Tiger Woods puts wood in the bottom of his golf clubs.
No, I’m not joking.
I’d heard a little bit about this over the years, but found out much more in early 2025 when Trottie Golf did a “What’s in the Bag” episode with Tiger Woods.
In that video Tiger explains that Mike Taylor and his other previous club-builders put small wood dowels in the bottom of Tiger’s shafts. This helped to decrease the vibration felt in the hands at impact with the golf ball, particularly on bad strikes. When you’re playing a muscleback-style club — particularly one developed in the 90s — hitting the club off-center can be genuinely painful. Oddly enough, it’s actually part of the reason that higher-level players use a muscleback-style club. They want to know when they have mis-hit the shot. However, that doesn’t meant they want physical punishment because of it.
Additional Dampening Options
There’s actually a couple of ways to dampen the vibrations. Some companies have created shafts with inserts in the midsection to help with this, like the old True Temper Sensicore which included a spiraled foam section inside (which has since been discontinued). You can also buy club building supplies that work just like the old Sensicore inserts did.
When I build up clubs with Project X irons, I usually put these dampeners in the shafts. This started after I broke my wrist a few years ago. Because they are a stepless design, you’ll feel the feedback more in your hands, so by putting in vibration dampeners, you can take away some of that pain. Those are really good for older players or players with ailments who may feel that pain more than others. But Tiger uses wooden dowels. So, I tried it out for myself. I happened to have some old Nike blades laying around and figured this was the perfect opportunity to do something with them.
Here’s what happened:
Johnny Wunder also had a chance to talk with Larry Bobka about this on the latest podcast. They talked a lot about what it took to build his entire bag over the years, definitely something you want to take a listen to!
So, turns out this works really well. I’d actually argue that based on previous experience it works better than the ProSoft dampeners that I have used. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the greatest talent in our sport would have some tricks to success.
Happy Birthday Tiger.
