Welcome to Wall-to-Wall Equipment, the weekly gear wrap-up in which GOLF equipment editor Jonathan Wall takes you through the latest trends, rumors and breaking news.
New gear
Mention the name Tommy Fleetwood and one thing immediately comes to mind: otherworldly ball-striking. Possessing one of the most coveted swings on the planet, Fleetwood can flush it with the best of them.
After last week’s win in Dubai, Fleetwood might be able to add the word “bomber” to his resume following an impressive showing off the tee with TaylorMade’s Qi10 LS driver. In just his second start with TaylorMade’s latest big stick, Fleetwood averaged 313.5 yards and hit 57 percent of the fairways en route to an impressive two-shot win over Rory McIlroy and Thirston Lawrence.
For someone who hasn’t ranked higher than 56th on the PGA Tour in driving distance in the past three seasons — he averaged 283.9 yards last season — the noticeable uptick in distance raised some eyebrows. While many of Fleetwood’s colleagues have embraced speed training, the Englishman was able to stretch his driver by tightening one all-important characteristic.
“The biggest gains for Tommy with the Qi10 comes with really tight spin rates, especially on misses,” Adrian Rietveld, TaylorMade’s senior Tour rep, told the company’s website. “On misses, Tommy would normally get 3100-3200 spin, on this one, he’s getting 2700, which is huge for him because it means the distance is there. He’s still getting a little bit of roll out of it.”
Dropping roughly 400 RPMs is a significant number for an elite tour pro who’s used to optimizing the driver to squeeze every ounce of distance out of the build. And that’s just on misses. For centered strikes, Rietveld confirmed Fleetwood also saw an improvement that led to improved launch and spin conditions.
“On the flush shots, he’s gone from 10.5 or 11 degrees launch at 2,600 spin, to now at 12 degrees launch at 2,400 spin,” he said. “When you add that up, that’s a real game changer for him.”
A game-changer, indeed. Fleetwood has the hardware to prove it.
Chomping at the bit
Nearly four months after doctors removed a lesion that was found on his brain, Gary Woodland returned to the competition at the Sony Open in Hawaii with the same drive, determination and positive outlook that helped him triumph at the 2019 U.S. Open.
“[T]here was a time when I didn’t know if [my name] was going to be called again, so it got me a little more than I thought it was going to,” Woodland said of hearing his name announced on the first tee.
Woodland’s week was always going to be a success, regardless of the result. After missing out on the weekend, he’ll tee it up next week at Torrey Pines and get another opportunity to see how Cobra’s Darkspeed LS driver and fairway wood perform in a competitive environment.
In the months leading up to the Sony Open, Woodland reached out to Cobra Tour rep Ben Schomin to see if they could conduct testing in November at the Floridian with the Darkspeed lineup. As Schomin recounted to GOLF.com, he prefers to bring a compliment of heads and shafts along instead of leaving pros to tinker on their own. But Woodland couldn’t wait.
“I normally don’t send guys their stuff in advance if I’m going to see them in a week or so,” Schomin said. “I’d prefer to get feedback from them as they test for the first time and go from there. But he was jonesing to see it in person, so I sent it along in advance. As soon as he could hit full shots, he was taking cuts with Darkspeed.”
By the time Schomin arrived, Woodland was already well versed on his new driver and fairway wood.
Cobra DarkSpeed LS Custom Driver
View Product
“He was already a fan of Darkspeed when I showed up,” he said. “We made a few tweaks to the shaft, going from [Fujikura Ventus Blue TR] to the new Mitsubishi Diamana White Board 73 and 83 in the driver and fairway, but that was about it.”
For someone who tends to live just toeward of center with impact location, Woodland was able to center it up easier with Darkspeed LS. He also saw the common high-toe miss become more playable.
“The spin deltas were tight on misses, low and high on the face,” Schomin said. “Low ones don’t spin as high, and the high ones don’t spin as low. The high-toe miss that tends to snap and knuckle, those are staying in the air. We’ve been seeing that over and over from guys who’ve been testing [Darkspeed]. On those toe misses, the flight and spin is a lot more playable for him.”
Trending upward
Callaway’s Paradym Ai Smoke drivers continued to make an impression on Tour at the season-opening event on the DP World Tour, as 20 of the 60 players in the field (33.3 percent) used one of the four new models in the lineup. Callaway also confirmed it topped the field in fairway wood, irons and wedge usage at the event.
At the Sony Open, Carl Yuan, who finished 2nd in driving distance (323.9 yards), and 12 other pros in the field put a Paradym Ai Smoke driver in the bag.
Retail preview
After pondering whether Cameron Young’s latest Scotty Cameron T-5 prototype was a true one-off or a sign of things to come on the retail front, the putter manufacturer provided confirmation — in the form of several putter images from the Sony Open.
