PGA Tour : Tiger Woods talks equipment testing

A year ago, Tiger Woods signed an endorsement deal with TaylorMade after spending the majority of his professional career using Nike equipment. In the ensuing 12 months, Woods was mostly sidelined due to continued back issues and rehab, but an encouraging performance at last month's Hero World Challenge has golf fans fired up for his return to the PGA TOUR at this week's Farmers Insurance Open.

PGATOUR.COM Equipment Insider Jonathan Wall recently had an extended one-on-one interview with Woods during a TaylorMade testing session near Woods' home in Jupiter, Florida. The conversation ranged from his testing process to his evolution in equipment to his club specs to his unique response when asked about golf without a governing body.

Testing process

On how his testing process changed since 1996 when he turned pro:

TIGER WOODS: 'When I first turned pro, it was hosel, no adjustable weights. It was just glued hosels and go ahead and hit it. It was a different era, it was a different time, but now TrackMan allows us to cut down on our testing, cut down on our practice sessions, and we're not beating ourselves into the ground that way. For me, it validated feel, and so when I would feel something and then look at the numbers, it would validate it. Sometimes engineers may not always believe what I'm feeling or what a player is feeling and saying, but then the numbers can definitely validate it.'

On his preparation for a club testing:

WOODS: 'I always test. I've never had a problem testing. I've always tested, though, when I'm actually hitting well. I don't want to test when I'm hitting poorly because then I think you can find a club that's going to Band‑Aid it, and you really don't know what truly is going to happen when your game turns around. And so I would push off testings until I worked on my game. Generally I'd do two or three days of practice sessions prior to a testing.'

On determining whether to make a club switch:

WOODS: 'First of all, it has to be better than what I'm playing, and the only way … is not only to hit it on the range and to see good results, but I've got to go out on the golf course and hit shot after shot after shot. Specific shots -- bunker here, you have water here, you have wind blowing here, and you've got to hit this shot, and just do it day after day after day after day. There's no magic one day of 'Oh, this club is in.' It's OK, that's good hitting it that way, [but] let's try and do something different, different wind conditions, let's see what happens.

'One of the things I think I've really done over the years is that I've been pretty ardent about playing a product that is better than what I'm using, and all of the companies I've been with, they all know that. I will give it my best efforts to try and put it in, but it's going to take a little time sometimes.'

On taking the testing process from the range to the course:

WOODS: 'First things first, it has to look good in the playing position. If it doesn't look good, I'm already looking at stuff I don't want to look at, and how am I supposed to hit the most beautiful golf shot with something I don't like? OK, that's out. The next one is how does it feel when I waggle it? My hands are the only thing that are touching the golf club, and I've been trained to trust my hands, and so as I waggle it -- ooh, that feels good, or ooh, that's a little toe-heavy, or ooh, that weight is way far back. So I get a sense of that, and then hit shots, normally just throw out a couple and then you fire a couple and then you kind of tweak them a little bit. And then either that day or the next day, I'll go out and hit some balls on the golf course.'

On using the waggle as his starting point:

WOODS: 'I've always done that. My dad was a big believer of trusting your hands, let the hands guide you in the golf swing. So that's what I've always done. For as long as I can remember, I've always waggled the club and tried to get a feel for it.'

'Quite frankly it's easier now to feel it because don't forget we had these little bitty club heads [early in his career]. The golf ball and the head were like the same size. Well, there's not a lot of weight distribution that's left in there. Now they're [460cc driver heads]. So it's easier to feel when it's off a little bit or a little bit different. I've always tried to have a baseline, so the baseline is the club that I have in the golf bag because I know they work. Now, I work off of that baseline.'

On how much input he gives TrackMan numbers:

WOODS: 'I'm probably 80/20. Eighty percent feel and hitting shots and 20 percent TrackMan. Yeah, it's nice to see numbers. I like to do it for swing path a lot of times. I like to see what my path is doing but also when I get up to the longer stuff, I like to see what my spin rate is, and so that's something where for me that's what I focus on. I know a lot of guys focus on numbers, how far are they hitting it. I've already got my clubs pretty dialed into numbers, how far I'm hitting it. I've got a whole golf course in the backyard (laughs). So my wedge game is pretty much dialed in in that way. TrackMan is for hitting specific numbers on wedge shots, which a lot of guys use that for. I have that in my backyard.'

On getting his driver dialed in:

WOODS: 'It doesn't need to be bang‑on because I'm not going to hit every shot perfect. But once it's in the ballpark - what I like is I will actually try and mis‑hit a couple shots and see what it does, what my tendencies are, especially under the gun. I like to hit these little low bleeding fades out there, and my miss has always been off the heel, so what does it look like when I hit it off the heel a little bit?'

On matching up new clubs with a new ball:

WOODS: 'The golf ball was the first and foremost. That's where I started from. I started from the green back. … Most of the golf balls are very hard. I like to have a softer golf ball, a little bit more spin. Once I found that, that part of it was nice. Now, as far as working my way through the bag, I had a hard time with that because at the time I was still hurt, and so my testing was very limited in that regard, which was frustrating. My irons didn't change, so the only thing that changed were my woods, and my speed had come down dramatically, and so we were looking at more loft, a little more help in the shaft at the bottom, a little more kick, all these things I found very frustrating, but it was very real at the same time.'

On the importance of sound and feel with irons:

WOODS: 'Oh, the feel, absolutely. It's got to perform through the turf. That's the feedback. That's what goes into my hands and the forearms and I get a good sense of what's going on. I've always been a person that couldn't stand some of the new technology in irons because if I hit one flush, it should go on the absolute number, that's it. Can't go any further. Sometimes you may catch a jumper now with these new irons, a little bit hotter faces, they'll jump if you hit it flush. For me, the worst thing I could possibly happen is if I mis‑hit it [and] then it goes the proper distance. I'm like, Uh‑oh, did I hit that bad? I want it to go short because where's all the trouble. You can't get up‑and‑down from long. You can always get up‑and‑down from short. So I'd much rather hit a bad shot and be, whatever, come up five yards short generally. That's OK. I don't want to have any surprises long.'