Equipment Insider: Louis gives preview of upcoming releases

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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.

Louis Oosthuizen became the next generation of South African major championship winner by using some next-generation equipment.

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

Both the irons and wedges Oosthuizen used to win the 2010 Open Championship over the Old Course at St. Andrews are new PING models, scheduled to be announced next week and due in stores in September.

The irons were PING S56s, the latest in the company's better-player S line. Much of the focus in the S series has been on designing in features that help the club resist twisting at impact; likely that aspect of the irons helped Louis manage the sometimes frightening winds by the North Sea.

The S57, the current model, feature a cavity back with stabilizing bars and a tungsten toe weight, all in a slightly smaller head. The 56 has updated cavity features, including very visible stabilizer bars on either side of the identifying medallion. The steps on the bottom edge of the cavity are more complex than the simple step-down the S57 had, suggesting even more precise perimeter weighting.

Oosthuizen's new PING S56 irons (top) and Tour-S wedges helped him win at St. Andrews.

In My Bag: Louis Oosthuizen

Driver: PING Rapture V2 (9 degrees loft) Irons: PING S56 (3-9) Wedges: PING Tour-S Rustique (47, 54 and 60 degrees loft) Ball: PING Redwood Anser

Check the sole features, too: it's a progressive tail-off on the camber toward the trailing edge, and a softened corner to reduce some of the boxiness in the toe. All that should combine for crisp turf interaction. It all seemed to work for Oosthuizen, who worked with PING reps and got the S56s into his bag for the U.S. Open.

This isn't the only new PING iron ready to come out of the product pipeline. A forged model, the Anser, is also due in the fall; it will be the company's first forged iron.

But back to Oosthuizen. His wedges are also new. The PING Tour-S Rustiques have the same kind of teardrop shape as their predecessors, the Tour-W line. But the cavity on the S wedges is a little more crowded. Some stabilizing heft is back of the face; this would also help contribute to the solidity of the feel. The center of gravity will be way down in this club, owing to the significant weight down by the sole.

Not all of Oosthuizen's gear was in the coming attractions category. He drove the ball well all week with a PING Rapture V2 driver, using a relatively lofty one (for a tour player) at 9 degrees. The launch angle is high, but the spin rate off this model is still pretty low, PING says -- especially important in the wind, where you can't afford to allow the ball to balloon. One of the reasons for this club's stability is visible tungsten weights in the back of the head; tungsten's high density helps keep the center of gravity low and away from the face.

And finally, Oosthuizen's putter was a PING Redwood Anser. In accordance with a PING tradition started by company founder Karsten Solheim, two solid gold Redwood Ansers will be made. One will stay in a vault at PING's Phoenix headquarters, and the other will be presented to Louis.

TO BE CONTINUED: No one is quite sure what the future of Tiger Woods' putters will be. The world's No. 1 player benched his proven (13 major wins) Scotty Cameron model for the first three rounds of the Open in favor of a Nike Method 001 with a very similar head shape. When his putting didn't improve, the Method got sent back down to AAA and the Cameron made the lineup for the fourth round.

If only this were as easy to explain as platooning for left- and right-handed pitching. But there's more back story. Tiger says he likes the Cameron for tour-fast greens, but slow greens like those at the Old Course give him fits. He put the Method in because, as he says, it rolls the ball faster on slow greens. By that, we think he means that it gets the forward roll of the ball started earlier in the putt after the ball leaves the face. This could be due to the filling of the grooves in the face of the Nike; it's made of a ball-grabbing material that Nike calls polymetal. (See how the technology works in this story at AdamBarrGolf.com.)

But the Cameron, which has won more than $80 million for Woods, can't be a slouch in the true-roll department either -- not with such a demanding owner. So we'll have to wait and see, perhaps until the Bridgestone in early August, which putter earns the permanent job.