[PHOTO: Christian Petersen]
You have to learn how to win on the PGA Tour. At least that was the conventional wisdom for years. Matt McCarty instead used his experience in winning three times in a little more than a month on the Korn Ferry Tour and carried that winning feeling to the big tour, capturing the inaugural Black Desert Championship in just his third PGA Tour start.
“The experience of being in contention out there, I think it’s very similar to kind of what I felt today, and honestly helped me just kind of feel a little bit calmer about it,” McCarty said after the third round. “It all kind of builds upon itself. You know, the past three months have been great, in order to kind of get to that spot.”
That spot had a harsher glare as McCarty stood on the tee of the 283-metre, par-4 14th. Holding a nervy one-shot lead over Stephan Jaeger, McCarty smoked his Ping G410 3-wood, running it onto the green where it stopped three feet from the hole, the ensuing eagle boosting his lead to three.
McCarty’s 3-wood, which came to market in 2019, is 14.5 degrees of loft with a Fujikura Ventus Blue 7X shaft, tipped an inch-and-a-half.
An older 3-wood isn’t the only intriguing part of McCarty’s bag. Although his Ping G430 LST driver is 10 degrees, he uses the adjustable hosel to bring it down to 8.5 degrees. His Ping Blueprint S irons also are strong-lofted. McCarty opts for Ping’s “power spec” version of the Blueprint S, with the lofts half a degree to 1.5 degrees stronger depending on the club. His irons are also Ping’s red colour code, indicating a lie angle that is one degree flat.
Hey, when you have that winning feeling, you know what you like.
The clubs Matt McCarty used to win the 2024 Black Desert Championship:
Ball: TaylorMade TP5
Driver: Ping G430 LST (Fujikura Ventus Blue 6X), 10 degrees
3-wood: Ping G410, 14.5 degrees
7-wood: Ping G430 Max, 21 degrees
Irons (4-PW): Ping Blueprint S
Wedges: Ping Glide Forged Pro
Putter: Ping PLD Tyne C Custom
