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NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
BROUGHT TO YOU BY GOLF PRIDE, THE #1 GRIP ON TOUR
If you would like to win a 19th-hole bet, offer the other members of your Sunday foursome as many guesses as they would like for the following question:
What is the only putter model to be represented inside the top three for strokes gained putting in each of the past three editions of the PGA Championship?
The answer is Axis1, a relative unknown that continues to pique the curiosity of PGA Tour players. Justin Rose used an Axis1 Rose putter two weekends ago at Kiawah Island and led the field in strokes gained putting for the week, picking up 11.73 strokes on the field.
Rose also earned top-three status on the greens last year at Harding Park, and it was Luke List who did it with an Axis1 in 2019 at Bethpage Black, where he finished sixth for his best career effort in a major.
In Rose’s past 18 major championship rounds, he has gained a combined 31 strokes on the greens, a pretty stunning reversal considering that Rose spent 2012 to 2017 with a season ranking worse than 100th in strokes gained putting.
Rose started using the flat stick in 2019, but his relationship with Axis1 founder Luis Pedraza had dated back to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2016. As the story goes, Pedraza – an industrial designer with patents that include a three-dimensional computer mouse used to control the Mars Rover – approached Rose before that tournament and asked him, “Do you want to see something you’ve never seen before?”
No, Pedraza wasn’t a mob boss in a dark alley. He simply was passionate about the physics of the putter he designed, one that uniquely puts its center of gravity on the center of the putter face aligned with the axis of the shaft.
Rose eventually started using the putter after his contract with TaylorMade expired, and he won at Torrey Pines two weeks into the experiment. He immediately set career bests in total putting (13th) and three-putt avoidance (eighth) while only needing 22 putts during a 6-under 65 round in the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
The Axis1 hasn’t become widely used in the pro ranks, but List won a Korn Ferry Tour event last summer with the same Rose model and Ryan Moore also has put an Axis1 in play.
Dustin Johnson is the first world No. 1 since Greg Norman to miss the cut in back-to-back major starts, and some interesting equipment decisions hint that he could be searching for solutions. Johnson came to Kiawah with a 70-gram LA Golf prototype shaft in his TaylorMade SIM 2 Max driver, this after he put a LA Golf shaft in his TaylorMade TP Bandon 1 Prototype putter.
Don’t ask Johnson which putter model he is using, however. When asked by a reporter at Kiawah, he answered sincerely.
“I honestly don’t know the name.”
Branden Grace got into contention at the PGA Championship under one of the rarest of circumstances – using two shafts he bought himself. Grace employed an AutoFlex shaft in his Callaway Epic Speed driver and Mavrik Sub Zero fairway wood at $800 each. The exotic driver shaft was used by Adam Scott earlier this year.
Sean Fairholm