- 28/05/2025
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 tape,
00:18there's different shafts, there's old clubs, there's new clubs, there's unknown
00:22clubs, there's all sorts going on here to get stuck into. Have you always been an
00:26equipment geek? I have, it's kind of one of those things I feel like there's
00:29not one single company that makes the 14 perfect clubs for every player and
00:34because of that when something comes out there's tolerances of everything, how
00:39everything's made, how everything feels and yeah, rather than sitting there and
00:44trying to always find the perfect one and go through say a million of one, I mean a
00:49little bit of lead tape here, a different shaft change there, length and you know
00:54there's little things you can do to change it just to dial it in quickly,
00:56especially how much we're on the road. Correct, how does that
00:59process 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, are
01:07you doing that with a swing weight scale, are you doing that just to your feel?
01:09Mainly 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 I 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
01:48driver luckily I don't have to have lead tape on it or even the three wood but
01:51there's times that you know the head becomes too light and I prefer to put
01:56lead tape then put hot melt in it because I know exactly where that weight is.
01:59The Titleist GT3 driver, new out, talk to me about this.
02:03It's so good, you know they've done a lot of amazing work Titleist has on their new
02:07driver and even their new three wood and for me all the clubs you know all the
02:15companies if you hit the ball dead center it's gonna be it's gonna be good.
02:18You know if you have the right spec to everything it's gonna fly how you want
02:22but I feel like when I miss it this one it still has a little bit more speed in
02:25it and also stays a little bit straighter so for me you know it sits
02:30really nicely and it gives me that confidence it feels to me it feels like
02:32it sits a little flatter and since my irons are really flat as it is you know
02:36I need something that looks that way because if I look down it looks like the
02:40toes pointing at me too much and too upright and I'll start hanging on to it
02:43start leading them out to the right. So you kind of visual guy you like to see that
02:45toe going away from you all the time. I do. Because you don't want to see left. No.
02:49Okay cool and do you know the specs on this it feels short to me. It is it's a
02:5344 and a half finished so I mean I've always kind of been a guy that goes a
02:57little shorter 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 some
03:09off I'll hit hit it full send it up and it draws so I like to work the golf ball and and when I get
03:14long shafts it just seems like it's a one-dimensional golf shop for me and you
03:18know I really don't want that. Okay interesting and shaft wise we're in the
03:21the new accuracy here. How did you end up here? I ended up there actually in Germany
03:26this year because when they built this driver they I was always in my 125 Rogue.
03:31Yes. An ancient dinosaur that they don't make it anymore. Okay. And so they
03:37haven't made that forever and because of that we had no abilities to get our
03:42hands on any more of those I think I have them all at my house and so they said
03:47that this shaft through the testing and everything and through that is really
03:51similar kind of on kick point how it is if anything this is a little stiffer in
03:56the butt part of the club up near the grip and so they say if I want to when you
04:00start going at it it should be a little bit more stable and so you know we went
04:03with it and you know it's been great it's been great since it's been in the
04:06bag ever since when I won at Augusta in 18 that driver the old G400 ping the one
04:12right before this before Germany was still a G400 ping that's trust me it's my
04:17backup it's in the room but it's just one of those that when you get something
04:23whether it's old technology or new technology if you're really comfortable
04:26with it it seems like you get freer you you you seem to get a little bit more
04:30speed and it was I mean I wasn't finding anything that was going much farther than
04:36my 400 and so because of that it was like all right don't change it until I got
04:39this this thing has been amazing the way it feels the way how easy it feels to
04:44hit and you know it's just been one of those that I had to put into play. Cool and GT2 in
04:50the fairway woods. Right. 15 degrees same family of shaft there in the Akra so again just matching
04:55feels. Yeah matching feels and really the only difference is my my normal three
05:00woods are usually really strong and so they come out really fast and almost
05:03sometimes go too far and when I was in Germany I needed something that went
05:07farther than my two iron but not quite as far as of one of my normal three woods
05:12you know I need that 255 260 carry and this club has been spot-on so like when I
05:18went at Bethpage I had a 5 wood bent to a 4 wood and I didn't have a 3 wood and so
05:22this with having that it gives me gives me a little bit more playability more
05:26options I mean if I want to kind of float one in there I can but if I want to hit
05:29that stinger and keep it down I can so I can hit those shots that I need rather
05:34than another one of those these three woods these days are so hot that if you
05:37get low lofted and you come out flat I mean it's basically one dimensional. Okay
05:41down to the irons now we're going old and a bit cool here so we've got a very old
05:45tightless TMB right 716 two iron a little custom yeah yeah exactly hey you
05:52didn't even know the barrel of course I know the feral 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
06:05this exactly okay because I mean the biggest thing is hitting it forward it's
06:09good I mean you can you can get height on it but if you have to take a little off of
06:13it you know you still want to get the ball in the air and have it be able to land
06:16soft 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 ball 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 little
06:35higher this is back in play it's just it's a go-to if I'm in trouble I'll just hit
06:39that thing off the tee Ludwig had this in the bag for quite some time as well he's
06:42only just come out of this how do we end up in the feral my wife had it because
06:47Grindworks we Grindworks USA has run out of we own it and it runs out of our
06:51house so we had a couple of those hanging around and she popped that thing on it
06:55just just to do it and I loved it I mean I was like man we wish I had enough to do
06:59the whole bag come on come to my garage we'll sort it out all right okay so we're
07:02into the main set now so you just alluded to Grindworks talk to me about how that
07:06started and why that operates you said from your house right yeah so it started
07:09back and what was I was four years ago roughly four years ago five and I was on
07:18the range at Bay Hill hitting some golf shots my coach was there and also I
07:22just couldn't stop hitting the ball left and 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 swing
07:31looks great he's like let's go check the specs specs are correct and you know
07:35then 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 ball
07:49was 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 toes dead
07:57center club so a lot of forged irons and forged clubs in general because it's
08:01made out of one piece of metal the center of gravity is in the heel rather than the
08:04center well that's a problem we're trying to hit the ball in the center of the face
08:08so if you're trying to hit the ball in the center of the face and you do that
08:12but then the CG's in the toe every once while you can get that squirrelly left
08:15shot that reacts like a toe hit and so Justine contacted Nimi Kirinari from
08:22Japan he's in the club making Hall of Fame just found out who he was found out
08:27yeah and his information sent him an email just saying hey would you make my
08:32husband say it close his name is Patrick Reed and he's like oh I'd love to and
08:36they'd heard of you had they yeah yeah but it was one of those that you know I'm
08:40sitting there thinking he's just gonna take one of the heads that they've
08:42already designed put it together and send it to me for me to test and now we
08:46started from a block of metal and so we designed the cavity backs and the blades
08:50took us 18 months for the cavity backs about two years for the blades and we was like
08:54all right we went down from the weight to the how the bounce is how the sole is
08:59what kind of grooves where the grooves start the look and everything and you know
09:05I just kind of went to the irons that I loved in the past way I like to you know
09:10then I'd put a mold together from all right you know like the Nikes I liked how
09:14flat they were on the bottom but then I liked on the Calloways when we would we
09:18would actually pre-wear that leading edge so there's a little bit more bounce on
09:21the edge so even though it sits flat like on the ground with that
09:24leading edge there it plays like there's a little bit more bounce if you go into
09:27it and the biggest thing there is because I mean one day you're playing on
09:30concrete and so you want you don't want the iron sitting way up and then you know
09:35if it gets soft and also you start going and you don't want that just to dig so
09:39that's why that pre-wear the worst feeling is to set up to something and feel
09:43like I can't get to the ground and so then you're just gonna lean on it you're
09:46gonna do something to try to get down to it rather than just make a normal golf
09:50swing and you know I mean with all the hard work that they've done to get the
09:55center of gravity these things in the center and then also from pitching wedge
09:58and forearm they work up and down the face because a pitching wedge you're
10:01gonna you're gonna kind of go more down onto it compared to a forearm so the
10:04center of gravity is not just only heel to toe but it's also north-south that's
10:08very important and so you know we've done absolutely amazing job they did it's
10:13unbelievable and yeah the biggest thing for me was to take away that factor of okay if I
10:19make a swing and I hit one and the ball goes for him and left or right okay what
10:23was that well I know where the center of gravity is on these I know exactly how
10:27they are so whatever I do in my golf swing that's what's gonna the ball is
10:30gonna do it's not gonna be the club which is yeah takes ownership for you but
10:34it's reassuring right gives you the peace of mind okay that's really cool and
10:36they look great that the head profiles are lovely thank you quite long heel to
10:39toe to me but I think that's possibly because I play more upright in the
10:42flatter right yeah they're down there yeah they certainly are which is which is a
10:47lovely set up and you start you've got the cavity back in the four iron blades
10:50from five through to pitching wedge right with a bit a little bit of lead
10:53tape everywhere and I love this it's nice to touch just have your initials oh yeah
10:56yes yes although since the ones that we made are the PR 101s and then the
11:01the cavity backs will be the PR 202s and so just you know because they came out
11:06with other ones other irons because Grindworks makes other irons than just mine and
11:10so yeah I've been on that website don't worry I've seen that already okay now down into
11:15the wedges so I thought I was gonna see some artisan wedges yeah right so
11:19actually uh Mike's Mike's been working on a couple things for me to kind of test
11:23and get back there but you know I've been so busy recently it's just kind of
11:27hard to test anything rather than just keep all faithfuls in the bag right now
11:31cool so 50 degrees got a Cleveland RTX zip core 10 degrees of bounce a big love of
11:36lead tape on there to get swing weight and total weight right as we know done a bit
11:41of work on the leading edge there yes no that's just wear and tear okay yeah yeah
11:45that's just the wear and tear of it cool and then we go into a 56 degree in SM9 which
11:51is bent to 55 yeah uh bent actually so that was old that was an old stamp so it's
11:57actually bent to 57 so go I go 51 57 61 okay interesting because I was expecting
12:04again this is something I bang on about very few pros take a wedge and de-loft it
12:07because it adds offset and obviously reduces that band so when I saw that yeah
12:11well 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 old 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 yeah we've took off even more bounce
12:25so 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 less
12:32bounce it's also wider because of how we've done it so whether it's square or open
12:37it still plays to the same bounce because I draw my chips everyone else cuts their chips
12:41I draw them so I need that thing sitting flat and I want it to sit flat but not when I open
12:47it for it to have no bounce so when I open it we were able to work on where it basically
12:52stays uniform all the way across on whatever facing light I've presented that short stick
12:57again I was expecting to see something a little different I was expecting to see an odyssey yeah we're
13:01we're playing a Scotty Cameron circle t timeless 2.5 we wore through the face
13:05oh really yeah so as a little indention in the middle I've had that for what since 13 14 so
13:12I've had it for over 10 years and couldn't find a replica or just fancied a change I was on the
13:17road in Germany and wanted a little bit of a change and kind of had to have a change that
13:21point because uh because I was the whole and this thing has been amazing and this is how you can
13:26tell you're a gear guy as well we've got sharpied on alignment yeah so you've added an alignment line
13:31yourself pure gear guy I've always had the top line and putter they had on the van didn't have a
13:36top line so they uh they were able to kind of draw one on there for me I was hoping that was going to
13:42be a you thing but no I told them I asked them to do it and um they had the they had the thing to
13:46actually do it correctly because if I would have gone there who knows if it's actually been a
13:49straight line cool yeah there is always that and what ball are you in Patrick uh so I'm in the new
13:53uh pro v1x plus okay so it's the spinniest ball they make but for me I mean I like to hit a lot
13:59of partial shots and I mean the spin decay on the golf ball seems to I mean for me I feel like the
14:06tight list the spin falls off the golf ball a little quicker than the callaways I used to use okay
14:10and because of that even though if I'm hitting a eight iron and say spin at 8400 I mean yeah it's
14:16spinning a little too much maybe right off the face but it's losing its spin quicker so when it
14:20actually lands it lands correctly what did you refer to that as spin decay spin decay okay I've never
14:25actually heard that yeah so everyone sits there they you know they focus on what the spin's doing
14:28right off the golf ball but it's but people don't focus on how much is the ball losing spin downfield
14:34which is where it matters right right and so um you know I was able to really kind of dial in with
14:40the guys at Titleist to figure out what ball was best for me even though right off the ball the number
14:43might not say the right thing but when it's flying and how how it's reacting on the green
14:49especially on the partial shots and even on the full wedges it's not spinning off the planet I mean
14:53it's it's a really good golf ball I mean it's been great into the wind it's been great downwind and I
14:57think that's the biggest thing is it's just not sitting there on a perfect flat you know calm day
15:02it's how is it and the nasty stuff that's what I want to see and uh the ball's been great and uh you
15:06know I can't I was glad to get into that one and uh we're looking forward to the rest of the year with it
15:10yeah we got a little scoop on that last week at the open from some of the guys on the tour van so
15:13it's interesting to hear about that I'm gonna let you go now because the rain is starting to come
15:16down a little bit one more thing have you got any go-to training aids or anything that you you use all
15:20the time yeah so I use a glove under my right arm obviously and then I have a tiny stick I always use
15:26so actually I'll put that underneath the arm as well so then when I go back actually my arm will hit it
15:32so it'll definitely tell me to stop because with a glove I mean you can still stay connected
15:35but your arms can lift and can kind of keep going so that's to stop your arms running too long because
15:40because when you get here once it hits it's like all right now it's time to go down and go forward
15:44makes perfect sense brilliant well that is a great interesting look in a proper gear guy's bag
15:48really cool to see that thank you so much for your time I'm staying out in the rain that was really cool
15:52Patrick Reid everyone
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