Before Tommy Fleetwood signed with TaylorMade in 2021, his equipment experimentation — a revolving door of drivers, fairway woods, wedges, etc. — was as fun to follow as any player’s on Tour. It was a free-for-all of gear sauce and a blast to dissect.
But now that he’s with TaylorMade, Fleetwood has his very own club whisperer: TaylorMade Senior Tour Manager Adrian Rietveld, who I’ve found to be one of the best sources of intel for deep dives on Tour-pro bags. Certainly when it came to explaining Fleetwood’s setup, Rietveld did not disappoint.
Fleetwood didn’t, either.
“I have been close to Adrian for a long time now,” Fleetwood told me. “We met out on the DP World Tour, and before I joined team TaylorMade, Adrian was already the person I trusted the most with my bag set up.
“Adrian was a big part of why I signed with TaylorMade, and I do feel like we have grown and continue to grow together in all aspects of the game. One of the big advantages of being close friends is that conversations and ideas just pop up sometimes when we are just hanging out as friends and some of our best ideas and innovations have come from those times.”
Here’s how Fleetwood and Rietveld decided on Fleetwood’s setup.
TaylorMade TP5x PIX
When Fleetwood signed with TaylorMade, the ball was the biggest question mark for him. Fleetwood had enjoyed a ton of success with the Titleist Pro V1 and was hesitant to swap balls, which is often a sticking point when players sign with a new brand.
Sometimes the transition works out perfectly — see: Jon Rahm and Callaway — but other times it’s a physical and emotional battle. The golf ball is very important.
There were a couple of important markers that landed Tommy on the TaylorMade TP5x:
1. Peak height and carry distance with longer irons:
Fleetwood’s ball switch came down to every club beyond his 5-iron. Working from the green back, Fleetwood tested TaylorMade’s TP5 and TP5X and found they reacted similarly to the Pro V1.
At the time, Fleetwood’s bag set-up consisted of TaylorMade P7TW irons (6-PW) and Srixon ZX7 (4- and 5-irons). The issue he was having with the TP5 balls was launch. To find clean gapping, he needed a ball that would launch slightly higher and give him just a bit more carry to stretch his 4-iron (22 degrees) to a stock 225 carry number.
TP5x gave him that, and it instantly cleaned up gapping inconsistencies all the way to the driver. In most cases, a ball switch comes down to 100 yards and in, but for Fleetwood it came down to one club. His new ball allowed Fleetwood to play a clean non-combo set of P7TWs, and the rest is history. Today, he’ll sometimes switch in a P770 4-iron for even more launch.
2. Alignment:
Tommy was experiencing quite a bit of inconsistency with his putter, and a lot of it came down to alignment. He was using just a thin Sharpie line on his ball with mixed results; when TaylorMade introduced pix alignment aid patterns on its balls, Fleetwood planned to use the aids as a temporary fix to get his set-up and alignment back to stasis.
At the 2021 CJ Cup, Fleetwood went to work with Rietveld for on-course testing Fleetwood’s standard TP5x versus the TP5x pix.
For every shot for six holes, Fleetwood played — and tracked the results for — two balls: one pix and one unmarked TP5x. Drives, iron and sand shots, putts. The results made his ball decision easy.
Fleetwood came to the first tee the next morning with his TP5x pix, marked with the same thick line he used for practice. That’s the ball he has played ever since.
“I think the ball is our most important piece of the puzzle,” Fleetwood said. “However many different shots there are in golf, that ball is used for every single one of them. I have found that the right ball can create such a strong variable year to year when deciding what new clubs to put in the bag, to know that TP5x can travel club to club and year to year gives me so much peace of mind. I think we at times can underestimate just how important finding the right ball actually is.”
Head: TaylorMade Qi35 (DOT) 10.5@9.8 (58.5 Lie, 15 g forward, 5 g back, 1.5 degree FCT Sleeve at STD/UP)
Shaft: Fujikura 2024 Ventus Red 6-X Velocore+ (Tipped 1.5″, 45.25″ EOG, D3)
Fleetwood plays a Fujikura Ventus Red shaft in his driver and mini driver for a couple of reasons: (1) He prefers shafts with a stiffer butt section based on his swing dynamics, and (2) the softness of the bend profile in transition helps him turning over the ball.
The tipping on the red is about .5 inches more than normal. This was done to mimic the kind feel and spin retention he gets from the Mitsubishi Kuro Kage shafts in his fairway woods.
*TaylorMade put this video out on their YT channel this week but Tommy is still gaming the BRNR as of the Truist in Philadelphia.
Head: BRNR Mini 13.5˚ @12˚ (1.5˚ FCT Sleeve at Lower) 13 g forward, 6 g back
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Red 6X Velocore + (Tipped 1.5, 43.5 EOG, D4)
At the Truist Championship this week, Fleetwood and Rietveld actually tested 3-wood options to see if there was any potential benefit, but the mini easily won out.
5-wood:
Head: Qi35 bonded 18@17.5˚
Shaft: Mitsubishi Kuro Kage (80TX, Tipped 2, 42.25 EOG, D4)
9-wood:
Head: Qi10 24@22.5˚
Shaft: Mitsubishi Kuro Kage (80TX, Tipped 2, 41.5 EOG, D4)
In previous setups, Fleetwood had a 5-yard gapping issue after between his mini driver and 9-wood. Keeping all the specs the same, the Qi35 gave him that extra 5 yards organically, which gapped out the top of his bag to perfection. Typically, some spec adjustment is made to get this done. It’s rarely accomplished with the same type of head and no adjustments needed. The bonded set-up vs an adjustable is simply for lie angle adjustments. Bonded hosels can be bent a hair flatter than the TaylorMade FCT sleeve will allow.
The 9-wood is an interesting story. Like most Tour players, Fleetwood is always looking for easy ways to hit it high, mitigate a mis-hit and retain as much stopping power as possible. Fleetwood can achieve this wish list with an iron in that slot, but the 9-wood guarantees ball speed, height and increased spin on all strikes. So, where a P770 4-iron might hit a 226-yard carry number at 4400 rpm spin with a flusher, the 9-wood delivers 232 easily at high mid to high 4k spin with little to no effort.
Why the Kuro Kage shaft? It retains spin for him and lives roughly in the same ballpark as the Ventus Red in his driver and mini, both with stiffer handles. Kuro Kage has always been a shaft he’s liked the feel of, and it works well in more lofted fairways as they allow him to still keep the ball down when needed.
Heads: (3,4,5) P770 (3-PW) P7TW
Shafts: Project X 6.5
Lofts P7TW: (3-PW) 20/22/26/30/34/38/42/47
Lofts P770: (3,4,5) 20/24/27
Lie: (3-PW) 58/59/59/59.5/60/60.5/61/61.5
SW: D4
Length: +.25″ (38.25″ EOG 5-Iron)
Tommy changes his iron setup week to week, depending on the course setup. For example, at the Truist this week, Tommy is playing P7TW (4-PW) because the greens are a bit softer, meaning stopping the ball from 185+ out is easier. At the U.S. Open at Oakmont, I imagine you’ll see one or two of the P770s going in his bag, because getting the ball up and coming down steep will be at a premium.
“When Nike stopped making equipment, it came at a time when I was getting my game back from the abyss, and I made the decision to just stay with what I was using while I was on the right path,” Fleetwood said of how he landed in P7TWs. “I can’t remember when it was, but TaylorMade then produced the TW irons and Adrian kindly sent me a set.
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“I loved them straight away, thought they had all the characteristics of what I already had and liked and decided to put them in play and never looked back. As the years have gone on I’ve tried the odd iron here and there, and I never realized how important the sole on irons are and how the club went through the turf. So I look back and realize I took for granted how good the TWs were for me straight away.”
Fleetwood only recently started swapping in the P770s for his long irons.
“I am a good ball striker, but adding these P770s to the top of the bag does make life easier,” he said. “I can hit the ball up with my TWs, but it’s not the nature of that iron. To know that I can look at a club that aesthetically blends right in quite easily, and because of the technology, gets to a higher peak height all the time without much thought, just makes life easier. I can also play the P770 at a degree weaker than my P7TW (23 vs 22), so essentially I’m getting a bit more launch, a slightly steeper landing angle with carry, spin etc, staying in the same spot. Out here, that’s a big deal.”
Wedges: TaylorMade Hi-Toe 52.09 ATS, Titleist Vokey SM10 56/12D, 60/08M OR 60 A+
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400
Lie: 61.5
SW: D4
Length: (52/56/60) 35.5, 35.25, 35 EOG
As with his irons, Fleetwood may mix and match his wedges depending on the course. The typical set-up is the 52˚ Hi-Toe and the 60M Vokey. The Vokey A+ is something Tommy has been testing in prep for the summer run and firmer turf conditions.
Head: Spider Tour Black w/ Short Slant neck (Pure Roll Insert)
Loft: 2.5°
Lie: 69°
Length: 34’’
Grip: SuperStroke 2.0 Mid Slim
SW: E0
Roughly a month ago, Fleetwood was struggling not only with start lines but also with his strike. With his pencil grip action, the club tends to work its way inside on the way back and rotate on the way through. When it goes south, the face will also get a hair shut, causing heel strikes. Trying to find the balance between head shape and lie angle was the first order of business. The Spider Tour Black with the slant neck gave him the proper toe hang, and TaylorMade made a lie angle adjustment from 71 to 69. These two changes shored up the strike point almost immediately. In regards to alignment, Tommy was finding it hard to hit his lines, so his team offered him options that would allow him to put the alignment ownership on the putter without having to rely on a sharpie line on the ball.
ALIGNMENT The patented alignment system provides visual clarity and helps golfers better envision the line to the hole.
WHITE TPU PURE ROLL INSERTMade from a combination of Surlyn and aluminum, the white TPU Pure Roll insert creates a softer feel.Grooves are angled at 45° to encourage optimal forward roll as well as better sound, feel and overall roll characteristics. The white insert also creates better symmetry with the white True Path alignment.
THIN WALL UNDERCUT CONSTRUCTION We’ve engineered a super stable structure by removing excess weight to create high MOI and legendary Spider performance.
HYBRAR ECHO®DAMPENER HYBRAR is behind the face to dampen unwanted vibrations, delivering premium sound and feelon every putt with the best possible sensation.
TSS WEIGHTING TSS weights provide balanced weighting and help optimize performance for all various putter lengths.
STEEL WIREFRAME Allows engineers to better control weight distribution and CG location.View Product
“We tested multiple Spider options and ZT [TaylorMade’s new Zero Torque prototype],” TaylorMade putter rep James Holley told me. “He was rolling the Tour short slant and the ZT the best. With the ZT he was feeling a left miss with the onset and lower torque. He really liked the micro milling on the ZT and wanted to have something like that on a Spider.
“Initially, I had drawn some Sharpie lines on the Tour for testing to see what he wanted the Lab to make. He ended up liking the sharpie lines and did not want to change it. The lines on the Spider Tour allowed him to not use a line on the ball and be more “athletic” over the ball. The toe hang of the Tour Short Slant gave him a nice opening of the club face in the back stroke and allowed him to release the putter nicely.”
Wood/Wedge Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet BCT 58 RD (Logo Down)
Iron Grips: Iomic Sticky Blue 2.3 Round set at 11:30 (slightly open)
Stock Carry Numbers (Per Tommy Fleetwood)
Driver: 300 yds
Mini Driver: 280 yds
5-wood: 250 yds
9-wood: 240 yds
3-iron: 235 yds
4-iron: 228 yds
5-iron: 216 yds
6-iron: 204 yds
7-iron: 190 yds
8-iron: 175 yds
9-iron: 162 yds
PW-142 yds
52-128 yds
56-116 yds
60-102 yds
Driver vs Mini comparison :
Qi35 10.5° Driver
BRNR Mini 13.5°@12
1. Gapping with a focus on mishits at the top of the bag: From his switch into TP5x and adding more loft in his driver, the mini-driver, 9-wood, etc., Fleetwood has improved his mis-hits. Ease of use and managing spin was also a recurring theme. With the mini driver, for example, getting to that 275-280 number consistently is way easier for Fleetwood than doing it with a 3-wood. With a 3-wood, he would need not only to flush it but also to flatten the ball flight out substantially (killing spin in the process). With a mini driver, meanwhile, he can hit a stock shot and still get the carry and the spin.
2. Most of the shot shaping ability lives from 5-LW: While Fleetwood can still control ball flight with the top end of his bag, it’s in that 5-PW in the P7TW irons where the extreme responsiveness lives. That’s key because it’s with those clubs that left-to-right and right-to-left curve comes in handy. Fleetwood isn’t trying to carve a 4-iron into a tight back-right flag; in that scenario, he’s trying to come in from the heavens and stop the ball quickly. But from, say, 175 out to a tight flag, having the option to carve something in there is a nice weapon. This is the core reason Tour players like muscle back profiles, along with feedback, look and feel. These irons typically produce a lower, higher spinning ball flight as well.
3. Putter is built around strike and alignment: I’ve said this about putter fitting endless times. Find me a putter that I can aim and hit out of the guts most of the time, and the rest will fall into place. That’s exactly what happened with Fleetwood’s switch into the Spider Tour.
The work that Fleetwood and Rietveld have done over the years has been fascinating to watch because although clubs have changed in and out, the emphasis always has been on keeping Tommy’s core strength (his ball striking and shot-making ability) at a premium while adding options that make his bad shots better. Fleetwood generally is looking for clubs that allow him to hit the ball higher with spin — without him having to do anything technique-wise to make it happen.
The other thing I notice is his bag is always at a spin surplus. There isn’t a club in this bag that lives on the razor’s edge; if anything, they intentionally overshoot the mark. That’s called raising your floor, and it’s Tour fitting at its most brilliant.
Ready to raise own your floor? Book your fitting at your local True Spec.
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