Equipment Insider: Els' recent driver, golf ball changes pay off

text size

EDITOR'S NOTE: Each week in the Equipment Insider, Adam Barr -- PGATOUR.COM's equipment columnist -- will provide breaking news, notes and analysis focused on PGA TOUR players. Adam will also appear in video segments for PGATOUR.COM.

Check out more of Adam Barr's equipment coverage at AdamBarrGolfGearGuide.com.

Video: In the Bag

What do players carry when they head out on TOUR? We take an inside look at the adjustments they make to their clubs ... and they show us other things (ball markers, training aids) that make their tools of the trade unique. Archive: In the Bag MORE IN THE BAGS Nick Watney Hunter Mahan Sergio Garcia

Ernie Els began the year with a new Callaway FT-iZ driver in his bag. But when your game is that Big, it's Easy to be versatile. So it was that Ernie switched out the FT-iZ for Callaway's new FT Tour driver for the World Golf Championships-CA Championship. He was seeking a more penetrating flight, and apparently he got it. Els hit 60 percent of his fairways on the way to his 68-66-70-66 win, the first on the PGA TOUR for Els since the 2008 Honda Classic.

Els had some high finishes with the FT-iZ overseas in late 2009, but good luck getting it back in his bag. The Tour model with which he won at Doral gave him an average 296 yards off the tee -- something that has to be on the mind of a 40-year-old player -- and helped set up 23 birdies, which led the field.

But the max distance in the FT Tour isn't necessarily a product of max size. The head volume is 440 cc, 20 fewer than the maximum allowed by the rules. The somewhat smaller profile enhances the tour look that Callaway was after. But the technology is thoroughly modern: like the FT-iZ, the FT Tour is multi-material (carbon composite and titanium), and the face is shaped strategically ("hyperbolic face technology") to preserve and return energy to the ball on off-center hits. Ernie's driver loft is 8.5 degrees.

FT Tour driver

The golf ball in Els' grand equipment equation is also new to his bag this year: it's a Callaway Tour i(s) model, which has a very soft urethane cover to maintain all the spin that can be packed into a shot. With the new grooves situation sending some wedge shots skidding up the face of the club, resulting in some uncontrollable balloon trajectories, some players have experimented with softer-cover balls. Others have decided to stay put.

• New-groove work-arounds continue to develop in clubs as well. TaylorMade-adidas, responding to demand from TOUR players, made a new face for its xFT replaceable-face wedges. Players wanted something that grabbed the ball a bit more. The new xFT face has 14 grooves instead of 16; the look of the plating is different too.

• While Els carried the Callaway banner in Florida, Derek Lamely held it up in the rain and wind of Puerto Rico, winning the Puerto Rico Open by two shots over Kris Blanks. Like Els, Lamely needed to beat some serious wind by keeping the ball down. He also used a Callaway FT Tour, also with 8.5 degrees of loft. But he chose a Callaway Tour i(z) golf ball, which also has an appreciably soft urethane cover, but is not quite as spinny as the i(s). The i(z) has Callaway's HEX aerodynamics -- little hexagons instead of traditional dimples -- and drag-reducing geometrical shapes inside those hexes. You've heard it said golf is a game of inches? At times, it seems downright microscopic.

• Speaking of which, you don't know detail until you've seen it through a TOUR player's eyes. At Honda, Vance Veazey showed us a grip and grimaced. When we asked what's wrong, he said, "See the bottom section, that half-inch right where the grip ends and the shaft begins? Used to be a star there. Now there's not, and it looks a lot bigger to me." He admitted to being a detail freak and said he would get over it because he likes the way those grips feel and wear.

But Veazey isn't the only one. Whether it's the look and feel of grips, a logo on a shaft that's not turned under or hidden the way a player likes it, a sliver of putter face that wasn't visible on a prior model, you name it -- these guys will notice. But what else do you expect from guys who, when you ask them to hit it 137, will hit it 137 yards and 18 inches to allow for a little extra backspin?

Other players noticing their grips in recent weeks: Ross McGowan was intrigued by a display of Lamkin N-DURs at Doral and asked for a set. Masters defending champion Angel Cabrera might be trying Lamkins as well; his teacher Charlie Epps asked for a set on Cabrera's behalf.