Green Grass Golf Shop

First and foremost, I need to make it clear I’M NOT A CURRENT TITLEIST STAFF MEMBER OR INSIDER. My expertise comes from my past life as a green grass professional I was lucky enough to have a Head Professional on Titleist’s Advisory Staff, meaning he was able to provide myself and our other assistant with the staff member treatment. Along with that, our golf shop sold almost exclusively Titleist clubs and golf balls, and I had to keep up with brand and equipment education throughout that time with the Titleist University to maintain my knowledge of what we were selling.

But with all that being said…it’s time for the Memorial Tournament, and that means it’s time for new Titleist clubs! Merry Christmas everyone and happy days!! According to Titleist this is by far the most important part of their R&D process, the collaboration with the game’s best players to earn their final validation is a foundational aspect of the club design and release process with Titleist.

With the introduction of the TS driver back in 2018, Titleist (FINALLY) started keeping up with the outrageous combination of ball speed and forgiveness that brands like Taylormade, Callaway and Ping had been producing for years. With that Titleist finally had an answer for clubs like the now legendary Taylormade RBZ Stage 1 and first generation Callaway GBB Epic (a club I still miss DEARLY). From there, with the TSi that replaced that, and the TSR that is their current offering, the gains have been exponential and I couldn’t be happier with my TSR3 gamer having never really been a Titleist equipment user prior to that.

But let’s get to the good stuff, the new stuff, THE GT STUFF!! One thing immediately stands out to me as a Titleist lover is the changing of the weight position on the #3 model. When the TSR line was being released back in 2022, the one thing I heard from Titleist reps and insiders was that the Titleist Tour staffers (PGA Tour players who use Titleist clubs, for the layman) almost insisted that Titleist change the TSi3 as little as possible, to the point the Variable Face Thickness (VFT) face design that went into the TSR1, 2 and 4 did not make the cut with the TSR3. With the change in the weight to the front this year in the TSR3, that makes me think without that VFT face in the TSR3, the R&D team was hard at work trying to find other ways to increase the ball speed over the last two years. When weight is moved from the back of the club up toward a position more near the face, two things typically (but don’t always) happen: 1.) ball speed is increased and 2.) MOI is decreased. I can’t for the life of me imagine Titleist finalizing a design that brings MOI down from prior generations, especially with Taylormade centering the conversation this year around needing 10k MOI to make an acceptable driver. With that being said, my guess is the inner working of the head and the rest of the design with the GT3 would replace that lost MOI and then some from the movement of the weight to the front, maybe even the introduction of the VFT to the GT3 or a newer, similar face design across the line to make up for it.

As far as the GT2 and 4, nothing looks to be massively different from the pictures, at least nothing that jumps off the page like the GT3 does. Fashion is certainly cyclical, with that big white stripe down the center of the club reminding me a whole lot of the 910 models back in the late 2000’s. All in all, I’m freaking PUMPED for June, I can’t wait for July when we’ll have a better idea of when they’ll be available for public fitting (and my birthday!). One thing I know from Titleist is that even most of their employees have to get their info from blogs like MyGolfSpy and the Titleist website itself, they don’t share information lightly. I don’t expect a solid date on fittings or a release date until after the US Open here in a few weeks, but I’m excited to at least hear how they sound this week at Muirfield! (gimme more thud, gosh I miss my Epic…)