NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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A month after Rory McIlroy became just the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam by winning the Masters, Jordan Spieth will attempt to duplicate that feat this week at Quail Hollow and join the club by winning the PGA Championship.
A big key will be getting comfortable with whatever Titleist TSR2 driver is in his hands on the first tee. At the Masters, Spieth complained about searching through “five different drivers since I cracked mine at Pebble.” The one he started with at Augusta “had the lefts” so he switched back to another one.
One of the tools in his bag Spieth has no concerns about as he tries to finish off his quest is a new lob wedge that fosters old feelings in the three-time major winner.
In a swing session with his coach, Cameron McCormick, Spieth picked up an old Vokey SM7 prototype 60-degree wedge gathering rust in the corner of the room. It was the one he used to use on tour, and taking a few practice swings with it stirred up some familiar old feelings.
That prompted Spieth to call Vokey tour rep Aaron Dill and ask if he could build him a new version of the lob wedge.
“It’s basically just the profile,” Spieth told Dill of what he liked about the old wedge, according to GolfWRX.com. “[The heel section] looks a little pinched … I love that. I feel like when it’s a little bit smaller, I strike it a little better. I pay a little more attention. I’m more connected to it visually.”
Using a backup model in his inventory stash and some old drawings, Dill started trying to create the shape Spieth wanted using a modern Vokey SM10. The new 60.5-04T model he made is now in Spieth’s bag.
“For somebody like Jordan, who lives in this kind of cool world of nostalgia, he picked this up and goes, ‘Oh my gosh, this is something I’ve been missing,’” Dill told GolfWRX. “And that’s the wedge we make for him today.
“As a wedge fitter and wedge grinder, I just needed to pepper him with a few questions to understand what made him tick, and fortunately, he’s great at verbalizing what he was feeling and what he wanted to see, and we could put him in a new part.”
Since recovering from wrist surgery after failing to advance to the 2024 Tour Championship, Spieth is starting to put the pieces of his game back together. He’s missed only one cut in 2025 and before a T34 in the Truist Championship had a string of four consecutive top-20 finishes, including a solo fourth in the CJ Cup Byron Nelson that moved him back inside the OWGR top 50 after he had fallen as low as 84th earlier this season.
“I felt like in my last three-week stretch – which is San Antonio, Augusta, Hilton Head – it was just I felt like there was two easily avoidable shots per round, just random stuff like I thinned a bunker shot when I never thin a bunker shot or made a double when I should have made par,” Spieth said after the Nelson. “Like random 1-in-50 situations that I’m doing to myself.
“I just need to gradually improve the way that I’m improving. I don’t need to do anything different. I just need to push it more. Again, just these little mistakes, just take care of them. It’s easier said than done. We’re always going to make some kind of mistake, but I just felt like there was eight shots a week, so it was like I’m finishing 12th or 14th or something. … Just [eliminating] two of those eight is a top-five. I guess all that to say it feels close.”
Scott Michaux