Equipment Insider: Callaways fill the bag of U.S. Open champ

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Each week in the Equipment Insider, Adam Barr -- PGATOUR.COM's equipment columnist -- will provide breaking news, notes and analysis focused on PGA TOUR players. Adam will also appear in video segments for PGATOUR.COM.

Technology marches on, and usually TOUR players keep step. But occasionally you'll see a player who is so happy with what he has that he sees no point in upsetting the great golf feng shui of his bag. If one is driving the ball well, who is he to upset the balance of the universe?

Check out more of Adam Barr's equipment coverage at AdamBarrGolfGearGuide.com.

That can make manufacturers nervous. At least until someone wins a major with a club that is a couple innovation cycles old.

That's what happened at the U.S. Open with Graeme McDowell, who found two-thirds of his fairways at Pebble Beach with a Callaway FT-3 driver. The FT-3, which is now listed in the classic clubs section of Callaway's website, is hardly obsolete. Indeed, it's still popular with pros who are happy with the way they're pounding the ball and elevating trophies.

But golf equipment innovation being what it is, things move fast. The FT-3 was a step toward the FT Tour and FT-9, the drivers Phil Mickelson and Ernie Els have used to win this year, and almost won with at Pebble (At the Open, both used FT-9s).

As the turn of the last century approached, Callaway had to make a choice that would lock in its driver philosophy for years to come. All titanium, adjustable constructions were popular with other companies and doing very well in the market. But Callaway decided to pursue a fusion strategy and went at it full bore-through, as it were. The result has been a lot of tournament and marketplace success.

• Whether a driver is all metal, or a fusion of metal and lighter carbon fiber sections, the aim is the same: weight has to be freed up to be moved to where it can add oomph to the swing and correct minuscule errors in face-squaring that can have macro-bad trajectory results. Carbon fiber is so light and strong that it takes up much less of the total available gram weight of the club head than titanium would. The result is extra grams of titanium that can be put in the face, the heel, the toe -- wherever it's needed to help the Graemes of the world, and the rest of us.

A shorter blade and narrow sole likely helped McDowell craft key shots at Pebble.

• McDowell's irons and wedges were Callaway X-Forged, about what you'd expect from someone who grew up in Northern Ireland and had to keep messing with ball position and the like to work with the wind. Tools with a little player-level shotmaking had to come in handy when McDowell was a kid; likely the X-Forged's shorter blade length and narrow sole made him feel right at home.

• The shaft choice for the irons and wedges is also worth a look: True Temper's Project X Flighted shafts were in McDowell's surgical tools. They provide the playable feel so many TOUR players have gone for with Project X, but the Flighted model adds exaggerated kick points: lower in the long irons to get the ball up, and higher in the shorts to provide crucial control, according to True Temper engineers.

• As for Els, disappointment dogged him again at a major. But it wasn't because of lack of preparation. Knowing the rough conditions he would face in Pebble's U.S. Open setup, Ernie had new wedges built before the championship. He chose Callaway Vintage X-Forged, then let the technicians do their heavy-rough tweaking: one wedge had 54 degrees of loft and a whopping 14 degrees of bounce to shove grass out of the way. The other wedge was a 56-degree bent three degrees weaker to 59, also with 14 degrees of bounce. And significantly, Ernie had the soles ground so that instead of the usual constant-radius bounce across the sole, the bounce was moved mostly to the rear of the sole. Obviously, the two-time U.S. Open champ anticipated some major botanical obstruction.