NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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All golfers would like to clone their favorite clubs. Rickie Fowler has done just that with his lob wedge.
Fowler’s new “RF” 60-degree Cobra King wedge is 3D-printed to his exacting specifications before it’s milled into the finished club he debuted last week at the American Express.
Cobra Golf engineers – who along with Hewlett-Packard have been on the leading edge of 3D-printing clubs for six years and released a line of 3D-printed putters in 2020 – worked with Fowler for six months to tweak the shape of the sole and bounce of his previous lob wedge. After dialing in a prototype head that Fowler was happy with, they 3D scanned it to create 3D-printed duplicate versions
“His wedge grind kept getting rounder because he wanted more camber, so we finally decided to scan it in 3D and print it so it would be perfect,” Ben Schomin, Cobra’s director of operations, told GolfWRX.com.
Schomin said Fowler prefers a more worn-in wedge to avoid the added spin from sharper fresh grooves. Whenever he’s ready to change out his RF lob wedge every couple of months, Cobra can simply 3D-print him a backup version that’s then milled to precisely match the one he has in the bag. “The 3D process ensures that the sole shape prints the same, every time,” Schomin said.
Tommy Fleetwood outlasted his TaylorMade stablemate Rory McIlroy in the final pairing to become the first player to win with the new Qi10 driver at the Dubai Invitational two weeks ago, a week before McIlroy also won in Dubai.
Fleetwood, who recently signed a multi-year extension with TaylorMade along with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, sports a full bag of TaylorMade equipment including the Qi10 3-wood, BRNR Mini Driver, P-7TW irons, Hi-Toe 3 wedge and TP5x ball. With the Qi10 LS model driver, he averaged 313 yards off the tee and hit 57 percent of the fairways in Dubai.
“The biggest gains for Tommy with the Qi10 comes with really tight spin rates, especially on misses,” said Adrian Rietveld, TaylorMade senior tour rep. “On misses, Tommy would normally get 3,100-3,200 spin; on this one he's getting 2,700, which is huge for him because it means the distance is there. He's still getting a little bit of roll out of it. On the flush shots, he's gone from 10.5- or 11-degree launch at 2,600 spin, to now at 12-degree launch at 2,400 spin. When you add that up, that's a real game-changer for him.”
Scott Michaux