“One of the reasons pros hit the ball so far is that their drivers are built differently from retail drivers”.
Could pros be using drivers that are “turbo-charged” to help them hit the golf ball the prodigious distances or use wedges with special grooves that help them create so much spin and control?
In recent years, a section of golfers has been falling down the rabbit hole of searching out “tour-issue” equipment in the expectation that these almost mythical clubs will transform their games.
The market appears to be growing; a current search on a well-known second-hand specialist website has no fewer than 5300 listings of “tour-issue” equipment.
The listings refer to the telltale special tour issue product codes or a certain number of dots strategically located, meaning that particular club started its life on a tour truck.
So, is there any truth that employing tour issue equipment is some sort of a cheat code that can make a significant impact on our game?
It’s time to explore whether or not tour equipment can make us better players and to uncover what tour equipment means.
Along with revealing what tour issue means, we’ll delve deeper into the following areas:
- Why Tour Players Use Tour Equipment
- Are There Significant Gains For Amateur Golfers?
What Tour Issue Means
Tour issue equipment is designed virtually identically to the equipment you see on golf racks in your pro shop or major retailer.
Why do we use the term “virtually”?
Let’s take an example.
A TaylorMade Qi35 LS driver that sits in the tour van will look identical to its retail cousin.
What separates the LS model that’s sitting in the tour van is that it has been built to tighter tolerances compared to the retail version.
What we are talking about is specific lofting, specific weighting, and specific lie angles - not something you will likely detect with the naked eye.
Tour players have extraordinary levels of feel, which means they can detect the most minor differences between one club and another.
If you want proof of this, there is a famous story of when Tiger Woods was scheduled to test Nike drivers; Nike sent him what they believed to be six identical drivers built to Tiger’s specs.
Woods found one that he favoured over the others because he felt the driver was a little heavier than the other five.
Nike’s engineers insisted that all six drivers were identical in weight, but when they got them back, they found that the driver Tiger liked was two grams heavier than the other five.
Two grams is a minuscule amount of weight; it’s the equivalent of a small bird’s feather, and yet Tiger could feel this tiny difference.
Tour equipment has precisely measured lofts that players and fitters trust.
We’ve spoken in previous blogs about ideal launch and spin windows to help maximise carry distances and trajectories. Most amateur players don’t know where their ideal launch and spin window is, but they can uncover what works best when they go through a custom-fitting process.
Most tour pros know their ideal spin and launch numbers for every golf club in the bag off by heart.
Because they understand their figures so well, when they test new equipment, they instantly know if they are hitting the numbers they are used to or not.
Small differences in loft can throw out a player’s optimal carry numbers for each club.
If you want proof of how acutely tour players are dialled into their equipment, you can watch a video of Scottie Scheffler guessing his carry numbers against Trackman data and being less than five yards out on his most inaccurate guesses.
You’ll be amazed by the number of times he gets the distances nearly spot on. How many of you reading this could do that?
When it comes to heads destined for the retail racks, loft tolerances can be out as much as a degree from what’s stamped on the head, and it will still pass a quality control check.
This might sound wrong, and at one level it is, but the fact is that most amateurs simply don’t have the level of feel and knowledge of their own game to understand that a driver they’ve bought, which has 10.5 stamped on the sole, spins and flies more like a 9.5 head.
The one major myth to explode around tour equipment is that driver faces are not any hotter because they are destined for tour use.
This may come as a shock, but tour-issue drivers can have slower faces than their retail cousins.
There are two significant reasons why this is the case:
- Tour Player Clubhead Speed
- Driver Testing For Conformity
Tour Player Clubhead Speed
Rory McIlroy averages between 123 and 125 mph clubhead speed with his driver, which produces ball speeds regularly around the 190 mph mark.
Constant practice and play producing those speeds starts to weaken the face over time, especially if McIlroy is hitting the same spot on the face consistently.
As the face weakens, it gets thinner, which means it could get close to being illegal due to the increased trampoline effect from the face.
Driver Testing For Conformity
Every player on the tour is subject to random testing of their drivers to make sure they still conform to the rules laid down by the R&A and the USGA.
The test involves measuring how long the ball stays in contact with the driver's face. If the ball is less than 257 microseconds on the driver face, it is deemed to be illegal.
On the eve of this year’s PGA Championship, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler’s TaylorMade Qi10 drivers failed the test.
This doesn’t mean that both players were knowingly using illegal drivers, but it was unsettling for McIlroy, who struggled to find a suitable gamer to replace the driver that helped win the Masters and complete his career grand slam.
An additional difference between tour and retail equipment is that tour players can sometimes utilise what is known as hot melt, which can be poured into heads.
Hot melt isn’t some secret sauce that helps add more power; it’s designed to improve weight distribution in the head and help improve feel and sound at impact.
Applying tour melt is something very specific for each player, which lessens the chances of any other golfer being able to successfully use that particular club.
Why Tour Players Use Tour Equipment
Tour issue golf equipment ultimately gives tour players more confidence in knowing how their equipment performs under the severest of pressure when they are in contention to win.
We’ve seen how players have incredible feel to know the smallest of inconsistencies in clubs, but they also rely heavily on open and frank relationships with the engineers who occupy the equipment tour trailers.
This relationship is similar to a Formula 1 driver and his mechanics; the driver gives honest feedback on what he feels works and doesn’t work in the car, which forms the foundation of what the engineers ultimately do to the car to improve it.
Tour players know what works and what doesn’t work, and they can convey their thoughts very clearly to the tour truck engineers.
Tour players understand that the golf equipment they have in their golf bags has to be 100% reliable and consistent. This fact means that sometimes, players keep older generations of equipment in their bags and are not tempted to switch to newer models.
Probably the most famous example is Henrik Stenson’s reliance on an old Callaway Diablo 3-wood, which helped him win the Race to Dubai, the FedEx Cup, and his greatest triumph, the 2016 Open Championship.
We also see many players opt to become free agents, allowing them to cherry-pick equipment from any manufacturer they see helping their games, but it also makes it easier to keep some tried and tested favourites in the bag without the pressure to move to a manufacturer’s latest model.
Adam Scott has benefited massively from being a free agent. Scott has gamed his own design Miura irons, Srixon irons, and Titleist irons, and has recently been spotted with a set of Callaway prototype irons in the bag.
When you are playing for millions of dollars each week, players need to rely on their equipment to help them maintain their careers. They will not randomly put a club or clubs in the bag and hope for the best, and they are also reluctant to remove equipment from their bags that has served them well in previous seasons.
Are There Gains For Amateur Golfers In Using Tour Equipment?
The simple answer is no.
Tour-specific equipment is designed for players where the level of mistakes is marginal.
Most amateurs can’t generate the clubhead speeds or ball striking consistency that’s needed to get the most from tour-issued equipment, but that doesn’t mean to say that amateurs can’t experience a tour-like level of fitting and attention to detail when it comes to the equipment that’s best suited for their games.
Arguably, amateurs have a wider range of equipment options to choose from, and that equipment is packed full of technology that’s designed to make the game easier.
At the top end of the bag, manufacturers such as Callaway, Titleist, and PING offer standard and high-MOI drivers featuring technologies that help improve consistency of ball speed across the face regardless of strike location.
For irons, we covered TaylorMade’s new P790 model previously, which offers tour-inspired looks but with a multi-material, hollow body construction, which helps generate more ball speed with the softest feel of a fully forged iron.
Amateurs can benefit massively from combo iron sets, and manufacturers are making it easier to create combo sets with uniformity of looks with varying game improvement technologies built in. Titleist’s updated T-Series is a great example of this.
Lofted fairway woods and hybrids offer amateurs improved opportunities of hitting the longest holes in regulation or providing safer options off the tee.
The glue that brings all this potential together is custom-fitting.
Fitting Perspective at Nine by Nine Golf
The reason why Nine By Nine Golf exists is to provide every level of golfer a tour-like experience in club fitting and club building.
We utilise the same launch monitor technology that many tour pros rely on to dial in their numbers.
The launch monitor can give us incredibly detailed information, which we can demonstrate to you regardless of your level of play, and help you understand where we can make improvements in your game.
We can subsequently measure improvements in real time, and by the end of the fitting session, you’ll have a clear recommendation, which you will have seen deliver improved results.
The job doesn’t end there. Our expert team of engineers use the same equipment as seen on the tour trucks to build your equipment to the same tight tolerances every tour player expects.
Loft, lie, and club length are accurately measured and cut to ensure your golf clubs perform exactly as you saw during your fitting session.
We can also help personalise your clubs with your choice of golf grips, but even here, we make sure your grips are the correct size for your hands.
Purchasing tour-issue equipment can help you look cool in front of your golfing mates, but ultimately, it isn’t going to improve your game.
The fundamental difference between tour equipment and retail equipment is the tighter tolerances offered by tour equipment to cater for the non-discerning tour professional.
Most of us need a little more help with our equipment, but that doesn’t mean to say we should just accept an off-the-rack purchase to seek improvement.
If you want to have a tour player experience and have your team work to build your equipment exactly to your needs, book a fitting session with Nine By Nine Golf.
