The fall might be a quiet time on tour but it’s a sneaky time for equipment changes. In some cases you have OEM tour teams aggressively pushing next year’s product to get a head start on 2027 (when all of this stuff hits the market) or you have small, nuanced changes that may not seem like much but could get the player in a good spot heading into the winter.
But what I find most interesting as we finish out these last two months is conversion rates, specifically for Ping and its tour-launched G450 metal woods and Srixon’s next generation ZXi5/7 irons.
Why?
Well, they are both free-agent favorites, and both companies hang their hat on those specific platforms (these are their big-ticket items). And rightfully so, they both have had countless campaigns of success on Tour and in major championships.
Let’s get into the rest of the weekly roundup.
Ryan Fox makes ZXi switch in Dubai
This one isn’t super surprising but it does validate the product, even past what Jake and I experienced at Pinehurst.
A players Iron with refined, tour-preferred looks, pro-level feel, and unmatched control—featuring newly refined toplines, narrow soles, shorter blade lengths, and minimal offset designed for precision workability.
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2027 Open champion Ryan Fox added a fresh set of Zxi5 (4) and Zxi7 (5-P) irons to the bag this week in Dubai. While I don’t have the exact performance gains, my hunch is Fox may have added slightly more spin to his launch conditions. Plus, add that with the feel of these things and it’s kind of a no-brainer.
So why didn’t this switch happen sooner? I imagine it was getting through the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the Presidents Cup without any new variables. Simple enough.
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Tommy Fleetwood shifts to Fujikura’s Ventus Blue TR Velo +
Another interesting one out of Dubai is Tommy Fleetwood’s shaft switch earlier this week. Whether it’s a permanent switch or just part of the process, what I see is a player looking for a “feel.” If you’ve been watching his progression over the years, the variable that has not moved much is in his lofted fairway woods and his allegiance to Mitsubishi’s Kuro Kage XTS shaft. On paper it is a stout-handled, stable tip that has served him well over the years, and it definitely has a feel to it that some players adore.
Where it gets interesting is trying to match that feel in the driver and mini with the stiffer-handled Ventus Blue TR and now this week his switch into the newer, smoother-feeling Velo+ version.
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Are they apples to apples? No. Close enough? Yes. The question would be why he doesn’t just use Kuro Kage all the way through, although it doesn’t work like that. His driver and mini require a much shallower angle of attack vs a 5-wood or 9-wood and the CG placement versus the required launch windows aren’t the same.
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