Schauffele strains up his golf ball through the third spherical of the Open Championship at Royal Troon.
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To win an Open Championship, you want a bag stuffed with methods to deal with the unpredictability. For 4 days at Royal Troon, Mom Nature threw down the gauntlet and compelled each participant within the 2024 Open Championship subject to make use of each instrument within the bag and get snug with being uncomfortable.
When the problem was cranked as much as skilled degree, solely Xander Schauffele managed to search out one other gear down the stretch and prevail. It’s simple to take a look at Schauffele’s remaining spherical efficiency and chalk it as much as psychological fortitude. However that’s just one a part of the equation. The instruments should carry out below the gun as nicely.
In Schauffele’s case, each instrument within the bag got here up clutch within the large moments, particularly the Callaway Chrome Tour golf ball.
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Of all of the gear modifications Schauffele made in the beginning of the season, switching from a prototype model of Callaway’s Chrome Smooth X into Chrome Tour gave the impression to be uncomplicated.
“The golf ball is similar,” Schauffele mentioned of the swap on the Sentry Event of Champions. “I believe they only stamped a brand new emblem on it.”
If the balls had been “similar,” then why swap in any respect? In accordance with Callaway Tour rep Kellen Watson, it was extra concerning the delicate efficiency enhancements seen throughout testing. Extra particularly, how the ball managed to carry its personal in blustery situations.
“With the improved aerodynamics, it was a no brainer for him to modify balls,” Callaway Tour rep Kellen Watson advised GOLF.com. “It’s a kind of facets professionals discover after they’re testing on their very own. For Xander, he was in a position to preserve getting higher in an space that didn’t require any main changes to his gear. It was a compelling purpose to make the swap.”
Whereas the realm bundle on a golf ball not often garners the eye it deserves, Callaway invested closely within the design of a brand new Seamless Tour Aero bundle discovered on Chrome Tour.
Winner’s bag: Xander Schauffele’s gear on the 2024 Open Championship
“Every ball may have a uniquely designed aerodynamic sample, and it’s utterly totally different from something we’ve ever performed, bringing our aerodynamics into a very totally different zone,” mentioned Eric Loper, Callaway’s senior director, golf ball R&D.
Callaway’s hexagonal dimple design stays a key a part of the aero bundle, together with one thing else that received’t instantly stand out: a strategically positioned spherical dimple including consistency all through the flight.
“By managing every dimple, it permits us to deal with the ball flight from begin to end, the place the ball begins off quick however because it approaches the bottom the velocity has considerably decreased,” Loper mentioned. “This has led us down this path of creating an trade first, it’s a mix of Callaway’s hexagonal floor geometry with strategically positioned spherical dimples that present stability by way of your complete ball flight. We’ve ended up with model-specific patterns that maximize distance and enhance stability over your complete ball flight, which the participant will see in quite a lot of situations.”
Schauffele started ball testing in mid-October and instantly observed how a lot simpler it was to execute photographs with out doing the standard psychological math to account for the wind course. However ball testing at residence doesn’t pay the payments. It wasn’t till he put it to the check in competitors that he noticed the identical outcomes below strain.
“That’s when you recognize you made the precise determination,” Schauffele advised GOLF.com. “If you begin to see the ball dealing with [the windy] situations, it means that you can be extra aggressive and belief that [the ball is] going to execute the photographs.”
Because the swap, Schauffele has received the Open Championship and PGA Championship. Not dangerous for a man who didn’t have a serious to his title firstly of the season.
Schauffele’s belief in his Chrome Tour ball was on full show through the remaining spherical as he attacked Royal Troon with surgical precision. Even the powerful photographs didn’t appear to trouble the 30-year-old — like a 173-yard flyer on the par-4 eleventh. With the wind blowing off the left at 17 mph, Schauffele extracted the ball from the tall grass and watched because it minimize by way of the wind and landed softly on the entrance edge earlier than settling inside a number of ft of the outlet for an inconceivable birdie.
It’s the type of shot that solely reaffirmed his determination to modify balls in January. Shaking up a profitable setup isn’t simple, but it surely makes all of the hours spent testing behind the scenes value it when the eventual consequence is main championship {hardware}.
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