Few golf programs in the world have impressed extra artistic gear tinkering than Augusta National. Players have proven as much as the first tee with the whole lot from further wedges and one-off prototypes to unconventional setups constructed particularly for one week in April.
Phil Mickelson famously employed two drivers in 2004—one for a excessive, arduous draw, one for a managed fade—squeezing each potential benefit out of a bag designed for a single function. The pursuit of a Masters edge has at all times had a manner of pushing gamers towards choices they’d by no means contemplate anyplace else.
Tommy Fleetwood has his personal reply. It simply occurs to be a club he is been carrying for a couple of years now.
“It’s a perfect 9-wood golf course,” Fleetwood mentioned. “The biggest thing is the 9-wood for me. If I can put myself in position on the par-5s or the long par-3 fourth—for me, I can’t really hit that high 4-iron, so 9-wood helps me a lot.”
That would possibly sound like a modest gear confession, but it surely’s value noting that Fleetwood is hardly alone on this considering. Over the previous a number of years, high-lofted fairway woods have quietly turn out to be one of the commonest additions to tour baggage.
Players throughout all ability ranges have been swapping out lengthy irons and utility golf equipment in favor of 7-woods and 9-woods—golf equipment that had been as soon as thought of the area of leisure golfers—as a result of the efficiency information merely makes an excessive amount of sense to disregard. At Augusta particularly, the place strategy angles into agency, elevated greens demand top and stopping energy, the pattern accelerates.
The numbers again him up. In recent robot testing Golf Digest carried out with Golf Laboratories utilizing Ping’s G440 long-game lineup, the 9-wood produced the largest carry positive factors of any club in the whole check when delivered with a barely descending blow.
At 95 mph, a steeper assault angle resulted in almost seven further yards of carry in comparison with a impartial strategy—a byproduct of spin dropping from 6,300 rpm down to five,835 rpm with out sacrificing launch top. At 85 mph, the achieve was nonetheless a significant four-plus yards. At Augusta, gamers will be chasing that top, delicate trajectory and shot-stopping spin above all else—however the proven fact that the 9-wood may also add significant distance makes it an excellent simpler promote.
For Fleetwood, who has the swing velocity to optimize these positive factors, the 9-wood is a calculated alternative that lets him assault holes like the eighth, thirteenth and fifteenth on his personal phrases. It offers him the trajectory he desires, the confidence he wants, and eliminates the guesswork that comes with attempting to fabricate a excessive 4-iron he is by no means totally trusted in these spots.
“I can’t really hit that high 4-iron,” he admitted, with the type of refreshing candor tour gamers not often supply. For Fleetwood, the high-lofted fairway wooden would not simply fill the void—it’d be his most necessary club this week.
Fleetwood could be leaning on his 9-wood to navigate the world’s most well-known par-5s. For the remainder of us, it’d be time to look a bit of nearer at what that very same club can do on ours.
