A 7-yard gain from one simple change

As I write this week’s newsletter, I’m rocketing through the air at 35,000 feet after spending the last week in California and Arizona. September and October are loaded with travel as we get an early preview of the gear coming to retail next year.

Part of the time with each equipment manufacturer is education; the other is getting a chance to take the clubs for a spin. As my colleague Mike Johnson always says, “It’s Golf Digest, not Cubicle Digest.” So, we tee it up and see how the equipment performs for the recreational golfer.

One thing that always hits me on these trips is just how much great equipment is out there right now—and how overwhelming the options can be when you’re trying to fill the spot between your driver and your longest iron. Fairway woods, hybrids, utility irons, traditional long irons and now mini drivers. The category keeps expanding, but nobody’s giving you a playbook for what might benefit your game and delivery.

The “delivery” I’m talking about is called your angle of attack, and it plays a key role in how these clubs perform. If you sweep the turf, you’re neutral. If you have a negative angle of attack, meaning you take a divot, you could be leaving yards on the table with some clubs—or gaining them with others.

The old advice to sweep everything off the deck doesn’t account for what each club actually prefers at impact.

To help give you a better idea of how each club performs, we put a myriad of fairway woods, hybrids, utility irons and long irons through testing on the swing robot at two swing speeds and two attack angles: neutral and negative three degrees. The goal was to figure out exactly how much your delivery at impact changes launch, spin, and carry across the clubs that live in that gap.

It’s the least understood part of most bags, and the data we analyzed backs that up.

What we found is that each club has its own preference. Some wanted a steeper blow and rewarded it with meaningful carry gains. Others were indifferent. And one actually lost distance when you changed the angle, validating the old advice, but only for that specific club.

The full breakdown covers every club, two speeds (85 and 95 mph) and exactly when to sweep it versus when to go after it with a descending blow.

Hopefully it helps you make sense of each club before you head to the hitting bay.

Sweeping statements

The robot test that redraws the rules on fairway woods, hybrids and irons

By Jonathan Wall

What You Need to Know

Jonathan Wall

Titleist's 2027 Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls officially started their global tour seeding at the Baycurrent Classic in Japan. However, several players didn't wait for the invitation. Neal Shipley switched at the Biltmore Championship Asheville, the PGA Tour's fall opener, then shot a career-best 62 on his way to a T3, also his best Tour finish. Doug Ghim added the new Pro V1x at the Bank of Utah Championship and played his first 54 holes in 22 under. Robert MacIntyre put the new Pro V1 in play for the first time at the Alfred Dunhill Links and finished T6.

While this is the first week pros will get their "official" look at the balls, the groundwork began in early March at Bay Hill, where Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth, Ryan Gerard and Harris English tested final candidates in Tuesday practice rounds. Fordie Pitts, Titleist's director of tour research and validation, said the surest sign came when players began asking how soon they could use the ball.

As far as what's changed, Titleist hasn't detailed the specifics yet. Expect those to surface as the rollout moves across tours over the coming months.

For now, the 15th-generation Pro V1 and 13th-generation Pro V1x are doing something familiar—showing up in staff bags before the official retail launch.

Jonathan Wall

Brooks Koepka's equipment setup has undergone numerous changes in the last decade, which makes sense when you think about it. Koepka's been on staff with Nike and Srixon, as well as having a successful stint as an equipment free agent. And yet, even through all the changes, two clubs have managed to fend off the competition: Nike's Vapor Fly Pro 3-iron and TaylorMade's M2 3-wood.

While the former remained in the bag recently at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, Koepka made a surprise move and replaced the M2 3-wood with a TaylorMade R7 Quad mini driver.

Whether this is a one-week tweak for links golf or the start of a longer move away from the M2 remains to be seen. But based on photos I captured during the PGA Championship, the 3-wood was showing serious signs of wear.

In other words, it may have simply been time to replace it. As for the mini driver, the club has become a bag staple for several high-profile names in recent years, including Tommy Fleetwood, Adam Scott and Rickie Fowler, because it offers versatility off the tee and from the turf.

Jonathan Wall

Tony Finau is putting with what looks like a hockey stick, and he'd like you to know that's the point. Finau debuted the putter grip at the Biltmore Championship Asheville and stuck with it at the Bank of Utah Championship. It started when Caliber Golf CEO Tim Wright spotted Finau at the Truist Championship putting with a unique grip setup on a broomstick-length putter. Finau eventually went looking for different options and landed on Caliber, whose carbon-fiber grip system gets fitted to a putter head a player already trusts. His is a Ping Scottsdale Tec Ally Blue Onset mallet.

The grip is perfectly flat, so Finau's hands, grip and putter face all point the same direction. "I just think it's easier to aim," Finau said in Utah.

Short putts are the main reason. According to Finau, he's always been good from 20 to 25-plus feet, but not as good closer in, where "you don't have time to manipulate the face."

The numbers explain the grip tinkering he's been doing recently, in an attempt to solve the problem. Finau ranks 122nd in strokes gained: putting, losing more than a shot per tournament on the greens. Hockey stick or not, he's betting on better aim to get things moving in the right direction.

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