Watson wins the Travelers with scorching 63

Takumi Kanaya could be an overlooked bracket buster this week. At just 23 years old, the former top-ranked amateur in the world already has three wins on the Japan Tour and is a candidate to make this year’s International Team for the Presidents Cup. He also finished seventh in this season’s ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in Japan and he even shares an alma mater, Tohoku Fukushi, with his country’s biggest star, Hideki Matsuyama. To learn more about the equipment setup of this rising star, we spoke with his club fitter, Will Yanagisawa, who’s currently the collegiate player development manager at Ping (and a former college teammate of Tiger Woods). Below are three noteworthy takeaways from Yanagisawa on Kanaya’s unique equipment setup. 1. Once he finds the right fit, he sticks with it Kanaya is still using a Ping G410 driver, fairway wood and hybrid, which were all launched to retail back in 2019. According to Yanagisawa, Kanaya tests all the new products, but he’s particular about his golf clubs. He launches the ball low, so he works to increase his launch angle to carry the ball farther. But he also doesn’t want the ball to spin too much. Apparently, the Ping G410 series still fits his eye and his performance preferences just right. “Once he gets set and comfortable, he just rides that out,” Yanagisawa told GolfWRX. “He’ll play the same clubs until he finds something better. He always tests everything and we’ll take numbers, but at the end of the day, he keeps playing what he’s comfortable with.” The same goes for his putter. Kanaya has been using the same Ping Sigma2 Arna putter since his amateur days, and it has a special hosel that was only released in limited markets overseas. Take it from Takumi: Comfort with performance is often better than going with something new just to do it. 2. He uses two different 5-irons It’s not often that you see a golfer use two irons with same number on them, but Kanaya has a specific reason. According to Yanagisawa, Kanaya is precise with the yardage gaps between his irons. He doesn’t want the gaps between clubs to be too far apart or too close together. While the two Ping irons both say “5” on their soles, the irons are two different models that were designed for different performance characteristics. His Ping i210 5-iron is designed for better players, but with a touch of forgiveness added. While it has a cavity-back construction with perimeter weighting for additional relief on mishits, it has a compact shape, reduced offset and a thin topline. His Ping G710 5-iron, on the other hand, is more of a game-improvement club that has a fast face made for higher launch and more carry distance. While his G710 also is a 5-iron, it’s designed to fly farther and higher than Kanaya’s i210 5-iron. For amateur golfers, it’s important to hit all of the clubs in your bag on a launch monitor to see exactly how far they fly. You may notice you have two clubs that fly about the same distance. In that case, you’ll want to find a different club to replace one of them, since there’s no sense in having two clubs that serve the same purpose. 3. A 60-degree specialty wedge Kanaya’s highest lofted wedge is a Ping Glide Forged Pro 60-degree lob wedge, which is only 2 degrees more than his 58-degree sand wedge. “What’s the point of having two wedges so close together in loft?” you may be wondering. Well, Kanaya doesn’t hit full shots often with his 60-degree wedge. For longer shots, Kanaya opts for the 58-degree wedge, which is slightly easier to hit and more forgiving on full swings. He keeps the 60-degree wedge in his bag for specialty shots around the green when he needs the extra loft. “He likes to have that 60-degree for certain shots around the greens,” Yanagisawa said. “He’s a very good short-game player. He’s world class, in my opinion. He uses the 58-degree for full shots and most of his chipping, but for many specialty shots around the green, he uses the 60-degree.” For amateurs, it’s important to take a good, hard look at your wedge setup and why you have certain wedges in the bag. It could be in your best interest to get rid of the lob wedge altogether and fill your bag with clubs that are slightly easier to hit on long shots. Remember, the lob wedge is a specialty club, not a prerequisite.

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Cameron Champ continued his quest to bring people together through his profile in golf, sporting one black and one white shoe during his opening round at The Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club. He also paid homage to his late grandfather Mack with a new Nike polo patch dedicated to preserving Mack’s legacy. Champ is repeating his footwear move from last season during Black History Month, following the lead of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James as a way to continue awareness, spark conversation and promote diversity and equality. “With my interracial background, my dad’s side being African-American, my mom’s side being Caucasian, it’s something that means a lot to me and something I wanted to support,â€� Champ said at the time. But his new polo patch is a very personal touch. Champ’s grandfather Mack was his driving force in golf. It was Mack who spent countless hours with a young Champ honing his skills in the sport. When he was a college player at Texas A&M, Mack decided his grandson was ready for the stories of his past that included being unable to play golf at courses where he had caddied and being refused service at restaurants because of the color of his skin. It wasn’t about anger for Mack. It was about showing Champ how to move forward with a sense of responsibility and to use his privilege for good. Champ is taking his grandfather’s words of “It’s not where you come from, it’s where you’re going,â€� very seriously. The often used message from Mack is written on Champ’s mixed shoes. Last September, just days after finding out Mack was moved to hospice care with terminal cancer, Champ played in the Safeway Open at his grandfather’s insistence. Driving back and forth each day from Sacramento to the tournament in Napa, he was able to claim an emotional second PGA TOUR win. Champ called Mack on the 18th green and said, “This one’s for you, Pops.â€� And afterwards remarked, “No matter what… even if I never win another tournament again or I win however many, this will definitely be the greatest moment of my golfing career.â€� Sadly, Mack lost his battle in October. The unique patch on his shirt has a dual black and white background to speak to his mixed heritage and sports grandpa Mack’s silhouette swinging a driver. The shoes on the silhouette are also mixed black and white. A limited run of shirts with the unique patch is now on sale at Nike.com.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Perhaps rumors about the demise of Jon Rahm’s putter were greatly exaggerated. The beloved Odyssey White Hot OG Rossie S prototype with which Rahm won last year’s U.S. Open was back in the bag Thursday after sitting on the bench for the past five rounds. “It just needed a timeout last week,” Rahm said Thursday after shooting 69 in the opening round of THE PLAYERS. He gained more than two strokes on the greens Thursday, rolling in three putts from outside 15 feet. Rahm’s short-game struggles have been a focal point this year, especially in contrast to his consistently exceptional ballstriking. He leads the TOUR in greens in regulation, Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, ranks second in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and is fourth in driving distance. He sits outside the top 125 in both Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green and Strokes Gained: Putting, however. Rahm’s short game saved him on Thursday, however, a sharp contrast to the trend this year. “I would say it wasn’t my best day tee to green, maybe not my best day with the irons, but luckily short game was good,” he said. “Kind of reverse to what it’s been the last few months. I was able to post a score.” He is 15th in this season’s FedExCup standings, thanks to a runner-up finish at the Sentry Tournament of Championship and third-place finish at the Farmers Insurance Open. Rahm switched putters in the final round of last month’s The Genesis Invitational after watching too many putts slide by the edge of the hole. According to GolfWRX, who spoke to Odyssey tour rep Joe Toulon, Rahm’s stroke was getting a bit steep with the former Rossie putter and lifting too much off the putting surface. That was negatively impacting his release of the putter head. That’s why Rahm switched to an Odyssey White Hot OG #7S, a model that Rahm occasionally practices with at home. “His path looked very good with it, stayed lower to the ground during the backstroke, which allowed it to arc nicely and put him in a great position to release the putter through impact,” Toulon told GolfWRX. The Rossie is a rounder, mallet-style head, while the OG #7S has two protruding fangs. He told PGATOUR.COM that choosing between the two came down to this: He stood 40 feet from the hole, devoted one putt to each putter and said to himself, “Whichever one I make it with first, I’m going with.” “I was right in between the two of them,” Rahm told PGATOUR.COM last week. “I could have picked either/or when I did. Both of them felt great.” The persistent focus on his short game has frustrated the world No. 1, however, and it showed Thursday after another series of questions on the topic. “I had one bad month,” he said. “Why is everybody panicking? Perhaps Thursday was the start of things trending in the right direction.

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