NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
BROUGHT TO YOU BY GOLF PRIDE, THE #1 GRIP ON TOUR
Some players transition into the latest equipment easily. Others need more time before letting go of what they know. The ones who have been playing really, really good golf with their familiar sticks typically have the toughest time making the shift.
This has been the story of TaylorMade’s Qi35. Women’s world No. 1 Nelly Korda tried to make the quick change in the 2025 season-opening event and a few days in switched back to her Qi10. Same story for red-hot Rory McIlroy, who put a new Qi35 setup in play at Bay Hill before reverting on Sunday to the clubs that had already been serving him so well.
Now men’s world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, coming off an historically great season, is the latest to start dabbling with the Qi35. He was seen on the range at Bay Hill early in the week testing multiple Qi35 driver builds (as well at the 2025 Titleist Pro V1 ball) and he kept comparing it to his Qi10. The reliable Qi10 remained his choice as the gamer through his three-peat bid at the Players Championship.
After McIlroy’s U-turn to keep his vibe going at least through the Masters, it would be surprising to see Scheffler make the switch this week at the Texas Children’s Houston Open with his Masters defense on the horizon. Scheffler does rank seventh on the PGA Tour in strokes gained driving, a modest decline from second in 2024.
While the Qi35 picks up speed and distance on its predecessor, it has yet to pick up the trust to convert the heavyweights.
The putting carousel keeps churning and Canadian Corey Conners seems to have found one that works for him. Conners switched at the Arnold Palmer Invitational from his Ping PLD Tyne mallet with a plumber’s “Anser” hosel into a prototype center-shafted Ping PLD Ally Blue Onset putter.
“It’s a new look for me,” Conners said at Bay Hill. “It looked a little funky when I first put it down, just because it was so different. But it looks really good to me now and I got a lot of confidence in it.”
Conners’ results speak for themselves. He finished third at Bay Hill, ranking 13th in the field on the greens. A week later at the Players, Conners finished T6 and ranked 21st putting. Those performances – his best since a tie for fifth at the season-opening Sentry – have moved Conners up to 69th in strokes gained putting this season.
Keegan Bradley also made a putter change that worked, updating his Jailbird from an 11-year-old Odyssey Versa (with White-Hot insert) to an Odyssey Ai-One Cruiser (with Ai-One insert) he used during his outward 29 on Sunday at Bay Hill that led to a T5.
Bradley’s form this year is elite, keeping him within arm’s reach of the OWGR top 10 which will only raise the curiosity about whether he should be a playing captain at the Ryder Cup in September if he keeps it up.
While Tiger Woods is out with a surgically repaired ruptured Achilles tendon, he continues to influence others. Wyndham Clark uses a Tiger trick with his Golf Pride grips, turning them around so the logo is on the underside of his shaft and not visible at address.
“I just turn (the grips) down, mainly because I don’t want this to be some sort of weird alignment thing for my grip and cause a face issue,” Clark told GolfWRX at the Players before he withdrew midway through the second round. “If it’s turned this way, it’s perfectly round, so there’s nothing making me grip it a certain way. And then also I just like how it looks. I feel like Tiger used to do it. A lot of people my age kind of emulated and copied Tiger, so that’s what I’m doing.”
Scott Michaux