Charles Howell III takes 1-shot lead into Sunday at The RSM Classic

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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JACKSON, Miss. — Sam Burns ran off four birdies in a six-hole stretch to start the back nine and pulled away for a 5-under 67 to win the Sanderson Farms Championship on Sunday for his second PGA TOUR victory this year. RELATED: Leaderboard | Winner’s Bag: Sam Burns, Sanderson Farms Championship Against a list of contenders looking for their first win, Burns showed what it takes at the Country Club of Jackson by playing flawlessly on the back nine until it didn’t matter. He seized control with a 15-foot birdie putt on the par-3 13th, a 5-iron to 15 feet that set up a two-putt birdie on the next hole and then a perfect pitch from behind the green on the reachable par-4 15th for a tap-in birdie. Staked to a two-shot lead going down the 18th, he took a safe bogey from the greenside bunker to secure a one-shot win over resurgent Nick Watney and PGA TOUR rookie Cameron Young. Watney, coming off his worst season in more than a decade, closed with a 65 and had his best finish in more than three years. Young’s hopes began to fade on the 14th with a clunker out of the rough into a fairway bunker that led to him having to make a 4-footer for bogey. Still, he made a slick up-and-down from off the 18th green for par that gave him a 68 and a share of second, which sets him up well for the season. That starts with playing next week in Las Vegas instead of having to go through Monday qualifying. “I love being in contention, I love feeling the nerves, so it was fun today. I enjoyed it, even though it might not have looked like it,” Young said. “I knew Sam was ahead of me and I had to make a couple and just didn’t, but I will another time.” Sahith Theegala, the California rookie who began the final round with a one-shot lead, had control of the final round until he reached the back nine. He failed to get up-and-down from a greenside bunker on the par-3 10th, missing a 7-foot putt. With a 7-iron in his hand for his second to the par-5 11th, he leaked the shot to the right and into the water, and missed a 4-foot putt to take bogey. Two holes later, he three-putted from 18 feet for bogey. From there, it was about limiting the damage. He played the final five holes in 1 under for a 71. Theegala tied for eighth, which gets him into the field next week in Las Vegas. For Burns, the 25-year-old from Louisiana is just starting to cash in. He won the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook in the spring and has had more chances than that throughout the year, losing a playoff in Memphis in August and coming up one shot away from a playoff at Riviera in February. Burns did well enough to earn some serious consideration from Steve Stricker as a captain’s pick for the U.S. Ryder Cup team. And now with his second win of the year — in his first start of the new season — Burns moves into the top 20 in the world ranking for the first time. He ended a trend in which six of the last seven winners of the Sanderson Farms Championship captured their first PGA TOUR title. Burns was among the few who had winning experience. Six players in contention at the start of the final round had recently earned PGA TOUR cards through the Korn Ferry Tour. Among the exceptions was Watney, first slowed by a lower back injury and then by a loss in confidence. He went back to working with Butch Harmon in the summer, and then put together a superb week with his putter, leading the field in the key putting statistic. “There was definitely some lean times, especially last year, but I’m not trying to think about that any more,” Watney said. “I’m trying to continue to get better and this was a great step this week. I’m ready.”

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