NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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The largest field in the event’s history showed up at the Plantation Course at Kapalua for the season-opening Sentry tournament-of-more-than-just-champions last week. As always, bags throughout the record 59-player field were seeded with the newest equipment for 2024.
Titleist’s new Vokey Design SM10 wedges made their debut in tour bags in Maui, with 59 of them getting gamed by 20 players including Ludvig Åberg, Tom Kim, Wyndham Clark, J.T. Poston, Max Homa and Jordan Spieth. Seven non-contracted players including Jason Day, Sam Burns and Camilo Villegas also put them in play.
Vokey’s wedges have been fixture gamers, ranking as the top wedge on the PGA Tour since 2004. Vokey accounted for more than 50 percent of the wedges in play last season, including major winners Clark and Brian Harman. At least one Vokey wedge is in the bag of seven of the world’s top 10 players.
Spieth overhauled his wedge setup with four SM10s, including a custom 60.5-degree lob wedge. He told GolfWRX.com: “I think the sweet spot’s been moved; it’s bigger and it’s moved a little to where any potential over-hook is almost eliminated, which is really nice. You can step up with a left pin and be pretty aggressive.”
Titleist is likely to roll out technical details on the SM10s later this month before the PGA Shows. Master craftsman Bob Vokey, director of player relations Aaron Dill and their Vokey team have spent two years testing and refining prototypes with top players and released them onto the big stage at Kapalua. The tour launch of SM10 will continue next week in the California desert at the American Express.
Callaway had a host of new driver and ball conversions in Maui. Xander Schauffele, Adam Hadwin, Emiliano Grillo, Si Woo Kim, Denny McCarthy and Eric van Rooyen all gamed the Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond driver at Kapalua.
Schauffele, Hadwin, Burns and Adam Svennson also were among the players switching to the new Chrome Tour X ball. “I’m probably 1-2 mph faster, with the combination,” Hadwin said of the new driver-ball combo.
Van Rooyen, S.W. Kim and Akshay Bhatia converted to the Chrome Tour golf ball.
The Paradym Ai Smoke driver joined a host of 2024 driver models that began rolling out in several end-of-season events. TaylorMade’s Qi10 (Collin Morikawa, Tommy Fleetwood), Cobra’s Dark Speed (Rickie Fowler and Matt Fitzpatrick) and PXG’s Black Ops (Eric Cole) hit the ground in Maui.
Englishman Tyrrell Hatton was spotted sporting Ping’s new S159 wedges and testing the revamped PLD putter with a grooved face design.
Staff report