Tour Report | A Different Challenge Awaits Team TaylorMade On The European Tour

With the exception of four unchanged holes (8^th, 9^th, 17^th & 18^th), players will have to navigate several new tee boxes at The Renaissance Club as easterly winds looks to shake things up at the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open.

I think we’ve all been hit by the sudden change in temperature and it was no different this week as requests for beanies, mittens and umbrellas were on high demand.

Taking shelter from the high winds, we caught up with Tour Representative Sam Day to go through what happened this week behind the busiest door or Tour.

"We prepared a lot of wedges back at HQ to bring this week. The course is playing a lot firmer than last year, so this was a popular request! It's set to rain so it may soften the course up slightly and players may switch back into their higher bounce options but it’s good to have both options. Sami Välimäki is gaming a new 58° wedge with a low bounce grind and Robert MacIntyre has fresh wedges in the bag.

After looking at Bob Mac’s numbers, we changed his 6-iron loft as it was going a little too far and after this small tweak, he’s comfortable and confident with his distance gaping. Growing up in Scotland it gives him and advantage for sure, I think all players at this level have played a lot of links golf so know what shots to play and how to get the ball around. But after seeing Bob this week, I think he’s got a great chance come Sunday!

One thing to mention is how popular our P-Series irons have been. They’ve been flying out the door and it’s been an easy transition for players – a very easy fit into players bags. Tour Technician Alex Marine has been working with a couple of non-contracted players this week and after a quick loft and lie check there will be another set of P7MC’s on The European Tour and we also have two sets of P7TW’s in play this week.

Joel Stalter is a huge advocate for our P7MC irons, he said to me that they’re the best irons he’s gamed, they play a bit softer and feel great off the face versus the P760’s he played last year. Bob Mac is also in the P7MC’s along with Rasmus Højgaard and Romain Langasque. Ewen Ferguson is playing a P770/ P7MC combo set, he’s got a P770 3-4 iron, but has asked for a P7MC 4-Iron as he feels the P770 is slightly too hot for some of the Par-3’s.

Sami tested 2 SIM UDI options, one in graphite and one in steel. The steel would have been a good ‘off the tee’ option but would have limited the amount of shots he could play off the ground. When he hit them, the steel was hard to flight and if he wanted to play this into a Par-5, he would’ve struggled to get the height and stop required to make it hold the green. The graphite option is in his bag as he was able to vary his flight for this week’s testing conditions."

If you want a behind the scenes look at the busiest door on Tour, make sure you follow our Tour Team!

Sam Day - @samday1993

Mark Thistleton - markthistleton

Alex Marine - alexxmarine