The golf bag of Tiger Woods has been discussed, analyzed, picked apart, photo’d and podcasted to death over the years. The set-up that garners the most attention is the Titleist set from 2000 that was involved in arguably the greatest performance in sports history.
On the year-end episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped, I went club for club with the man responsible for this bag, former Titleist Tour Promotion Rep Larry Bobka.
The conversation was a gearhead’s dream. If you haven’t watched, CHECK IT OUT!
Before we dig into the sticks, let’s lay out the year by the numbers and the bag.
Starts: 20 Wins: 9 Winnings: $9.2 Million ($57-59 Million in Today’s Payout Structure) Majors: 3 (U.S. Open, The Open, PGA) Top 5’s: 15 Top 10’s: 17 Scoring AVG: 68.11 Rounds Under Par: 60/80 Average Finish 4th Strokes Gained Total: +3.2 Strokes Gained Tee to Green: +2.6 Driving Distance: 298 Yards Driving Accuracy: 71% GIR: 75.2
Putter: Scotty Cameron GSS Newport 2 Tri-Sole Putter length: 35.25 inches Loft: 3.5-4 degrees Sight: Cherry red dot Putter weight: 326 grams Swing weight: D7 Head material: German Stainless Steel Grip: Ping PP58 “Blackout” Age: 26 years old DOB: April/May 1999 Value: Priceless
Ball: Nike Precision Tour Accuracy
Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet Cord “Logo Down”
Glove: Nike Tour Authentic
Observations from Tiger Woods’s 2000 golf bag
There aren’t many more — if any — superlatives to use on his 2000 performance; it was simply the greatest golf ever played, and probably that ever will be played.
YES, Scottie is taking a nice lap over the past few years, but I’m sorry, it’s not the same thing. Not even close. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply delusional.
There are a few little nuggets around his sticks that may have gone overlooked but still fascinating from a gearhead perspective:
– He played WEAK lofts: I know the ball flew differently back then, but MY GOD. He was and still is easily a club weaker than probably 85% of the Tour today. Just for context, a standard loft package looks like this:
Typical Tour 4-PW vs TW 4-PW 4: 22 vs 26 5: 25 vs 29 6: 29 vs 32 7: 33 vs 36 8: 38 vs 40.5 9: 42 vs 45 P: 46 vs 49
Also, TW wasn’t a huge shaft leaner; he wasn’t Sergio Garcia. From an angle of attack and dynamic loft perspective, he was pretty neutral. So the distances were coming from 1) Speed, 2) Absolute perfection of strike. Don’t believe me? Hand his irons to a neutral-ish player these days, and they are easily a club shorter.
Tigers iron lofts were WEAK back in 2000 and a club weaker by todays standards…and he was still on elf the longest iron players on tour.
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– His woods were tipped to length, and his irons were tipped also: You don’t see it often on the irons, .25 inch tipping is weird to see. Now, it’s not for “extra stiffness” per se, it’s a stability/feel thing. Keep in mind, launch monitors weren’t really a thing back then, so it was all feel and the ball in the air that told the story.
The wood tipping to length is another rare one; it wasn’t uncommon with steel back then, but these days, on a drive,r you would tip it an inch, and butt trim to length. An X100 “tipped trim to length” in a modern graphite driver build would be a Ventus Blue 10X @44.5 inches, tipped at least 2….WOW, telephone poll stiffness.
Tiger played a 975D driver that measured out to 43.5 inches to the end of the grip.
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– They eyeballed the loft on his driver: This was something I never really considered, but it makes perfect sense now. During my podcast with Larry Bobka, he mentioned that to find the right driver head for Tiger, he had to sort through a box of heads and just kind of eyeball it. He would find the ones that looked slightly open (roughly 7-degrees finished), build ’em up, take ’em to Tiger, they’d hit ’em, and go from there.
– The elder wand was LIGHT and whippy: By today’s standard, Tiger’s Newport 2 GSS would be at least 20-30 g lighter in head weight than any Scotty you’d see at a store or in your local pro shop. The only way to get a present-day Studio Style even in the ballpark is to take the weight plugs out, and that will leave you at around 330 g. Even the steel shaft he had in it was unique. Tiger preferred the shaft to feel soft so he could feel the head. It was rumored that in the past, he chased that feel so much that he pulled out an old Wilson 8802 with a “fluted” shaft to practice with to create that “release” he was looking for.
The most famous putter in golf history is LIGHT. Really light. 325 g vs today’s standard which can go as high as 400 g.
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It’s funny that even 25 years later, I’m still finding new things to explore with Tiger Woods. I’m either learning something new or something I knew five years ago holds brand new meaning for me now. If you pay really close attention, you’ll see that Tiger did what he did in 2000 with a set of clubs built on feel. No real club data or Trackman info to reference, just his eyeballs, his hands and the scorecard.
My question is always, what would he do today? Like Michael Jordan in the modern NBA, I truly believe that Tiger would have dominated even more in thats even possible. I don’t think these kids have a true grasp of what it was like back then. It wasn’t the same game. He’s the greatest to ever do it.
Happy 50th, TW.
For more from myself and Bobka, including how Bobka crafted Woods’ Titleist 681T irons and why Butch Harmon kept a set of them for his students to hit, listen to the full episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped here, or watch it below.
; "Why Tiger Woods’ 2000 golf bag still feels untouchable, even today 1")
; "Why Tiger Woods’ 2000 golf bag still feels untouchable, even today 2")
