Top 30 Players to Watch in 2019: No. 25 Charles Howell III

The TOUR Championship has wrapped, concluding the 2020-2021 PGA TOUR season. Patrick Cantlay hoisted the FedExCup trophy thanks in no small part to a putter switch he made late in the season. We may be slightly biased here at the Equipment Report, but we think it’s the perfect time to look back on some of the most significant PGA TOUR equipment stories of the year — and we had some good ones! Harris’ HoHum In January, Harris English won the Sentry Tournament of Champions with the same putter — a Ping Scottsdale HoHum — he used for his 2013 Mayakoba Golf Classic victory. Unique-looking putter, and a unique equipment tale here as we got the story from Ping TOUR Rep Tony Serrano about what English loves about his HoHum. Hideki’s Scotty switch Eternally in pursuit of the perfect putter, Hideki Matsuyama made a switch two weeks prior to the Masters, putting a 2012 Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Tour Prototype in the bag that was outfitted with a different grip than his Cameron Timeless. Rory returns to old Protos Rory McIlroy made a number of equipment changes in 2021. Most significant among the switches, certainly, was his return to his 2017 TaylorMade Rors Prototype irons prior to winning the Wells Fargo Championship. Phil’s PGA Championship-winning driver En route to his incredible PGA Championship victory, Phil Mickelson wielded a Callaway Epic Speed driver with a 47.9-inch shaft (right up against the USGA limit of 48 inches). We got the inside story of Phil’s build. Morikawa finds a putter that performs Struggling with alignment, Collin Morikawa built himself a custom TaylorMade TP Juno putter using the same MyTP custom putter builder that’s available to the public. While his gamer was ultimately slightly different, it was a wild “they’re just like us” tale. Rahm’s U.S. Open-winning wand Jon Rahm switched to an Odyssey Rossie S the tournament prior to his epic U.S. Open triumph. We got the full story of what happened at the Ely Callaway Performance Center in Carlsbad and why Rahmbo made the move away from the 2-Ball Ten putter he had been using. Rory calls a Cameron into Olympic duty Full-bag TaylorMade staffer captured the full attention of the golf equipment world when he arrived in Tokyo not with his TaylorMade Spider putter but with a Scotty Cameron 009M flatstick. We went in search of the story, and even though Rory has now made a return to the TaylorMade mallet, it was a fun feature to fill out. Phil takes the armlock plunge Always willing to experiment with his equipment, Phil Mickelson tried his hand (and arm) at armlock putting. Additionally, he used a prototype putter that featured an interesting backstory. And while the experiment is over, the story is well worth digging back into. JT takes a teen’s advice A question from a 15-year-old junior golfer prompted Justin Thomas to reconsider benching the Scotty Cameron Phantom X 5.5 with which he won 14 of his 15 PGA TOUR titles. Little changes, big playoff payoff for Cantlay Most recently on the “significant equipment storylines” front, Patrick Cantlay switched to a Scotty Cameron X 5 putter with a sightline (from an alignment aid-free version) and had the best performance in strokes gained: putting history. He then rode the red-hot putter to a FedExCup victory at East Lake. Sometimes the smaller adjustments pay the biggest dividends!

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Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Matt Jones, Jonas Blixt, Cameron Smith – these were the PGA TOUR winners young Australian Cameron Davis upstaged with a blistering final round at the Australian Open. Davis, who played his rookie season on the MacKenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada this year but failed to fire a shot, proved his big game acumen with a 7-under 64 in high winds at The Australian Golf Club. His 11-under total was enough to join the likes of Gene Sarazen, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Rory McIlroy and Spieth as winners of the Stonehaven Cup. While he sat on cloud nine after winning the fifth oldest national championship in the history of golf, Davis immediately started to shift his focus to final stage of Web.Com Tour Q-School set for a week’s time. He hopes to get status there but also has higher aspirations. The 6-foot, 4-inch Davis played in the OHL Classic at Mayakoba last season and was T15 in his only PGA TOUR event but was unable to keep up the form in Canada, finishing 76th on the order of merit. He’s hopeful this win might encourage a few tournament directors to extend invitations to TOUR events. “I always felt like if I play my very best golf I’d be able to compete (on the PGA TOUR),� the 22-year-old Davis said. “I’m going to try my best to come down from the excitement I’ve obviously got after winning this and then it’s another big week that we’ve got to get on top of. “I feel like I’m playing well obviously at the moment, so I’m feeling pretty good going into final stage, but it’s a whole different week, whole different golf course. “We’ve got to go back to work, start mapping the golf courses, get there early, just treat it like another week and you’ve got to start from scratch again.� For Day, it was a gut-wrenching finish to a tough year. Holding the 54-hole lead the 10-time PGA TOUR winner was the prohibitive favorite but shot a dismal 73 to drop to fifth. It’s the first time since 2012 he’s failed to have a win anywhere in the world and sends him into 2018 trying to find his feet once more. “It’s obviously a little bit disappointing to come out and not finish it, but I’ve just got to kind of look back on it and see what I need to do for next time, because you can’t be perfect all the time and I played three terrific rounds and I just didn’t put it together on Sunday,� Day said. “When you hold the lead and when everyone is expecting you to win, there’s a bit of added pressure. I was on the wrong side of momentum and if I could just get on the right side of momentum it may have been a different outcome.� Jones bogeyed four of his first six holes Sunday before storming back with seven birdies. Sadly he needed eight. Blixt had a 12-footer on the last to force a playoff only to leave it short. Their consolation was a berth in the 2018 Open Championship at Carnoustie along with Davis. Smith bogeyed the 13th and 15th holes down the stretch to surrender his chances. And the defending champion Spieth actually played nicely for a 67, moving him into eighth place and feeling better as he heads to the Hero World Challenge. Spieth failed to make many putts of importance throughout the week despite some impressive ball-striking. But with coach Cam McCormick as acting caddie while Michael Greller spends time with his new child the Texan is hopeful the learning curve from Sydney will be easier at Albany. “I’m playing beautifully, the putter felt great today, I found a nice trigger and I was getting through my putts a lot better than I was at the beginning of the week, and had that happened the whole week, I would definitely have been in contention,� Spieth said. “The game feels good, so I’ll get in there and having Cam see pretty much all the swings that I hit on the range and on the golf course, and all the putts, I have that kind of extra confidence that I know where things are throughout the swing and, so it should be easy, I shouldn’t have too many questions next week, which will be nice.�

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