Anyone watching Rickie Fowler during the final round of the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow would have seen him hit some crunching drives in a closing 64.
Seven back at the start of day four, it was almost enough to give the Californian his first PGA Tour win since 2023.
Despite coming up just short, it secured Fowler his third straight top 10 finish on the PGA Tour and all have come in elite-field Signature Events.
As for that driving prowess – he was ranked 10th, 5th and 23rd respectively for Strokes Gained Off The Tee in the final three rounds – it emerged that Fowler had a new shorter driver in the bag.
In his early days on tour, Fowler played a 45.5 inch driver but, to help give him a feeling of control, he choked down on it.
He’s since varied his driver length but after chats with Cobra tour rep, Ben Schomin, the 37-year-old decided that going shorter was the way forward.
Fowler, as reported by Golf Digest, told Schomin that a 45-inch driver didn’t feel in tune with the rest of his bag.
The solution: a switch to the 43.25-inch OPTM X.
Schomin explained: “I think when it gets longer and he’s swinging well, it maybe feels like it’s just lagging behind him.
“When it’s shorter, it feels like he can just turn on it a lot better. It’s like a good pass.”
The trade-off for the shorter length and increased control was a slight decrease in ball speed but, intriguingly, Fowler’s driving distance numbers went up.
At Quail Hollow, he averaged 308 yards off the tee for the week and in round four his Driving Distance stats were a mighty 331 yards (ranked 5th).
That compares to his season-long average DD figures of 302.4.
The explanation: finding the centre of the face more often and a better, more aggressive swing path.
The 43.25-inch build is two-and-a-half inches shorter than the longest he’s used in his pro career.
“I don’t know if a player in his career has ever had that big of a difference in driver lengths,” said Schomin.
But the early signs are extremely positive.
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Article Link: Rickie Fowler’s driver experiment is delivering elite PGA Tour numbers