Adam Scott was finding a groove. Then he changed irons

Success at the highest level of professional golf can be fleeting. One moment, you’re approaching the summit. The next, you’re lying flat on your back wondering where it all went wrong. When success comes your way, you do whatever it takes to bottle it up and pray there’s no expiration date.

The fluffy prose is a nice segue into Adam Scott’s recent iron change — something gearheads have become accustomed to seeing from the Aussie. There’s Srixon. And Miura. And Ping. Plenty of other brands have been in the running, too.

If you didn’t know by now, Scott is one of us: a diehard gearhead who’s always searching for the best setup.

Before the FedEx St. Jude Championship, Scott was cruising along with a set of custom Miura AS-1 blades bearing his logo. The setup produced a runner-up finish at the Genesis Scottish Open, followed by a T10 at the Open Championship. The Aussie appeared to be peaking at just the right time. And then he completely revamped his iron setup.

Even with “The Big Mo” moving in his direction, Scott revealed on Wednesday that the decision to switch from a full set of Miura blades to a mixed setup featuring Srixon’s ZX MK II utility iron and Miura’s CB-302 (4-5) and KM-700 (6-9) wasn’t all that difficult to make. Scott preferred the wider sole and lower bounce on the AS-1 for the firmer links-style conditions, but once he returned to the States, different grasses and turf conditions relegated the setup to the backup pile.

“The turf conditions in Scotland are very different than here,” Scott said, “so kind of using the irons that work the best.”

Along with changing the heads, Scott confirmed a recent “heart-to-heart” meeting in the UK with Titleist’s European director of tour operations, Liam McDougall, helped get his irons back on track. The piece that seemed to be missing for Scott was Project X’s LZ 6.5 — an iron shaft he helped put on the map in 2016 when he won the Honda Classic and WGC-Cadillac Championship with a Tour-only version.

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Scott had been playing True Temper’s Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 but felt the familiarity of mid-launch and spin PX LZ 6.5 allowed his irons to feel “easy again.” 

“Just before the Scottish Open, through the bag, landed in a good spot, and that’s been very helpful confidence-wise, and I think it showed in my results straight away,” Scott said. “It’s tricky when you start testing shafts. There are thousands of options. It’s helpful to narrow it down and not get lost in testing, especially in the middle of the year.

“… [The PX LZ is] a different profile and slightly different weight. What they encourage or promote in the swing is a little different. If my tendency is to go to the right, and if the shaft is promoting more right, then you’re in a bit of a fight. You’re going right. After a while you start fighting that, and it can throw your swing off a little bit. So it’s kind of balancing it all out.”

Never one to mince words, Scott admitted his old-school ways of testing likely contributed to the recent rash of gear changes leading up to his meeting with McDougall. Scott has made a career out of doing things his way, but even he admitted it might be time to embrace technology even more.

“Just got everything lined up a little better, and I think over the last couple years, probably undervalued that part of the professional game,” he said. “Equipment and technology is a big thing. You see it every week, guys working on TrackMan, and that’s not really where I’ve grown up. If I was critical of myself, although intentions being right, I probably didn’t manage that as well as I could have, and certainly see the need to be more on top of that going forward,”

Consider Scott well and truly on top of all things gear — especially his own — as he makes a push for a spot in next week’s BMW Championship field.