Coming off a year where you are first ever to take top earner for both tours. You lack a little distance compared to rest but your iron game is top notch at this point in your career (77% GIR in Euro Tour). And what do you do to start the new season??
YOU CHANGE IRONS
Not only change but go from pure Muscleback to a cavity back.
I saw Luke Donald at Abu Dahbi and did a double take. He was one of the few still gaming MB/blades with Mizuno 62’s for his one-for-the-books 2011 year. But he now is sporting the new techno-marketing speak Mizuno 59.
(have to admit, very sharp looking)
I Just don’t GET tour players. Mind blowing that he would change ANYTHING.
But one could look at this two ways. A) he was under pressure from the OEM to “advertise” their new line and stop playing a semi-discontinued model they don’t want to sell or B) Luke honestly felt during testing they are better than his current set and a “players cavity” (they say muscle on them but website eludes to more a cavity with Ti fill) more forgiveness is the way forward.
Donald plays a titleist ball, mizuno irons and wedges, odyssey butter and Taylor made driver and 3 wood. He’s also #1 in the world. you can be sure he doesn’t play anything he doesn’t want to…
Maybe he should play with a compass as well. He’s missing fairways in Abu Dahbi by so far he’s actually getting better lies in the desert. 6/14 fairways today, really impressive stuff for a world number one
I disagree… Those guys have contracts that dictate equipment to them. They don’t have as much say as you might think. He was probably told he had to switch or something… Which is obviously a bad idea. Depending on the contract, tour players today are even told what to wear … If mizuno is gonna pay him millions, then I’m sure they want control.
I had a Mizuno deal in 1999.
Had to carry the Mizuno bag and umbrealla and minimum of 3 iron to 9 iron…could use ANY wedges, any woods and any putter
Hat/ball/shoe/glove was with titleist
Things have altered over the years since then as most companies ie. Nike, Callaway, Taylor Made all started bringing out golf balls…so they now tie guys into the whole package…clothes too…so guys don’t have quite as many options to fit ‘other companies’ equipment in.
Mizuno have always been about irons…always wanted to win the iron count on PGA Tour stats…and knew their woods and wedges weren’t the greatest but their irons were…so they set up their contracts that way
Not at that point Styles as they were blades then…MP14. MP 29, MP33 were all clubs I used through Mizuno (33’s later on of course as they weren’t around in '99)
However PING were quite adamant on using the new stuff… TM pretty much the same…even though you as player probably had the final say but guys would throw a set in for a week or two and then alter back…wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this is what Donald does…play them, show them they weren’t as good as his old ones and then switch back…the companies could be quite persistent though in trying to make the newest model sound the best and talk the numbers at you to try prove it…as obviously they want to sell the newest model to Joe Public so the more they can get to play them the better.
Reminds me of the story of Payne Stewart and how his game turned to crap after he switched to Top Flite cavity backs as part of an equipment deal. Then he used Mizunos to win the 1999 US Open after he went off-contract.
More background here, including similar tales about Janzen and Pavin:
