Typically, the FedEx Cup Playoffs mark the start of “slow season” for equipment changes on the PGA Tour. This late in the season, players are already dialed into their gear, focusing on the FedEx Cup prize, and awaiting the off-season to conduct more serious gear testing to make any major changes.

That’s not exactly what we saw this week at the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis, though. Big names such as Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth all made changes to their setup this week.

We also got a look at the awesome custom clubs that Penny Hardaway – a former NBA superstar and current head coach for the University of Memphis Tigers men’s basketball team – used during the Wednesday pro-am.

Check out all the gear news you missed from Memphis in this week’s Tour Report below!

Big name WITBs, and their recent changes

With the top 125 players in the FedEx Cup standings collected in Memphis, it was time to dive back into the WITB setups for some of the bigger names on Tour to see if anything has changed. This week, GolfWRX photographer Greg Moore captured WITB photos for Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Cam Smith, Cameron Young, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy, plus we caught up with Jordan Spieth.

We noticed a few changes.

McIlroy, who’s been changing up his 3-wood head quite often throughout the year, changed up his 3-wood shaft this time. We spotted him using a Mitsubishi Kai’li White 80 TX in his TaylorMade SIM2 15-degree fairway wood for a slight adjustment in spin characteristics.

He’s also using a new 58-degree TaylorMade Milled Grind 3 Raw wedge, made with a standard bounce of 11 degrees, except it was bent by one degree to slightly increase the bounce.

Justin Thomas, who continued using his previous TSi3 driver model through the 2022 Open Championship, made the switch into a new Titleist TSR3 driver, equipped with a Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX in the D1 hosel setting, this week in Memphis. PGATOUR.com has the full story on the switch, but here’s what JT had to say about the new driver:

“The biggest difference is the spin,” Thomas said after his first-round 67. “When I heel it, it doesn’t spin crazy high and when I toe it, it’s somehow spinning a little more. It’s unbelievable in terms of misses…I like it being a little bit open (the D1 setting delofts the driver by 0.75 degrees and opens the face). I don’t like when I can’t see a lot of face because then I feel like I have to get it up in the air and then I start getting underneath it and that gets the two-way miss going. I feel like when I’m driving it my best, although I like to work it both ways, I feel like I aim at something and rip it and it goes pretty straight and falls right. Kind of letting the openness in the club let it fade a little bit.”

Jordan Spieth played in the 2022 Travelers Championship using a TSR3 driver, but has since switched back into his previous TSi3 gamer. At the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship, however, Spieth switched out his longtime TS2 3-wood for a new TSR3 15-degree fairway (D1 setting), equipped with a Mitsubishi Tensei AV Blue 75 TX shaft.

For more WITB photos from the forums, click here

Playoffs?!

Playoffs? You talkin’ bout playoffs?!

Jim Mora, former head coach for the Indianapolis Colts NFL football team, still has one of the most legendary press conferences ever, as you can see in the clip above.

Odyssey, a putter manufacturer that’s known to make custom headcovers for various PGA Tour events throughout the season, made a Jim Mora-inspired custom cover ahead of the first FedEx Cup playoff event this year.

Mora is to the word “playoffs,” as Allen Iverson is to the word “practice.” A great choice for a custom design from Odyssey this week.

See more photos of the playoff headcovers here

The backstory to one of the coolest wedges on the PGA Tour

Funny enough, one of the coolest wedges on Tour doesn’t actually belong to a PGA Tour player – at least, not anymore.

 

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Mike Thomas, father and coach of Justin Thomas, carries around one of his son’s Vokey SM6 wedges every week to use as a walking stick. We’ve written about the wedge before here on GolfWRX, but this week, we collaborated with PGATOUR.com to tell the full story on video, with input from both Mike and Justin. In my somewhat-biased opinion, the video above is well worth a watch if you love custom golf equipment.

Penny Hardaway with a bag full of 1-of-1 custom clubs

Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, a former NBA superstar and current head coach for the Memphis Tigers men’s college basketball team, played in the Wednesday Pro-Am at TPC Southwind. Mr. 1 Cent showed up with a bag full of mind-blowing 1-of-1 Sub 70 equipment, which he discusses in the video here. The clubs are lasered with the Tigers team logo and Penny’s personal logo, and come with Tigers blue-and-white paintfills (custom work done by @wedge_fx on Instagram).

We also shot photos of Penny’s full WITB; check out some of the highlights below, including his custom staff bag with a shoutout to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics where he helped Team USA win a Gold medal:

New Scotty Cameron, Odyssey and Ping putters 

Apparently, it was a hot week for fresh putters down in Memphis. Scotty Cameron (T-12 proto and Masterful+/Timeless+) , Odyssey Toulon and Ping all unveiled new putters, and we were there to take in-hand photos. Check out a selection of photos below, or click the links above to see more.

New spikes spotted

Lastly, we spotted Ryan Palmer wearing some custom white Jordan shoes equipped with new Soft Spike Tour Flex Pro spikes in their soles. With Penny Hardaway getting a mention in this week’s Tour Report, I found it all-too-fitting to end off the week with a note about sneakers; I wonder what Lil Penny would have to say about them?

And with that, we say goodbye to Memphis, and we’ll see you next week at the 2022 BMW Championship in Wilmington, Delaware.

See all of our photos from the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship here