NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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The Range Rat noticed multiple equipment changes on the American side before the team’s Ryder Cup loss at Marco Simone. Three of the players who made notable alterations – all major champions counted on to be meaningful contributors – went a combined 2-6-3 last week.
Much was made of Scottie Scheffler and his work on the practice green with Phil Kenyon, the short-game guru who also coaches Tommy Fleetwood. As part of that effort to improve his much-maligned putting, Scheffler went to a larger SuperStroke Tour 2.0 grip after the company sent him several different options to try. He also made significant adjustments to his setup, deciding to get his hands higher at address while standing farther away from the ball.
The 2022 Masters winner has been juggling flatsticks all year in hopes of catching momentum on the greens. Last month, he changed to a TaylorMade Spider Tour X SS Proto, a mallet that is a departure from the blades he normally plays. Scheffler has generally gamed a Scotty Cameron Special Select Timeless TourType GSS prototype – and he went back to that Scotty Cameron in Rome.
Scheffler appeared to be more confident on the greens at times but settled for an 0-2-2 record that included a disastrous 9 and 7 loss alongside Brooks Koepka in Saturday foursomes. He had a phenomenal match with Jon Rahm in singles, but his loss on the 18th hole made for a tied match that proved critical in the Americans inability to stage a comeback.
Collin Morikawa also joined Scheffler in making a putter alteration prior to the event.
It was around this time last year that Morikawa started work with a putting coach for the first time ever, joining forces with Stephen Sweeney. Under Sweeney’s guidance, Morikawa stuck with one putter throughout 2023, leaning on his TaylorMade TP Soto (L-Neck) with an LA Golf shaft. It was a departure from 2022 when Morikawa frantically switched putters a few times in hopes of catching fire.
But Sweeney started to pick up on an issue Morikawa had with his putter shaft. The putter head he uses is very light, but the shaft was heavy. His touch seemed off because the putter head felt heavier than it was supposed to feel.
Just prior to this year’s Open Championship, Sweeney and Morikawa asked Mitsubishi Chemical to create a custom putter shaft. After a complicated process that involved analyzing Morikawa’s putting tendencies, Mitsubishi put together a one-of-one shaft that is 20 grams lighter than Morikawa’s previous 105-gram gamer.
Morikawa finally was able to get it in his hands and test the new shaft over the past few weeks. Testing at TaylorMade’s The Kingdom facility soon confirmed Morikawa was on the right track with improved speed control, so he put it into play at the Ryder Cup.
He was a stark disappointment in Rome, going 0-3-1 and getting blown out twice.
And finally, Brooks Koepka decided to use a TaylorMade SIM2 driver. The model was released in 2021 and was the last TaylorMade driver to have a titanium face rather than the carbon face that the Stealth model now has.
Koepka won the PGA Championship with a 10.5-degree Srixon ZX5 LS Mk II driver but inserted the SIM2 at the LIV Chicago event to see how it would perform. He has a long history with TaylorMade drivers; Koepka used a SIM2 throughout most of 2021, including when he won the WM Phoenix Open. The five-time major champ also used a TaylorMade M5 driver in the 2022 U.S. Open and has retained the services of a TaylorMade 3-wood throughout his contract with Cleveland/Srixon, so this didn’t seem like a panicked change by any means.
He had a big singles win over Ludvig Åberg but otherwise didn’t push the team forward in a 1-1-1 Ryder Cup.
Sean Fairholm