Seen On Tour: Scottie, Rory, Collin & Tommy Prepare for Altitude at the BMW Championship
The second week of the FedEx Cup Playoffs begins Thursday at Castle Pines Golf Club outside of Denver. That means one thing: altitude. We spent practice rounds with Team TaylorMade to learn how they are preparing for the BMW Championship.
Castle Pines plays at nearly 6,400 feet of elevation, thus most golfers entered Castle Pines this week with the mindset that yardages would adjust by an increase of around 10 percent.
Before we get into how Team TaylorMade prepared for elevation, let's recap where the squad stands entering week two of the playoffs.
- Scottie Scheffler: 1st
- Collin Morikawa: 4th
- Rory McIlroy: 5th
- Tommy Fleetwood: 31st
- Nick Dunlap: 48th
INSIDE THE ROPES WITH SCOTTIE & TED
As soon as we got on site, we caught up with Scottie Scheffler and Ted Scott to learn how they are preparing for a unique challenge at Castle Pines. Scottie and Ted were nice enough to let us follow them around on the last two holes of the front nine to get an inside look at what they look for when scouting the golf course for the first time.
Scottie and Teddy have different percentages for each club that they will refer to based off the lie, whether the hole is uphill or downhill and where the wind direction is coming from. Scottie's stock yardages vs. altitude yardages are listed below, with altitude being in bold.
- Qi10 8.0° driver: 300/330
- Qi10 15.0° 3-wood: 270/292
- 3-Iron: 245/265
- 4-Iron: 226/244
- P·7TW 5-iron: 212/233
- P·7TW 6-iron: 198/218
- P·7TW 7-iron: 184/206
- P·7TW 8-iron: 169/189
- P·7TW 9-iron: 156/175
- P·7TW PW: 144/158
- 50°: 131/142
- 56°: 118/127
- 60°: 105/113
Of course, Scottie's Masters, Olympics, PLAYERS and four Signature Event winning Spider Tour X putter is also in the bag. Check out Scottie's WITB photos below.
COLLIN'S P·7CB DISPERSION CLINIC
Prior to The Masters, Collin Morikawa noticed Rory McIlroy had a new prototype 4-iron in the bag and asked our TaylorMade Tour Reps what it was. The public didn't know at the time, but it was the all-new P·7CB irons disguised as a tour only prototype.
Following Collin's T3 finish in Augusta, we had a 4-iron built to Collin's spec and ready for him to test at the RBC Heritage. It only took a few swings and Collin was hooked saying "I can hit shots with this". That statement was in reference to the playability, but also the consistency of his CB 4-iron. Collin then rattled off five Top-10 finishes including T4 at the PGA Championship and second at The Memorial.
Prior to the Genesis Scottish Open, where he finished T4, Collin put an entire set of P·7CB irons in the bag for more consistent turf interaction in the links conditions at the Scottish and The Open.
This week, Collin will play P·7CB 4-6 irons and walked through the performance of those clubs with our Vice President of Tour Operations Keith Sbarbaro. That video is coming soon, but for now check out this dispersion chart from the three five-irons he hit during the session.
Collin's WITB has a notable change for this week as he will play TP5 golf ball this week to generate a little bit more spin in the altitude vs the TP5x he has played since The Masters. His full WITB is:
- Qi10 LS 9.0° driver
- SIM 14.0° 3-wood
- Qi10 18.0° 5-wood
- P·7CB 4-6
- P·730 7-PW
- Milled Grind 4 50° SB
- Milled Grind 4 56° LB
- Milled Grind 4 60° LB
- TP Soto
- TP5
RORY SENDING IT IN ALTITUDE
Rory enters the week 5th in the FedEx Cup Standings and will have altitude on his side off the tee at Castle Pines. During practice rounds we were able to capture TrackMan numbers of his drives and a few of them were absolutely mind-blowing.
On the 14th hole, Rory carried his drive 363 yards with a total of 410 yards with 185 ball speed on the downhill par five. Then, on 17, Rory carried his drive 371 yards with 186 ball speed.
Rory’s stock yardages this week in altitude developed over his two days of practice. The standard assumption is to add 10 percent to each club, but through two days of practice Rory and his caddy Harry Diamond used a bell curve to identify the percentage increase for each individual club. Below is what the yardages they identified Rory's TP5x MySymbol would fly in altitude (bold) vs. stock:
- Qi10 9.0° driver: 320/346
- Qi10 15.0° 3-wood: 295/322
- Qi10 18.0° 5-wood: 270/300
- P·760 4-iron: 245/267
- Rors Proto 5-iron: 225/247
- Rors Proto 6-iron: 210/233
- Rors Proto 7-iron: 195/222
- Rors Proto 8-iron: 180/205
- Rors Proto 9-iron: 165/185
- Milled Grind 4 46°: 150/165
- Milled Grind 4 50°: 140/151
- Milled Grind 4 54°: 130/141
- 60°: 107/116
Rory's WITB photo gallery, including his Spider Tour X, is below!
Each week on TOUR, Tommy Fleetwood and his caddy Ian Finnis (Fino) work with our TaylorMade Tour Rep Adrian Rietveld to dial in their stock yardages based off elevation and temperature. This week, Tommy & Fino mapped out the entire bag to reflect the three different shots Tommy has in the bag.
Tommy has three yardages for each club that he and Fino write down: a full shot, a hands-to-shoulders shot and a hands-to-middle shot. Fino also noted the yardage relation to wind, as well as bunker yardages for each club Tommy could hit out of bunkers.
Tommy's WITB for the BMW Championship is:
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