Joaquin Niemann's WITB

[Golfspy_CG2]

I found Niemann's bag for his LIV win interesting from this weekend. 

Nothing unsuaul up top with the LST Driver and Max 3 wood, and nothing unusual about the Blueprint irons.

But the middle part of the bag, read below about the G430 7 wood and G430 5 hybrid!    A 7 wood and Hybrid...He's one of us!! 

Also see that he has the new S159's in the bag, and I highly endorse that, I'll be posting some thoughts on these, today. 

[Shrek74]

Perhaps we're seeing more and more professionals take advantage of the technology in woods and hybrids as they become more consistent and workable compared to years ago.

I always wonder why so many play blades or MB's where the mishits are so punishing. I know why they use them, but it can be so difficult to find center even for pros. Each MM away from center reduces forgiveness, consistency, and distance. We are seeing more CB's out there now, which is where I'd think they'd want to be for the added forgiveness without losing the consistency they need.

[revkev]

With a 5 hybrid he’s only gaming through 6 iron - a top level pro is not going to need the forgiveness in those shorter irons - many of them play blended sets to 5 or 6 iron. 
 

Honestly his bag looks a lot like mine could other than the shaft flex/weight and 6 iron - I use a ping G410 5 hybrid as my 6 iron it fits perfectly with the players distance irons that I game. 
 

I will be anxiously anxiously awaiting those thoughts on the S159’s - they have my full attention and I’m sitting on a $200 Dick’s gift card.

[BobBC78]

When I looked at the WITB and noticed the G430 5H my immediate reaction was "I have one of those too"! Great WITB; thanks for posting it. 

[jbern]

That is a very interested WITB! I wonder what the gapping is between 3w, 7w, 5hy, and longest iron…  

[Mrbenkenobi]

On 3/5/2024 at 10:14 AM, revkev said:

With a 5 hybrid he’s only gaming through 6 iron - a top level pro is not going to need the forgiveness in those shorter irons - many of them play blended sets to 5 or 6 iron. 
 

Honestly his bag looks a lot like mine could other than the shaft flex/weight and 6 iron - I use a ping G410 5 hybrid as my 6 iron it fits perfectly with the players distance irons that I game. 
 

I will be anxiously anxiously awaiting those thoughts on the S159’s - they have my full attention and I’m sitting on a $200 Dick’s gift card.

He talks about the 5 hybrid on the ping podcast with shane bacon and marty jertson (highly recommend this pod).  He is naturally a low ball hitter so the numbers he was looking for weren't happening with his 4 iron. They talked him into the 5 hyrbid to replace it now he loves it.  Its not set up like a typical hybrid though as the shaft is 98 g and 39" iirc

 

On 3/5/2024 at 9:16 AM, Shrek74 said:

Perhaps we're seeing more and more professionals take advantage of the technology in woods and hybrids as they become more consistent and workable compared to years ago.

I always wonder why so many play blades or MB's where the mishits are so punishing. I know why they use them, but it can be so difficult to find center even for pros. Each MM away from center reduces forgiveness, consistency, and distance. We are seeing more CB's out there now, which is where I'd think they'd want to be for the added forgiveness without losing the consistency they need.

In my experience: If your miss is slightly out of the heel mb's can be every bit or even slightly more forging than a cb.  I played blades for 25 years and every time I tested irons there would be almost no difference between the blade version and the cb version of an iron.  Once I got into more game improvement type or players distance type irons my dispersion actually got wider both east to west and north to south.  

My .02: Honestly I think the reason more players use cb's now is because they not only want a tad bit more forgiveness but they simply grew up playing them.  The best iron players still overwhelmingly use blades or blade like minimal cb types.  Clubs like the callaway TCB are so marginally more forgiving than the mb that its really more mental than physical. Some robot tests have even concluded that blades are more consistent off the slight heel miss than any other iron and its most likely due to having more mass located towards the hosel iirc (in fact some have a sweet spot that looks like an elongated egg shaded towards the heel). There is also a level of focus and accountability that goes into hitting a blade when you know you need to strike it well, you adapt to miss hit the ball less.  Many competitive golfers have found they got lazy with their ball striking over time playing more forgiving clubs.  That being said i've given up on blades myself as i'm getting old and don't strike the ball as consistently as I once did. :)