US PGA: Could unreleased golf club help PGA Tour star win first major (?!)
Max Homa has added an interesting club to his bag for the US PGA, but how could it improve his chances of victory at Valhalla?
Max Homa has a yet-to-be-released Titleist 2-wood prototype in his bag this week at the US PGA Championship, but will the new weapon help him break his major championship duck?
Homa, 33, is a six-time winner on the PGA Tour but has yet to win his first major championship. His best result came at The Masters this year, where he finished T3.
This week at Valhalla, though, he has a new weapon in the bag that could help him overcome a stacked field featuring red-hot players like Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.
Related: "Pretty obvious one" Max Homa reveals what must stop happening on PGA Tour
The new club in question is the aforementioned Titleist TSR 2-wood.
Homa first put the prototype club in his bag at Wells Fargo last week, and it helped him secure one of his best results of the season, a T8 finish.
Check out the Titleist 2-wood below.
The new prototype first appeared on Tour at the Players Championship in Cameron Young's bag and has since been adopted by several Titleist staff players, including Homa, Webb Simpson, and Justin Thomas.
Discussing the club with GolfWRX, Homa said:
“[The new 2-wood) helps me draw it a little bit better. I don’t draw the ball well, so left-to-right winds it’s quite helpful.”
So, how could this new addition help Homa this week?
Well, the likeable American currently ranks 106th on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, and 88th in Driving Accuracy.
However, with the addition of the 2-wood, Homa now has two options off the tee for different shot shapes.
He will undoubtedly rely heavily on his favoured Titleist TSR3 driver for hitting his stock cut, but now he has a secondary weapon he can utilise to hit draws.
Shot shaping is essential at the elite level, and now he will be able to move the ball both ways without a significant loss of distance.
Valhalla is set at 7,609-yards, which is long even by Tour standards, so being able to perform off the tee will be of paramount importance.
The 2-wood is by no means new; however, in the modern game, it has only made a resurgence in recent years.
TaylorMade's ever-popular BRNR mini driver has been a popular choice on Tour, with Tommy Fleetwood regularly relying on it.
We've also seen a number of other brands testing similar models, and we will be keeping our eyes peeled for when they make their first appearances on Tour, too.
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