PGA Merchandise Show: Innovative New Equipment On Display

As always, the PGA Merchandise Show showcased a variety of innovations that you’re likely to see in your favorite tour pros bags in the very near future.

At last week’s PGA Merchandise Show, the world tilted a little on its axis when it was announced that Tiger Woods had signed a contract with TaylorMade. During the show, Callaway revealed its new driver to club professionals and golf industry insiders. It is now in Phil Mickelson’s bag.  It’s Epic. Really. That’s the name of the club.

In the case of Woods’ new club agreement, it wasn’t totally unexpected as he had been giving the TaylorMade drivers a tryout in the off-season as he prepared to return to the PGA Tour. The interesting thing, according to the Taylormade people on site at the PGA show, is that he elected to go with the 2016 version of the M2 driver and not the 2017 version of either the M1 or M2.

The amount of adjustability in the M1 is greater than the M2, and the adjustability in the 2017 M1 is increased over the 2016 model. The 2017 M1 gives all golfers more ways to change the sweet spot. The new version also has a heavier sliding weight for adjusting the center of gravity.

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But golfers want what they want, and no one is going to argue with Woods about which club he wants to use so long as he is using their brand. However, if you have a 2016 M2 driver, it just went up in value.

Taylormade did not know for certain which fairway clubs Woods selected for his bag until the Darrell Survey information was given to them after Friday’s round.

They texted their rep at the course and affirmed that Woods chose the 2017 M2 Taylormade 3-wood, the HL version. He also selected what he calls a 5-wood, and it is the M1 model, also the 2017 version.

Does that mean Woods will use exactly those clubs in upcoming weeks? We don’t know.  That’s why there are the Darrell Survey people who ask all players what balls and clubs they are using before the tournament starts. Darrell Survey reports back to the manufacturers, and that’s where the stats for ball and club use that we see in commercials originates.

Now on to Mickelson’s new driver. They call it Epic. And you can write your own joke for that. The Epic is part of the Big Bertha family that legendary Callaway founder Eli Callaway started in the 1990-1991 season when he introduced the original Big Bertha club and changed golf forever by introducing oversized clubs.

The Epic driver was revealed to the golf world the same day as the first round of the Farmer’s Insurance Open. However, a number of PGA Tour players used the club at the Career Builder Challenge.

From a visual perspective, Epic has some splashes and slashes of neon green.  However the big weapon in this new Bertha is what they call jailbreak technology. Jailbreak technology is described as two titanium rods on either side of the traditional sweet spot, running vertically from crown to sole. It looks a little like jail bars in the animation from Calllaway. Maybe that’s where they got the name.

Whether the titanium bars are green inside the clubhead, as shown in the animation, no one will know unless someone cuts a driver open. Nobody wants to do that with a new club. Let’s assume they are some other, more ordinary, metallic color like gray.  Why paint the inside when no one will see it? But it makes the parts easier to see.

In addition to the new inside, the Epic has a 17-gram adjustable weight along the perimeter of the clubhead. So in addition to the extra oomph given with the bars, there’s the weight which can be moved to suit ball flight. Only you can decide if it’s epic for your game.

Next: Tiger Woods’ Comeback Halted with Missed Cut at Farmers Insurance Open

Which item or piece of equipment from the PGA Merchandise Show interested you the most? Let us know in the comments below.