Hi Team Titleist,
Tourcaddie BirdieBarty is back on tour, bringing you a closer look what's inside the tour.
Most of you know me from the European Tour, caddying for the Europe's greatest golfers.
This year I've moved to the Challenge Tour where I will be caddying for Christopher Sahlstrom (Titleist staff player).
In the "on tour" section there is many insides of the PGA & European Tour. So I hope you enjoy me writing weekly posts of inside the tour with BirdieBarty.
The B-NL Challenge Trophy was played at the famous course: The Dutch.
By far the most beautiful course in the Netherlands. With over 150 players in the field, Titleist was by far the leading brand in the field.
Upon arrival all players had to do an Antigen test to get inside the bubble. Chris & I were "negative" and started our preparation. When I arrived on the range I noticed many many Titleist carry (stand) bags. Even though it's the Challenge Tour I was expecting a lot more tour bags out there. I asked couple players why they prefer the stand bags instead of a tour bag. The main reason is not many players have a regular caddie out there and prefer to carry the bag their selves. Also for travel reasons. As the Challenge Tour isn't as big price fund as the European Tour players will have to safe money where they can. So also on travel costs.
Most players are having the "Players 4" & "Players 4+". While I was expecting the hybrid/Players14 & the Premium stand (staff) bag I was surprised to see the use of the Players 4 & 4+. (Which is the smaller version and also NOT waterproof compared to the StaDry versions.
Most of the players have the TSI3 in the bag, setting between A1 & D1/2. The most common shaft out there is the Fujikura NV shafts (black). My player Chris has the TSI3 in driver & fairway wood. During our practice round on monday & tuesday my player really was hitting crazy shots. From hook to slices. First we thought it was the swing and we were hit by Murphy's Law.. but then I (caddie) noticed a strange sound when hitting the driver. When I looked closer to the head the driver head was cracked. There was a very large crack in the center of the clubface. So wednesday.. with only a few hours left what do you do? As our round 1 tee-off was at 07:40 in the morning.
I phoned the Titleist Netherlands team to see if they had a TSI3 head left in the right degrees. Lucky the Helmond team did an amazing job they had one in the National Fitting Center. Immediately I jumped in the car and started driving to the National team. It was the 3 cracked driver this year for the TSI series. After a 3 hour drive I returned back with the new head and my player was hitting super shots again. Apparently it seems the tour issue driver heads are having a different material / setup compared to the retail ones. So the faces can have more impact power compared to the retail one.
The most played iron was the Titleist T100 series. (the older model) & the SM8 series as wedges. Chris is having a really nice putter in the bag this week, the Scotty Cameron Select Squareback. It was custom painted for him. See the images below.
What perhaps interesting to share is that there is no Titleist tour truck on the Challenge Tour.
All the Challenge Tour players (Titleist staff) get like a starter package in the begin of the season & end of the season. This contains usually around 36-38 dozen of Pro V1's, new set of wedges and 1 set of irons a year. The fairway woods get shipped separately. For those who have the Footjoy contract, the players usually get around 2-3 pair of shoes each year. So this is so much different compared to the Titleist players on the European Tour. Where they can go in the Tour truck and basically get everything they needed. Which is usually around 4-6 pairs of gloves, 2 dozens of Pro V1s, towel, 3-4 caps each week and about 1-2 Footjoy shoes EACH month. So for my as caddie I have to buy my own Titleist caps in the local pro shop.
As we hitting closer to the winter time, I'm in desperate need also for a Footjoy rainjacket for the caddie season on tour. So calling out to Titleist, if you have any XXL left.. I'm the caddie you need :D.
We made the cut this week but the weekend play was not what we where hoping for.
We had to return the head back to the National Fitting center in The Netherlands.
Calling a big Thank You to the Helmond team for helping us out this week ! I hope to tour department in St. Ives have reached our email about the head and we can get one in the Belfry this upcoming week. So my TeamTitleist readers if you have any questions, regarding equipment on tour, what players are using, or any Tour Only gear please feel free to use the comments section below.
Regards,
BirdieBarty