- 11 months ago
We take a look inside the bag of 2018 Masters champion and now LIV golfer Patrick Reed! The American was playing in the LIV Golf UK event at JCB Golf & Country Club and Joe Ferguson was able to speak to Patrick about all the clubs in his bag, including the interesting story behind his unique Grindworks irons!
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00:00But we are here at Live Golf UK at the JCB Golf and Country Club and I've got
00:05with me Patrick Reid and we're gonna do a quick what's in the bag aren't we?
00:07Perfect yes sir. So we'll just start from the top in fact no we won't start from
00:11the top we'll start with an overview I look at your golf bag and I see a bit
00:14of an equipment geek is that fair? Oh yeah for sure. There's lead tape, there's
00:19different shafts, there's old clubs, there's new clubs, there's unknown clubs
00:23there's all sorts going on here to get stuck into have you always been an
00:26equipment geek? I have it's kind of one of those things I feel like there's
00:29not one single company that makes the 14 perfect clubs for every player and
00:34because of that when something comes out there's tolerances of everything how
00:39everything's made how everything feels and yeah rather than sitting there and
00:44trying to always find the perfect one and go through say a million of one I mean a
00:49little bit of lead tape here a different shaft change there length and you know
00:54there's little things you can do to change it just to dial it in quickly
00:56especially how much we're on the road. Correct. How does that
00:59process look for you then? So I'm looking at your pitching wedge, your 50 everything
01:04we've got a lot of stuff here with lead tape on is that just you are you doing
01:07that with a swing weight scale are you doing that just to your feel? Mainly a
01:10swing weight for me I mean my lies and lofts have always been the same my
01:15lengths have always stayed the same and you know so I weight everything out
01:20before I put anything together to make sure that the overall weights right
01:24because you can have the same swing weight but if the overall weight is that
01:27different because of the different materials you're using because the
01:29tolerances in it it's gonna feel different to me and so for me I make
01:33sure that I get the overall weight and swing weight correct and so sometimes
01:37just a little lead tape sometimes it's you know I have to start from fresh and go
01:41you know to square one but yeah lead tape is a good friend because for me I mean this
01:48driver luckily I don't have to have lead tape on it or even the three wood but
01:51there's times that you know the head becomes too light and I prefer to put
01:56lead tape then put hot melt in it because I know exactly where that weight is.
01:59The Titleist GT3 driver new out talk to me about this.
02:03It's so good you know they've done a lot of amazing work Titleist has on their new
02:07driver and even their new three wood and for me all the clubs you know all the
02:15companies if you hit the ball dead center it's gonna be it's gonna be good you
02:18know as long as if you have the respect everything it's gonna fly how you want
02:22but I feel like when I miss it this one it still has a little bit more speed in
02:25it and also stays a little bit straighter so for me you know it sits
02:30really nicely and it gives me that confidence it feels to me it feels like
02:32it sits a little flatter and since my irons are really flat as it is you know I
02:36need something that looks that way because if I look down it looks like the
02:40toes pointing at me too much and too upright and I'll start hanging on to it
02:43start leading them out to the right. So you kind of visual guy you like to see that
02:45toe going away from you all the time I do because you don't want to see left no okay
02:49cool and do you know the specs on this it feels short to me it is it's a 44 and a
02:54half finished so I mean I've always kind of been a guy that goes a little
02:57shorter I feel like I swing better when it's shorter I feel like I swing a
03:01little bit freer when it's at that length and you know I'm not one of these
03:04guys I hit just one shot like I'll tee one down hit the flat flat cut you know
03:08take some off I'll hit hit it full send it up and it draws so I like to work the
03:12golf ball and and when I get long shafts it just seems like it's a one
03:16dimensional golf shot for me and you know I really don't want that. Okay
03:19interesting and shaft wise we're in the the new accuracy Z here how did you end up
03:23here? I ended up there actually in Germany this year because when they built this
03:28driver they I was always in my 125 Rogue yes ancient dinosaur they don't make it
03:35anymore okay and so they haven't made that forever and because of that we had no
03:40abilities to get our hands on any more of those I think I have them all at my
03:44house and so they said that this shaft through the testing and everything and
03:50through that is really similar kind of a kick point how it is if anything this is
03:54a little stiffer in the butt part of the club up near the grip and so they say if
03:59I want to when you start going at it it should be a little bit more stable and so
04:02you know we went with it and you know it's been great it's been great since it's been in the back
04:06ever since when I won at Augusta in 18 that driver the old G400 ping the one
04:12right before this before Germany was it was still a G400 ping that's trust me
04:17it's my backup it's in the room but it's just one of those that when you get
04:22something whether it's old technology or new technology if you're really
04:26comfortable with it it seems like you get freer you you you seem to get a
04:30little bit more speed and it was I mean I wasn't finding anything that was going
04:35much farther than my 400 and so because of that it was like all right don't
04:38change it until I got this this thing has been amazing the way it feels the
04:42way how easy it feels to hit and you know it's just been one of those that I had to
04:47put into play cool and GT2 in the fairway woods 15 degrees same family of shaft there in the
04:54Akra so again just matching feels yeah matching feels and really the only
04:59difference is my normal three woods are usually really strong and so they come
05:02out really fast and almost sometimes go too far and when I was in Germany I needed
05:06something that went farther than my two iron but not quite as far as of one of
05:11my normal three woods yeah I need that 255 260 carry and this club has been spot
05:16on so like when I went at Bethpage I had a five wood bent to a four wood and I
05:20didn't have a three wood and so this with having that it gives me gives me a
05:25little bit more playability more options I mean if I want to kind of float one in
05:28there I can but if I want to hit that stinger and keep it down I can so I can
05:32hit those shots that I need rather than another one of those these three woods
05:36these days are so hot that if you get low lofted and you come out flat I mean
05:39it's basically one-dimensional okay down this the irons now we're going old and a
05:43bit cool here so we've got a very old Titleist TMB 716 two iron a little custom
05:49yeah yeah exactly hey you didn't even know the barrel of course I know the
05:54feral sits flat oh yeah she's flat she's down there is 120 and in dynamic
06:00gold 120 x100 just for a little bit more height so just a touch lighter than the
06:04main set the right down in here exactly okay because I mean the biggest thing is
06:08hitting it full it's good I mean you can you can get height on it but if you have
06:12to take a little off of it you know you still want to get on the air and have it
06:15be able to land soft for that opportunity but yeah this is the one that I that
06:20basically used at Augusta in 18 and that thing was in bag forever and I went away
06:27from it because the ball that changed balls and so the bulge wasn't coming in
06:30too flat so it wasn't holding any greens and now that I went back to I got a new
06:34ball that goes a little higher this is back in plagues it's just it's a go-to
06:38but if I'm in trouble I'll just hit that thing off the tee. Ludwig had this in the
06:41bag for quite some time as well he's only just come out of this how do we end up in
06:44the feral? My wife had it uh because Grindworks we Grindworks USA has run out
06:49of we own it and it runs out of our house so we had a couple of those hanging
06:53around and she popped that thing on it just just to do it and I loved it I mean
06:57I was like man we wish I had enough to do the whole bag. Come on we'll come to my
07:00garage we'll sort it out. Alright. Okay so we're into the main set now so you just
07:04alluded to Grindworks talk to me about how that started and why that operates you
07:08said from your house. Right yeah so it started back and what was I was
07:13four years ago roughly four years ago five and I was on the range at Bay Hill
07:19hitting some golf shots my coach was there and also I just couldn't stop
07:23hitting the ball left and I had no clue why so I was kind of having a moment with
07:28coach like what's going on he's filming he's like your swing looks great he's
07:31like let's go check the specs specs are correct and you know then we did a
07:36little test with the quad we put the stickers on the face it's like alright when
07:40you hit one I just want to know did you hit solid thin heel toe like just the
07:45strike and it seemed like every time I said I hit it solid the ball was out of
07:49the heel and every time I hit it I was like oh you know when I would hit it and
07:54there would be toe side I was like oh that's dead off the toes dead center club
07:58so a lot of forged irons and forged clubs in general because it's made out of one
08:01piece of metal the center of gravity is in the heel rather than the center well
08:05that's a problem we're trying to hit the ball in the center of the face so if
08:08you're trying to hit the ball in the center of the face and you do that but
08:12then the CG's in the toe every once in a while you can get that squirrelly left
08:15shot that reacts like a toe hit and so Justine contacted Nimi Kirinari from
08:22Japan he's in the Clubmaker Hall of Fame just found out who he was found out yeah
08:28and his information sent him an email just saying hey would you make my
08:32husband say it closed his name is Patrick Reed and he's like oh I'd love to and
08:36they'd heard of you had they yeah yeah but it was one of those that you know I'm
08:40sitting there thinking he's just gonna take one of the heads that they've
08:42already designed put it together and send it to me for me to test and now we
08:46started from a block of metal and so we designed the cavity backs in the blades
08:50took us 18 months for the cavity backs about two years for the blades and we
08:54was like all right we went down from the weight to the how the bounce is how the
08:58sole is what kind of grooves where the groove start the look and everything
09:04and you know I just kind of went to the irons that I loved in the past way I
09:08like to you know then I put a mold together from all right you know like
09:13the Nikes I liked how flat they were on the bottom but then I liked on the
09:16Calloway is when we would we would actually pre-wear that leading edge so
09:20there's a little bit more bounce on the edge so even though it sits flat like on
09:23the ground with that leading edge there it plays like there's a little bit more
09:26bounce if you go into it and the biggest thing there is because I mean one day
09:30you're playing on concrete and so you want you don't want the iron sitting way
09:33up and then you know if it gets soft and also you start going and you don't want
09:38that just to dig so that's why that pre-wear the worst feeling is to set up
09:42to something and feel like I can't get to the ground and so then you're just
09:45gonna lean on it you're gonna do something to try to get down to it rather
09:48than just make a normal golf swing and you know I mean with all the hard work
09:54they've done to get the center of gravity these things in the center and
09:56then also from pitching wedge and forearm they work up and down the face
09:59because a pitching wedge you're gonna you're gonna kind of go more down on to
10:02it compared to a forearm so the center of gravity it's not just only heel to toe
10:06but it's also north-south that's very important and so you know we've done
10:11absolutely amazing job they there's unbelievable and yeah the biggest thing
10:16for me was to take away that factor of okay if I make a swing and I hit one and the
10:20ball goes or I'm in left or right okay what was that well I know where the
10:25center of gravity is on these I know exactly how they are so whatever I do
10:29in my golf swing that's what's gonna the ball's gonna do it's not gonna be the
10:31club which is yeah takes ownership for you but it's reassuring right gives you
10:34the peace of mind okay that's really cool and they look great that the head
10:37profiles are lovely thank you quite long heel to toe to me but I think that's
10:41possibly because I play more upright and the flatter right yeah they're down
10:44there yeah they certainly are which is which is a lovely set up and you start
10:48you've got the cavity back in the four iron blades from five through to
10:51pitching wedge right with a bit a little bit of lead tape everywhere and I love
10:54this it's nice touch just have your initials oh yeah yes although since the
10:58ones that we made are the PR 101s and then the cavity backs will be the PR 202s
11:04and so just you know because they came out with other ones other irons because
11:08Grindworks makes other irons than just mine and so yeah I've been on that website
11:12don't worry I've seen that already okay now down into the wedges so I thought I was
11:16gonna see some artisan wedges yeah right so actually uh Mike's Mike's been
11:21working on a couple things for me to kind of test and get back there but you
11:25know I've been so busy recently it's just kind of hard to test anything rather
11:29than just keep all faithfuls in the bag right now cool so 50 degrees got a
11:32Cleveland RTX zip core 10 degrees of bounce a big love of lead tape on there to
11:37get swing weight and total weight right as we know done a bit of work on the
11:41leading edge there yes no that's just wear and tear okay yeah that's just the
11:46wear and tear of it cool and then we go into a 56 degree in SM9 which is bent to
11:5255 yeah uh bent to actually so that was old that was old stamp so it's actually
11:58bent to 57 so go I go 51 57 61 okay interesting because I was expecting again
12:04this is something I bang on about very few pros take a wedge and deloft it
12:07because it adds offset and obviously reduces that band so when I saw that yeah
12:11well I saw 56 and stamp 55 I thought I'd found an exception but obviously you're
12:15telling me I'm correct which I'm really pleased with and then into the wedge we've
12:18got SM10 I see the T grind so many players in this T grind it looks like you've
12:23done a bit of additional to it as well yeah we've took off even more bounce so
12:25this is next to nothing yeah there's very little bounce on it we straighten the
12:30leading edge just a hair but the biggest thing is with having less bounce it's
12:33also wider because of how we've done it so whether it's square or open it still
12:38plays to the same bounce because I draw my chips everyone else cuts their chips I
12:41draw them so I need that thing sitting flat and I want it to sit flat but not
12:47when I open it for it to have no bounce so when I open it we were able to work on
12:51where it's basically stays uniform all the way across on whatever face angle I
12:55presented that short stick again I was expecting to see something a little
12:59different I was expecting to see an odyssey yeah we were playing a Scotty
13:02Cameron circle see a timeless 2.5 we wore through the face oh really yeah so as a
13:07little indention in the middle I've had that for what since 13 14 so I've had it
13:12for over 10 years and couldn't find a replica or just fancy to change I was on
13:17the road in Germany and wanted a little bit of a change and kind of had to have a
13:21change that point because because Alice and this thing has been amazing and this
13:25is how you can tell you're a gear guy as well we've got sharpied on alignment
13:29yeah so you've added an alignment line yourself pure gear guy I've always had
13:33the top line and putter they had on the van didn't have a top line so they they
13:38were able to kind of draw one on there for me I was hoping that was going to be a
13:42you thing but no I told them I asked them to do it and they had the they had the
13:46thing to actually do it correctly because if I would have gone there who knows if it
13:49actually been a straight line yeah there is always that and what ball are you in
13:52Patrick so I'm in the new Pro V1X plus okay so it's the spinniest ball they make but for
13:58me I mean I like to hit a lot of partial shots and I mean the spin decay on the
14:03golf ball seems to I mean for me I feel like the tight list the spin falls off
14:07the golf ball a little quicker than the Calloways I used to use okay and because
14:11of that even though if I'm hitting a 8 iron and say spin at 8400 I mean yeah it's
14:16spinning a little too much maybe right off the face but losing its spin quicker so
14:20when it actually lands it lands correctly what did you refer to that as spin decay
14:23spin decay okay I've never actually heard that yeah so everyone sits there they you
14:27know they focus on what the spins doing right off the golf ball but it's but
14:30people don't focus on how much is the ball losing spin downfield which is where
14:35it matters right right and so you know I was able to really kind of dial in with
14:40the guys at Titleist to figure out what ball is best for me even though right off
14:43the ball the number might not say the right thing but when it's flying and how it how
14:48it's reacting on the green especially on the partial shots and even on the full
14:51wedges it's not spinning off the planet I mean it's it's a really good golf ball I
14:55mean it's been great into the wind it's been great downwind and I think that's
14:58the biggest thing is it's just not sitting there on a perfect flat you know
15:01calm day it's how is it and the nasty stuff that's what I want to see and the
15:05ball's been great and you know I can't I was glad to get into that one and we're
15:09looking forward the rest of the year with it yeah we got a little scoop on that
15:11last week at the open from some of the guys on the tour band so it's interesting to
15:14hear about I'm gonna let you go now because the rain is starting to come
15:16down a little bit one more thing have you got any go-to training aids or
15:19anything that you use all the time yeah so I use a glove under my right arm
15:22obviously and then I have a tiny stick I always use so actually I'll put that
15:28underneath the arm as well so then when I go back actually my arm will hit it so
15:32definitely tell me to stop because with a glove I mean you can still stay
15:35connected but your arms can lift and can kind of keep going so that's to stop your
15:39arms running too long because because when you get here once it hits it's like
15:42all right now it's time to go down and go forward makes perfect sense brilliant
15:45well that is a great interesting look in a proper gear guys bag really cool to see
15:49that thank you so much for your time staying out in the rain
15:51thank you Patrick Reid everyone
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