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Why Tiger Woods is in "no rush" to ditch his Nike equipment for new TaylorMade clubs

January 26, 2017
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Donald Miralle

On Wednesday at the PGA Merchandise Show, TaylorMade announced it had signed Tiger Woods to a new endorsement deal, one that will see the 14-time major winner carry the companies metalwoods, irons and wedges. Across the country in La Jolla, however, where Woods was preparing for his first official PGA Tour appearance in 18 months, reporters noticed that Woods' bag remained mostly stocked with Nike equipment. And, according to Woods himself, that will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.

Woods, who earlier in the week said the only change in his bag from the Hero World Challenge was a 3-wood, said he will take his time assimilating and switching to the new irons and wedges.

"With the irons, as I said we're going to take our time and build up an iron that I like not only in the playing position but how it feels and how it performs," Woods said at Torrey Pines. "So there's no rush on that. I'll be playing my current Nike irons and the blades I've been using for years for right now until TaylorMade builds me the irons that I want."

As Golf Digest's Mike Johnson pointed out in the TaylorMade announcement, Woods is expected to work with TaylorMade's club engineers in the design and development of a "new, personalized iron model" that the former World No. 1 will eventually put in play.

"Even then, I still have to go out there and I've still got to do the testing at home and do the testing on the numbers," Woods continued, "but also do testing at Medalist and hit shots and see how it feels and how it performs through the dirt and that's going to take a little bit of time as well."

Tiger does have a TaylorMade 2016 M2 driver in his bag at the Farmers Insurance Open, as well as the company's 2017 M2 3-wood and M1 5-wood, in addition to his old Titleist Scotty Cameron putter. This will be Woods' first PGA Tour start since the 2015 Wyndham Championship.