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Seen On Tour: Team TaylorMade at the British Open

Mike Esse | July 17, 2024
Tiger Woods Divot at Impact

Golf's truest test is finally here and Team TaylorMade is ready for the 152nd Open Championship at Royal Troon. We spent four days of practice rounds with Tiger, Rory, Scottie, Tommy, Collin and DJ to get you the scoop on the biggest gear storylines ahead of The Open.

LONG IRONS APLENTY

The most common equipment change at an Open Championship is the addition of long irons. Players commonly take out a fairway wood or go for a more forgiving 3-iron to be able to cut through the wind with a lower shot that can roll out on the contoured fairways of a links golf course.

Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa and Tommy Fleetwood all followed that strategy at the top of their bags.

Collin Morikawa has made a few key changes to his irons for this week. After testing a prototype 3-iron and P·790 3-iron, both bent to a 2-iron loft. Collin decided to go with the more forgiving P·790 to hit low piercing shots both off the tee and in the fairways. Collin's spec is below:

  • LOFT: 19°
  • LIE: 59.5°
  • LENGTH: 38 7/8'' CUT
  • SWINGWEIGHT: D1.5
  • SHAFT: HZRDUS GEN 4 105

Tiger plays a P·770 3-iron that he used off the tee frequently especially on the demanding Par 3 17th hole. Rory McIlroy went back to his famous P·760 2-iron that produced an epic second shot en route to his win at the Scottish Open in 2023.

Tommy Fleetwood has notoriously played a 9-wood for the majority of this season, however, with the exaggerated height on his 9-wood out of the fairway Tommy elected to replace it with a P·7CB 3-iron.

Let's take a look at the rest of Team TaylorMade's equipment for this week.

Getty Images 2162385318
Scottie Scheffler WITB

When we arrived on the grounds at Royal Troon on Sunday, Scottie Scheffler was in absolute grind mode on the practice green. His coach Phil Kenyon had his patented level out and they were dissecting every angle of each putt he hit. They varied the putts from short to long, uphill to downhill and Scottie went through his pre-putt routine on the first attempt of each one:

  1. Line up ball
  2. Look at ball from behind
  3. Walk to the other side of the hole, read the putt from that side
  4. Go to the selected point of the line and read the putt from multiple points within the line
  5. Walk to ball and address the putt, then step off to read it once more from behind
  6. Drain the putt

Phil used his level to get the slope of the putt, then he and Scottie would identify the aim point on his line and Phil marked it with a white sharpie. Scottie's goal then would be to hit that white dot on the green, and when he did the putt went in 100 percent of the time.

Here's how that translated to the golf course on Sunday:

NEW DRIVER HEAD FOR TIGER

After his first two days of practice rounds, Tiger Woods decided to make a key change to his driver set up and change from a 10.5° Qi10 LS head to a 9.0°. The loft sleeve is set up on the upright side towards higher with the sliding weight toward the draw position. In short, Tiger made this change to have a lower ball flight off the tee to cut through the unpredictable wind at Troon and take advantage of the rollout a lower tee shot could get on the links fairways.

Tiger Woods Qi10 9 0 driver
Tiger WITB
SHOP Qi10 DRIVERS
Rory Smirk at The Open
Rory McIlroy WITB

BIG CHANGES TO COLLIN'S BAG

As mentioned above, Collin is adding a P·790 3-iron to the bag this week to cut through the Scottish wind. However, an even more impactful change is coming in his 5-iron through pitching wedge as Collin is adding the yet-to-be released P·7CB irons. Collin famously switched to P·7MC irons the week before he won the 149th Open Championship at Royal St. Georges and is following a similar tactical change at this year's Open. The sole of the P·7CB's can cut through the firm turf of Royal Troon giving Collin more precision and workability with his irons, which he will rely on especially on the lengthy holes on Troon's back nine.

To combat turf interaction, Collin also added a Milled Grind 4 SBC 60° wedge. His full WITB is:

Tommy WITB The Open
Tommy Fleetwood WITB

DJ ADDS BRNR MINI DRIVER

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