PATRICK REED: What's In The Bag? 2024 Season

But we are here at Live Golf UK at the JCB Golf & Country Club and I've got with me Patrick Reid and we're going to do a quick what's in the bag, aren't we? Perfect, yes sir. So, we'll just start from the top. In fact, no, we won't start from the top. We'll start with an overview. I look at your golf bag and I see a bit of an equipment geek. Is that fair? Oh yeah. For sure. There's lead tape. Always. There's different shafts. There's old clubs. There's new clubs. There's unknown clubs. There's all sorts going on here to get stuck into. Have you always been an equipment geek? I have. It's kind of one of those things that I feel like there's not one single company that makes the 14 perfect clubs for every player. Because of that, when something comes out, there's tolerances of everything. How everything's made. How everything feels. Rather than sitting there and trying to always find the perfect one and go through, say, a million of one. A little bit of lead tape here, a different shaft change there, or length. There's little things you can do to change it just to dial it in quickly. Especially how much we're on the road. Correct. How does that process look for you then? I'm looking at your pitching wedge, your 50, everything. We've got a lot of stuff here with lead tape on. Is that just you? Are you doing that with a swing weight scale? Are you doing that just to your feel? Mainly a swing weight. For me, my lies and lofts have always been the same. My lengths have always stayed the same. I weight everything out before I put anything together to make sure that the overall weight's right. You can have the same swing weight, but if the overall weight is that different because of the different materials you're using, because of tolerances in it, it's going to feel different to me. For me, I make sure that I get the overall weight and swing weight correct. Sometimes it's just a little lead tape. Sometimes I have to start from fresh and go to square one. Lead tape's a good friend. For me, this driver, luckily, I don't have to have lead tape on it or even a 3-wood, but there's times that the head becomes too light. I prefer to put lead tape than put hot melt in it because I know exactly where that weight is. The Titleist GT3 driver, new out. Talk to me about this. It's so good. They've done a lot of amazing work, Titleist has, on their new driver and even their new 3-wood. For me, all the clubs, all the companies, if you hit the ball dead center, it's going to be good. As long as you have the right spec, everything, it's going to fly how you want. I feel like when I miss it, this one still has a little bit more speed in it and also stays a little bit straighter. For me, it sits really nicely and it gives me that confidence. To me, it feels like it sits a little flatter and since my irons are really flat, as it is, I need something that looks that way. If I look down, it looks like the toe is pointing at me too much and too upright and I'll start hanging on to it and start leaning them out to the right. You're a visual guy, you like to see that toe going away from you all the time. I do. You don't want to see left. No. Do you know the specs on this? It feels short to me. It is. It's a 44 and a half finished. I've always been a guy that goes a little shorter. I feel like I swing better when it's shorter, I feel like I swing a little bit freer when it's at that length. I'm not one of those guys that I hit just one shot. I'll tee one down, hit the flat cut, take some off, I'll hit it full, send it up, hit it and draw. I like to work the golf ball and when I get long shafts, it just seems like it's a one dimensional golf shot for me and I really don't want that. Okay, interesting. Shaft wise, we're in the new ACRITY Z here. How did you end up here? I ended up there actually in Germany this year because when they built this driver, I was always in my 125 Rogue. Yes. It's an ancient dinosaur that no one can, they don't make it anymore. And so they haven't made that forever. Because of that, we had no abilities to get our hands on any more of those. I think I have them all at my house. And so they said that this shaft through the testing and everything and through the, is really similar kind of on kick point how it is. If anything, this is a little stiffer in the butt part of the club up near the grip. And so they say if I want to, when you start going at it, it should be a little bit more stable. And so, you know, we went with it and, you know, it's been great. It's been great since it's been in the bag. Ever since when I won at Augusta in 18, that driver, the old G400 ping, the one right before this, before Germany was still a G400 ping. Trust me, it's my backup. It's in the room. But it's just one of those that when you get something, whether it's old technology or new technology, if you're really comfortable with it, it seems like you get freer. You seem to get a little bit more speed. And it was, I mean, I wasn't finding anything that was going much farther than my 400. And so because of that, I was like, all right, don't change it until I got this. This thing has been amazing the way it feels, the way, how easy it feels to hit. And you know, it's just been one of those that I had to put into play. Cool. And GT2 in the fairway woods, 15 degrees, same family of shaft there in the Acro. So again, just matching feels. Yeah, matching feels. And really the only difference is my normal three woods are usually really strong. And so they come out really fast and almost sometimes go too far. And when I was in Germany, I needed something that went farther than my two iron, but not quite as far as one of my normal three woods. You know, I need that 255, 260 carry. And this club has been spot on. So like when I went at Bethpage, I had a five wood bent to a four wood and I didn't have a three wood. And so this, with having that, it gives me a little bit more playability, more options. I mean, if I want to kind of float one in there, I can, but if I want to hit that stinger and keep it down, I can. So I can hit those shots that I need rather than another one of those. These three woods these days are so hot that if you get low lofted and you come out flat, I mean, it's basically one dimensional. Okay, down to the irons. Now we're getting old and a bit cool here. So we've got a very old Titleist TMB 716 two iron, a little custom BB&FK ferrule. Yeah, exactly. Hey, you didn't even know the ferrule. Of course I do. Of course I know the ferrule. Sits flat. Oh yeah, she's flat. She's down there in the 120. And in Dynamic Gold 120X100? Just for a little bit more height. So just a touch lighter than the main set that we had down in here, the standard? Because I mean, the biggest thing is hitting it full, it's good. I mean, you can get height on it, but if you have to take a little off of it, you know, you still want to get the ball in the air and have it be able to land soft for that opportunity. But yeah, this is the one that I basically used at Augusta in 18. And that thing was in the bag forever. And I went away from it because the ball, I changed balls and so the ball was coming in too flat. So it wasn't holding any greens. And now that I went back to, I got a new ball that goes a little higher. This is back in play because it's just, it's a go-to, but if I'm in trouble, just hit that thing off the tee. Ludwig had this in the bag for quite some time as well. He's only just come out of this. How did we end up in the ferrule? My wife had it because Groundworks, Groundworks USA has run out of, we own it and it runs out of our house. So we had a couple of those hanging around and she popped that thing on it just to, just to do it. And I loved it. I mean, I was like, man, I wish I had enough to do the whole bag. Come to my garage. We'll sort it out. All right. Okay. So we're into the main set now. So you just alluded to Grindworks. Talk to me about how that started and why that operates, you said, from your house. Yeah. So it started back. And what was that? It was four years ago, roughly four years ago. And I was on the range at Bay Hill hitting some golf shots. My coach was there and all of a sudden I just couldn't stop hitting the ball left. And I had no clue why. So I was kind of having a moment with coach, like, what's going on? He's filming it. He's like, your swing looks great. He's like, let's go check the specs. Specs are correct. And, you know, then we did a little test with the quad. We put the stickers on the face. I was like, all right, when you hit one, I just want to know, did you hit solid, thin heel toe, like just the strike. And it seemed like every time I said I hit a solid, the ball was out of the heel. And every time I hit it, I was like, oh, you know, when I would hit it and it would be toe side, I was like, oh, that's dead off the toes, dead center of the club. So a lot of forged irons and forged clubs in general, because it's made out of one piece of metal, the center of gravity is in the heel rather than the center. Well, that's a problem. We're trying to hit the ball in the center of the face. So if you're trying to hit the ball in the center of the face and you do that, but then the CG's in the toe, every once in a while you can get that squirrelly left shot that reacts like a toe hit. And so Justine contacted Nimi Kirinari from Japan. He's in the Club Maker Hall of Fame. Just found out who he was, found out his information, sent him an email just saying, hey, would you make my husband a set of clubs? His name's Patrick Reed. And he's like, oh, I'd love to. And they'd heard of you, hadn't they? Yeah. But it was one of those that, you know, I'm sitting there thinking he's just going to take one of the heads that they've already designed, put it together, and send it to me for me to test. And no, we started from a block of metal. And so we designed the cavity backs and the blades. Took us 18 months for the cavity backs, about two years for the blades. And it was like, all right, we went down from the weight to how the balance is, how the sole is, what kind of grooves, where the grooves start, the look, and everything. And, you know, I just kind of went to the irons that I loved in the past, the way I like to, you know, and then I'd put a mold together from, all right, you know, like the Nikes, I liked how flat they were on the bottom. But then I liked on the Callaway is when we would actually pre-wear that leading edge. So there's a little bit more bounce on the edge. So even though it sits flat, like on the ground with that leading edge there, it plays like there's a little bit more bounce if you go into it. And the biggest thing there is because, I mean, one day you're playing on concrete and so you want, you don't want the iron sitting way up. And then, you know, if it gets soft and also you start going in, you don't want that just to dig. So that's why you had that pre-wear. The worst feeling is to set up to something and feel like I can't get to the ground. And so then you're just going to lean on it. You're going to do something to try to get down to it rather than just make a normal golf swing. And now, I mean, with all the hard work that they've done to get the center of gravity of these things in the center, and then also from pitching wedge and forearm, they work up and down the face because a pitching wedge, you're going to, you're going to kind of go more down onto it compared to a forearm. So the center of gravity is not just only heel to toe, but it's also north-south. That's very important. And so, you know, we've done an absolutely amazing job. It's unbelievable. And, you know, the biggest thing for me was to take away that factor of, okay, if I make a swing and I hit one and the ball goes forearm and left or right, okay, what was that? Well, I know where the center of gravity is on these. I know exactly how they are. So whatever I do on my golf swing, that's what the ball's going to do. It's not going to be the club. Which is, yeah, it takes ownership for you, but it's reassuring, right? It gives you the things that are mine. Okay, that's really cool. And they look great. The head profiles are lovely. Thank you. They're sort of quite long heel to toe to me, but I think that's possibly because I play more upright, and the flatter makes them look a bit lovelier. Yeah, they're down there. Yeah, they certainly are, which is a lovely setup. And you start, you've got the cavity back in the forearm, blades from 5 through to pitching wedge, with a little bit of lead tape everywhere, and I love this. It's a nice touch. Just have your initials on stuff. Yeah, so the ones that we made are the PR101s, and then the cavity backs will be the PR202s. And so just, you know, because they came out with other ones, other irons, because Grindworks makes other irons than just mine, and so, yeah. I've been on that website. Don't worry. I've seen them. Okay, now down into the wedges. So I thought I was going to see some artisan wedges. No, no, yeah. You've played artisan for a little while, haven't you? Right. So actually, Mike's been working on a couple of things for me to kind of test and get back there, but, you know, we've been so busy recently. It's just kind of hard to test anything rather than just keep all faithfuls in the bag right now. Cool. So 50 degrees. We've got a Cleveland RTX zip core. 10 degrees of bounce. A big love of lead tape on there to get swing weight and total weight right, as we know. Done a bit of work on the leading edge there, or is that as? No, that's just wear and tear. Okay, yeah. Yeah, that's just the wear and tear of it. Cool. And then we go into a 56 degree in SM9, which is bent to 55. Yeah. Bent to actually, so that was old. That was an old stamp. So it's actually bent to 57. So I go 51, 57, 61. Okay. Interesting. Because I was expecting, again, this is something I bang on about, very few pros take a wedge and deloft it because it adds offset and obviously reduces that bounce. So when I saw 56 and stamp 55, I thought that I'd found an exception, but obviously you're telling me I'm correct, which I'm really pleased with. And then into the wedge, we've got SM10. I see the T grind. So many players in this T grind. It looks like you've done a bit of additional to it as well. Oh yeah, we've took off even more bounce. So this is next to nothing. Yeah, there's very little bounce on it. We straighten the leading edges to hair. But the biggest thing is with having less bounce, it's also wider because of how we've done it. So whether it's square or open, it still plays to the same bounce because I draw my chips. Everyone else cuts their chips. I draw them. So I need that thing sitting flat. And I want it to sit flat, but not when I open it for it to have no bounce. So when I open it, we're able to work on where it basically stays uniform all the way across on whatever facing I presented that. Short stick again. I was expecting to see something a little different. I was expecting to see an Odyssey. Yeah. We were playing a Scotty Cameron circled T timeless 2.5. We wore through the face on my Odyssey. Oh really? Yeah. So it has a little indention in the middle. I've had that for, what, since 13, 14. So I've had it for over 10 years. And couldn't find a replica or just fancied a change? Was on the road to Germany and wanted a little bit of a change and kind of had to have a change at that point because it was the whole thing. And this thing has been amazing. And this is how you can tell you're a gear guy as well. We've got sharpied on alignment. So you've added an alignment line yourself. Pure gear guy. I've always had the top line and putter that they had on the van didn't have a top line. So they were able to kind of draw one on there for me. I was hoping that was going to be a you thing. No, I told them, I asked them to do it and they had the, they had the thing to actually do it correctly. Because if I would've gone there, who knows if it would've actually been a straight line. Cool. Yeah, there is always that. And what ball are you in, Patrick? So I'm in the new Pro V1 X Plus. So it's the spinniest ball they make, but for me, I mean, I like to hit a lot of partial shots and I mean the spin decay on the golf ball seems to, I mean, for me, I feel like the Tylus, the spin falls off the golf ball a little quicker than the Callaways I used to use. Okay. And because of that, even though if I'm hitting an 8 iron and say a spin at 8400, I mean, yeah, it's spinning a little too much, maybe right off the face, but it's losing its spin quicker. So when it actually lands, it lands correctly. What did you refer to that as? Spin decay? Spin decay. Okay. I've never actually heard that term. Interesting. Yeah, so everyone sits there and they focus on what the spin's doing right off the golf ball, but it's, but people don't focus on how much is the ball losing spin downfield. Which is where it matters, right? Right. And so, um, you know, I was able to really kind of dial in with the guys at Tylus to figure out what ball was best for me, even though right off the ball, the number might not say the right thing, but when it's flying and how it, how it's reacting on the green, especially on the partial shots and even on the full wedges, it's not spinning off the planet. I mean, it's, it's a really good golf ball. I mean, it's been great into the wind. It's been great downwind. And I think that's the biggest thing is it's just not sitting there on a perfect flat, you know, calm day. It's how is it in the nasty stuff? That's what I want to see. And, uh, the ball's been great and, uh, you know, I can't, I was glad to get into that one and, uh, we're looking forward to the rest of the year with it. Yeah. We got a little scoop on that last week at the open from some of the guys on the tour van. So it's interesting to hear about. I'm going to let you go now. Cause the rain started to come down a little bit. One more thing. Have you got any go-to training aids or anything that you use all the time? Yeah. So I use a glove under my right arm, obviously. And then I have a tiny stick I always use. So actually I'll put that underneath the arm as well. So then when I go back, actually my arm will hit it. So definitely tell me to stop because with a glove, I mean, you can still stay connected, but your arms can lift and can kind of keep going. So that's to stop your arms running too long. Cause when you get here, once it hits, it's like, all right, now it's time to go down and go forward. Makes perfect sense. Brilliant. Well, that is a great, interesting look in a proper gear guy's bag. Really cool to see that. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. You came out in the rain. That was really cool. Patrick Reid, everyone.