- 9 minutes 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!
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
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?
00:08Perfect, yes sir. So we'll just start from the top, in fact no we won't start
00:11from the top, we'll start with an overview. I look at your golf bag and I
00:14see a bit of an equipment geek, is that fair? Oh yeah for sure. There's lead tape,
00:18there's different shafts, there's old clubs, there's new clubs, there's unknown
00:22clubs, there'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
00:35because 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, you know there's
00:54little things you can do to change it just to dial it in quickly, especially how
00:57much 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, we've
01:04got a lot of stuff here with the lead tape on, is that just you, are you doing that
01:07with a swing weight scale, are you doing that just to your feel? Mainly a swing
01:11weight, for me I mean my lies and lofts have always been the same, my lengths have
01:16always stayed the same and you know so I weight everything out before I put
01:21anything together to make sure that the overall weight's right because you can
01:25have the same swing weight but if the overall weight is that different because of the
01:28different materials you're using because the tolerances in it, it's going to feel
01:31different to me and so for me I make sure that I get the overall weight and swing
01:35weight correct and so sometimes just a little lead tape, sometimes it's you know
01:40have to start from fresh and go you know to square one but yeah lead tape is a
01:45good friend because for me I mean this driver luckily I don't have to have lead
01:49tape on it or even the three wood but there's times that you know the head
01:53becomes too light and I prefer to put lead tape then put hot melt in it because I
01:58know exactly where that weight is. The 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
02:07new driver 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 but I
02:22feel like when I miss it this one it still has a little bit more speed in it
02:25and also stays a little bit straighter so for me you know it sits really nicely
02:30and it gives me that confidence it feels to me it feels like it sits a little
02:33flatter and since my irons are really flat as it is you know I need something that
02:37looks that way because if I look down it looks like the toes pointing at me too
02:41much and too upright and I'll start hanging on to it start leaning them out to
02:43the right. So you kind of visual guy you like to see that toe going away from you all the
02:47time. I do. Because you don't want to see left. No. Okay cool and do you know the specs on
02:51this it feels short to me. It is it's a forty four and a half finished so I mean
02:55I've always kind of been a guy that goes a little shorter I feel like I swing
02:59better when it's short I feel like I swing a little bit freer when it's at
03:02that length and you know I'm not one of these guys I hit just one shot like I'll
03:06tee one down hit the flat flat cut you know take some off I'll hit hit it full
03:10send it up and it draws so I like to work the golf ball and and when I get long
03:14shafts it just seems like it's a one-dimensional golf shot for me and you
03:18know I really don't want that. Okay interesting and shaft wise we're in the
03:21the new accuracy Z here. How did you end up here? I ended up there actually in
03:25Germany this year because when they built this driver they I was always in my 125
03:31Rogue. Yes. An ancient dinosaur that no one can make it anymore. Okay. And so they
03:37haven't made that forever and because of that we had no abilities to get our
03:42hands on any more of those I think I have them all at my house and so they said that
03:47this shaft through the testing and everything and through that is really
03:51similar kind of on kick point how it is if anything this is a little stiffer in
03:55the butt part of the club up near the grip and so they say if I want to when you
04:00start going at it it should be a little bit more stable and so you know we went
04:03with it and you know it's been great it's been great since it's been in the
04:06bag ever since when I won at Augusta in 18 that driver the old G400 ping the one
04:12right before this before Germany was still a G400 ping that's trust me it's my
04:17backup it's in the room but it's just one of those that when you get something
04:23whether it's old technology or new technology if you're really comfortable
04:26with it it seems like you get freer you you seem to get a little bit more speed
04:32and it was I mean I wasn't finding anything that was going much farther
04:35than my 400 and so because of that it was like all right don't change it until I
04:39got this this thing has been amazing the way it feels the way how easy it feels to
04:44hit and you know it's just been one of those that I had to put into play cool
04:48and GT2 in the fairway woods right 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 my
05:11normal three woods you know 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
05:32those shots that I need rather than another one of those these three woods these
05:36days are so hot that if you get low lofted and you come out flat I mean it's a
05:40basically one-dimensional okay down into the irons now we're going old and a
05:43bit cool here so we've got a very old Titleist TMB right 716 two iron a little
05:48custom yeah 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 in the 120 and in
05:59dynamic gold 120 x100 just for a little bit more height so just a touch lighter
06:04than the main set that we have down in here exactly okay because I mean the biggest
06:07thing is hitting it full it's good I mean you can you can get height on it but if
06:12you have to take a little off of it you know you still want to get the ball in
06:14the air and have it be able to land soft for that opportunity but yeah this is the
06:18one that I that basically used at Augusta in 18 and that thing wasn't back
06:25forever and I went away from it because the ball that changed balls and so the
06:29bulge wasn't coming in too flat so it wasn't holding any greens and now that I
06:32went back to I got a new ball that goes a little higher this is back in place it's
06:37just it's a go-to if I'm in trouble I'll just hit that thing off the tee
06:40Ludwig had this in the bag for quite some time as well he's only just come
06:43out of this how do we end up in the feral uh my wife had it uh because
06:47Grindworks we Grindworks USA has run out of we own it it runs out of our house so
06:52we had a couple of those hanging around and she popped that thing on it just
06:55just to do it and I loved it I mean I was like man we wish I had enough to
06:59do
06:59the whole bag come on we'll come to my garage we'll sort it out all right okay so we're
07:02into the main set now so you just alluded to Grindworks talk to me about how that
07:06started and why that operates you said from your house right yeah so it started
07:09back and what was that it was four years ago roughly four years ago five and I was
07:18on the range at Bay Hill hitting some golf shots my coach was there and also I
07:22just couldn't stop hitting the ball left and I had no clue why so I was kind of
07:28having a moment with coach like what's going on he's filming it he's like your
07:30swing looks great he's like let's go check the specs specs are correct and you
07:34know then we did a little test with the quad we put the stickers on the face I
07:39was like alright when you hit one I just want to know did you hit solid thin heel
07:44toe like just the strike and it seemed like every time I said I hit it solid the
07:49ball was out of the heel and every time I hit it I was like oh you know when I
07:54would hit it and it would be toe side I was like oh that's dead off the toes dead
07:57center club so a lot of forged irons and forged clubs in general because it's made
08:01out of one piece of metal the center of gravity is in the heel rather than the
08:04center well that's a problem we're trying to hit the ball in the center of the
08:08face so if you're trying to hit the ball in the center of the face and you do
08:12that but then the CG's in the toe every once while you can get that squirrely
08:15left shot that reacts like a toe hit and so Justine contacted Nimi Kirinari from
08:23Japan he's in the Clubmaker Hall of Fame just found out who he was found out and his
08:29information sent him an email just saying hey would you make my husband say it
08:33closed his name is Patrick Reed and he's like oh I'd love to and they'd heard of
08:37you had that yeah yeah but it was one of those that you know I'm sitting there
08:41thinking he's just gonna take one of the heads that they've already designed put
08:43it together and send it to me for me to test and now we started from a block of
08:48metal and so we designed the cavity backs in the blades took us 18 months for the
08:51cavity backs about two years for the blades and we was like all right we went down
08:55from the weight to the how the balance is how the sole is what kind of grooves
09:00where the grooves start the look and everything and you know I just kind of
09:06went to the irons that I loved in the past way I like to you know then I put a
09:10mold together from you know like the Nikes I liked how flat they were on the
09:15bottom but then I liked on the Calloway is when we would we would actually
09:18pre-wear that leading edge so there's a little bit more bounce on the edge so
09:21even though it sits flat like on the ground with that leading edge there it
09:25plays like there's a little bit more bounce if you go into it and the biggest
09:28thing there is because I mean one day you're playing on concrete and so you
09:32want you don't want the iron sitting way up and then you know if it gets soft and
09:37also you start going and you don't want that just to dig so that's why that
09:39pre-wear the worst feeling is to set up to something and feel like I can't get to
09:44the ground and so then you're just gonna lean on it you're gonna do something to
09:47try to get down to it rather than just make a normal golf swing and you know I mean
09:52with all the hard work that they've done to get the center of gravity these
09:55things in the center and then also from pitching wedge and forearm they work up
09:58and down the face because a pitching wedge you're gonna you're gonna kind of go
10:02more down onto it compared to a forearm so the center of gravity is not just
10:05only heel to toe but it's also north-south that's very important and so
10:10yeah we've done absolutely amazing job they there's unbelievable and yeah the
10:15biggest thing for me was to take away that factor of okay if I make a swing and I
10:20hit one and the ball goes for him and left or right okay what was that well I
10:24know where the center of gravity is on these I know exactly how they are so
10:28whatever I do in my golf swing that's what's gonna the ball's gonna do it's
10:31not gonna be the club which is yeah takes ownership for you but it's
10:34reassuring right gives you the peace of mind okay that's really cool and they
10:36look great that the head profiles are lovely thank you quite long heel to toe to
10:40me but I think that's possibly because I play more upright in the flatter right yeah
10:43they're down there 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 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 no 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
12:22you've done a bit of additional to it as well yeah we've took off even more
12:25bounce so this is next to nothing yeah there's very little bounce on it we
12:29strengthen the leading edge just a hair but the biggest thing is with having
12:32less bounce it's also wider because of how we've done it so whether it's square
12:37open it still plays to the same bounce because I draw my chips everyone else
12:40cuts their chips I draw them so I need that thing sitting flat and I want it to
12:46sit flat but not when I open it for it to have no bounce so when I open it we
12:50were able to work on where it's basically stays uniform all the way across on
12:54whatever facing like I presented that short stick again I was expecting to see
12:58something a little different I was expecting to see an odyssey yeah we're
13:01playing a Scotty Cameron circle see timeless 2.5 through the face oh really
13:05yeah so as a little indention in the middle I've had that for what since 13 14 so
13:12I've had it for over 10 years and couldn't find a replica or just fancy to
13:15change I was on the road in Germany and wanted a little bit of a change and kind
13:20of had to have a change that point because I think this thing has been
13:24amazing and this is how you can tell you're a gear guy as well we've got sharpie
13:28on alignment yeah so you've added an alignment line yourself pure gear guy
13:32I've always had the top line and putter they had on the van didn't have a top
13:36line so they they were able to kind of draw one on there for me I'm hoping that
13:41was going to be a you thing but no I told them I asked them to do it and they
13:45had the they had the thing to actually do it correctly because if I would have
13:48gone there who knows it would actually be in a straight line yeah there is
13:50always that and what ball are you in Patrick so I'm in the new Pro V1 X Plus
13:55okay so it's the spinnyest ball they make but for me I mean I like to hit a
13:59lot of partial shots and I mean the spin decay on the golf ball seems to for me I
14:05feel like the tight list the spin falls off the golf ball a little quicker than
14:09the Calloway's I used to use okay and because of that even though if I'm hitting
14:13a 8 iron and say spin at 8400 I mean yeah it's spinning a little too much maybe
14:17right off the face but it's losing its spin quicker so when it actually lands it
14:21lands correctly what did you refer to that as spin decay spin decay okay I've never
14:25actually heard that yeah so everyone sits there they you know they focus on what
14:28the spins doing right off the golf ball but it's but people don't focus on how
14:31much is the ball losing spin downfield which is where it matters right right and
14:36so you know I was able to really kind of dial in with the guys at Titleist to
14:41figure out what ball is best for me even though right off the ball the number
14:43might not say the right thing but when it's flying and how it how it's reacting on
14:49the green especially on the partial shots and even on the full wedges it's
14:51not spinning off the planet I mean it's it's a really good golf ball I mean it's
14:55been great into the wind it's been great downwind and I think that's the biggest
14:58thing is it's just not sitting there on a perfect flat you know calm day it's how
15:02is it and the nasty stuff that's what I want to see and the ball's been great and
15:06you know I can't I was glad to get into that one and we're looking forward to
15:09the rest of the year with it yeah we got a little scoop on that last week at the
15:12open from some of the guys on the tour band so it's interesting to hear about I'm
15:14gonna let you go now because the rain is starting to come down a little bit one more thing have
15:17you got any go-to training
15:19or anything 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
15:39your arms running too long because when you get here once it hits it's like all
15:42right now it's time to go down and go forward makes perfect sense brilliant well
15:45that is a great interesting look in a proper gear guys bag really cool to see
15:49that thank you so much for your time out in the rain
15:51thank you Patrick Reid everyone
Comments