Smith’s putter is a prototype 009M Scotty Cameron, with a blacked-out dot on the topline and a slant neck for slightly more toe hang. Interestingly, in a recent interview with Golf Digest, Smith said it wasn’t love at first sight.

“I actually didn’t really like the look of it to begin with,” he says. “I just fell in love with the roll and the way it felt off the face.”

Taking another good look at his putter last week via Sporting Insights Instagram video below, you can see the various custom stamping on the back of Cam’s flatstick. Among the imprints are the famed Scotty dog stamp and Circle T.

But once the putter flips around, take a look at what’s next to the Scotty Cameron logo on the putter face itself: An artist’s palette, with drips of paint that appear to be golf balls.

 

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A post shared by Sporting Insights (@sms_on_tour)

Pretty saucy stuff, and a perfect fit for a man whose canvas is the green, and the putter is his paintbrush.

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The post Look close and you’ll find this amazing detail on Cameron Smith’s magic Scotty Cameron putter appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By E. Michael Johnson
It wasn’t the Duel in the Sun but it was a duel in the sun as Cameron Smith fended off Jon Rahm birdie for birdie over the final nine to not only win the Sentry Tournament of Champions, but set an all-time 72-hole PGA Tour scoring record in relation to par at 34 under par.

Smith and Rahm each birdied Nos. 13 through 15 at Kapalua’s Plantation Course on Sunday, then parred the next two holes before matching birdies at the par-5 18th to give Smith with a one-shot margin of victory.

Without a bogey over his final 52 holes, Smith had many facets of his game working. The 28-year-old ranked second in strokes gained/off-the-tee, picking up more than 3.5 strokes on the field while also ranking fourth in driving distance at 302.6 yards. Smith’s strokes-gained mark was aided nicely by driving the green on the short par-4 14th hole, using his 10-degree Titleist TSi3 driver with a Fujikura Ventus Blue 60x shaft.

Smith also hit 86.1 percent of his greens in regulation. His irons are Titleist’s T100 in an all-black configuration, including the heads and shafts. When the Aussie did miss a green, he got up and down 80 percent of the time with his Titleist Vokey SM9 wedges—a model just recently introduced to the company’s tour staff.

Smith’s ability to get up and down is not only a testament to his short game and putting (he led the field in strokes gained/putting as well as putts per green in regulation) but also his grit.

“I’m a resilient guy,” the now four-time PGA Tour winner told Golf Digest in 2019. “It all stems from these words my dad told me. ‘Some days are diamonds, some days are duck s—.’ When things are going bad, I sometimes recall those words. It’s such a good terminology for golf, which can be so brittle. You wake up one day and can’t miss a shot and then the next day you feel like you’re playing like a 20-handicapper. Things tend to go up and down all the time and sometimes it’s helpful to just remind yourself of that.”

At Kapalua, there was a lot more up than down.

What Cameron Smith had in the bag at the Sentry Tournament of Champions:

Ball: Titleist Pro V1x
Driver: Titleist TSi3 (Fujikura Ventus Blue 60x), 10 degrees
3-wood: Titleist TSi2, 15 degrees
7-wood: Titleist TS2, 21 degrees
Irons (3): Mizuno Pro Fli-Hi; (5-9): Titleist T100; (PW): Titleist Vokey SM9
Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM9 (52, 56, 60 degrees)
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist 009M

The post The clubs Cameron Smith used to win the 2022 Sentry Tournament of Champions appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

That proved to be the case again this month when Golden Age Golf Auctions offered a backup of Woods’ renowned Scotty Cameron putter, this one from the 2002 season (Cameron would habitually make Woods one to three backups per season, most of which were eventually given away). When bidding closed on Saturday night, the club fetched $393,000, which is believed to be the most expensive club ever sold.

A similar auction last fall for a Tiger backup putter from the 2001 season sold for $154,928.

Also sold on Saturday was Gary Player’s 1974 Masters trophy, which according to the listing on the Golden Age Auctions website went for $523,483.

According to the auction listing, Tiger’s 2002 putter “has spent the past 18-plus years in the Far East, the Middle East and Europe.” Two days before the auction opened for bidding, the valuable flat stick cleared customs and was sent to Golden Age Auctions’ warehouse.

Of course, the eventual price tag for this putter—which has “T.W.” stamped on the toe and “Scotty Cameron” stamped vertically near the heel along with a single dot sightline on the topline—is nowhere near what Woods’ “gamer” used in 14 of his 15 major championship wins would fetch. Although that putter almost certainly will never see anything outside of Woods’ bag or home, Golden Age Golf Auction’s co-founder Ryan Carey, a golf memorabilia collector himself, said in a 2019 interview with Golf Channel that it would go for $3 million to $5 million if ever available. Carey inserted a note into the auction listing for the 2002 backup that he believes now that his estimate was too low.

Which makes the current backup putter somewhat of a bargain.

The post Tiger Woods’ backup putter from 2002 sells at auction for a record $393,000 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By E Michael Johnson
When Tiger Woods changed putters at the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park the Internet went berserk. Now, certainly anytime Woods, well, breathes, the web goes crazy, but in Woods’ case that meant the benching of his Scotty Cameron by Titleist putter with which he had won 14 of his 15 majors.

Of course, as he almost always does for an equipment change, Woods had a rationale for it, citing a longer length that put less stress on his back. “It’s difficult for me to bend over at times, and so practicing putting, I don’t spend the hours I used to,” Woods said after an opening-round 68. “[It] wasn’t unusual for me to spend four, five, six hours putting, per day. I certainly can’t log that with my back being fused. Most of the guys on the Champions Tour have gone to longer putters as they have gotten older, because it’s easier to bend over, or not bend over. So this putter is just a little bit longer and I’ve been able to spend a little bit more time putting.”

Fair enough. Woods also had a rationale for putting a Nike Method putter in play at the 2010 Open Championship at St. Andrews, citing the need for the ball to come off the face faster on the slow greens. That experiment lasted three rounds before Woods went back to his trusty Cameron for the final round.

PGA Tour pros are right there with the weekend hacker when it comes to fickleness with the flat stick. If these guys are good (and they are) then the old adage that “it’s a poor workman who blames his tools” doesn’t hold water when it comes to a players’ work on the greens. According to several tour reps, 10 to 20 percent of the field change putters on a weekly basis. In addition, they claim most tour players have at least five putters while some own more than 100.

The reasons for putter changing are varied. Some players prefer certain types of putters on particular types of grasses while others might have changed their stroke, necessitating a different type of putter with more toe hang or a higher moment of inertia. Others are merely looking for a change of scenery that might break them out of a slump. Or as Ken Green once famously said, “It was time for the club to die.”

RELATED: With opening 68 at PGA, Tiger posts lowest first round in a major in eight years

Debbie Crews, an LPGA member with a Ph.D. in psychology, once conducted a study of 10 women professionals, specifically targeting the newness effect. Crews found that brain activity went up in 26 of 32 different measures when one of her subjects was given a new putter to try. In short, the player’s brain got excited when given a new toy to play with.

That certainly worked for Nick Faldo in the 1989 Masters when he changed from a Bulls Eye to a TPA18 putter. More recently, Collin Morikawa flattened his putter 1.5 degrees on Monday of the workday Open.

“I have a long-neck putter in the TP Juno and it was weird because they flattened the putter but it got my hands more vertical and into the position I wanted them to be in,” Morikawa said. “The putter was sitting just slightly upright and I looked at some footage from Colonial and I noticed the toe was sitting up. We figured out a way to flatten it out and it just worked wonders.”

RELATED: Why Brooks Koepka decided to change driver ahead of the PGA

For Sung Kang at the 2017 Shell Houston Open, it was more like harassment from one of his friends. Kang broke the 36-hole scoring record after switching to a TaylorMade Spider Tour putter at the behest of a buddy, Sean Moline, “The last couple months he says, ‘You got to use this putter, this putter is going to work really good. If you want to succeed, you use that,’ ” said Kang, who eventually finished second.

Then there’s Jim Furyk in 2010. The week of the Deutsche Bank Championship, Furyk visited Joe & Leigh’s Discount Golf Pro Shop at Pine Oaks GC in South Easton, Mass., and walked out with a Yes! Golf Sophia putter—an 8802-style, heel-shafted blade with a nick on the top of it that was easy on Furyk’s eye. The price, $39 (a discount from the $69 listed price) was easy, too. The return on investment, however, would make Warren Buffet envious. Furyk used the putter to win the Tour Championship and in the process claim the FedEx Cup, a payout of more than $11 million total. It also led to Furyk’s selection as PGA Tour Player of the Year.

Of course, putter changes don’t always stick. At the 2016 Players Championship Hideki Matsuyama used a putter on Thursday and Friday that he had never used before prior to going back to what he referred to as his “Ace” putter. Matsuyama said he was looking to build some confidence and once he did, felt it was OK to go back to what he had been using.

So, have we seen the last of Woods’ trusty Cameron? Unlikely. “I’ve always messed with it,” said Woods. “I’ve had it since, what, 1999, 21 years. … But that putter is always travelling with me.”

The post When Tiger Woods changes putters, does it really matter? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Tiger Woods is chasing after his 16th major championship at TPC Harding Park. And he is doing so with new equipment.

Golf Digest’s Daniel Rapaport reported on Monday that Woods was contemplating a putter switch for the PGA Championship, benching his trusted Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS in favour of a new Cameron prototype. And in fact, Tiger did make the putter switch, teeing off on Thursday with the new putter.

Woods has used the Cameron Newport 2 GSS for 14 of his 15 major wins, including his 2019 Masters triumph. However, Woods struggled on the greens at the Memorial, his lone appearance in the PGA Tour’s restart season, posting a negative strokes gained figure on the week. He also laboured with the flat stick at the Genesis Invitational, his only other start in 2020, finishing 67th out of 68 qualified players in sg/putting.

The prototype Woods put in play for the first round at Harding Park is similar to the Newport 2 GSS. The primary differences are the putter’s lengths, which takes some stress of Tiger’s back, and adjustable weights in the heel and toe, allowing Woods to better calibrate to the speed of the greens.

The new putter treated Woods well on the first hole, as the 15-time major champion holed an 8-footer for birdie to secure a sporty up-and-down.

Woods has won the PGA Championship four times in his career, his last Wanamaker coming at Southern Hills in 2007.

The post Tiger Woods switches to new putter at year’s first major appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By E. Michael Johnson
It took a while, but Tiger Woods tied Sam Snead’s PGA Tour all-time mark for victories with 82 with a victory in the rain-delayed Zozo Championship. Woods fired a final-round 67 to hold off Hideki Matsuyama by three shots.

As is often the recipe for a Woods win, the 15-time major champion combined superb iron play with timely putting. Woods ranked T-4 in greens in regulation, hitting 76.4 percent of his greens for the week. He also cashed in on a good number of those opportunities, ranking first for the week in putts per green in regulation at 1.638, including a key birdie conversion on the par-5 14th hole to boost his cushion to three strokes over Matsuyama.

Woods’ P7TW irons boast a traditional, muscleback-blade look that Woods has favored throughout his career. When it comes to irons, feel, not distance, is paramount for Woods. To achieve that feel, TaylorMade employed tungsten to produce a deeper feel.

Woods has used the same iron specs since he was a kid, telling Golf Digest in 2017 he only changed the lie angle at times when a swing change called for it. He also pays close attention to sole design. Repeating that sole shape is made easier by TaylorMade using milling instead of a standard forging. Forging requires a fair amount of handwork, but the soles of the P7TW are CNC milled—a process similar to the company’s Milled grind wedges—to remove any inconsistencies from a hand-grinding process.

Among the distinct aspects of the sole grind on the P7TW irons is a slightly flatter sole radius and slightly more bounce (depending on the loft) compared to typical designs. In addition, the groove on Woods’ P7TW irons is narrower than typical designs, and there are more grooves on the face. The shafts are True Temper’s Dynamic Gold X-100 and the grips Golf Pride’s Tour Velvet cord.

Of course, then there is Woods’ Scotty Cameron by Titleist Tiger putter. Woods’ Cameron is made from German stainless steel. At one point, Woods had 1/4-degree of loft added to the putter to bring it back to its standard 4 degrees. In this era of somewhat heavier flat sticks, the club’s 326 grams is a touch on the lighter side, although its swingweight of D7 is pretty much standard for a blade putter. The club’s markings include a single sight dot and a red “cherry dot” on both the face and in the back cavity. The putter also has a blank sole, with “Tiger” engraved on the left bumper and “Woods” on the right bumper. The club features a Ping grip with the “Ping” name blacked out and was re-shafted twice over its first 10 years. The Newport-shaped putter has been in the bag for the better part of two-plus decades for Woods and he has won 14 of his 15 majors with it.

And now as many PGA Tour wins as anyone in history.

Tiger’s Bag in Japan

Ball: Bridgestone Tour B XS
Driver: TaylorMade M5 Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 60TX), 9 degrees
3-wood: TaylorMade M5, 15 degrees
5-wood: TaylorMade M3, 19 degrees
Irons (3-PW): TaylorMade P7TW
Wedges: TaylorMade Milled Grind (56, 60 degrees)
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist Tiger

The post Winner’s bag: Tiger Woods’ equipment at the Zozo Championship appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By E. Michael Johnson
Tiger Woods’ five Masters victories have spanned more than two decades and coincided with what many consider to be the Golden Age of golf equipment technology. Certainly Woods’ use of the multilayer, solid-core Nike Tour Accuracy TW ball was a paradigm shift for equipment used by tour players and the distances they hit them.

Woods’ Masters career has also seen players go from drivers in the 260 cubic-centimetre range to 460 ccs, and in Woods’ case, the move from steel to graphite shafts in metalwoods. A few things have stayed constant over time for Woods, however. He continues to use a Scotty Cameron putter, and he only carries two wedges in his bag along with his pitching wedge when most players use three and a pitching wedge.

Even at 43 years of age, Tiger still hits those muscle-back blade irons better than any human on earth. Here’s a look at the equipment that Woods has won his five Masters titles with.

Tiger Woods’ equipment through his five Masters titles:

Tiger Woods tees off on the 15th hole during the 1997 Masters. (Augusta National)

1997:
Ball: Titleist Professional 90
Driver: King Cobra (True Temper Dynamic Gold X 100), 9 degrees
3-wood: Titleist PT15, 15 degrees
Irons (2-4): Mizuno MP-29; (5-PW): Mizuno MP-14
Wedges: Cleveland 588 RTG (56, 60 degrees)
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist Newport TE I3

The clubs Tiger used at the 1997 Masters Tournament (Augusta National)

[divider] [/divider]

Dom Furore/Golf Digest, Golf World

2001:
Ball: Nike Tour Accuracy TW
Driver: Titleist 975D (True Temper Dynamic Gold X 100), 7.5 degrees
3-wood: Titleist 970, 15 degrees
Irons (2-PW): Titleist 681 Forged
Wedges: Titleist Vokey (58, 60 degrees)
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist Newport 2 Tiger

Tiger Woods and Stevie Williams during the 2001 Masters. (Augusta National)

[divider] [/divider]

2002:
Ball: Nike Tour Accuracy TW
Driver: Nike Forged Ti (True Temper Dynamic Gold X 100), 9.5 degrees
3-wood: Titleist 970, 15 degrees
Irons (2-PW): Titleist 681 Forged
Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design (58, 60 degrees)
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist Newport 2 Tiger

[divider] [/divider]

Tiger Woods watches his tee shot on the 15th tee during the final round of the 2005 Masters. (Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)

2005:
Ball: Nike One Platinum TW
Driver: Nike Ignite 460cc (Mitsubishi Diamana Blue Board 83), 8.5 degrees
3-wood: Nike T60 Ignite, 15 degrees
Irons (2-PW): Nike Forged Blades
Wedges: Nike Pro Combo (56 degrees), Nike TW Blade (60 degrees)
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist Newport 2 Tiger

[divider] [/divider]

2019:
Ball: Bridgestone Tour B XS
Driver: TaylorMade M5 (Mitsubishi Diamana D+ 60TX), 9 degrees
3-wood: TaylorMade M5, 15 degrees
5-wood: TaylorMade M3, 19 degrees
Irons (3-PW): TaylorMade P7TW
Wedges: TaylorMade Milled Grind (56, 60 degrees)
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist Newport 2 Tiger prototype

The post Masters 2019: The winning clubs Tiger Woods has used for all five of his Masters titles appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By E. Michael Johnson
Tiger Woods won the Tour Championship using a game that was working in every area. Even with a 30-player field, it’s impressive to rank among the top 10 in every strokes gained metric, including being in the top five in strokes gained/off the tee; around the green; putting; tee to green and total.

Such a performance is not only testimony to Woods’ resolve in coming back from career-threatening injuries, but also how Woods re-worked almost his entire bag during the course of 2018, something the normally reticent-to-change Woods fully embraced.

The process got into full gear with a test session last December at Medalist Club in Jupiter, Fla., and Golf Digest was on hand to watch. Woods had signed with TaylorMade nearly a year earlier, but due to injuries this was his first full-blown opportunity to try the company’s gear, including its new M3 driver with Twist Face technology.

The driver testing revealed the best of the old and new Tiger. Finicky as ever about the look and ball flight, but open to trying new things, including working with the adjustable features of the club—something he had been loathe to do throughout his career, using mostly drivers with glued-in shafts. This continued into the season as Woods used the M3, originally putting the two movable weights in the center and back heel position (neutral flight with slide draw bias) before moving them both to the center track with one weight forward and the other somewhat back. The weights forward sacrifice some forgiveness, but add speed and make the club much more workable—a desirable trait for a player who shapes his shots like Woods. He also changed shafts at the start of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, putting in a Mitsubishi Diamana D + white 70-gram shaft—an updated version of the Mitsubishi shaft he used with much success.

All this trial and tweaking finally paid dividends for Woods late in the season. Coming into the FedEx Cup Playoffs Woods ranked 134th in strokes gained/off the tee. In the three Playoff events leading into the Tour Championship Woods ranked 17th, 38th and 23rd, respectively in the same statistic.

Woods also added new irons to his bag, TaylorMade’s TW Phase 1. The irons are almost an exact replica of the muscleback blade irons Woods has used virtually throughout his career. Woods tried prototypes of the irons at the test session, but felt the ball flight was too high—a non-starter for one of the game’s best iron players. “If I look up and don’t see the ball right there—I mean, right where I expect it to be—then we have a serious, serious problem,” Woods told Golf Digest several years ago about his ball flight with irons. Eventually TaylorMade matched up the center of gravity location to what Woods had been using and also brought in former Nike employee Mike Taylor, who worked on Woods’ irons and wedges when he used equipment with a swoosh, to make sure the irons were just so.

Of course, Woods was also getting used to a new golf ball, Bridgestone’s Tour B XS after years of playing a Nike ball tweaked specifically for him. The Tour B XS is the spinnier version on Bridgestone’s tour ball line, which makes sense for Woods who long has said he’ll take as much spin as he can get in a ball and that it’s his job to take that spin off when necessary.

Woods also swapped out his wedges during the year, changing to TaylorMade’s Milled Grind wedges at the Memorial, leaving his trusty Scotty Cameron by Titleist putter as the lone holdover club. But even the Scotty got the heave-ho for a bit as Woods went way outside his box on putters by trying a true mallet—TaylorMade’s Ardmore 3—in competition for the first time, putting it in play at the Quicken Loans National. Woods then would have a one-event stint with the company’s TP Black Copper Juno at the Dell Technologies Championship before returning to the Cameron he has won 13 majors with.

And now another Tour Championship and a pretty compelling comeback story to go with it.

What Tiger Woods had in the bag at the Tour Championship

Ball: Bridgestone Tour B XS
Driver: TaylorMade M3 460 (Mitsubishi Diamana D + white 70), 9.5 degrees
3-wood: TaylorMade M3, 13 degrees
5-wood: TaylorMade M3, 19 degrees
Irons (3-PW): TaylorMade TW Phase 1
Wedges: TaylorMade Milled Grind (56, 60 degrees)
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist Tiger

The post How Tiger Woods’ evolved approach to equipment played a role in his comeback win appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Tiger Woods’ ball-striking continues to be exceptional in his return to the tour, his second-shot performance propelling his weekly bids for contention. In that same breath, his putting, or lack thereof, is almost single-handedly keeping those efforts from turning into Ws.

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On the year Woods ranks 50th in strokes gained/putting, a figure that doesn’t seem to indicate the flat stick serving as an Achilles’ heel. Unfortunately for Woods, that standing, save for a strong showing at Bellerive, is mostly buoyed by early-season submissions. At the Northern Trust, Woods finished last in the field in strokes gained/putting, and though he saw a little improvement following a switch to a new putter at TPC Boston, 33 putts in his final round sunk any hopes of his first victory since 2013.

So perhaps it’s not a surprise that, in his first practice round at Aronimink for the BMW Championship, Woods returned an old friend to the bag: his Scotty Cameron by Titleist Newport 2.

And here’s to you, Mr. Newport 2. A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. pic.twitter.com/fdPQEf4n5a

— Tiger Tracker (@GCTigerTracker) September 4, 2018

The same putter, you may remember, that was by Woods’ side for 13 of his 14 major championships. Starting in 2004, which is the first year the tour has strokes gained/putting calculated, he ranked first, fifth, 21st, second and second with the Cameron, skipping 2008 and 2010 when he did not play enough to be ranked. Woods changed to a Nike putter at the 2010 Open Championship and went back and forth between Nike and his Cameron for a bit before settling in with a Nike model in 2011.

The post Tiger Woods, following another rough short game performance, returns to old Scotty Cameron putter appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.