After seven years, Phil’s back in Fort Worth

SAN DIEGO — Ryan Palmer is the 36-hole leader in the Farmers Insurance Open. Jon Rahm trails by one stroke after a 6-under 66 on Friday. And for the first time in 29 months, a PGA TOUR event will feature Tiger Woods on the weekend. Palmer finished eagle-birdie on the North Course at Torrey Pines for a 5-under 67. He had a one-shot lead over Rahm, the defending champion who birdied two of his last three holes on the North for a 66. Woods had to rally to make the cut in his return from a fourth back surgery. He was on the wrong side of the green on the par-5 ninth on the North and two-putted from 75 feet for birdie for a 71 to make the cut on the number.

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Tiger Woods always travels in a crowd. Whenever he plays, he is surrounded by thousands. In his first tournament in five months and first without fans, he experienced the new normal.

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Since the PGA TOUR’s 2018-19 season wrapped up, we wanted to celebrate by recapping the top equipment stories of the season. There was controversy, surprise switches, big-time players making big sponsor changes, and of course, Tiger Woods was in the spotlight for his equipment. The stories below are listed in no particular order, but they all had a significant impact and intrigue in their own right. Enjoy the look into the past season of equipment, and we look forward to seeing you back on the Equipment Report once the Fall season begins in just a few short weeks. Thanks for a great season! Spieth switches irons before The Open Jordan Spieth has used Titleist AP2 model irons throughout his professional career, but that changed right before the 2019 Open Championship. Instead of using AP2 irons, Spieth put Titleist’s new T100 irons in play at Royal Portrush Golf Club. While it may have seemed like odd timing to put new irons in play the week of a major, Spieth actually had a hand in the creation of the T100 irons. See what Spieth’s role was in the design of the irons, and what made him switch.  Rickie Fowler changes up his golf ball Fowler shocked the equipment world when he announced that he was signing a golf ball deal with TaylorMade, instead of staying with the Titleist Pro V1 line of golf balls that he had been using since even before he turned professional. As part of the announcement, Fowler spoke with PGATOUR.COM to explain what made him switch, and which TaylorMade golf ball he’d be using going forward. Get the full Q&A with Fowler here. Xander fails CT test at The Open, and J.T. speaks out Before competing in the 2019 Open Championship, Schauffele’s driver was deemed illegal after random testing conducted by the R&A. Schauffele responded publically, calling the testing “unfair.� Fellow competitor Justin Thomas later spoke out on the matter, giving his opinion on who should be to blame and how to tackle the issue going forward. Check out the full stories regarding each player below: Xander’s comments  Thomas’ comments  Justin Rose signs with Honma While Rose had been a TaylorMade staffer throughout his long career, rumors began swirling at the end of 2018 that he’d be making a sponsor switch. While most speculated that he would eventually sign with Honma, Rose put the rumors to rest with an official announcement on New Years Day. On the same day, Rose also unveiled the “Rose Proto� Honma irons that he continues to use currently. Here’s more on the equipment deal and the prototype irons. Molinari wins in first event as a Callaway staffer After going on a tear in 2018 as an equipment free agent, there was major speculation whether Molinari would sign a deal, and if he did, which company he would go with. Molinari made the announcement that he signed with Callaway at the 2019 Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he sat down with PGATOUR.COM to explain why. Funny enough, Molinari went onto win that very same week. In the interview with PGATOUR.COM, Molinari also explained how his extremely rare prototype irons came about, and just how rare they are. Check out the full Q&A here. The young guns sign equipment deals Matthew Wolff, Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa came onto the PGA TOUR with some of the highest expectations from rookie golfers in recent years. With golfers such as Brooks Koepka having success as an equipment free agent, equipment fans wondered whether the new young guys would follow his lead. As it turned out, each of them signed deals. PGATOUR.COM went in-depth about each their equipment setups in the stories below: Wolff in-depth Morikawa Hovland Ping club designer makes the cut at the PGA using equipment he designed There was no one at the 2019 PGA Championship who knew his equipment better than Marty Jertson. That’s because Jertson, who competed and made the cut at Bethpgae Black, worked as a Senior Design Engineer at Ping in recent years. Jertson currently works as the President of Fitting and Performance at Ping, and following his PGA Championship performance, he spoke in-depth with PGATOUR.COM on a number of topics, ranging from the difficulty of Bethpage to designing equipment. Don’t miss the full interview here. The Great One’s red putter Hall-of-fame hockey player Wayne Gretzky competed this year in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am alongside Dustin Johnson, who’s engaged to Wayne’s daughter Paulina. Wayne was spotted using an all-red Scotty Cameron putter during the event, and PGATOUR.COM caught up with “The Great One� to get the full story behind the putter (it’s worth the read). Aaron Rodgers uses “That’s what she said� wedge NFL superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers has quite the sense of humor, and he expresses it on his TaylorMade wedges. PGATOUR.COM caught up with Rodgers at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am to get the story behind his hilarious wedge stampings, which includes a tribute to The Office. Gary Woodland’s butter knife The days of players using long irons made with a blade construction are waning, but fresh off his 2019 U.S. Open win, Gary Woodland used a Wilson Staff blade 2-iron that could send chills down the spine of nearly any golfer. As you’ll see in the story, PGATOUR.COM took photos of what the 2-iron looks like from address. Look at your risk. Tiger Woods switches to P-7TW irons (and so does Fleetwood), and Woods later reveals more info After using TaylorMade TW-Phase 1 prototype irons for much of 2018, equipment fans were eager to see if there would be a new iron for 2019. Speculation picked up when Tommy Fleetwood was spotted using “P-7TW� irons at the Abu Dhabi HSBC. Surely the “TW� wasn’t a coincidence. Woods did in fact switch into P-7TW Milled irons, but they looked a bit different than Fleetwood’s version. Later in the year, PGATOUR.COM spoke with Woods in-depth about his equipment, where Woods revealed more telling information about those very irons. Here’s the full Q&A with Woods. Tony Romo uses hand-me-down clubs from Tiger and Spieth Romo sent the equipment world into a frenzy when he was spotted by PGATOUR.COM using golf clubs at the 2019 Pebble Beach Pro-Am that were once used by Jordan Spieth and Tiger Woods. We also got the scoop on exactly how those clubs ended up in his bag. Here’s the full story on Romo’s hand-me-down clubs.

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