Wall-to-Wall Equipment: Justin Thomas played a role in this rising rookie’s gear change
Taylor Moore optimized his irons after watching Justin Thomas at Torrey Pines.
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Welcome to Wall-to-Wall Equipment, the Monday morning gear wrap-up in which GOLF equipment editor Jonathan Wall takes you through the latest trends, rumors and breaking news.
Sky high expectations
Taylor Moore is a damn good player in his own right, but there’s nothing wrong with gleaning insights from some of the best players in the world. The 28-year-old, who finished fourth on the Korn Ferry Tour points list last season to book his PGA Tour card, logged three top-25 finishes during the fall portion of the Tour schedule with the same gear setup he used for much of 2021. But as the schedule shifted to the West Coast, Moore began discussing some areas of need with Ping Tour rep Kenton Oates.
The most pressing need, in particular, was finding a way to increase the ball flight with his Ping Blueprint irons. Moore had noticed his launch angle was lower than most of his peers on Tour, which made it difficult to fire at the flag on approach shots with long and mid irons. After struggling through a mediocre ball-striking round on the weekend at the American Express, Moore reached out to Oates to vent.
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“He noticed he was a little bit lower of a ball-striker,” Oates told GOLF.com. “Meaning he felt his overall height was too low. I remember him texting me that weekend in Palm Springs and saying, ‘Dude, I just don’t hit it high enough. My ball is just not stopping, so when I hit a 6-iron into a firm green, I have a little window to land it because I don’t have any room to stop it.'”
As Oates poured over Moore’s ShotLink numbers from the tournament, he noticed the rookie’s Apex height — the highest point of the shot — for the week was roughly 65-75 feet. To put that number into perspective, the Tour average is 101 feet. Moore needed to increase his launch, but he didn’t want to change his Blueprint heads.
Starting the following week at Torrey Pines, Moore worked with Oates and Titleist R&D ball rep Jeff Beyers to see if a ball change could help. Moore, who’d been playing Pro V1 Left Dot, started testing balls with additional height and spin, including 2017 Pro V1 and Pro V1 Star — a higher spinning “CPO” (Customized Performance Option) — to induce a higher launch and spin rate.
The Star ball immediately increased Moore’s peak height to 80-85 feet. While he was trending in the right direction, both Beyers and Oates felt the Star ball might be too big of a jump that week at Sea level so they agreed to have Moore continue to test the ball at home and use the prior generation Pro V1, which still spun more than Left Dot, as a first step towards increasing spin.
Moore would go on to miss the cut at Torrey, but the week still provided some valuable insights. Playing behind Justin Thomas for the first two days, Moore watched the former major winner hit towering approach shots into the stratosphere.
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It reinforced Moore’s belief that while he was trending in the right direction, he still needed more height in his irons to match someone like JT.
“Taylor knew he was on the best path,” Oates said. “But after playing behind Justin, he told me he still wasn’t close to his height with the irons. A guy like Justin is cruising at 115-120 feet. He knows technique is part of the equation as well. But when you grow up playing golf in Edmond, Oklahoma, a high launch isn’t something you need. He and Sean Foley [his instructor] have done a great job blending technique with the equipment changes — and it’s now paying off.”
A week later at Pebble Beach, Moore and Oates worked with True Temper to build a set of Blueprints with the company’s new Dynamic Gold X100 Tour Issue Mid shaft — a Tour-only version that offers roughly 10-15 feet of additional peak height at the same weight (130 grams) as the original — to gain even more height.
“Right away, that gave almost a degree more launch with 400-500 RPMs,” Oates said. “With the ball and iron shaft, he was able to stay in the same iron heads without having to make any massive changes and get to around 90-100 feet at the peak.”
But Moore wasn’t done. After missing out on making the field in Phoenix, he added Titleist’s Pro V1 Star ball at the Genesis Invitational and unlocked the peak height he’d been working towards. The seminal moment that validated all the hard work came on Thursday at Riviera when Moore hit a 184-yard approach to 20 feet on the par-3 14th to set up one of the few birdies of the day on the hole.
“Riviera was playing firm and fast that week,” Oates said. “I remember looking back through his data from the week, with all these changes, he was able to make birdie on Thursday to a pin not a whole lot of guys were able to access on the green. His 6-iron was 115 feet on the approach shot. That’s a pretty cool moment for him and for us to see all that work come together and see him pull off a shot that one month ago he couldn’t execute.”
The changes Moore has undergone speak for themselves. With a height that’s now approaching 100-105 feet, on average, and two top-25 finishes in his last three starts, things are, quite literally, looking up for Moore.
One change, big results
Kurt Kitayama logged the best finish of his PGA Tour career after making a minor change to his TaylorMade iron setup ahead of the Honda Classic. Depending on the course setup and the shot he’s trying to execute, Kitayama will swap out his 6-iron and use either a P7MC or P7MB.
At PGA National, Kitayama opted for the P7MC 6-iron due to the higher launch he was able to produce with the cavity-back model. It’s a change that few probably noticed, but the end result with the slightly modified split set — P7MC (4-6) and P7MB 7-PW) — was a third-place finish. Sometimes the little changes make a big difference.
Gimme two
Most pros stick with the equipment setup that makes the cut on Thursday. Of course, there are exceptions. Unsure how PGA National would play during the week, Louis Oosthuizen chose to keep two different Ping long irons setups at the ready depending on the wind conditions.
For calm conditions, Oosthuizen had i210 4 and 5 irons at the ready. But if the wind kicked up a notch, as it did during the tournament week, he could swap out i210 for lower launching Blueprint long irons. When you battle a course as unforgiving as PGA National, it’s important to be prepared for any situation.
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