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 not one
00:30single company that makes the 14 perfect clubs for every player and because of
00:35that 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
00:49mean a little bit of lead tape here, a different shaft change there, length and
00:53you know there'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 process look for
01:00you then? So I'm looking at your pitching wedge, your 50, everything, we've got a lot
01:04of stuff here with lead tape on, is that just you, are you doing that with a swing
01:08weight scale, are you doing that just to your feel? Mainly a swing weight, for me I
01:13mean my lies and lofts have always been the same, my lengths have always stayed the
01:17same and you know so I weight everything out before I put anything together to
01:22make sure that the overall weight's right because you can have the same swing
01:26weight but if the overall weight is that different because of the different
01:28materials you're using because the tolerances in it, it's going to feel
01:31different to me and so for me I make sure that I get the overall weight and swing
01:35weight correct and so sometimes just a little lead tape, sometimes it's you know
01:40have to start from fresh and go you know to square one but yeah lead tape, lead
01:44tape's a good friend because for me I mean this driver luckily I don't have to
01:49have lead tape on it or even the 3-wood but there's times that you know the
01:53head becomes too light and I prefer to put lead tape then put hot melt in it
01:57because I know exactly where that weight is. The Titleist GT3 driver, new out talk to
02:02me 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
02:11for me all the clubs you know all the companies if you hit the ball dead center
02:16it's going to be it's going to be good you know as long as if you have the right
02:19spec to everything it's going to fly how you want but I feel like when I miss it
02:23this one it still has a little bit more speed in it and also stays a little bit
02:27straighter so for me you know it sits really nicely and it gives me that
02:31confidence it feels to me it feels like it sits a little flatter and since my
02:34irons are really flat as it is you know I need something that looks that way
02:38because if I look down it looks like the toe is pointing at me too much and too
02:41upright and I'll start hanging on to it and start leading them out to the right.
02:44So you kind of visual guy you like to see that toe going away from you all the
02:47time I do because you don't want to see left no okay cool and do you know the
02:50specs on this it feels short to me it is it's a 44 and a half finished so I
02:55mean I've always kind of been a guy that goes a little shorter
02:58uh I feel like I swing better when it's shorter I feel like I swing a little bit
03:01freer when it's at that length and you know I'm not one of these guys I hit just
03:05one shot like I'll tee one down hit the flat flat cut I'll you know take some off
03:09I'll hit hit it full send it up and it draws so I like to work the golf ball and and when
03:13I get long shafts it just seems like it's a one-dimensional golf shop for me and uh you
03:18know I really don't want that okay interesting and shaft wise we're in the the new accuracy
03:22here how did you end up here uh ended up there actually in Germany this year because
03:27when they built this driver they I was always in my 125 Rogue
03:32yes ancient dinosaur they don't like they don't make it anymore okay and so uh they haven't made
03:38that forever and because of that uh we had no abilities to uh get our hands on any more of those
03:43I think I have them all at my house and so they said that this shaft uh through the testing and
03:49everything and through the is really similar kind of on kick point how it is if anything this is a
03:54little uh stiffer in the butt part of the club up near the grip and so they say if I want to when you
03:59start going at it it should be a little bit more stable and so uh you know we went with it and you
04:04know it's been great it's been great since it's been in the back ever since when I won at Augusta in
04:0918 that driver the old G400 ping the one right before this before Germany was hoping to see that
04:15was still a G400 ping that's trust me it's my backup it's in the room but um it's just one of those
04:20that when you get something whether it's old technology or new technology if you're really
04:26comfortable with it it seems like you get freer you you you seem to get a little bit more speed
04:32and it was I mean I wasn't finding anything that was going much farther than my 400 and so because
04:37of that I was like all right don't change it until I got this this thing has been amazing the way it
04:41feels the way how easy it feels to hit and uh you know it's just been one of those that I had to put
04:47into play cool and GT2 in the fairway woods right 15 degrees same family of shaft there in the
04:54acro so again just matching feels yeah matching feels and um really the only difference is my
04:59my normal three woods are usually really strong and so they come out really fast they almost
05:03sometimes go too far and when I was in Germany I needed something that went farther than my two iron
05:08but not quite as far as a one of my normal three woods yeah I need that 255 260 carry and this club
05:15has been spot on so like when I went at Bethpage I had a five wood bent to a four wood and I didn't
05:21have a three wood and so this with having that it gives me gives me a little bit more playability
05:25more options I mean if I want to kind of float one in there I can but if I want to hit that stinger
05:29and keep it down I can so I can hit those shots that I need rather than another one of those these
05:35three woods these days are so hot that if you get low lofted and you come out flat I mean it's
05:40basically one dimensional okay down to the irons now we're going old and a bit cool here so we've got a
05:44very old Titleist TMB right 716 two iron a little custom yeah yeah exactly hey you didn't even know
05:52the ferrule of course I do of course I know the ferrule sits flat oh yeah she's flat she's down there
05:57in the 120 and in dynamic gold 120 x100 just for a little bit more height so just a touch lighter than
06:04the main set that we have down in here the standard exactly okay because I mean the biggest thing is
06:08hitting it forward it's good 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 the ball in the air and have it be able to land soft for
06:16that opportunity but yeah this is the one that I that basically used at Augusta in 18 and that thing
06:24was in bag forever and I went away from it because the ball that changed balls and so the ball which
06:30wasn't coming in too flat so it wasn't holding any greens and now that I went back to I got a new ball
06:34that goes a little higher this is back in play it's just it's a go-to but if I'm in trouble just hit that
06:39thing off the tee Ludwig had this in the bag for quite some time as well he's only just come out
06:43of this how do we end up in the ferrule uh my wife had it uh because Grindworks we Grindworks USA has
06:49run out of uh we own it and it runs out of our house so we had a couple of those hanging around
06:54and she popped that thing on it just uh just to do it and I loved it I mean I was like man I wish I
06:58had enough to do the whole bag come on we'll 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 started and why that
07:07operates you said from your house right yeah so it started back um and what was that it was
07:13four years ago roughly four years ago five and um I was on the range at Bay Hill hitting some golf
07:20shots my coach was there and all of a sudden I just couldn't stop hitting the ball left and um
07:26I had no clue why so I was kind of having a moment with coach like what's going on he's filming
07:30he's like your swing looks great he's like let's go check the specs specs are correct and
07:33you know then we did a little test with the quad we put the stickers on the face it's like all right
07:40when you hit one I just want to know did you hit solid thin heel toe like just the strike
07:46and it seemed like every time I said I hit it solid the ball was out of the heel and every time I hit
07:51it and I was like oh you know when I would hit it and it would be toe side I was like oh that's dead
07:56off the toes dead center club so a lot of forged irons and forged clubs in general because it's made
08:01out of one piece of metal the center of gravity is in the heel rather than the center well that's
08:05a problem we're trying to hit the ball in the center of the face so if you're trying to hit the ball in
08:09the center of the face and you do that but then the cgs in the toe every once in a while you can get
08:14that squirrely left shot that reacts like a toe hit and so Justine uh contacted uh Nimi Kirinari from
08:23Japan he's in the club making hall of fame just found out who he was found out uh yeah and his information
08:30sent him an email just saying hey would you make my husband say it close his name is Patrick Reed
08:34and he's like oh I'd love to and um they'd heard of you had they yeah yeah but it was one of those
08:39that you know I'm sitting there thinking he's just going to 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 started from a block of
08:47metal and so we designed uh the cavity backs and the blades took us 18 months for the cavity backs
08:51about two years for the blades and we was like all right we went down from the weight to the how the
08:58bounce is how the sole is what kind of grooves where the grooves start uh the look and everything
09:04and um you know I just kind of went to the irons that I loved in the past way I like to you know
09:09then I'd put a mold together from uh you know like the Nikes I liked how flat they were on the bottom
09:15but then I liked on the Calloways when we would we would actually pre-wear that leading edge so there's
09:20a little bit more bounce on the edge so even though it sits flat like on the ground with that leading
09:24edge there it plays like there's a little bit more bounce if you go into it and the biggest thing
09:28there is because I mean one day you're playing on concrete and so you want you don't want the iron
09:33sitting way up and then you know if it gets soft and also you start going and you don't want that
09:38just to dig so that's why that pre-wear the worst feeling is to set up to something and feel like I
09:43can't get to the ground and so then you're just going to lean on it you're going to do something
09:47to try to get down to it rather 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 of these things in the center and then
09:57also from pitching wedge and forearm they work up and down the face because a pitching wedge you're
10:01going to you're going to kind of go more down onto it compared to a forearm sure so the center
10:04of gravity is not just only heel to toe but it's also north south because that's very important and
10:09so um you know we've done absolutely amazing job they it's unbelievable and uh 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 the ball goes
10:21forward and left or right okay what was that well I know where the center of gravity is on these I
10:26know exactly how they are so whatever I do in my golf swing that's what's going to the ball's going
10:30to do it's not going to be the club which is yeah takes ownership for you but it's reassuring right
10:34gives you the peace of mind okay that's really cool and they look great the head profiles are
10:38lovely thank you quite long heel to toe to me but I think that's possibly because I play more upright
10:42and the flatter right yeah they're down there yeah they certainly are which is which is a lovely
10:47setup and you start you'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 it's nice
10:55to touch just have your initials oh yeah yeah so yeah so the ones that we made are the pr 101s and then
11:01the cavity backs will be the pr202s and so just uh you know because they came out with other ones uh
11:07other irons because grindworks makes other irons than just mine and so uh yeah I've been on that
11:12website don't worry I've seen them all right okay now down into the wedges so I thought I was going to see
11:16some artisan wedges no no yeah right so actually uh Mike's Mike's been working on a couple things
11:22for me to kind of test and get back there but you know I've been so busy recently it's just kind of
11:27hard to to test anything rather than just keep uh all faithfuls in the bag right now cool so 50 degrees
11:32we've got the cleveland rtx zip core 10 degrees of bounce a big love of lead tape on there to get
11:37swing weight and total weight right as we know done a bit of work on the leading edge there yeah no that's
11:43just wear and tear okay yeah yeah that's just the wear and tear of it cool and then we go into
11:49the 56 degree in sm9 which is bent to 55 yeah uh bent actually so that was old that was old stamp so
11:57it's actually bent uh 57 so go I go 51 57 61. okay interesting because I was expecting again this is
12:04something I bang on about very few pros take a wedge and deloft it because it adds offset and obviously reduces
12:09that bad so when I saw that yeah well I saw 56 and stamp 55 I thought I found an exception but
12:14obviously you're telling me I'm correct which I'm really pleased with and then into the wedge we've
12:18got sm10 I see the t-grind so many players in this t-grind it looks like you've done a bit of additional
12:23to it as well oh yeah we've took off even more bounce so this is next to nothing yeah there's very
12:27little bounce on it uh we straighten 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 or open it still plays to
12:38the same bounce because I draw my chips everyone else cuts their chips I draw them so I need that
12:42thing sitting flat and I want it to sit flat but not when I open it for it to have no bounce so when
12:49I open it we were able to work on where it basically stays uniform all the way across on whatever face
12:55angle I I've presented at short stick again I was expecting to see something a little different I was
12:59expecting to see an odyssey yeah we were playing a scotty cameron circle see timeless 2.5 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 I've
13:12had it for over 10 years and couldn't find a replica or just fancy to change uh was on the road to
13:17germany and wanted a little bit of a change and kind of had to have a change that point because uh
13:22because it was the whole and this thing has been amazing and this is how you can tell you're a gear
13:26guy as well we've got sharpied on alignment yeah so you've added an alignment line yourself pure gear
13:32guy I've always had the top line and that putter that they had on the van didn't have a top line
13:36so they uh they were able to kind of draw one on there for me I was hoping that was going to be
13:41a you thing but no I told them I asked them to do it and um they had the they had the thing to actually
13:46do it correctly because if I would have gone there who knows it would have actually been a straight
13:49line cool yeah there is always that and what ball are you in Patrick so I'm in the new uh
13:54pro v1x plus okay 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 feel like the tight
14:06list the spin falls off the golf ball a little quicker than the callaways I used to use okay
14:11and 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
14:24never actually heard that yeah so everyone sits there they you know they focus on what the spin's
14:28doing right off the golf ball but it's but people don't focus on how much is the ball losing spin
14:33downfield which is where it matters right right and so um you know I was able to really kind of
14:39dial in with the guys at Titleist to figure out what ball was best for me even though right off the
14:43ball the number might not say the right thing but when it's flying and how it how it's reacting on
14:48the green especially on the partial shots and even on the full wedges it's not spinning off
14:52the planet I mean 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 sitting there on a perfect
15:00flat you know calm day it's how is it and the nasty stuff that's what I want to see and uh the ball's
15:05been great and uh you know I can't I was glad to get into that one and uh we're looking forward
15:09to the rest of the year with it yeah we got a little scoop on that last week at the open from
15:12some of the guys on the tour van so it's interesting to hear about that I'm gonna let you go now because
15:15the rain is starting to come down a little bit one more thing have you got any go-to training aids
15:18or anything that you you use all the time yeah so I use a glove under my right arm obviously and
15:23then I have a tiny stick I always use so actually I'll put that underneath the arm as well so then
15:30when I go back actually my arm will hit it so it'll definitely tell me to stop because with a glove I
15:34mean you can still stay connected but your arms can lift and can kind of keep going so that's to stop
15:39your arms running too long because because when you get here once it hits it's like all right now it's time
15:43to go down and go forward makes perfect sense brilliant well that is a great interesting look
15:47in a proper gear guy's bag really cool to see that thank you so much for your time
15:50for staying out in the rain that was really cool Patrick Reid everyone