Just one day before his 2017 debut at Torrey Pines, Tiger Woods made a major equipment move Wednesday morning, announcing that he had chosen TaylorMade as his new equipment provider. The endorsement deal means that Tiger will put the company’s driver, woods, irons, and wedges in his bag.
Tiger Woods, TaylorMade announce new equipment deal
Tiger makes his return this week and it will be with new equipment in tow.
Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Woods already had everyone’s attention ahead of his first official PGA Tour start since Aug. 2015. And then he tweaked the golf world with a tweet Tuesday afternoon that renewed speculation that the 14-time major winner and the game’s ultimate moneymaker may have struck a deal with a new equipment company.
Tiger will have a full set of TaylorMade woods, including driver, in the bag this week, but will still use his old Nike irons. The new deal includes irons, which is maybe the most surprising part of the announcement. He will “work closely” with TaylorMade engineers to develop “a new custom set” of irons and wedges, Tiger said in a statement.
The woods he’ll use in his first event in 2017:
Tiger will — coincidentally or not — tee it up in the opening two rounds of the Farmers Insurance Open with a pair of TaylorMade’s highest-profile players, Jason Day and Dustin Johnson. The marquee threesome will hit Torrey Pines’ South Course at 1:40 p.m. ET on Thursday.
Woods, who put Nike on the golf map when he switched from Titleist gear to the supplier that is now exiting the equipment business, spent most of his offseason going through rigorous testing of potential new equipment. Nike Golf’s cash cow used a TaylorMade M1 driver and fairway woods last month in his first competitive event in almost 16 months, the Hero World Challenge. But that was still in the unofficial testing stage.
At that Hero World Challenge, Tiger put a Bridgestone ball in play, one that he’d been testing during his long layoff that included Nike’s decision to leave the equipment business. The move to Bridgestone came as a bit of shock, with many assuming he’d put the popular Titliest back in the bag. He moved out of the “testing” phase with Bridgestone and signed an official deal with that company in mid-December. That Bridgestone ball was the first equipment deal for Tiger in the post-Nike era. Now comes this sexier announcement about the new big stick in Tiger’s bag.
Tiger will play four of the next five weeks, jumping between the PGA Tour and the European Tour. After this week’s 2017 debut in San Diego, he’ll fly to Dubai to play in one of the Euro Tour’s marquee early season events. Then it’s back to the states for starts at Riviera and the Honda Classic. It’s a rigorous stretch for the selective Woods and one that will immediately test his fitness well before the high point of the season.
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