The five-time tour winner answered by saying it was not anything to do with her equipment. Rather, her body had gone through changes during a lengthy road trip while her power and precision had slowly faltered.
“I’ve lost weight, muscle weight,” Kang said before the CME Group Tour Championship. “I’ve been trying to put on muscle mass, but I haven’t been able to. I’ve been on the road for nine weeks, and in between, gone to my best friend’s wedding.
“But my 3-wood is only going 5 yards shorter than my driver, so we even thought: ‘Let’s just hit a 3-wood off the tee just to make myself feel better.’ But I just have to figure out spin rate and the way I’m contacting, even if it’s – whether it’s the equipment – Titleist has been so helpful in trying to figure out why I’m hitting it the way I do. I don’t really think it’s the equipment. It’s me mostly, so I think that’s going to take time to pan out.”
But abruptly, that all changed last month in Naples, Florida.
After the first round, Kang called well-known Titleist rep JJ Van Wezenbeeck hoping to make a mid-tournament switch with her TSi3 driver. He shipped a lower-lofted driver head to her, and it was range-tested immediately before the second round.
The resulting lower ball flight added 20-30 yards, putting Kang back to a familiar yardage off the tee. According to the LPGA website, She went from averaging 230 yards in Round 1 to 252 yards in Round 2, to 256 yards in Round 3, and to 268 yards in Round 4, although driving distance is not measured on every hole.
Perhaps the decline in yardage wasn’t all an equipment-related struggle, but it was certainly a factor.
“We thought we would try different settings,” Kang said then. “As long as I’m hitting my irons the distance that it’s going, it couldn’t have been me, so JJ thought about it and so he sent me a lower-loft driver, 8-degree instead of a 9- or 10-degree.
“So today I hit it probably 20, 30 yards further than I have been for the last two months. It was easier. I wasn’t hitting hybrids into greens.”
When she is on, Kang is one of the most electric players on the LPGA Tour. However, despite nine top-10 finishes throughout the season, 2021 was her first without a win since 2016.
Sean Fairholm