Day: June 19, 2019

‘Really cool to see’ up-and-coming stars at Travelers Championship‘Really cool to see’ up-and-coming stars at Travelers Championship

CROMWELL, Conn. – They settled into seats at the same table to share the same spotlight in a prelude to the same tournament, the Travelers Championship. Then again, that should not have felt out of the ordinary. After all, if it feels as if Matthew Wolff, Justin Suh, Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland have shared the amateur golf stage for years, it’s because they have. “It’s really cool to see us out here,â€� said Wolff. Nodding in agreement, Morikawa said, “I think it all brings us to the same point.â€� Related: Featured Groups | Hovland signs with Ping | Wolff brings unique swing to Travelers | What’s in Wolff’s bag? At a tournament that is heralded for the way in which it extends playing opportunities to up-and-coming players, the Travelers Championship outdid itself this year. Berths were extended to Oklahoma State teammates Hovland, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, and Wolff, the recent winner of the NCAA Championship; Suh, the University of Southern California standout who won eight collegiate tournaments; and the University of California’s Morikawa, who recently finished T-14 at the RBC Canadian Open in his pro debut. It will serve as the pro debut for Hovland, who has been low amateur in the Masters and U.S. Open this year, and Wolff, while Morikawa turned pro two weeks ago in Canada and Suh made his pro debut at the Memorial Tournament a few weeks ago. So, while these young stars – Morikawa is 22; Suh and Hovland are 21; Wolff is 20 – are toeing the starting line together as professionals, take note that they surely feel as if they’ve been racing together for years. In fact, Morikawa smiled when he looked out at the assembled audience and noticed Shari Wolff. He waved to Matthew’s mother. “It’s good to see his mom back there. Haven’t seen her since, I think Cabo (the Cabo Collegiate in Mexico) where she rode in a cart with us. That was a great week for us.â€� Listening to these four young men speak on the eve of the Travelers Championship, it sounds like there have been a lot of great weeks for them. In so many ways, the ways their paths have intersected provide great depth to their friendships. Suh, Morikawa and Wolff share California roots. Suh and Morikawa first met in local AJGA tournaments, while Morikawa (La Canada) and Wolff (Westlake) went to high schools north of Los Angeles that did not compete against one another in the same league, but served to introduce the players. Wolff recalled seeing Morikawa play for the first time, at North Ranch CC in Thousand Oaks. “He shot 70 and I think I shot 75 or 76,â€� said Wolff. “It was a hard day. I was just kind of blown away by it.â€� Morikawa remembers where he was when he heard that Suh, who hails from San Jose, had committed to USC. “We were in San Diego at an AJGA (tournament),â€� said Morikawa, smiling. “Just really cool to see us grow, even though we switched paths from southern California.â€� Which isn’t to say that Hovland doesn’t factor into the storyline, even though he was born and raised in Oslo, Norway. “Or California 2.0 as we call it,â€� laughed Hovland, whose infectious personality has captivated media members who met him at Augusta and last week at Pebble Beach. “The golf community is so small over there and when you do well and you think you’re big time, because everyone is talking about you.â€� Turns out, Hovland had the international observers talking about him, too. Wolff, for instance, remembers seeing this kid who wasn’t wearing a golf hat, “just Oakleys on, just a really European look,â€� he said, laughing. A few seats away, Hovland laughed, too. He remembered. “I met (Wolff) that week and figured out, ‘Wow, there is a bunch of good guys out here,â€� said Hovland. Morikawa was T3 in that AJGA Thunderbird tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz., while Hovland was tied for seventh and Wolff joint 10th. They have plastered their names to the tops of collegiate and amateur leaderboards ever since, and none of them are entering this PGA TOUR phase devoid of confidence that it will continue. Asked if they’d be surprised if they won this week, they took turns and took different ways to share the same answer. No.

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Chicago District Golf Association Foundation celebrates 75 yearsChicago District Golf Association Foundation celebrates 75 years

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Matthew Wolff: In-depth ‘What’s in the bag?’ and one of the coolest headcovers in golfMatthew Wolff: In-depth ‘What’s in the bag?’ and one of the coolest headcovers in golf

CROMWELL, Conn. – As previously reported by PGATOUR.COM, amateur standout Matthew Wolff announced that he joined Team TaylorMade ahead of his professional debut at the 2019 Travelers Championship. TaylorMade officially confirmed today that the company and Wolff have started a multi-year equipment deal. For more information about the TaylorMade clubs Wolff is using at the Travelers Championship, PGATOUR.COM caught up with the person who knows his equipment best: Ryan Ressa. Ressa, Manager of Product Development at TaylorMade, works with junior and collegiate golfers, helping them with their equipment needs. Wolff and Ressa first started working together around 2013, and Wolff has been playing TaylorMade products ever since, according to Ressa. “He was a really good player, a really solid athlete,â€� Ressa said of Wolff when he was around 14 years old. “A lot of juniors came to the Kingdom (TaylorMade’s fitting center) at that time, but when he came through, that’s when the light clicked on… the guy is just a natural talent. When you see some of the things he does with the golf club and the golf ball, that hasn’t changed since he was 13. Like the sound he creates now, that was the one thing that stood out back then.â€� When it comes to equipment, Ressa says he’s not one to tinker a lot. Back when Wolff was a junior golfer and into his collegiate years at Oklahoma State University, he’d go to the Kingdom once in January to get fit into the new product, and he wouldn’t change much all year after that, except for an occasional loft tweak. “He likes what he likes, but he’s also not hesitant to try or put new stuff in,â€� Ressa said. “He’ll come in January when we have the new product. He’ll hit it and we’ll get him into it and he’ll get comfortable with it over the next couple weeks and then he’ll go with it. He doesn’t tinker much.â€� As for his current equipment, Wolff has made a few recent changes. Ressa takes PGATOUR.COM through his equipment at the Travelers Championship (as of Wednesday’s practice session) below. Driver: TaylorMade M6 (8 degrees) Shaft: Graphite Design AD-TP 7TX Ressa says: “He’s got the M6 8-degree driver in the bag, and we just made that adjustment a couple weeks ago. He had an M5 9-degree that he used that through college. He was probably spinning it a little too much throughout the course of March and April, but we didn’t want to tinker much as he was going down the stretch of the National Championship. Then we went to a different head model last week, and lowered the loft, just to give him something different to try. He loved the feel and the sensation of the weight being in the back of that head. He felt like it gave him a bit more workability, so that’s what he’s been going with the last couple weeks and all indications are that he loves it. It has a little less spin, probably 300 rpm less spin, and he likes the control. He likes to work it both ways, depending on how he’s feeling. The M6 is giving him that flexibility.â€� As for the driver shaft, Ressa says: “He’s probably had this shaft for 3 or 4 years, and honestly the Graphite Design feel is very unique. It’s very smooth through impact, and he always identifies with that. He might test a shaft here or there, but he always comes back to that. The launch fits his eye; it probably takes off a little higher than most guys like, but he likes the higher launch and the window that comes out in. He’s always been comfortable with that, so we haven’t tinkered much with it. We tested some other Graphite Design driver shafts a couple years ago that were maybe a little stronger, but he always came back to that TP. “He’s hanging out at D4 swing weight. His stuff is a little bit shorter, so he plays his driver at 45 inches, which is just a touch shorter than where most of my guys are. He likes the shorter length because his arms seem to hang a bit lower. So that seems to be consistent throughout his bag. He plays his stuff a little shorter all the way through.â€� 3 Wood: TaylorMade M6 (15 degrees) Shaft: Project X HZRDUS Smoke 6.5TX 80 grams Ressa says: “Three wood is a tough club for him because he hits it so far. So he will kind of alternate that one based on the course and based on what he needs that week. He goes between a 15 degree and probably a 16-degree. I would say most of the time he’ll carry a 16-degree — something that doesn’t fly so far, maybe 275-280 yards. When he gets that 15-degree, and he’s feeling it and it’s warm outside, that carries about 285 yards and goes out to 300, which is not super playable for him. I think this week he’s gone back to a lower loft, but traditionally he plays a 16-degree.â€� While Wolff doesn’t tinker much with shafts, he changed this week – at least, as of Wednesday — from a Graphite Design BB shaft to a Project X HZRDUS Smoke. Driving Iron: TaylorMade P760 (2 and 3-iron) Shafts: Nippon N.S. Pro Tour 130X Wolff has two different long-iron options in the bag this week ahead of the Travelers Championship. With 15 clubs in the bag, it’s likely that he’ll choose just one of these driving iron options. Ressa says: “He’s got a 760 3-iron that’s bent down to 18 degrees, so technically it’s a 2-iron. That’s been a great club for him off the tee at some of these tighter courses throughout the spring. After that, he transitions into the P750’s, 4-PW. He’s played that Nippon 130X shaft for I think 2.5 years now, since we got him into the 750s.â€� Irons: TaylorMade P750 Tour Proto (4-PW) Shafts: Nippon N.S. Pro Tour 130X Ressa says: “We’ve tested some smaller blade irons, but he always comes back to the 750s. He likes the shape and the forgiveness and the workability of those.â€� Wedges: TaylorMade Milled Grind (52, 56 and 60 bent to 62 degrees) Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 Ressa says: “He’s played Milled Grind wedges since we’ve had those, so a couple years. He goes 52, 56 and 62. He has a 60 that we’ve bent up to 62 for him, and that has little heel and toe relief grind on it. He’s just recently put that 62 degree in, just to have a little more height around the greens as he’s got into these tougher courses like the National Championship, which was pretty difficult, and he kind of anticipates that difficulty as he goes through this summer. That’ll be consistent in his bag.â€� Putter: TaylorMade Spider X Tour Shaft: KBS CT Tour putter shaft Ressa says: “He’s always had kind of a half mallet putter… he felt he didn’t putt great during the Waste Management and that was right around the time we introduced the Spider X. So we got him a few models of that and he put it in play the following week in Hawaii, and he won that tournament going away. He was off and running with that putter. He loves the look and the stability and everything about it, so he’s been in that since probably early February. It’s face-balanced, single bend, 33 inches, 1.5 degrees of loft. Pretty standard. No special insert.â€� Special made for Wolff after he turned pro is this “Wolffieâ€� headcover that features a wolf logo stitched with Oklahoma State University colors. The headcover, which may just be one of the best headcovers on TOUR, was designed by Cameron Bosson and the design team at TaylorMade. Wolff is also currently using a 2019 Titleist Pro V1 golf ball; TaylorMade is giving him an extended period of time to make the switch into TP5x (similar to Jon Rahm in 2016), according to a company representative. Related: Matthew Wolff bringing unique game to PGA TOUR

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