Throughout the 2021-22 PGA TOUR season, GolfWRX.com has been hard at work on the Equipment Report, keeping PGATOUR.com readers informed on the latest equipment releases, player staff deals, “what’s in the bag?” (WITB) changes, custom TOUR designs, and the stories behind them all.
Over the next two weeks, we’ll be releasing the top-10 gear stories from the 2021-2022 Equipment Report, as selected by our committee of experts. We selected the top gear stories based on reader engagement, overall industry impact, and the always-important cool factor.
Enjoy the first five stories below from our top-10 list and tune in next week to see the remaining five stories.
Inside John Daly’s wild equipment setup
No one gets the people going quite like John Daly, and the ever-eccentric 56-year-old didn’t disappoint with his unique set of custom equipment at the 2022 PGA Championship.
In addition to bagging an unreleased PXG “TD” prototype driver that had just hit the USGA Conforming Clubs List, Daly showed up to Southern Hills Country Club with a set of TaylorMade P770 irons that were slathered in lead tape. While lead tape is a commonly used substance to manipulate weight for different feels and performance characteristics, Daly was using an uncommon amount.
Since his SuperStroke S-Tech Club Cord oversize grips weigh-in at 82 grams, which is about 30 grams heavier than a standard grip, Daly needed to offset the grip weight by adding about 30 grams of lead tape on the club heads. That made the clubs balanced, and it also made the club heads nearly unrecognizable, but in the coolest way possible.
Tiger Woods’ purported “Tiger Slam” irons hit the auction block
When Tiger Woods won the “Tiger Slam” (2000 U.S. Open, Open Championship, PGA Championship, and 2001 Masters) he did so with a custom set of Titleist 681-T irons (2-PW) and Titleist Vokey wedges (58 bent to 56 degrees, and a 60-degree). Between the “TIGER” stampings on the back of the wedges, and the dime-sized wear mark directly in the center of the face on the 8-iron, the clubs are easily identifiable and breathtakingly cool.
As the story goes, Houston businessman Todd Brock purchased the irons and wedges for $57,242 in 2010 at auction, and he kept them in a frame in his office since obtaining them.
Back in March of 2022, however, Brock made the clubs available to the public by putting them up for auction through Golden Age Auctions. The final selling price on April 9 was an eye-popping $5.15 million, confirmed by the auction platform on social media. As it turns out, that was quite a savvy $57K investment by Brock in 2010.
There was, however, a bit of controversy surrounding the authenticity of the items in question. Although Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, told Golf Digest that Woods has the authentic set of Tiger Slam irons in his house, Ryan Carey, the owner of Golden Age Auctions, says he spoke with “dozens of people intimately familiar with these clubs,” and that “we can say with 100% confidence that these clubs.