Major winner helps Cameron Young in a gear pinch

Welcome to Wall-to-Wall Equipment, the Monday gear wrap-up in which GOLF tools editor Jonathan Wall takes you thru the newest traits, rumors and breaking information.

Thanks, Webb

The CJ Cup wound up being an eventful week for Cameron Young and Webb Simpson. On Wednesday, Simpson, a fellow Wake Forest alum, crashed Young’s pre-tournament press convention to let him know he’d been named the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year.

On Friday, Simpson provided Young one thing equally as vital — a Titleist driver to make use of for the ultimate 36 holes.

As one of many largest hitters on Tour, Young will get his driver checked repeatedly to make sure every thing is undamaged. But in accordance with the PGA Tour, the 25-year-old felt one thing was amiss together with his Titleist TSR3 driver as he made the flip throughout the second spherical.

Young initially thought it may be a cracked face, however a fast test revealed every thing was kosher. But with a couple of heel misses producing 60 yards of curve, Young knew the pinnacle was probably compromised in a way.

In want of a driver for the weekend, Simpson got here to Young’s rescue and provided up a 9.5-degree TSi3 head. It didn’t take Young lengthy to note an enchancment as soon as he’d geared up the pinnacle together with his standard Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Pro White 70TX shaft.

“As soon as I hit the other one, the driver flights were just a lot straighter,” Young stated. “I think the (original) driver was not fully intact. He (Simpson) was nice enough to give me one.”

With a loaner driver from Simpson in the bag, Young went on to shoot the bottom spherical of the day (66) at Congaree. He completed T23 for the week.

While most mavens normally depend on a backup driver when the gamer goes awry, a few notable names have gone on to have huge weeks with borrowed driver heads.

The most up-to-date was Viktor Hovland, who borrowed a Ping G425 driver from James Hahn in Mexico and efficiently defended his title final season.

Young didn’t come near catching Rory McIlroy final week, however he wound up besting Webb by seven photographs together with his personal driver. Not dangerous for a borrowed huge stick.

Back and forth

Ever the gear tinkerer, Hideki Matsuyama wound up utilizing two completely different driver shafts in South Carolina. The former Masters champion opened the match with a new Fujikura Ventus Black 8TX shaft in his Srixon ZX5 driver however reverted to Graphite Design’s Tour AD-DI 8TX for the ultimate 54 holes.

Prior to switching to Srixon’s Tour-only ZX5 MKII LS driver final month in Napa, Matsuyama performed shaft testing to confirm the Tour AD-DI 8TX offered the very best head-shaft mixture. The numbers checked out on the vary, however Matsuyama observed a slight uptick in spin and peak peak throughout competitors, which prompted him to hunt out one thing to knock down each numbers.

Matsuyama examined Ventus Black 8TX and Ventus TR Red 8X, however the Black wound up pulling down each throughout testing. While the numbers have been ok to warrant a change, Matsuyama stored the shaft on a brief leash after dropping a mere 0.446 strokes to the sector off the tee throughout the first spherical.

All good issues

Ping’s G430 continued to trip a powerful wave of momentum on the CJ Cup, the place Sebastian Munoz, Tyrrell Hatton, Trey Mullinax and John Huh all made the change. According to Ping Tour rep Kenton Oates, Munoz noticed the most important ball pace improve of the group as he made the transfer from G425 Max to G430 LST and picked up nearly 4 mph.

“It was a combination of speed and lower spin for Sebastian,” Oates stated. “Good overall feel, too.”

For Hatton, it wasn’t the ball pace that bought him on G430 however reasonably an enchancment in general consistency in phrases of spin fee. Numbers hovered round 2,300-2,500 no matter Hatton’s impression location.

With the transfer to a carbon composite physique with the G430 LST, sound suggestions has been constructive because the Tour launch in Las Vegas. Of all of the issues Mullinax observed throughout at-home testing, the improved sound at impression wound up closing the deal.

More converts

Keith Mitchell and Seamus Power switched to Titleist’s new 2023 Pro V1x after testing the balls at dwelling. Power, in specific, moved into V1x after enjoying V1 beforehand.

“For me, it’s very visual,” stated Power, who completed T49. “When I swing and it comes off the face, if it comes out in the trajectory I really feel it ought to, that’s a huge constructive for me, and that’s what I noticed instantly.

“It felt great off the tee with a little bit of extra heat. If anything, I underspin my irons, so I’ve got that little bit of extra spin (moving to Pro V1x). I didn’t give up anything around the green. I didn’t feel any noticeable difference with the noise off the putter face, so it was an easy change for me.”

Quick-hitters: Kevin Kisner performed a Tour-only Wilson Dynapwr driver with Fujikura’s Ventus TR Red 6X shaft. … Scottie Scheffler benched his Masters-winning Scotty Cameron blade putter for a Cameron T5.5 mallet. … Rory McIlroy defended his CJ Cup title with an all-TaylorMade setup. … A brand new Callaway 2+ Tour mini driver landed on USGA conforming listing — and it’d belong to Phil Mickelson. … Shane Lowry drove an hour to a native PGA Tour Superstore to buy a replacement putter after his gamer broke in two on the ninth gap at Congaree.

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Jonathan Wall

Golf.com Editor

Jonathan Wall is GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com’s Managing Editor for Equipment. Prior to becoming a member of the employees on the finish of 2018, he spent 6 years overlaying tools for the PGA Tour.