This unique Riviera feature had Vokey’s Tour reps busy

Welcome to Fully Equipped’s weekly Tour equipment report. Every Friday of PGA Tour weeks (plus other times, if news warrants), GOLF equipment editor Jack Hirsh runs you through some of the biggest news surrounding golf clubs on Tour, including changes, tweaks and launches.

A second straight Signature Event on the PGA Tour, at one of the great cathedrals of the game, led to another quiet week for gear changes this week, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to talk about in this space.

This week in California, there was actually plenty of discourse over grass.

OK, get your heads out of the gutters. We’re talking about the Kikuyu grass that’s dominant around Riviera’s fairways, approaches and rough.

If you’re unfamiliar with Kikuyu grass, that’s OK because this week is one of just two weeks a year on the PGA Tour when we see it — the other being Torrey Pines.

But with the heavy rains this week that have left Riviera soaked and soft, the approaches will present a unique challenge with a rare grass and added moisture. Especially when it comes to wedge play.

“Kikuyu grass and a little bit of added moisture can make golf really tricky,” Vokey Tour rep Aaron Dill said in a video posted to Vokey’s social media pages. “You’re not only adding this water in this poor weather that will influence spin, but you’re also moving strikes around the face because of that added moisture.”

Kikuyu grass is a stiff and hearty grass strain that, when tightly mown, nearly makes the golf ball sit up like it’s on a tee, not unlike Zoysia grass.

But it differs in the direction in which it grows.

“It doesn’t grow straight up like most grass does,” Vokey Tour rep Shane Dyel told GOLF via email. “It crosses and weaves on top of each other, which is a very unique way of the grass growing.”

Giving more cushion underneath the ball might sound like a good thing for those playing to fast greens who want to slide their wedge underneath the ball and pop it into the air to land high and soft, but on the PGA Tour, the goal is to launch it lower with more spin.

To do that, you need to hit the ball on the bottom-most grooves of the wedge — Vokey reps say Nos. 2-5, ideally. With the teed up lies and the moisture, all of that is going to move a player’s strike point above that zone.

“If it’s sitting higher and you find that higher strike point, the ball comes off with less speed, the spin decreases and your ball launches higher,” Dyel said. “If that’s happening, we need to be able to identify what type of sole is going to get you back to that optimal strike location.”

On a typical PGA Tour setup, ultratight lies lead to the narrow-soled and low-bounce T- and L-grinds dominating usage week-to-week. That makes the Genesis Invitational one of the busiest of the year for the Vokey Tour team in working with players to determine if they need to make a change.

The adjustments they make are usually subtle. Unlike fitting a driver, where you might go from one polar opposite setting or shaft to another, wedges are more delicate and calculated.

“If you have a player who has typically used thinner soles, you generally want to gravitate more towards that unless you start to see height becoming an issue. So if you’ve got a T grind or an L grind player, you want to try something like an M,” Dyel said. “But if we add bounce and the ball starts coming out a little bit flatter and hotter, and we need to produce a higher, softer launch, but with the same spin, that’s when we might start looking at a wider sole, like .06K or K*.”

Despite lots of players testing different lob wedges, Marco Penge was the only player to switch his Vokey SM11 lob wedge, going from a narrow-soled .04T-grind to a wider, but still versatile K*-grind.

Penge isn’t alone with traveling with multiple Vokey lob wedges as others like Justin Thomas (T/K*), Ludvig Aberg (L/V) and others do as well.

The blades that refuse to die

Another member of the blade mafia fell this week as Maverick McNealy joined the growing number of PGA Tour members playing a Spider Tour X mallet. McNealy had played Toulon blades for his entire career and the one he was using most recently goes back at least to his time at Stanford.

With McNealy’s switch, there are just four players in the OWGR top 25 (Hideki Matsuyama, Alex Noren, Patrick Reed and Ludvig Aberg) who use a blade putter.

Aberg was asked why he still uses a blade this week and claimed, “it’s all I’ve ever known.”

Aberg, who was 86th in SG: Putting last season, revealed this week he switched Odyssey Ai-ONE No. 1 putter heads this year to one with less loft in an effort to get more forward roll.

He added he’s always preferred blades with soft inserts, but he’s open to change. He just hasn’t.

In some ways, that explains the difference between blade and mallet players. Aberg doesn’t refuse to play a mallet; he just simply sees keeping what he’s known as his best bet.

Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy have made some of the highest-profile mallet switches over the last few years and both did so because they acknowledged it helped their games.

But McIlroy explained this week that he still likes to practice with blades.

“I’ve made enough bad strokes with the Spider where the ball still went in the hole from inside six feet that, yeah, it’s a lot more forgiving,” he said Wednesday. “I practice with a blade at home because I think when you practice with a blade a little bit and then you go back to the Spider, it feels just that little bit easier.”

Aberg may have caught on to the idea. He was spotted testing a new prototype Scotty Cameron mallet this week.

Talking putter grips with the GOAT

Something about Tiger Woods roaming around a PGA Tour event just feels right, and he’s been front and center this week as the Genesis Invitational’s host.

And something we’ve seen constantly from Woods this year at the TGL, while he recovers from back and ankle surgeries, is he seems thoroughly fascinated by other players’ gear.

On Wednesday, he dropped in to Collin Morikawa’s practice round to talk shop with last week’s winner and check out what he has in the bag.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Woods was drawn to Morikawa’s MG5 lob wedge because the World No. 5 plays Woods’ TW-grind, something Woods hasn’t yet had the chance to do in competition with the MG5.

But the more interesting banter came when Morikawa was talking about his new TaylorMade Spider Tour X putter with a flow neck. Morikawa was explaining how the toe hang of the putter allowed him to feel a release through the stroke, something Woods has always been an advocate of.

“So this putter actually feels good because it swings,” Morikawa said. “A little toe hang, but it’s a mallet so it doesn’t open as much for me going back, but then it closes, which is what I need.”

“I love that,” Woods replied.

Morikawa continued explaining that if a putter opens too much, then he struggles to square the face back at impact.

That’s when Woods chimed in with a thought on-brand with his ethos of putting.

TaylorMade Spider Tour X Custom Putter

TRUE PATH ALIGNMENT The patented alignment system provides visual clarity and helps golfers better envision the line to the hole. WHITE TPU PURE ROLL INSERT Made from a combination of Surlyn and aluminum, the white TPU Pure Roll insert creates a softer feel. Grooves are angled at 45° to encourage optimal forward roll as well as better sound, feel and overall roll characteristics. The white insert also creates better symmetry with the white True Path alignment. THIN WALL UNDERCUT CONSTRUCTION We’ve engineered a super stable structure by removing excess weight to create high MOI and legendary Spider performance.

ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA Tour Superstore, TaylorMade

“It’s hard to shut it with that big of a grip, though,” Woods said.

On almost all of his putters, Morikawa had been using an oversized SuperStroke Zenergy Tour 2.0 putter grip, seemingly to take more of his hands out of the stroke.

Woods has always been adamant about keeping the right-hand release active through the stroke. On his putter, he almost always played a slim Ping PP58 putter grip. When he felt he was getting too handsy in the stroke, he would switch to a slightly larger Lamkin pistol grip, but it would still be considered small by modern standards.

It’s counterintuitive to a lot of modern conventions about putting, but it’s also hard to argue with Woods’ results.

But with Morikawa’s new putter, he uses a Golf Pride Tour Tradition, more traditional slim pistol grip. That earned the 15-time major champ’s approval.

“There ya go,” Woods said, smiling and nodding.

Check this out

This section is dedicated to cool photos we’ve snapped recently on Tour, but haven’t had a reason to share yet. For this week, check out Aldrich Potgieter’s Scotty Cameron 009M putter as he gets in contention this weekend at Riviera.

Odds and Ends

Some other gear changes and notes we’re tracking this week.

Both Min Woo Lee and Max Greyserman traded in their Elyte Mini drivers for the new Quantum Mini driver, which launched last week on the PGA Tour. … Wyndham Clark is enjoying free agency because he just made a change to his fourth different driver of the season with a new TaylorMade Qi4D 10.5 and Project X’s new Titan 70 TX shaft. … Max Homa moved from Cobra OPTM LS-K driver to the OPTM X with a lighter Fujikura Ventus Blue+ 6-X shaft . … While Aaron Rai recently went back to his M6 driver, Jason Day and Justin Rose are ditching their M6 3-woods. Day is now in a Titleist GT1 3Tour 14.5 3-wood and Rose added two new Qi4D Tour 3- and 5-woods this week. Rose was in a Qi4D (core) 7-wood previously. … Lucas Glover added a new Ping G440 K 9.0 driver with a Graphite Design Tour AD-UB 6-TX shaft. Glover previously used a 440 Max 10.5 head, but it’s been an ongoing trend for 440 K players to loft down. … Jhonattan Vegas added a set of Mizuno JPX 923 Tour irons. … Tommy Fleetwood (24.0!!!), Jacob Bridgeman (16.5, 21.0), Pierceson Coody (15.0), Robert MacIntyre (21.0) and J.T. Poston (21.0) added new Qi4D core fairway woods.

3 things you should read/watch

A selection of GOLF content from the past week that may interest you.

Rickie Fowler changed nearly every club this year. He told us why | Bag Spy — In our newly relaunched Bag Spy series, we take a deep dive into the bag of Rickie Fowler, from his Scotty Cameron GoLo putter to his custom 3D-printed irons and a mini driver designed for him.

Cobra 3DP Tour Custom Irons

The KING 3D Printed TOUR irons utilize 3D printing technology to unlock a new realm of performance. Their one of a kind design features the most forgiving blade shape on the market, delivering the forgiveness that aspirational players need, and the sleek looks and soft feel that better players desire.
3D PRINTED STEEL CONSTRUCTION
Each iron is fully 3D printed from 316 stainless steel. 3D printing provides significant advantages over traditional methods of casting and forging, unlocking more design freedom and significant performance improvements.
FORGIVING PLAYERS BLADE SHAPE
3D printing has unlocked new design possibilities, enabling COBRA engineers to create a compact blade shape with the mass properties (high MOI, low CG) of a game improvement iron without sacrificing looks and soft feel that better players demand.
INTERNAL LATTICE STRUCTURE
COBRA took a muscle-back blade shape (similar in size and shape to the KING TOUR iron), and transformed the inside of the blade into a complex internal lattice structure to reduce the weight of the club by 33%. That discretionary weight was repositioned to optimize feel, CG position, and MOI.

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