When Tiger Woods plays golf in America – typically – he has a 5-wood in the bag. Pinehurst No. 2 is no typical golf course, though.
On Monday at Pinehurst, ahead of the U.S. Open, GolfWRX.com spotted Woods with three significant changes to his equipment setup,
including two new TaylorMade MG4 “Proto” wedges, and a TaylorMade P770 2021 2-iron.
In recent years, Woods has almost always used a 5-wood, unless he’s playing in The Open Championship at a links venue
where the winds are high and he wants a lower trajectory off the tee … or when he played in the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills.
However, this week at the U.S. Open the 5-wood was absent from his Monster Energy staff bag, and in its place was a 2-iron.
Throughout 2024, Woods has been using a mixed set of irons, including a 2023 TaylorMade P770 3-iron,
and TaylorMade P7TW blades (4-PW), each of which are shafted up with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts.
Interestingly, the 2-iron he added on Monday is a 2021 version of TaylorMade’s P770 iron model, and it’s shafted up with a True Temper Dynamic Gold MID X100 shaft, which is slightly lighter and designed to launch slightly higher than his stock iron shafts. This is the same 2-iron setup that he used at the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills.
While it’s unclear at the moment why Woods has left his usual 5-wood out of the bag this week, it can be seen that Pinehurst No. 2 surely has more of a links-style setup than standard American courses, and bunkering around the landing areas off the tee lends itself to strategic placement of the golf ball in order to have a clean approach shot at the greens.
Additionally, the ultradwarf bermudagrass at Pinehurst No. 2, combined with Donald Ross’ diabolical greenside chipping areas, creates a unique short game challenge for U.S. Open contestants. Woods appears to be preparing for that challenge by equipping himself with two new TaylorMade MG4 “Proto” wedges, which have different grinds on their soles than he typically uses.
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Source: USA Today
