NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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In the last six weeks, Wyndham Clark won a U.S. Open, the Byron Nelson, finished third at the Memorial and tied fifth at the Travelers. So why – fresh off a respectable T13 finish at the Genesis Scottish Open – was he spotted on the range on Monday at Royal Birkdale using a wooden coat hanger as he gripped and ripped about 15 to 20 irons?
Clark explained during his pre-Open news conference that his instructor, Pat Coyner, got him using the household hanger to hold against his club grip with the hook parallel to the clubface to get the correct wrist angle.
“Mondays are my technical days; you won’t see me doing a bunch of that stuff the rest of the week,” said Clark, who actually broke out two different plastic hangers on Wednesday. “My swing’s gotten a little off. I kind of hit it kind of crappy, especially on Sunday – or just yesterday (at the Renaissance Club). Yeah, the coat hanger is for wrist angle, trying to get a little more inflection in my left wrist so I can square the face more.
“It’s like an old, old training aid. People have been doing it forever. At least I didn’t come up with it … but I decided to do it. My swing coach and I have been working on it. I get my wrist cupped and I’ve been trying to get it flatter. I feel like that’s the best way to do that.”
Best not to argue with whatever is working for him.
Wyndham Clark’s coat hanger drill aims to correct his wrist angle.
The Open Live at the range
Southport’s favorite son Tommy Fleetwood was the sentimental choice among fans last week at Royal Birkdale, and the Englishman had a peculiar setup in his Open arsenal – two different clubs that essentially cover the same distance.
During his T13 finish at the Genesis Scottish Open as well as at the Open, Fleetwood had his 9-wood in the bag. He added, however, a 2018 TaylorMade GAPR Lo utility with 3-iron loft to his setup while dropping his 56-degree wedge as he hit the windswept, firm and fast links.
“He thinks that the 9-wood is just too valuable to take out, but he needs a club that he can hit off the tee and into greens with a really low trajectory,” TaylorMade Tour rep Adrian Rietveld told Golf.com. “So in reality, the two clubs actually go more or less the same distance [roughly 235 to 240 yards], but just have totally different ball-flight characteristics.
“Both are great off the links turf, and he has a ton of options at that top end of the bag which means he can only play two wedges – a 52 and a 60. In Tommy’s opinion, that’s the perfect setup for Birkdale.”
Said Fleetwood: “Last week [at the Renaissance Club] was great in terms of how firm I felt like the course played. So I think that was good to just get a feel of that sort of links style of play and ground interaction and stuff like that. I put [in] a 3-iron and only hit it once.
“I think wind rather than, like, firmness of the course make a difference to what you put in the bag. I would err towards the side of keeping the bag the same as last week. I normally carry four wedges. I took a 56-degree out and put a 3-iron in. But we’ll see. The last time I played here two weeks ago it was firm, but it was still pretty green, so I know that they’ve let the course go a little bit since then in terms of just letting it get firmer and faster.
“We’ll see. Then I’ll see what fits best. In practice rounds, especially at the Open, you play 15, 16 clubs and see which ones you hit the most and then put those in.”
Wanting a lower-trajectory long club is nothing new when guys play links courses. Rory McIlroy put one of his older generation P760 utility 3-irons in the bag for the U.K. swing but took his 5-wood out. Golf.com noted that Viktor Hovland (Ping iDi), J.J. Spaun (Srixon ZXiU), Aldrich Potgieter (PXG Gen8 X driving iron) and Xander Schauffele (Mizuno Pro 225 Fli-Hi) all added utility irons to their bags for the two-week British sojourn while Min Woo Lee (20-degree Callaway Apex UT) started getting used to his during the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.
Another trend is players changing out the grinds on their wedges to better interact with the links turf and conditions. Brooks Koepka, Alex Fitzpatrick and Kurt Kitayama each switched to a Vokey T-grind lob wedge when they got to the Scottish Open, joining other notables already using it including Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Patrick Reed, Min Woo Lee and Fleetwood. The T-grind trend reportedly started at the 2022 Open at baked St. Andrews.
“There’s this trend at this event with these conditions where a T-grind really outperforms most of the other grinds we make, just due to how it’s made and what it does,” Vokey wedge rep Aaron Dill said in 2022. “The rear section of the sole of the T-grind is the lowest rear section we make, meaning when (a player) opens up the face of the wedge, it sits as close to the ground as anything that we build in the Vokey line.”
For similar reasons, McIlroy switched to a TaylorMade MG4 lob wedge with a little less bounce than his regular MG5.
Of course it wouldn’t be a major championship week without something new showing up in Bryson DeChambeau’s bag. After missing the cut in the first three majors of the year, DeChambeau was spotted on the range at Birkdale with new 3D-printed prototype irons in his bag but most notably with steel shafts instead of the ultra-stiff graphite shafts he developed with LA Golf before they parted ways.
For those keeping score at home, DeChambeau has also swapped out wedges (from Ping to Bettinardi) and driver (from Krank to TaylorMade) over the course of the 2026 season.
Scott Michaux
