Have you noticed Rickie Fowler’s bag, the winner last Sunday of the Waste Management Phoenix Open? It was a limited edition stand bag. For those who are good observer, Rickie used a similar bag for his last tournament in Hawaii. But this is not the only player to have changed for a stand bag. So is the Tour bag experiencing its last moments? I do not see why caddies would not agree.
Puma, Titleist and TaylorMade are giving stand bags to their pro players
The Waste Management Phoenix Open is a special tournament on the calendar. This is an opportunity to launch innovations, such as the stadium on the 16. With a younger audience, brands are trying out experiments. Even though Fowler’s bag was a limited edition of 100 copies (already sold out), Titleist with Jimmy Walker and TaylorMade with Jon Rahm gave their pros bags that are available on the market. Taylor Made presented its FlexTech “technology” with a design in which each of the side pockets is built around the center of the bag creating a unique piece of construction with more storage and less weight. For Titleist, it was the Players4 and its “Plus” version with a load capacity a little larger than the Players4.
An obvious transition
2 obvious reasons for this change of style among the PGA Tour pros. The first is obviously commercial. With a more dynamic audience at the Waste Management Open, more sales volume for stand bags than tour bags, and pro players as brand ambassadors, it’s very clear that brands want their pros to use them. Is not it true that all golfers want to have the swing of Tiger Woods and the distance of Cameron Champ?
The second is the caddies’ back! They must still be relieved to have a little lighter bags with a real system of adjustable straps that make the bag fall perfectly in the back, do not you think?
If the sales are going well and the caddies claim it, it is not excluded to see bags tripods to Augusta. Well at least the 2019 KLM Open winner, Sergio Garcia, carried his club in a stand bag, during the third round.
What do you think? Leave me a message in the comments.
Photo Credit: Instagram
