Hideki Matsuyama wins in playoff at Sony Open in Hawaii

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Collin Morikawa and Matthew Wolff are two of the most exciting young players on the PGA TOUR. Morikawa already has four wins, including a major and World Golf Championship, while the 22-year-old Wolff is just the third player to win the NCAA title and a PGA TOUR title in the same season. He also finished in the top four of two majors last year. The two stars are teaming up together at this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans in hopes of securing another title. Morikawa is known for his precise iron play, while Wolff unique, powerful swing and his prowess off the tee is his trademark So with that, let’s take a look inside the bags of these TaylorMade staff players to see how their setups compare. Drivers Morikawa: TaylorMade SIM (8 degrees @ 8.5 degrees) Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 70 TX Wolff: TaylorMade SIM2 Max (10.5 degrees @ 9 degrees) Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD TP 7 TX The most interesting contrast between these two driver setups is the way they configure the loft using the adjustable sleeve. Morikawa prefers to use a lower-lofted driver and close the face, which actually increases loft, while Wolff goes with a higher-lofted driver and opens the face to decrease loft. Even though the stated loft numbers on the drivers is 2.5 degrees apart, once adjusted, they’re only separated by half of a degree. There are a lot of reasons players might choose to play a driver more open or closed-looking, but the general consensus is about creating the right optics from address to inspire confidence. Fairway woods Morikawa: TaylorMade SIM Titanium (15 degrees @ 13.5 degrees) Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 80 TX/TaylorMade SIM2 (19 degrees) Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 80 TX Wolff: TaylorMade SIM2 Titanium (15 degrees) Shaft: Graphite Design Tour AD XC 8 X Just like with his driver, Morikawa uses the adjustable hosel to dial in the loft and the look he wants at address with his 3-wood. He opens the face to reduce the loft, while Wolff leaves his set to standard. Morikawa also carries a 5-wood to create proper gapping into his irons, whereas Wolff only has a single 3-wood. Both players have a lot of clubhead speed: Morikawa averages close to 114 mph with his driver, and Wolff is at 122 mph. The 5-wood helps create spin and height a lot easier than a 3-iron, which means the ball comes in higher and stops sooner, which is crucial when hitting approach shots into long holes. Irons Morikawa: TaylorMade P770 (4-iron), P7MC (5-6), TaylorMade P730 (7-PW) Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 Wolff: TaylorMade P7MC (3-PW) Shafts: Project X 6.5 Morikawa plays a mixed set of TaylorMade irons that includes a faster-faced, foam-filled 4-iron, which transitions to a small cavity back with his 5- and 6-irons and then blades with his short irons. This gives a little extra forgiveness in the long irons, the preferred trajectory with each club and maintains a proper gap in the distance between each of his irons. Wolff, on the other hand, uses a single model throughout his entire set. This could be for a number of reasons, including having a consistent look from club to club. Wedges Morikawa: TaylorMade MG2 (50, 60 degrees), Titleist Vokey Design SM8 56-14F (bent to 55 degrees) Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 Wolff: TaylorMade MG2 (50-09SB, 56-12SB, 60-09LB) Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 Both golfers use the same 50, 56, and 60-degree wedge setup. The only tweak is that Morikawa has his 56-degree wedge bent one degree strong to fit particular yardage. A three-wedge setup (three wedges beyond a pitching wedge) is by far the most common configuration on TOUR because, with so many shots hit inside 100 yards, having a club for any situation can save valuable strokes. Putters Morikawa: TaylorMade Spider FCG Wolff: TaylorMade TP Berwick Both the TaylorMade Spider FCG and the TP Berwick are mallet-style putters that offer higher MOI and grooved inserts to improve ball roll around the face. FCG stands for Forward Center of Gravity, and Morikawa’s Spider putter is specifically designed to play like a blade but offer the alignment of a bigger front-to-back mallet putter. Balls Morikawa: TaylorMade TP5 Wolff: TaylorMade TP5 ’21 Pix Both golfers use the same model ball, which should work well this week in Zurich’s team format. The only difference is Wolff uses the “Pix” version of TaylorMade’s TP5 ball, which features extra graphics for alignment. The TP5 is a slightly softer and higher-spinning ball compared to TaylorMade’s other premium option, the TP5x. Using the same model means each golfer won’t have to make any adjustments for distance or shot preference around the greens. As for graphics or no graphics during the alternate shot —we’ll leave that debate up to Collin and Matthew. Grips Morikawa: Golf Pride Z-Grip Cord Wolff: Golf Pride Z-Grip Cord (+3 double-sided tape) Both Morikawa and Wolff play the same model of grip. Wolff has three extra layers of tape under his, however, to make them thicker. Although their clubs are similar, it’s the small details of each set that allows both players to perform their best and makes them one of the teams to watch this week.

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SAN DIEGO – Tiger Woods was playing six days per week to prepare for his 2018 debut at the Farmers Insurance Open, unencumbered by the quotas that have limited his practice time over the past few years. “Now it’s just, hey, want to go play 18, want to go play 36? Sure. That to me is fun,â€� Woods said in his pre-tournament press conference. After years of struggling with back pain, Woods has enjoyed the camaraderie of playing with his friends at his home club. Fellowship has never been Woods’ first priority on the golf course, though. A thirst for competition has driven him to 79 PGA TOUR titles and 14 majors. All the casual golf in the world can’t replace the emotions that tournament golf elicits. “I want to start feeling what it feels like to be out here and hit shots (and) grind out scores,â€� he said Wednesday. The first round of the Farmers Insurance Open gave him that opportunity. He played Thursday’s first 13 holes exactly how a reasonable witness to last month’s play in the Bahamas would expect. His clubhead speed was high, and his iron shots sailed higher. But for every impressive shot that harkened back to Woods’ better days, there was a miscue that reminded us that Woods has played just one official PGA TOUR event since 2015. Tap-in birdies on Nos. 6 and 10 were offset by three bogeys and several pars that were saved only by deft short-game work. He seemed headed in the wrong direction toward the middle of his back nine, dropping his driver in disgust at the par-4 12th hole and making a sloppy bogey at the next hole after dumping a short wedge shot into a greenside bunker on the par-5. “I was probably a little bit rusty,â€� he said. The slide stopped there, though, as Woods fought to salvage an even-par 72 that kept his hopes of spending the weekend in San Diego alive. He hit his final five greens in regulation, including an impressive tee shot on the par-3 16th that was the defining highlight from his first round. Patrick Reed, his playing partner, described it as “6-iron that came out like a pitching wedge.â€� The shot landed softly on the green before curling within 6 inches of the hole. On the next hole, Woods choked down almost to the steel of his 7-iron, digging the ball out of the rough to hit a high cut to the elevated green. He parred the par-5 finishing hole after missing the fairway and laying up short of the pond. “It was cool to see him fight today,â€� said Reed, who shot 68. After hitting four greens on the front nine, Woods missed just one on the back. He hit 8 of 14 fairways while averaging 314.1 yards off the tee. Woods, whose mobility has been hindered by his back fusion, seemed to rely primarily on fades, even on dogleg-left holes like Nos. 14 and 15. Hitting a fade didn’t decrease the distance of his drives, though. “Some of those cuts today were insanely long,â€� Reed said. “A cut isn’t supposed to go that far, and he’s hitting a flat cut out there 30 yards past your driver.â€� He ranked 14th out of 78 players in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, but was 50th in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (ShotLink stats are only available on the South Course). Despite hitting two-thirds of the greens in regulation, Woods lost 0.6 strokes with his approach play because he struggled to get the ball close to the hole. Of the 12 greens he hit, just two of those approach shots ended up within 18 feet of the hole. His average proximity to the hole on greens hit was 28 feet, 6 inches, but that number was skewed lower by approach shots knocked stiff at Nos. 10 (2 feet) and 16 (1 foot). “I need to clean up my iron game for tomorrow and give myself a lot more looks at it,â€� Woods said. He admitted Wednesday that he is still searching for a swing that works best with his physical limitations following back-fusion surgery. “I’m still learning it,â€� he said. For all the gushing over the numbers he’s producing on Trackman, great golf is a product of consistency over weeks, months and years. Woods exhibited the unsteady play characteristic of a man who’s still trying to learn his swing and has played just 12 competitive rounds since 2015. He will start his second round on the North Course in a tie for 84th place. The shorter of Torrey Pines’ two courses used to play a couple shots easier than the South, but that changed last year after Tom Weiskopf’s renovation. On Thursday, the North Course was just three-tenths of a stroke easier than the South Course. Woods was 2-over par for his first five holes Thursday, looking like he was overmatched by Torrey Pines’ tougher South Course. He missed the fairway and the green on the first hole, then went bunker-to-bunker on No. 5. Then he walked after his 238-yard second shot on the par-5 sixth, two-putting for his first birdie of the day after hitting the green with a long-iron. He dumped a short-iron into a bunker from the seventh fairway, then missed the green on the short par-3 eighth hole, but saved par both times with deft short-game shots. An approach shot knocked stiff at the par-4 10th hole got him back to even par. He made an easy par at the 216-yard, par-3 11th hole before hitting a long drive on 12 that he was unhappy with and making a sloppy bogey at the next. He played the final five holes in 1 under and showed enough positive signs for him to receive passing grades for the first round. “It was fun to feel that competitive rush again and have a scorecard in my hand and try and post a number,â€� he said. A fighting finish gave him a score that did not damper the optimism surrounding his latest comeback.

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