NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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After winning the Genesis Invitational in February – his fifth worldwide victory in a span of nine starts – Jon Rahm suddenly went cold. He tied for 39th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, withdrew from the Players Championship due to an illness and didn’t advance to the knockout stage in the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
In that stretch, Rahm’s typically dominant driving had fallen to the point where he ranked No. 28 on the PGA Tour in strokes gained off-the-tee for the season. Despite still being well above tour average, Rahm’s standard is greater than nearly every player in the world when it comes to hitting a driver. In the past six completed seasons, the former Arizona State Sun Devil stunningly never has finished worse than No. 5 in the category.
At Augusta National, Rahm returned to that lofty standard en route to winning his second major championship. He ranked No. 1 in strokes gained off-the-tee among players who made the cut, and he missed only seven fairways during the tournament.
What changed? It wasn’t much, but one equipment tweak reinvigorated his confidence.
Rahm has been using a Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond driver since the beginning of 2023, but he has been searching for the right clubhead throughout most of the year. During the WM Phoenix Open, Rahm sensed an issue with some of his launch metrics that caused some concern. He endeavors to launch his driver at 10-11 degrees with around 2,500 RPMs of spin, but Rahm noticed that he was launching the ball around 9.5 degrees at a slightly lower spin rate, a factor that reduced the amount of left-to-right movement on his tee shots. Although he was winning golf tournaments, he didn’t care for that ball flight.
It would be nearly imperceptible to the naked eye, but Rahm is like a sommelier judging minute differences in a glass of wine; he can detect any slight trajectory shift in his reliable fade.
At Riviera, Rahm tried an 11-degree head rather than his normal 10.5-degree head – the extra loft added the necessary spin but gave the club a different visual that he didn’t want to use long-term. He went with yet another type of head at Bay Hill in an effort to change that visual, but the experiment backfired as Rahm stunningly finished dead last in strokes gained off-the-tee.
It wasn’t until the Players Championship that Rahm found a driver head that he liked. Callaway reps decided to add 1 degree of loft to his original 10.5-degree head with which Rahm started the year, but they did so by changing the OptiFit loft sleeve from NS to NS+1. The result was 11.5 degrees of loft – even more than he had at Riviera – but adding it through the loft sleeve while keeping the same head offered a different look that catered more to Rahm’s eye. This is because changing the loft sleeve alters not just the loft but the actual face angle of the club.
In his Players Championship practice session, Rahm’s spin rate was up a few hundred RPMs and the ball was curving more, which is what he likes to see. He was on his way back to his old self. There were rumblings that Rahm had shot 60 during a casual round at home in Arizona not long before coming to Augusta.
Rahm’s Masters got off to an inauspicious start when he four-putted the first green for double bogey, but his sublime ball-striking erased that clumsy miscue in a hurry. He gained 2.59 strokes off the tee in round one on his way to a 7-under 65 and praised his driver performance in the post-round press conference. That level of play continued throughout the event.
“Finally, it's the first time this year that it's felt like it (has) in the past, my swing off the tee,” Rahm said on Thursday. “Those two 3-woods on the first hole and one on 10, both well-hit. Every other tee shot, it's something I mentioned after the round to (caddie Adam Hayes), as well, is about as good as I could (hit it), line-wise especially … every trajectory was the way I thought (it should be).”
Among other news and notes at Augusta, FootJoy won the shoe (46 percent) and glove (36 percent) counts. Dustin Johnson wore FootJoy Premiere Series Packard shoes, going away from the Adidas shoes he has worn throughout most of his career. Tiger Woods also continued to wear FootJoy shoes, as he has dating back to the 2022 Masters. Roughly 67 percent of Masters competitors played a Titleist golf ball. Titleist also led the driver, iron, wedge and putter counts.
Many also noticed how amateur Sam Bennett was playing all Ping equipment. The Texas A&M senior has an NIL deal with the manufacturer. His bag includes a Ping G430 LST driver, iBlade irons and a PLD Oslo 4 putter.
Sean Fairholm