�early;adopter taylormade brought its new
rocketballz driver to the pga tour last week at the at&t
pebble beach national pro-am. matt bettencourt, however, didn’t want to wait until then to get the club. the
driver became available at retail feb. 3, and bettencourt
went to a golf store and purchased a 9.5-degree model
with a fujikura motore vc6 shaft with his own cash.
bettencourt used the driver at the at&t, finishing t-36 in
driving distance.
equipment// e.;michael;johnson
bramlett’s;driver,;harman’s;putter,;dj’s;irons
�changes;Joseph bramlett added
an 11.5-degree nike vr_s driver at the
at&t pebble beach national pro-am,
finishing t-40, but ranked fourth in
driving distance. bramlett noticed
reduced spin with the club, resulting
in more distance. … stuart appleby
used odyssey’s new flip-face #5
model—an adjustable putter with
two face inserts that can be “flipped”
to the desired (metal-X or white
ice) insert using a specially designed
wrench. … brian harman worked with
a new belly putter last week, taylor-
made’s ghost manta. after two days
of testing prior to the at&t, harman
put the club in play, needing just 26
putts during an opening 64. for the
week harman finished t- 20, rank-
ing 27th in strokes gained/putting.
… gary woodland had the week off,
but that gave him time to practice
with equipment tweaked prior to the
waste management phoenix open.
woodland changed from titleist’s pro
v1 to the pro v1x model and adjusted
his driver from 6.75 degrees effective
loft to 7. 5 degrees.
�getting;the;Weight;right
at pebble beach, dustin Johnson
had taylormade techs replace
the weight port on his tour preferred mc irons to insure an exact
swingweight of d5 throughout the
set. to do so requires special tooling to remove and replace the port,
but the clubs were designed with
the port to have the ability to keep
the center of gravity in the center of
the clubface while allowing players
to have a consistent swingweight
throughout the set.
�help;on;the;Way? as stated
several times in this space, no one
stays on top of golf-club patents
like david dawsey at golf-patents.
com. his latest post reveals a
patent application from ping for
an iron head with a channel in the
leading edge area. the idea is the
channel will contact the grass as
the leading edge makes impact,
channeling additional debris and
allowing the ball to roll up the face,
rather than slide up it. the benefit?
additional spin.
AT&T Pebble beAch NATioNAl Pro-AM// wiNNer’s bAg
�in;the;bag
(Phil Mickelson’s lineup)
ball: Callaway Hex Black Tour
DRIVER: Callaway RAZR Fit (
Fujikura Motore VC7.2), 9. 5 degrees
3-WOOD: Callaway Big Bertha
Diablo, 15 degrees
HYbRID: Callaway X, 19 degrees
IRONS ( 4): Callaway RAZR
X-Forged; ( 5): Callaway RAZR X
prototype; (6-PW): Callaway RAZR
X Muscleback
WEDGES: Callaway Jaws (52, 60,
64 degrees)
PUTTER: Odyssey White Hot XG
Blade PM
golf digest resource center; ezra shaw/getty images
cover // contents // 10 things // pga tour // lpga tour // champions tour // european tour //equipment // tim rosaforte
