We take a look inside the bag of 2018 Masters champion and now LIV golfer Patrick Reed! The American was playing in the LIV Golf UK event at JCB Golf & Country Club and Joe Ferguson was able to speak to Patrick about all the clubs in his bag, including the interesting story behind his unique Grindworks irons!
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00:00But we are here at Live Golf UK at the JCB Golf and Country Club and I've got
00:05with me Patrick Reid and we're gonna do a quick what's in the bag aren't we?
00:07Perfect, yes sir. So we'll just start from the top, in fact no we won't start
00:11from the top, we'll start with an overview. I look at your golf bag and I
00:14see a bit of an equipment geek, is that fair? Oh yeah, for sure. There's lead
00:17tape, there's different shafts, there's old clubs, there's new clubs, there's
00:22unknown clubs, there's all sorts going on here to get stuck into. Have you always
00:25been an equipment geek? I have, it's kind of one of those things I feel like
00:29there's not one single company that makes the 14 perfect clubs for every
00:33player and because of that when something comes out I mean there's
00:38tolerances of everything, how everything's made, how everything feels and you know
00:42rather than sitting there and trying to always find the perfect one and go
00:47through say a million of one, I mean a little bit of lead tape here, a different
00:51shaft change there, length and you know there's little things you can do to
00:55change it just to dial it in quickly, especially how much we're on the road.
00:58Correct, how does that process look for you then? So I'm looking at your pitching wedge, your 50,
01:03everything, we've got a lot of stuff here with lead tape on, is that just you?
01:07Are you doing that with a swing weight scale? Are you doing that just to your feel?
01:10Mainly a swing weight. For me, I mean my lies and lofts have always been the same,
01:15my lengths have always stayed the same and you know so I weight everything out
01:20before I put anything together to make sure that the overall weight's right
01:24because you can have the same swing weight but if the overall weight is that
01:27different because of the different materials you're using because the
01:29tolerances in it, it's gonna feel different to me and so for me I make sure
01:33that I get the overall weight and swing weight correct and so sometimes just a
01:37little lead tape, sometimes it's you know have to start from fresh and go you know
01:42to square one but yeah lead tape is a good friend because for me I mean this driver
01:48luckily I don't have to have lead tape on it or even the 3-wood but there's times
01:51that you know the head becomes too light and I prefer to put lead tape then put
01:57hot melt in it because I know exactly where that weight is. The Titleist GT3
02:01driver, new out, talk to me about this. It's so good, you know they've done a lot of
02:05amazing work Titleist has on their new driver and even their new 3-wood and for
02:11me all the clubs you know all the companies if you hit the ball dead center
02:16it's gonna be it's gonna be good yeah if you have the respect everything it's
02:20gonna fly how you want but I feel like when I miss it this one it still has a
02:24little bit more speed in it and also stays a little bit straighter so for me
02:28you know it sits really nicely and it gives me that confidence it feels to me
02:32it feels like it sits a little flatter and since my irons are really flat as it
02:35is you know I need something that looks that way because if I look down it
02:39looks like the toes pointing at me too much and too upright and I'll start
02:42hanging on to it start leading them out to the right. So you kind of visual guy you like to see
02:45that toe going away from you all the time you don't want to see left no okay
02:49cool and you know the specs on this it feels short to me it is it's a 44 and a
02:54half finished so I mean I've always kind of been a guy that goes a little
02:57shorter I feel like I swing better when it's shorter I feel like I swing a
03:01little bit freer when it's at that length and you know I'm not one of these guys I
03:04hit just one shot like I'll tee one down hit the flat flat cut you know take
03:09some off I'll hit hit it full send it up and it draws so I like to work the
03:12golf ball and and when I get long shafts it just seems like it's a one
03:16dimensional golf shot for me and you know I really don't want that. Okay
03:19interesting and shaft wise we're in the the new accuracy Z here how did you end up
03:23here? Ended up there actually in Germany this year because when they built this
03:28driver they I was always in my 125 Rogue yes ancient dinosaur they don't make it
03:35any more okay and so they haven't made that forever because of that we had no
03:40abilities to get our hands on any more of those I think I have them all at my
03:44house and so they said that this shaft through the testing and everything and
03:50through that is really similar kind of a kick point how it is if anything this is
03:54a little stiffer in the butt part of the club up near the grip and so they say if I
03:59wanted when you start going at it it should be a little bit more stable and so you know we went with it and you know it's been great.
04:03it's been great since it's been in the back ever since when I won at Augusta in 18
04:09that driver the old G400 ping the one right before this before Germany was
04:14hoping to see it was still a G400 ping that's trust me it's my backup it's in
04:17the room but it's just one of those that when you get something whether it's old
04:24technology or new technology if you're really comfortable with it it seems like
04:27you get freer you you you seem to get a little bit more speed and it was
04:33I mean I wasn't finding anything that was going much farther than my 400 and so
04:37because of that I was like alright don't change it until I got this this thing has
04:40been amazing the way it feels the way how easy it feels to hit and you know it's
04:46just been one of those that I had to put into play. Cool and GT2 in the fairway wood
04:51right 15 degrees same family of shaft there in the Akra so again just matching feels?
04:55yeah matching feels and really the only difference is my normal three woods are
05:01usually really strong and so they come out really fast and almost sometimes go
05:04too far and when I was in Germany I needed something that went farther than my two
05:08iron but not quite as far as of one of my normal three woods yeah I need that 255
05:13260 carry and this club has been spot-on so like when I went at Bethpage I had a
05:19five wood bent to a four wood and I didn't have a three wood and so this with
05:23having that it gives me gives me a little bit more playability more options I
05:26mean if I want to kind of float one in there I can but if I want to hit that
05:29stinger and keep it down I can so I can hit those shots that I need rather than
05:34another one of those these three woods these days are so hot that if you get
05:37low lofted and you come out flat I mean it's a basically one-dimensional
05:41okay down into the irons now we're going old and a bit cool here so we've got a
05:44very old Titleist TMB right 716 2-iron a little custom yeah yeah exactly hey you
05:52didn't even know the ferrule of course I know the ferrule sits flat oh yeah she's
05:57flat she's down there in the 120 and in dynamic gold 120 x100 just for a little
06:02more height so just a touch lighter than the main set that we have down in here
06:05the standard exactly okay because I mean the biggest thing is hitting it full it's
06:09good I mean you can you can get height on it but if you have to take a little
06:12off of it you know you still want to get ball in the air and have it be able to
06:15land soft for that opportunity but yeah this is the one that I basically used at
06:21Augusta in 18 and that thing was in bag forever and I went away from it because
06:27the ball that changed balls and so the bulge was coming in too flat so it wasn't
06:31holding any greens and now that I went back to I got a new ball that goes a
06:35little higher this is back in plagues it's just it's a go-to but if I'm in
06:38trouble I'll just hit that thing off the tee Ludwig had this in the bag for
06:41quite some time as well he's only just come out of this how do we end up in the
06:44ferrule uh my wife had it uh because Grindworks we Grindworks USA has run out of we
06:50own it and it runs out of our house so we had a couple of those hanging around
06:53and she popped that thing on it just uh just to do it and I loved it I mean I
06:57was like man we wish I had enough to do the whole bag come on we'll come to my
07:00garage we'll sort it out all right okay so we're into the main set now so you
07:03just alluded to Grindworks talk to me about how that started and why that
07:07operates you said from your house right yeah so it started back um and what was I
07:11it was four years ago roughly four years ago five and um I was on the range at
07:19Bay Hill hitting some golf shots my coach was there and all of a sudden I just
07:22couldn't stop hitting the ball left and um I had no clue why so I was kind of
07:28having a moment with coach like what's going on he's filming he's like your
07:30swing looks great he's like let's go check the specs specs are correct and you
07:34know then we did a little test with the quad we put the stickers on the face it's
07:39like all right when you hit one I just want to know did you hit solid thin heel
07:44toe like just the strike and it seemed like every time I said I hit it solid the
07:49ball was out of the heel and every time I hit it I was like oh you know when I
07:54would hit it and it would be toe side I was like oh that's dead off the toe
07:57dead center of the club so a lot of forged irons and forged clubs in general
08:00because it's made out of one piece of metal the center of gravity is in the
08:03heel rather than the center well that's a problem we're trying to hit the ball
08:07in the center of the face so if you're trying to hit the ball in the center of
08:09the face and you do that but then the cgs in the toe every once while you can
08:14get that squirrelly left shot that reacts like a toe hit and so Justine
08:19contacted Nimi Kirinari from Japan he's in the club making Hall of Fame just
08:25found out who he was found out and his information sent him an email just
08:31saying hey would you make my husband a set of clubs his name is Patrick Reed and
08:35he's like oh I'd love to and they'd heard of you had they yeah yeah but it was
08:39one of those that you know I'm sitting there thinking he's just gonna take one
08:42of the heads that they've already designed put it together and send it to
08:44me for me to test and now we started from a block of metal and so we designed
08:49the cavity backs and the blades took us 18 months for the cavity backs about two
08:52years for the blades and we was like all right we went down from the weight to the
08:57how the balance is how the sole is what kind of grooves where the grooves start the
09:02look and everything and you know I just kind of went to the irons that I loved in
09:07the past way I like to you know then I'd put a mold together from all right you
09:12know like the Nikes I liked how flat they were on the bottom but then I liked on
09:16the Calloways when we would we would actually pre-wear that leading edge so
09:20there's a little bit more bounce on the edge so even though it sits flat like on
09:23the ground with that leading edge there it plays like there's a little bit more
09:26bounce if you go into it and the biggest thing there is because I mean one day
09:30you're playing on concrete and so you want you don't want the iron sitting way
09:33up and then you know if it gets soft and also you start going and you don't want
09:38that just to dig so that's why that pre-wear the worst feeling is to set up
09:42to something and feel like I can't get to the ground and so then you're just
09:45gonna lean on it you're gonna do something to try to get down to it
09:48rather than just make a normal golf swing and you know I mean with all the
09:53hard work that they've done to get the center of gravity these things in the
09:56center and then also from pitching ways of forearm they work up and down the face
09:59because a pitching wedge you're gonna you're gonna kind of go more down on to
10:02it compared to a four-iron so the center of gravity is not just only heel to toe
10:06but it's also north-south that's very important and so you know we've done
10:11absolutely amazing job they there's unbelievable and yeah the biggest thing
10:16for me was to take away that factor of okay if I make a swing and I hit one and
10:20the ball goes for him and left or right okay what was that well I know where the
10:25center of gravity is on these I know exactly how they are so whatever I do in my
10:29golf swing that's what's gonna the ball's gonna do it's not gonna be the club
10:32which is yeah takes ownership for you but it's reassuring right gives you the
10:35peace of mind okay that's really cool and they look great that the head
10:37profiles are lovely thank you quite long heel to toe to me but I think that's
10:41possibly because I play more upright in the flatter right yeah they're down
10:44there yeah they certainly are which is which is a lovely set up and you start
10:48you've got the cavity back in the four iron blades from five through to
10:51pitching wedge right with a bit a little bit of lead tape everywhere and I love this
10:54this is nice touch just have your initials oh yeah yeah so yeah so though since the
10:58ones that we made are the PR 101s and then the cavity backs will be the PR 202s and so just you know
11:06because they came out with other ones other irons because Grindworks makes other
11:09irons than just mine and so yeah I've been on that website don't worry I've seen that
11:13alrighty okay now down into the wedges so I thought I was gonna see some artisan
11:16wedges no yeah right so actually Mike's been working on a couple things for me to kind of test and get back there but
11:24you know I've been so busy recently it's just kind of hard to to test anything
11:28rather than just keep all faithfuls in the bag right now cool so 50 degrees got
11:32Cleveland RTX zip core 10 degrees of bounce a big love of lead tape on there to
11:37get swing weight and total weight right as we know done a bit of work on the
11:41leading edge there yeah no that's just wear and tear okay yeah that's just the
11:46wear and tear of it cool and then we go into a 56 degree in SM9 which is bent to 55
11:52yeah bent to actually so that was old that was an old stamp so it's actually
11:58bent to 57 so I go 51 57 61 okay interesting because I was expecting again
12:04this is something I bang on about very few pros take a wedge and deloft it
12:07because it adds offset and obviously reduces that band so when I saw that yeah
12:11when I saw 56 and stamp 55 I thought I'd found an exception but obviously you're
12:15telling me I'm correct which I'm really pleased with and then into the wedge
12:18we've got SM10 I see the T grind so many players in this T grind it looks like
12:22you've done a bit of additional to it as well oh yeah we've took off even more
12:25bounce so this is next to nothing yeah there's very little bounce on it we
12:29straighten the leading edge just a hair but the biggest thing is with having
12:32less bounce it's also wider because of how we've done it so whether it's square
12:37or open it still plays to the same bounce because I draw my chips everyone else
12:40cuts their chips I draw them so I need that thing sitting flat and I want it to sit
12:46flat but not when I open it for it to have no bounce so when I open it we were
12:50able to work on where it's basically stays uniform all the way across on
12:54whatever facing light I've presented that short stick again I was expecting to
12:58see something a little different I was expecting to see an odyssey yeah we're
13:01playing a Scotty Cameron circle timeless 2.5 yeah so as a little
13:08indention in the middle I've had that for what since 13 14 so I've had it for over
13:1310 years and couldn't find a replica or just fancy to change I was on the road
13:17in Germany and wanted a little bit of a change and kind of had to have a change
13:21that point because because I was the whole and this thing has been amazing and
13:25this is how you can tell you're a gear guy as well we've got sharpied on
13:29alignment yeah so you've added an alignment line you know pure gear guy
13:32I've always had the top line and putter that they had on the van didn't have a
13:36top line so they they were able to kind of draw one on there for me I was hoping that
13:41was going to be a you thing but now I told him I asked him to do it and they
13:45had the they had the thing to actually do it correctly because if I would have
13:48gone there who knows if I've actually been a straight line yeah there is
13:50always that and what ball are you in Patrick so I'm in the new Pro V1 X Plus
13:55okay so it's the spinniest ball they make but for me I mean I like to hit a lot of
13:59partial shots and I mean the spin decay on the golf ball seems to I mean for me I
14:05feel like the tight list the spin falls off the golf ball a little quicker than the
14:09Calloway's I used to use okay and because of that even though if I'm hitting a
14:13eight iron and say spin at 8400 I mean yeah it's spinning a little too much
14:17maybe right off the face but it's losing its spin quicker so when it actually
14:20lands it lands correctly what did you refer to our spin decay spin decay okay
14:24everyone sits there they you know they focus on what the spins doing right off
14:28the golf ball but it's people don't focus on how much is the ball losing spin
14:33downfield which is where it matters right right and so you know I was able to
14:38really kind of dial in with the guys the title is to figure out what ball was
14:41best for me even though right off the ball the number might not say the right
14:46thing but when it's flying and how it how it's reacting on the green especially on
14:49the partial shots and even on the full wedges it's not spinning off the planet I
14:53mean it's it's a really good golf ball I mean it's been great into the wind it's
14:56been great downwind and I think that's the biggest thing is it's just not
14:59sitting there on a perfect flat you know calm day it's how is it in the nasty
15:03stuff that's what I want to see and the ball's been great and you know I can't I was
15:07glad to get into that one and we're looking forward to the rest of the year
15:10with it yeah we got a little scoop on that last week at the open from some of
15:12the guys on the tour van so it's interesting to hear about I'm gonna let
15:14you go now because the rain is starting to come down a little bit one more thing
15:17you've got any go-to training aids or anything that you use all the time yeah
15:21so I use a glove under my right arm obviously and then I have a tiny stick I
15:25always use so actually I'll put that underneath the arm as well so then when I
15:30go back actually my arm will hit it so definitely tell me to stop because with a
15:33glove I mean you can still stay connected but your arms can lift and can kind of
15:38keep going so that's to stop your arms running too long because because when
15:41you get here once it hits it's like all right now it's time to go down and go
15:43forward makes perfect sense brilliant well that is a great interesting look in a
15:47proper gear guys bag really cool to see that thank you so much for your time
15:50appreciate that in the rain thank you Patrick Reid everyone