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After 58 measured drives this season, Cameron Champ currently leads the PGA TOUR in driving distance with a 319.9-yard average. In the last week, however, Champ has made some unexpected changes for such a long hitter. Prior to the start of last week’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, Champ switched into Ping’s new Blueprint Forged prototype irons and a Ping G410 Plus driver. In the Ping Blueprint irons, instead of the KBS C-Taper 130X shafts he was previously using, he switched into the softer True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts. According to Ping Tour rep Kenton Oates, the X100 shafts allow him to work the ball more, instead of hitting them “dead straight� with the C-Tapers. Then on Monday during a driver testing session on the range at this week’s Waste Management Phoenix Open, Champ requested a quarter-inch longer Fujikura Pro TS White 63X shaft than he normally plays because it felt “too stiff� in the new G410 Plus head, according to Oates. Also, instead of tipping the shaft an inch-and-a-half as he normally would, Champ requested to have the shaft tipped only an inch. While sitting in on the Monday testing session involving his previous gamer, the Ping G400 Max, against the new Ping G410 (“around 8 degrees� with a flat/heel loft sleeve), I also noticed that Oates switched the 10-gram sliding weight of Champ’s new G410 driver into the heel-ward position. Oates explained this weight shift allowed the ball flight to be more consistently straight, instead of his tendency to miss the ball right. The new settings, coupled with the longer shaft, allowed Champ to contact the center of the club head more often instead of his typical toe-ward miss, according to Oates. Champ missed the cut last week at the Farmers Insurance Open with the new irons and driver, but keep an eye on his performance this week with the new driver tweaks. I caught up with Oates following the driver test for deeper insight. PGATOUR.COM: OK, so where did you end up with Champ’s (G410 Plus) driver settings? OATES: “In his 410 (Plus) driver – there’s 8 settings within the driver – Cameron ended up with the flat-minus. So that’s going to allow the driver to play flat in lie angle and take off a degree of real loft.� PGATOUR.COM: And why is that? Because he misses it? OATES: “That’s not so much for a miss, that’s for launch and spin. His current G400 Max gamer is at 8 degrees of loft, and just the way the heads come in, we needed a reduction of loft from the sleeve to get there. He plays the little-minus (setting) in the G400, which takes off 0.6 (degrees), so it’s basically the same setting that he has in the G400, this one just takes off a little more loft in the 410, and that’s just because of the 8-probe sleeve.� PGATOUR.COM: And then I think you went up in length on the shaft, is that right? OATES: “Yeah, that was his idea. He felt that in his current gamer, he felt like he was getting a little steep and hitting spinny shots to the right, and he felt that’s because the shaft was a little too stiff. So he wanted to, in his head, making it longer would reduce the stiffness. Which it does, and we also took out a half-inch of tipping. We used to, in his 400, we tipped our shafts and inch-and-a-half, and the 410 is tipped an inch, and a quarter-inch longer, and it finishes at 45.25 inches.� PGATOUR.COM: So the guy who hits it farthest on TOUR thought the shaft was too stiff for him? OATES: (laughs) “Yeah. He’s actually, he’s an under spinner. Even though he swings 130 (mph) and down 4 (degrees), he always hits it high-center (on the face). He always hits it above that center of gravity so he gravitates to softer stuff than you might think just because of the way that he loads it and where he hits it on the face.� PGATOUR.COM: What’s he seeing in comparison to his G400 Max in terms of ball speed, launch, spin? OATES: “I think we got him … the launch and spin were identical pretty much, I would put him right between 6 and 8 (degrees), that’s pretty much where he lives. And spin was 2200-2500 (rpm), and those were very similar. He noticed that in the 410, due to all the fitting options that we have, and CGs that we can move and get all that dialed in for him, he was able to strike the center every time, where he was a little bit toe-side on his 400. And I think that just added the consistency. The launch and spin didn’t change that much … every single time we got the same number out of the 410. And then ball speed approximately 1 mph faster. Went from about 195 to 196 (mph). Max was 197 (mph), which… yeah, that’s a big number.� PGATOUR.COM: That was fun to watch. OATES: “He’s fun to watch, isn’t he? It’s effortless.� PGATOUR.COM: He hits it so low, but it stays in the air forever. OATES: “The 2-degree launch that carries 300 yards is impressive.� PGATOUR.COM: He’s got that in the bag? OATES: “Yeah. When he hits his low stinger, he launches it at 2 (degrees) and it carried 291 (yards) I think it was.� PGATOUR.COM: Is that a problem at all? You guys aren’t trying to get him more launch, he likes that window? OATES: “Yeah. If you look at ball data at that ball speed, anything over 10 (degrees of launch) is really hard to control left-or-right bias. Because you saw… normally 7 (degrees) and 2200 (rpm) looks like it’s falling out of the sky. But at 196 (mph) it just hangs out there forever.� PGATOUR.COM: Yeah, it just chills. OATES: (laughs) “It feels like it’s at its apex the whole entire flight.� BUY EQUIPMENT HERE: PGA TOUR Superstore
LA QUINTA, Calif. – Justin Rose did what Phil Mickelson’s couldn’t: birdie the final three holes at La Quinta Countrty Club. Rose, the reigning FedExCup champion, birdied Nos. 16-18 to shoot 68 on Thursday. Mickelson needed to birdie all three of those holes to break 60. He came close, making birdies on 16 and 18 to shoot a 12-under 60 and take the Desert Classic’s first-round lead. Both Rose and Mickelson were playing their first round of the calendar year. For Rose, the Desert Classic is his first tournament since signing an equipment deal with Honma. “With the new bag of clubs, I felt really good with them,â€� Rose said. “I drove the ball fantastically well today and hit a lot of shots pin-high with my irons.â€� Rose also has a temporary caddie, Gareth Lord, this week because his longtime looper, Mark Fulcher, had heart surgery Thursday. Rose is making his first start at the Desert Classic since 2010. La Quinta Country Club is the only one of the three courses in use this week that also was being used back when Rose last played here. He is 22 under par in five rounds at La Quinta. He made six birdies and two bogeys Thursday after hitting 9 of 14 fairways and 13 greens. “I felt like I could have been 4- or 5- or 6-under par through the first seven holes. I left a few out there early in my round and (made) a couple silly mistakes here and there, didn’t capitalize on some short birdie putts,â€� Rose said. “ Birdieing my last three to get it to 4 under kind of made me feel good about kind of getting something out of the round.â€� This is Rose’s second start of the season. He finished third in the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in October, his seventh top-three finish in his last 19 TOUR starts. He is 40th in this season’s FedExCup standings as he tries to become the first player to successfully defend the Cup.
Amid talk that this might be the strongest U.S. team ever, Europe falls into an early 0-3 hole but roars back for a 17.5-10.5 victory over the U.S. at Le Golf National, the third-most lopsided U.S. loss ever in the Ryder Cup. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where the Americans ventured across the Atlantic with high hopes to end the losing streak that has seen them lose every Ryder Cup on foreign soil since 1993, but didn’t even come close to doing so despite looking like the better team on paper. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. This was a predictable result. There were problems for the U.S. even as they touched down in Paris. Although Tiger Woods had won the TOUR Championship at East Lake, Phil Mickelson looked out of sorts and finished last (30th). Bubba Watson finished 29th, Patrick Reed 28th and Brooks Koepka shot a second-round 78 and tied for 26th. Overall, the results were worrisome. Sure enough, Mickelson went 0-2 in France and was benched all day Saturday. Reed, the vocal MVP of the U.S. side that took down Europe in 2016, struggled after being split up from his usual partner, Jordan Spieth, and didn’t earn a point until the singles. Koepka played better but went 1-2-1, and the U.S. never looked fully comfortable with the course, where Europe came in having played a combined 236 tournament rounds compared to eight for the U.S. Justin Thomas (4-1-0), the best American player, had played the French Open this year; Koepka had played it during a stint in Europe early in his career. 2. This was an unpredictable result. Mere days after collecting the 80th win of his PGA TOUR career at the TOUR Championship, Woods went 0-4, the worst Ryder Cup performance of his career. Who saw that coming? After winning the first two stops in the FedExCup Playoffs, THE NORTHERN TRUST and the Dell Technologies Championship, Bryson DeChambeau went 0-3. Wait. Wasn’t he the hottest player in golf just a month ago? Patrick Reed didn’t win so much as a half point Friday and Saturday. OK, now that’s just borderline crazy. You could say that Europe was always going to win this Ryder Cup because, well, that’s what always happens in Europe. But the eye-opening seven-point winning margin was the result of a perfect storm. It was the smart/fortuitous pairing of Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood (Moli-wood went 4-0); Jim Furyk’s hotly debated decision to split up Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth; the U.S. players’ wildness off the tee on the tight course; Mickelson coming into the week totally out of sorts; and Woods’ struggles on the greens, among other factors. In other words, the lopsided nature of this contest must be considered something of a fluke. 3. Momentum is everything. Still. The Europeans have the Ryder Cup in their blood and seem to have a visceral understanding of it in a way that the Americans don’t. One example: The Euros’ ability to harness momentum. The U.S. was on cruise control at the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah before Ian Poulter went on a crazy run of birdies and he and Rory McIlroy emerged with a crucial point for Europe. It set the stage for the wild European comeback in singles the next day. This time around the big swing came earlier, on Friday afternoon. Europe not only whitewashed the U.S., going 4-0, no match even reached the 17th hole. The Americans, who had gotten off to a 3-0 start in the morning, were immediately on their back foot, and they never recovered. “We just didn’t quite execute,� said Mickelson, who admitted this Ryder Cup may have been his last. 4. Europe’s team ethos paid off. Thorbjorn Olesen could have gotten down after losing his first match with struggling partner Rory McIlroy, but Olesen merely bided his time until Sunday, when he beat Spieth 5 and 4 to extinguish any embers of a U.S. comeback and run his Ryder record to 1-1. Jon Rahm could have sulked after starting his Ryder Cup career 0-2-0, but instead he went out and beat everyone’s golfing idol, Tiger Woods, in another important singles match Sunday. By the time it was over, every European had earned at least a point. Three Americans, meanwhile, went winless: Woods (0-4), Mickelson (0-2) and DeChambeau (0-3). 5. Hindsight is still undefeated. It seemed like four pretty easy decisions when it came time for U.S. Captain Jim Furyk to make his four picks, adding Woods, Mickelson, DeChambeau and Tony Finau. Somehow, though, Finau (2-1-0) was the only one to earn any points for the U.S. Mickelson looked lost, Woods tired and confused by the greens, and DeChambeau like the victim of circumstances and hot players for Europe. Meanwhile, European pick Sergio Garcia, who hadn’t shown much form all season, went 3-0-0 to become the winningest player in Ryder Cup history. Henrik Stenson, who has battled injuries but also got a pick from European Captain Thomas Bjorn, also went 3-0-0. Who could have predicted that? FIVE INSIGHTS 1. The U.S. struggled mightily off the tee Friday, finding the fairway or first cut just 57 percent of the time in the afternoon Foursomes compared to 74 percent for Europe. Not surprisingly, Europe won the session 4-0, taking a lead that that they would never relinquish. Mickelson, who came into the week ranked second to last on TOUR in Driving Accuracy, looked especially lost in trying to find the bowling alley-like fairways at Le Golf National. 2. The accuracy disparity only got worse. Saturday morning Four-balls saw the U.S. hit just 54 percent of fairways/first cut, while Europe was at 74 percent. In the afternoon Foursomes, where keeping it in play is especially crucial, the U.S. was at 67 percent, Europe at a telling 81 percent. Although the U.S. would miss several putts, their scattershot ways off the tees proved especially damaging to their chances while falling behind 10-6 in Foursomes and Four-balls. 3. Ian Poulter was not perfect, losing a couple of matches with partners McIlroy and Rahm, both times at the hands of the powerful U.S. team of Spieth and Thomas. But in beating Dustin Johnson, Poulter remained unbeaten in singles and ran his Ryder Cup record to 12-4-2. 4. Woods played better than his 0-4-0 record indicates, but he could be excused for feeling tired. After not playing a full schedule for years, he was competing for the seventh time in nine weeks. 5. Italy’s Francesco Molinari was the first European to emerge with a perfect 5-0-0 record, and the fourth overall, as Europe won for the seventh time in the last nine Ryder Cups. More good news for the top European point-earner: The 2022 Ryder Cup will be in Rome.
