Recent equipment changes helped Wolff 'get his swagger back' at 3M Open
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BLAINE, MN - JULY 07: Matthew Wolff walks off the fourth green during the final round of the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities on July 7, 2019 in Blaine, Minnesota. (Photo by Ben Jared/PGA TOUR via Getty Images)
After a wildly successful 2019 Spring season, which was capped off by an NCAA individual championship victory, Matthew Wolff changed both his driver and 3-wood ahead of his professional debut at the 2019 Travelers Championship. The changes proved ineffective, with Wolff finishing T80 and missing the cut in his first two professional starts. After returning to his familiar setups going into the 3M Open, however, Wolff “got his swagger back,” according to Ryan Ressa, Manager of Product Development at TaylorMade who’s worked with Wolff since 2013.
Before turning pro, Wolff used a TaylorMade M5 driver head (9 degrees) equipped with a Graphite Design Tour AD-TP 7TX driver shaft, and a TaylorMade M5 (15 degrees) 3-wood with a Graphite Design Tour AD-BB 8X shaft. At the Travelers Championship, however, Wolff switched to a TaylorMade M6 8-degree head with the same shaft as before, and he switched into a TaylorMade M6 fairway wood (15 degrees) with a new Project X HZRDUS Smoke shaft.
While Wolff was able to knock down spin with the M6 driver, and he saw greater forgiveness from the club’s design versus the M5, he was unable to hit the low-spinning, left-to-right cut shot that he likes to hit, according to Ressa. So Wolff returned to the M5 driver design, except this time he used an 8-degree head with the adjustable sole weights farther forward to reduce spin and create more of a fade bias. The result was that Wolff was better able to hit a “traditional flat cut” that he’s used to.
As for the 3-wood, Wolff’s switch back to the TaylorMade M5 head and Tour AD-BB shaft came with a slight weight adjustment, as well. Wolff shifted the sliding sole weight more toe-ward to influence a left-to-right shot. According to Ressa, Wolff also likes the more compact shape of the M5 head compared to the M6 head.
Wolff also switched into a new Project X HZRDUS Black 105 6.5-flex shaft in his TaylorMade P-760 driving iron. While he didn’t use it much last week, he says that it produces a bit more spin and height compared to his previous steel shaft, giving him more control and stopping power.
By getting back to what’s familiar, and making the proper adjustments for his game and preferences, the 20-year-old Wolff was able to win the 3M Open in just his third PGA TOUR event as a professional.