NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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With the stakes ratcheted up for the FedEx Cup playoff series, players have been unafraid to make equipment changes in pursuit of reaching the Tour Championship and winning the season-long title.
Hideki Matsuyama won the playoff opener in Memphis using a new Scotty Cameron Craftsman Squareback Tour Prototype putter that he’d never used before. He routinely travels with five or six putters to each tournament and figures out which one he thinks will work best that week.
“Coming into Memphis, I felt like I needed a change of pace, kind of a refresh with my putter,” Matsuyama said after his two-shot victory at TPC Southwind. “I thought about the putters I had, and I felt … because I knew this course, I knew the condition of the greens, I thought this putter might work, and it did. I putted great, and I won.”
Matsuyama gained more than eight strokes putting for the week, quite a boost from his season-long PGA Tour rank of 133rd coming into the FedEx St. Jude Championship. But that doesn’t mean anyone should get too comfortable seeing the winning putter in Memphis. Despite building a five-shot lead through three rounds, Matsuyama warmed up using his more familiar Scotty Cameron Newport 2 putter on Sunday before continuing to use the Craftsman Squareback Tour Prototype in the final round.
“I’ve had the putter for a while, and I thought, Well, it might be a good week to debut that putter,” he said after taking a five-shot lead through three rounds. “But I might change putters tonight even. Whether or not I’ll use it next week, we’ll see.”
Matsuyama shot 67 in the first round at the BMW Championship to sit one shot off the lead before withdrawing citing lower back pain.
The high altitude (6,200 feet) and long layout (8,130 yards) at Castle Pines added another challenge for players at the BMW Championship. Collin Morikawa adjusted to the thinner air by changing to a different golf ball model.
Instead of the TaylorMade TP5x ball he has used all season, Morikawa switched to the higher-spinning TP5 model to deploy in Colorado and help offset the lack of control he felt with his usual ball in his first practice round.
“Look, my first 3½ to four years, I played the TP5, and I’ve played the spinnier ball,” Morikawa told GolfWRX.com in Colorado. “I noticed the [TP5x] just fit the perfect windows for me a lot. [With the TP5x] I lived in the lower end of spin, but I’ve just noticed with my swing, it’s teetering on the low end. We’re at 6,000 feet, a lot of elevation changes. If I hit some of these balls with low spin, it’s not going to look like a pretty flight.
“I think the balls are so similar around the greens that it’s not even a factor,” Morikawa added.
While Matsuyama (third) and Morikawa (fourth) were jockeying for a better starting position in the FedEx Cup finale, Adam Scott (41st to start BMW) was busy just trying to qualify to make it to East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. And if that means changing his irons every week, the Aussie is willing to do it.
At the FedEx St. Jude, Scott switched into Miura KM-700 irons to improve his turf interaction on the Zoysia at TPC Southwind.
His T18 finish in Memphis, however, didn’t inspire much loyalty, so Scott switched back to the comfort of his Miura AS-1 prototype blades that worked so well for him in Scotland last month when he finished runner-up in the Genesis Scottish Open and T10 at the Open Championship. He hoped for similar results on the mix of grasses at Castle Pines. The switch paid off as he raced to the 36-hole lead after a second-round 63 and ultimately finished tied for second to qualify for East Lake.
"I think my iron play really showed up, felt really good," Scott said in Colorado. "I had it on a good line ... it felt really solid, like the ball was going where I was looking, which felt good, because even (in Memphis) I was struggling, approach-to-the-green stats didn't look particularly good, and I wasn't very impressed with myself, so that was nice."
To deal with the altitude challenges in Colorado, Scott also put a TaylorMade Qi10 9-wood in his bag in lieu of his 3-iron to be able to attack the greens with a little more loft and control.
Scott Michaux