NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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One 2025 major is in the books, and some of the biggest players in the Masters field shifted their setups with the most important stretch of the season already in progress.
Masters runner-up Justin Rose, an equipment free agent at age 44, made three adjustments to his bag that almost won him a green jacket.
Rose switched to a golf ball with less spin – from a Titleist Pro V1x+ prototype to the 2025 Pro V1x – in a move similar to Rory McIlroy’s early-season switch to the TaylorMade TP5. The move paid off for Rose as he led the first two gustier rounds, including a 65 to start.
Rose also reunited with an older Titleist TSr3 driver after using both a Titleist GT2 and TaylorMade Qi35 LS already this season. And for lob wedge, he put in play a custom Cleveland RTZ instead of his usual Titleist Vokey WedgeWorks L-grind 60-degree in an effort to better interact with the tight overseeded rye turf and feldspar sand at Augusta National.
You can’t argue with the results as Rose ranked third in strokes gained approach (+2.35), fourth in strokes gained tee to green (+1.76) and led the field in birdies (24). He was better than average (42nd) in strokes gained off the tee (+0.25).
“There were a few things this year that I needed to improve on, and it was like 75 to 125 (yards) was a key area,” Rose said. “Being better out of the bunker again, which is something I’ve always been incredibly good at, but bunker play had fallen off a touch. And getting better strokes gained off the tee.
“But I think aging out a little bit to kind of go down the bomber [route]. That model is probably a little dangerous. But more the Collin Morikawa model of more fairways. So that’s definitely something I need to do to compete week in, week out.”
Xander Schauffele fashioned the best result of his injury-hampered season with a tie for eighth at Augusta, and did so by going back to the driver he won the PGA and Open championships with in 2024.
Schauffele started the season at Kapalua using Callaway’s new Elyte Triple Diamond driver, but with a lack of reps due to a rib injury that sidelined him for a couple of months he went back to his Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond driver with a little more loft (10.1 instead of 9.5 degrees).
“I just haven’t had a lot of reps with the new driver, so I kind of crawled back to my old one, knowing what it’s done, just for the time being,” Schauffele said. “After coming off of injury, it’s hard to sit and do driver testing and find the right head. I quickly went back to that old one knowing how much success I had with it.”
Schauffele was 11th in average driving distance at Augusta (305.1 yards) and 22nd in accuracy (75 percent in both fairways hit and greens in regulation).
Before returning to his home state for the Masters and his relative hometown RBC Heritage, 2023 Open champion Brian Harman made a big change that paid instant dividends. The Savannah, Georgia, native won the Valero Texas Open using a TaylorMade Spider 5K-ZT prototype putter he’d just put in the bag.
Harman had been using an oversized TaylorMade Spider OS for nearly a decade but decided it was time to make a switch.
“I looked at my stats from last year and I probably had the best iron game of my career, approach to the green, and probably my worst year from 10 to 20 feet putting,” Harman said after winning in San Antonio and ranking sixth that week in strokes gained putting (+5.303). “So still really good inside 10 feet, but that section there is where I was getting all my looks and I wasn’t making any of them. I had toyed with the idea of switching putters for a while. Picked that one up on Tuesday this week, it felt really good and it rolls nice, just kind of freed me up a little bit.”
That freeing feeling continued at the Masters, where he made the cut and ranked 12th in strokes gained putting (+0.79), which is a vast improvement on his 2025 season ranking of 124th (-0.170). He says the zero torque element of the putter is working for him.
“Anytime you get a new putter, you putt good,” Harman said last week at Harbour Town. “There’s a honeymoon period there. But currently with that putter … when you’re putting, you’ve got a lot of variables, right? Have I picked the right speed? Have I picked the right line? Am I going to hit a good putt? With that putter, for me currently, it sort of removes the am-I-going-to-hit-a-good-putt variable out of it. It seems like I hit more good putts with it, so I’m focused more on line and speed, and not worried as much about making a good strike on the ball.”
Scott Michaux