Key Clubs for Tiger, Scottie, Rory and Team TaylorMade at Pinehurst No. 2
Pinehurst No. 2 + Tiger Woods + Team TaylorMade = Golf Heaven.
Let's start there. The golf world is in for an absolute treat of a major championship set on the most demanding canvas in golf.
We were lucky to have a front row seat to the prep Team TaylorMade put in to master the greens at Pinehurst No. 2 and the clubs that will help determine this year's winner of America's Open.
- Qi10 LS 10.5° driver (Graphite Design Tour AD VF 6 X)
- Qi10 Tour 15.0° 3-wood (Graphite Design Tour AD VF 7 X)
- P·770 2-iron (Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 Mid)
- P·770 3-iron (Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100)
- P·7TW 4-PW (Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100)
- Milled Grind 4 56° TW (Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400)
- Milled Grind 4 60° TW (Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400)
Tiger made a strategic change to the top of his bag taking out a 5-wood in favor of a P·770 2-iron. Yes...it's stinger season. With the punishing waste areas on No. 2, hitting fairways is paramount and having a fairway finder comes in handy off the tee on many holes on both nines.
Tiger used his 2-iron off the tee in practice rounds on the 1st hole, 3rd hole, 7th hole and 13th Hole to be in optimal position for his approach shot into the Par 4s.
Once he got onto the greens, Tiger favored 4-iron bump and runs over wedge shots around the greens. While there was a mix of both, the split definitely favored keeping the ball low while going up onto the dome shaped greens to prevent going off the other side.
- Qi10 8.0° driver (Ventus Black 7 X)
- Qi10 15.0° 3-wood (Ventus Black 8 X)
- P·7TW 5-PW (Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100)
- Spider Tour X (L-Neck)
Conversely to Tiger, Scottie relied heavily on his Spider Tour X L-Neck putter to navigate getting onto the greens as an alternative to utilizing his wedges. We didn't see many bump and runs from Scottie this week, but his Spider will be busy saving pars around the long Par 4s of Pinehurst No. 2.
Scottie is on a Tiger like run right now. If you don't believe me, just read the names of the tournaments he has won in the last three seasons:
- 2024 Memorial Tournament
- 2024 RBC Heritage
- 2024 Masters Tournament
- 2024 PLAYERS Championship
- 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational
- 2023 Hero World Challenge
- 2023 PLAYERS Championship
- 2023 WM Phoenix Open
- 2022 Masters Tournament
- 2022 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play
- 2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational
- 2022 WM Phoenix Open
That is insanity. What's even more mind blowing is that Scottie has finished outside of the top-10 ONCE this entire season and outside of the top-6 only three times in 13 events.
- Qi10 9.0° driver (Ventus Black 6X)
- Qi10 15.0° 3-wood (Ventus Black 8X)
- Qi10 18.0° 5-wood (Ventus Black 9X)
- P·760 4-iron (Project X 7.0)
- Rors Proto Irons 5-9 (Project X 7.0)
- Milled Grind 4 46° SB, 50° SB, 54° SB (Project X 6.5)
- Spider Tour X Putter
- 2024 TP5x MySymbol
Of all of the athletes we watched around the greens this week, nobody handled them better than Rory McIlroy. Rory made a staggering amount of putts from off the greens this week with his Spider Tour X and was able to control his 2024 TP5x golf ball on low pitch shots as well.
See exhibit A below:
Outside of Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa may be in the best form of any golfer on planet earth since The Masters that isn't named Scottie Scheffler.
Two key changes to Morikawa’s bag took place during The Masters as he switched to a Qi10 LS 9.0° driver and to his custom TP5x MySymbol golf ball. Since those switches took place, Collin has finished:
- T3 at The Masters
- 9th at the RBC Heritage
- T5 at the PGA Championship
- 4th at the Charles Schwab Challenge
- 2nd at the Memorial Tournament
Collin is at an advantage this week with his other worldly iron play being able to find the center of greens which is of utmost importance at Pinehurst No. 2. When he is not on the putting surface however, he gave us a sneak peek at how he will attack his play around the greens.
Tommy Fleetwood's game rises to another level at major championships and we learned why this week. Tommy and his caddy David Clark were in absolute GRIND MODE during all three practice days spending extensive time on the golf course and on the driving range.
Tommy played 18 holes on Monday, 9 holes on Tuesday and walked the front 9 to chip and putt on Wednesday before playing the back in the late afternoon. In addition, Tommy dialed in his yardages with each of his clubs and put extensive time in on the range on Tuesday doing various alignment stick drills and takeaway drills. Perhaps that work is why Tommy has at least one top-5 at major championships each of the last three seasons:
- 2024 Masters Tournament (T3)
- 2023 U.S. Open (T5)
- 2022 PGA Championship (T5)
- 2022 Open Championship (T4)
He has also finished 2nd at the 2019 Open Championship and the 2018 U.S. Open.
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