Cameron Young has one of the coolest bags on the PGA Tour. From a custom set of one-off Titleist irons to a Vokey K* lob wedge bent to 62˚ to being one of the first players to popularize Scotty Cameron’s “R” rounded mallet head shapes.
But what catches my eye are two new additions for this season: A GT1 3Tour fairway wood and a 20˚ GT1 hybrid with a fairway wood shaft.
Young is one of the longest players in pro golf, evidenced by his missile off the 72nd tee Sunday that went 375 yards, the longest ever in the ShotLink era on the 18th at TPC Sawgrass, en route to winning the Players Championship. So you wouldn’t think he’d use Titleist’s “1” wood line, which is originally designed as the ultralight, game-improvement line.
But that’s what makes the GT1 line so cool and versatile for a player like Young to use them.
Cameron Young’s GT1 3Tour fairway wood
Let’s start with the GT1 3Tour fairway wood, which is a stronger lofted version (14.5) of the GT1 that comes stock at a more standard weight spec than the regular GT1 3-wood.
“During GT1 fairway testing, we found some tour players really loved the shaping and face height, but we knew that many of them would need a little less loft and lower CG for a stronger flight,” J.J. Van Wezenbeeck, Titleist’s senior director of club promotions, said.
The GT1 has a wide and shallow profile making it easy to launch, while also keeping spin down. Flippable forward and aft weights allow Young to place more weight forward to lower spin into his optimal window.
This also makes it a super forgiving option for a player with upward of 175 mph ball speed out of his 3-wood. He’s actually the third player to win with the GT1 3Tour fairway wood after Michael Brennan and Kurt Kitayama did so last season.
Young added the GT1 3-wood in place of his previous GT3 3-wood during the offseason as he continued to optimize the top part of his bag after switching to the low-spinning Pro V1x Double Dot Prototype last summer. He made a similar move last week by switching to a higher lofted GT3 driver.
These moves have all been about harmonizing the top of his bag to his golf ball after switching to one that’s a perfect fit with his irons. Once you can fit the golf ball to your irons, it’s much easier to fit your driver and top end of the bag to that golf ball rather than the other way around. The Titleist team has done a marvelous job of executing this ethos with Young’s new prototype.
Titleist GT1 3Tour Custom Fairway Wood
Lift your launch window with GT1 3Tour Fairway. Featuring a Tour-inspired player profile, shallow face, low CG, and a stronger “Tour Loft,” this fairway is designed to launch higher and fly farther without over-spinning. New adjustable fore/aft weights enable further optimization of ball speed, launch, and spin to achieve effortless fairway performance.
Features
High Launch and Exceptional Forgiveness
Stronger Loft
Adjustable Fore-Aft Spin Control
Refined, Tour-Inspired Shaping
Enhanced Sound and Feel
An even newer addition to Young’s bag is his GT1 hybrid.
Like the GT1 fairway wood, the GT1 hybrid has a larger profile, somewhat between a traditional hybrid and a traditional fairway wood. In light of that, it can also accept a fairway wood shaft in addition to a hybrid shaft.
The fairway shaft build is exactly what Young went for at the Farmers Insurance Open earlier this season when he added a GT1 20-degree hybrid in place of his previous GT2.
“When we look at GT1, we’re not looking at it solely for slower speed players,” Van Wezenbeeck told GOLF. “We’re looking for trajectory reasons. This is an opportunity for us to do kind of these unique builds on this in-between club.”
The GT1 has a sharp leading edge that allows it to sit close to the turf, making it easy to launch. That high ball flight was great for the rough at Torrey Pines or the firm greens on the PGA Tour week-in and week-out.
But it’s the ability of the GT1 to take a fairway wood shaft, which will play softer than a larger tip diameter hybrid shaft, that makes the club so versitile for fitting.
“For Cam Young, we were trying to create more of a 5-wood type golf club, so we were able to build it with a 5-wood shaft and use a .335 tip on the interior diameter, but a hybrid outside diameter [on the hosel]. We get kind of the best of both,” Van Wezenbeeck said.
Like his 3-wood, Young plays a heavier weight than the stock build and has a heavier weight forward to lower spin.
