Though Brooks Koepka’s Mizuno irons might have been the best equipment story at the US Open, there were plenty of interesting storylines across the field that gearheads should keep their eye on. Chief among them was Ping’s debut of its new G400 driver and the steady conversion to it.

Just arriving on the USGA’s list of conforming driver heads last Monday, the company had 12 players convert to the club at Erin Hills, including Bubba Watson, Angel Cabrera and Lee Westwood. Though the metalwoods won’t be available to the public just yet, we can glean some details from what we saw up close at the US Open.

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The club appears to be slightly more compact with an adjustable hosel, similar to previous Ping drivers. It also appears to have an updated “Dragonfly” crown with ridges in the rear and more aggressive “turbulators” on the front of the crown, likely to assist aerodynamics.

Cabrera, the 2007 US Open champion, also put a Ping G400 fairway wood in his bag, too.

Stay tuned for more details on the G400 woods in the weeks and months to come.

 

Other equipment stories that caught our eye

Rory McIlroy continued his transition into TaylorMade equipment by switching to the company’s Spider Tour putter. The four-time Major champion used the red-coloured version with “RORS” stamped with green paintfill on the sole. “I like how it swings and even hitting one off centre, it doesn’t seem to lose a lot of its energy,” McIlroy said of the putter when he first signed with the company last month.

Hideki Matsuyama made a timely putter change as well. At the Memorial, Matsuyama returned to his Scotty Cameron by Titleist Timeless GSS putter after a stint with a centre-shafted Cameron P5 Pocket Back putter he put in play at the Players. Matsuyama finished T-2 at Erin Hills, taking just 108 putts (ranked second), including just 25 on Sunday in a closing 66.

Rickie Fowler swapped his Cobra F6 Baffler 5-wood for the company’s King Forged CB 2-iron with a KBS C-Taper S+ shaft. Fowler originally wanted the iron, with 18 degrees of loft, for next month’s British Open and started working with Cobra on the club about a month ago. Feeling there would be wind to contend with at Erin Hills, Fowler felt he could flight the ball low and flat with the club and added it to the bag.