Getting ready for Round 2 of the Masters with Tiger, more big names and a challenging course

Bryson Dechambeau belted five drives in excess of 400 yards in Tuesday’s opening session of the Professional Long Drivers Association World Championships in Mesquite, Nevada. Dechambeau’s much ballyhooed bid to compete against the professional long drivers — and just a few days after the conclusion of the Ryder Cup — has captivated the gold world. Even casual fans of the Golfing Scientist have to admit they’re curious to see how the TOUR’s longest hitter stacks up against the guys who blast bombs for a living. Of course, at the Equipment Report, our interest is a tad more specific. Namely, how would Bryson switch up his driver setup to hit the golf ball as far as he possibly can — with only a modest concern for accuracy. According to Cobra’s Ben Schomin, DeChambeau is using a prototype Cobra RadSpeed driver with 5 degrees of loft for this week’s competition (he used a 2015 Cobra King LTD Pro driver for most of the 2021 season). We assume that, since the club is outfitted with a MyFly loft sleeve, the club is turned down a half-degree from the 5.5 degrees it is labeled as having. DeChambeau could dial the loft down even further — to as low as 4 degrees with the MyFly adjustability. “We chose to remove adjustable weights to lighten overall head weight and give us more discretionary internal weight movement,” Schomin told PGATOUR.COM. According to Schomin, along with the 190-gram head, Bryson is using a 48-inch version of the LA Golf Axis Blue 60 X shaft he plays on the PGA TOUR. Two interesting items here about the clubhead: the weight ports and hot melt. In a bid to maximize ball speed while still offering a measure of forgiveness, the retail Cobra RadSpeed driver has a 12-gram weight near the face and a two-gram weight near the rear of the club. Cobra’s RadSpeed driver uses radial weighting, by which engineers were able to maximize the distance between the front and back weights for greater stability. Built on a T-Bar Speed Chassis, RadSpeed drivers also feature a thin-ply carbon wrap crown for additional weight savings. While it looks similar at first glance, Bryson’s prototype driver doesn’t have those weights. Instead, it appears the spaces for the weights has been filled with a lightweight material. This provides Cobra’s team with an additional 13-14 grams of weight to position in the club in order to achieve Bryson’s preferred launch and feel. Rather than relying on the RadSpeed’s adjustable weighting, Schomin and Cobra’s team opted for a more old-school (yet still widely used) method of “internal weight movement”: hot melt. Also known as “rat glue” by gearheads — owing to the similarity between the properties of the substance and the material found in glue traps — hot melt is injected into clubheads via a hot glue gun with a long nosel. Hot melt is used for both objective and subjective reasons. Subjectively, injecting the thermoplastic adhesive into a driver can alter the sound and feel of a club to bring it more in line with a player’s preferences. On the more objective front, hot melt injected into the toe of a club will help promote a fade bias, into the heel will aid a draw, near the face of the club will lower spin and trajectory, and near the rear of the club will increase forgiveness and launch. It’s similar to how players use lead tape to alter a club’s center of gravity and change the ball flight it produces. It’s a complex recipe, and Bryson’s goals — high launch and low spin — dictate the formula for where exactly the “rat glue” has been placed. It’s unclear whether he favors a head that is more draw or fade-biased for long drive and if hot melt has been used to facilitate a particular ball flight, however. While Cobra didn’t share the spin nor launch numbers Bryson is targeting, we can safely assume he’s looking for low spin and high launch. A recent Instagram post had DeChambeau generating 2,144 rpm of spin and a launch angle of 8.8 degrees on a drive that carried 383.1 yards.

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KAPALUA, Hawaii – Cameron Smith watched World No. 1 Jon Rahm ram home a 28-foot birdie on the 17th hole that must have felt like the 500th haymaker to the face in a heavyweight title fight. It was Rahm’s 11th of the day to go with an eagle and lone bogey and saw the Spaniard join the Australian on top of the leaderboard that Smith had owned over the first two rounds and most of the third at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. It surely was a blow that might leave the plucky Aussie on the canvas as he lined up a 28-foot attempt of his own. Instead, the gritty competitor from the working-class suburbs of Brisbane nailed his ninth birdie of the round to continue an incredible contest. Rahm won the battle on Saturday as he closed with another birdie to post a course-record 12-under 61 and join Smith at the top of the board at 26-under for the week. But Smith (64) is not ready to surrender the war as both take a five-shot buffer over Daniel Berger (66) and sit six clear of FedExCup champion Patrick Cantlay (66), Australian Matt Jones (62) and South Korea’s Sungjae Im (65). Smith knows Rahm will start the favorite on Sunday but he’s far from intimidated. In fact, he revels in the underdog role. “I love to compete. Probably over the break there more so than missing golf I think I just missed competing,” Smith said. “I didn’t do a lot of stuff and it’s great to be out here and in the hunt on the weekend. “It was really good fun out there today. Obviously playing nice golf helps. But watching Jon was pretty intense there on that back nine, some of the best golf I think I’ve ever seen, definitely some of the best putting. “Now it’s one more day to go with him. Hopefully we can do much of the same tomorrow and we’ll see what happens.” After both players were even through four holes, they matched birdies on the fifth, seventh and ninth holes while only a missed five-foot birdie try from Smith on the eighth allowed Rahm to close the gap. Further matching birdies came at 10, 11 and 14 before Rahm needed eagle to best Smith’s birdie on the 15th. Matching birdies on 16 and 17 followed before Rahm pulled level with another on the last. With the second (67.816) and third (67.711) rounds setting new low scoring average records at the Plantation Course since 1999, Rahm and Smith stopped short of calling it a two-horse race on Sunday. But they know they have the chance to make it one. “We had a fun battle today and I’m guessing tomorrow’s going to be more of the same. We’re going to need a lot of birdies to get ahead and get the win,” Rahm said. “If we get a similar day someone can come and shoot 10, 11, 12-under… What I have to keep doing is just keep hitting it as well as I am tee to green. Keep putting it in the fairway and keep hitting good iron shots, give myself plenty of looks, and some of them will go in. You can get hot on this golf course and hopefully I can do the same thing tomorrow.” In Friday’s second round, Rahm struggled with the speed of the greens and made just 48 feet, 4 inches of putts. On Saturday he led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting on the way to 132-feet, 10 inches worth. He also dialed in his approach play, gaining over three strokes on the field. “I only left one short and I couldn’t believe it stayed short,” he said. “It all started on 2. I made that putt, I made that putt on 4, and it gave me a lot of confidence and I kept going, made a couple of those putts that yesterday I left short and it gave me so much confidence. “But a number of those birdie/eagles were very short putts so it also speaks to the ball striking I had today.” Smith is chasing the Hawaii double having won the Sony Open in Hawaii in 2020. He has now held the lead, or a share of it, over the first three rounds. He is also seeking to be the third Australian to win at Kapalua after Stuart Appleby won three straight in 2004-06 and Geoff Ogilvy went back-to-back in 2009-10. “Hawaii reminds me so much of where I grew up, it’s insane. The grass that we hit off, the greens being quite slow and grainy. Yeah, it’s awesome, I love it here,” he said. “I know it will be a challenge tomorrow but I’m looking forward to it. We all want to win and you have to beat the best to do that on the PGA TOUR so it’s nothing to shy away from.”

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NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. — J.T. Poston shot a 10-under 62 on Thursday to take the first-round lead in the PGA TOUR’s Barbasol Championship. Poston birdied six of the first eight holes at rain-softened Keene Trace, bogeyed the par-3 ninth and added five more birdies on the back nine for his lowest score on the PGA TOUR. “It was one of those days everything clicked,” Poston said. “Hit it good, hit a lot of fairways, a lot of greens. I was hitting it so good I didn’t really have that many lengthy birdie putts that I made until the last hole.” Winless on TOUR, the 26-year-old former Western Carolina player closed with a 27-foot birdie putt on the par-4 18th. “The greens had been a little on the firmer side at the start of the week, firmer than I think most guys would expect,” Poston said. “But a lot of rain last night and so they’re soft, and they’re really good greens and you can make a lot of putts. They’re rolling really well. You hit the fairway and you get a lot of wedges in your hand and guys are going to make a lot of birdies.” Nick Taylor was a stroke back. The Canadian had an eagle and seven birdies in a bogey-free round. “I hit every green, I didn’t miss a fairway, so it was very solid tee to green and putts were going in,” Taylor said. “Everything was kind of clicking today. With the soft conditions, it was different than the practice rounds. I thought it would be a little bit more difficult, and then that rain came in last night and definitely softened things up. ” Wes Roach opened with a 64. “I played solid, hit a lot of fairways, gave myself some good opportunities with some wedges and short irons, and was able to hit some quality shots, and putted nice,” Roach said. Bill Haas was at 65 with Roberto Castro, Jim Herman, Kelly Kraft, Josh Teater, Kramer Hickok, D.J. Trahan and Sebastian Munoz. John Daly shot a 71, following a triple bogey on the par-4 fourth with an eagle on the par-5 fifth. Fighting osteoarthritis in his right knee, Daly was denied a cart by the R&A for the Open Championship, but has been approved for a cart at PGA TOUR events until the end of the year. This is his first PGA TOUR event since he was approved for a cart last fall. “It’s just getting worse every day,” Daly said. “Probably have to go back and maybe duct tape it. I did it in Wisconsin. The knee’s falling, so you could literally pick my knee up and put it back. It’s brutal, but especially downhill and stuff like that.” The tournament winner will receive a spot in the PGA Championship.

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