Leading Edge

This past weekend was a good one for Titleist, which scored overtime victories with Zach Johnson on the PGA Tour, Michael Sim on the Nationwide Tour, and Irish amateur Shane Lowry on the European Tour in the Irish Open. Johnson nearly became the fourth player in PGA Tour history to shoot a 59, tying a LaCantera Golf Course record with a 10-under-par 60 during Saturday's third round of the Valero Texas Open. Some 24 hours later Johnson defeated James Driscoll with a 12-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole to capture his second PGA Tour event of the year.
 
In Johnson' bag was a 909D2 driver (8.5 degrees), 909F2 3-wood (13.5 degrees) and 5-wood (18.5 degrees), 909H hybrid (21 degrees), AP2 irons (4- through 9-iron), Vokey Design pitching (48 degrees) and sand (54 degrees) wedges and a Spin Milled lob wedge (60 degrees).
 
Lowry, like Johnson, played a ProV1x golf ball, 909D2 driver (8.5 degrees), 909F2 3-wood (15.5 degrees), 909H hybrid (19 degrees) and AP2 irons (3- through 9-iron).

For those who want bigger, TaylorMade Golf has come up with a 460cc version of its popular R9 driver. The R9 460 hits stores on Saturday, and features a larger head, deeper clubface and lower center of gravity than the R9 (420cc), the No. 1 driver model on the PGA Tour since its debut at the Bob Hope in January. The R9 460 is also longer in length (45.75 inches) than the R9, and is equipped with an Aldila RE AX 60-gram tip-soft shaft to promote more clubhead speed and distance. In the 460, you also get the Flight Control Technology (FCT) that the R9 is famous for. By loosening a bolt on the sole of the clubhead and rotating the shaft, you can adjust the lie, loft and face angle to produce the desired look and shot shape you want.
 
"Players who put a premium on distance are going to want to put the R9 460 in play," said Harry Arnett, TaylorMade senior category director for metal woods.
 
In addition to being bigger, the head in the R9 460 is constructed with TaylorMade's Ultra-Thin Wall (UTW) technology, bringing the thickness down to as little as 0.6 millimeters. The head is both modern and traditional in shape, allowing for an exceptionally low, deep CG, and more forgiveness on off-center hits.
 
The R9 460 has a street price of $299 and is available in lofts of 8.5, 9.5, 10.5 and 11.5 degrees for right-handed golfers, and 9.5 and 10.5 degrees for left-handers.

The hottest 3-wood on the PGA Tour belongs to Sweden's Henrik Stenson, who used his strong 3 to split one fairway after another at TPC Sawgrass this weekend en route to winning The Players Championship by four shots. Stenson, who entered play on Sunday trailing third-round leader Alex Cejka by five shots, hit a remarkable 13 of 14 fairways on Sunday and 26 of 28 on the weekend to capture his first PGA Tour title since the 2007 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.
 
Ironically, Stenson was playing the same strong 3-wood (Callaway Big Bertha, 13 degrees, Grafalloy Blue shaft, X-flex) back in '07. "I like to hit my 3-wood a lot, and that club just matches perfectly around here – a little right-to-left shape a lot of times," said Stenson following Sunday's bogey-free round of 6-under 66.
 
It also helps that Stenson can carry his 3-wood 270 yards. He averaged 299 yards on Sunday using his 3-wood on all but one driving hole – the par-5 11th. Stenson hit his lone driver of the day there, and made birdie.
 
"I hit my 3-wood far," said Stenson. "I hit a good one down No. 18 the other day, and I think it said 318 [yards] or something like that [on the ShotLink board]. When you get one going on these fast, firm fairways, they can run on."
 
Stenson also played a Big Bertha 19-degree fairway wood, Callaway FT-3 driver (9.5 degrees), Srixon 1-506 irons, Callaway X Tour wedges (54 and 58 degrees), YES! C-Groove Donna putter, and Srixon Z-UR golf ball. The Swede is not one for change: A look at his What's in the Bag for the 2007 WGC event lists the same clubs except the Big Bertha 19-degree fairway wood.

TaylorMade-Adidas Golf staff pro Richard Johnson has been searching for a new driver the last few weeks, and he may have found it. Johnson and FuZion Golf vice president Chris Dempsey were hard at work on the range Wednesday at The Players Championship, trying to find an equal to the Adams Insight XTD driver he used to win last year's U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee.
 
Dempsey moved Johnson into a TaylorMade R9 TP driver with a really deep face, so that Johnson would make contact a little lower on the clubface. Johnson had been making contact a little too high on the face, causing the ball to fall out of the sky due to a dramatic decrease in spin. They also bent his driver so the lie angle would play a little flatter, keeping the launch angle to around 12-14 degrees.
 
The adjustments paid immediate dividends on Thursday as Johnson fired a 6-under-par 66, one off Ben Crane's first-round lead. The Swede's best finish so far this season is a tie for 9th at the Bob Hope Classic.
 
FuZion Golf, a custom club-building business based out of Jupiter, Fla., recently opened a new location at the TOUR Academy at TPC Sawgrass, just a pitching wedge away from the practice range for The Players Championship.

So much for the "Great Shaft Experiment" with Tiger Woods and his driver. Woods played a prototype shaft from Oban called the Mach4 during the first round of last week's Quail Hollow Championship, but was back with the Mitsubishi Diamana White shaft by tournament's end.
 
Woods finished alone in fourth place at 9-under par, two shots back of winner Sean O'Hair. For the week, he hit just 44.6 percent of his fairways, although he hit only 36 percent during an opening-round 65.
 
"The other shaft did not quite work out for me," said Woods during Monday's U.S. Open Media Day teleconference. "It wasn't what I was looking for. It felt good during the practice round but in the tournament, I didn't quite have the same feel for it, so I went back to my old driver on the weekend. I hit it a little bit better. But still, this driver has done pretty well, and that's the one I'll continue working with and hopefully get my swing organized."

TaylorMade's R9 continues to be the No. 1-played driver on the PGA Tour, with 29 competitors, including winner Sean O'Hair, putting it in play at the Quail Hollow Championship. Since its debut in January at the Bob Hope, the R9 has been the No. 1 driver model at 17 Tour events, including its current streak of 13 in a row.
 
O'Hair, who also plays an R9 fairway wood, was scintillating from tee to green at Quail Hollow. He ranked seventh in driving distance (312.6 yards) and tied for third in greens in regulation (75 percent). What's even more amazing is that he captured his third PGA Tour title without making a single putt over 10 feet for the week.

Tiger Woods is not much of a tinkerer, which is to say he will never be mistaken for the likes of Bob Estes or Steve Flesch. But the world No. 1 seemed to be busy last week testing shafts for his Nike SQ Dymo driver.
 
On Thursday at Quail Hollow, the TW sweepstakes seemed to go to newcomer Oban Composites, a Glenview, Ill.-based company. Woods, who had played Mitsubishi’s Diamana White shaft through the Masters, used a prototype shaft from Oban called the Mach4 on his way to an opening-round 65.
 
On Oban's website, the Mach4 is said to deliver a low- to mid-launch and low spin for a more piercing ball flight.
 
"It's exactly the same weight, just a different company," Woods said on Thursday of his new shaft.

Parker McLachlin was fitted by Titleist for a new shaft in his driver this week at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, and it's already paying dividends. McLachlin fired an opening-round 5-under-par 67 on Thursday, and was one of six players one shot back of Charlie Wi heading into Friday's second round.
 
McLachlin, who was admittedly struggling with his driver heading into this week, birdied three of the four par-5s at TPC Louisiana en route to his 67. Titleist fitted him with a Diamana White 63 X shaft in his 909 D2 driver (10.5 degrees) and a Diamana 73 X in his 909 F2 3-wood (15.5 degrees).
 
McLachlin won last year's Legends Reno-Tahoe Open to earn a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour, and has two top-25 finishes in 10 starts this season. A native of Hawaii, McLachlin's father, Chris, was the high school basketball coach of President Barack Obama at Punahou High School in Honolulu.