People actually used to believe that Tiger Woods wouldn’t win the US Open because he was too wild off the tee.
Then 2000 happened.
Woods put together one of the best statistical seasons of all time, winning nine times, including the last three majors of the year. Part of his statistical prowess was placing first on the Tour in Total Driving.
Not only did Woods put together one of the greatest seasons of all time, but he also put together possibly the largest collection of fourteen clubs ever, thanks in large part to the work of then-defending champion Larry Bobka.
Bobka joined host Johnny Wunder on the final episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped of 2025 to recap the journey that led to putting Woods’ clubs together for the 2000 season.
That includes how Woods switched from the Cobra driver he used when he won the 1997 Masters from his first Titleist driver.
The final build was a Titleist 975D 7.5 degree head with a 43.5″ Dynamic Gold X100 steel shaft, but it took a while for Bobka and Woods to land on the specific head and shaft.
“So when the drivers came in, we would get 25 in a box,” Bobka said. “I mean, I literally sat there and put a shaft in every driver in that box that was 7.5 degrees and I pulled out three to six that I thought would be perfect for his eye. That would be just a little bit higher in the toe, it looked like it wouldn’t go to the left. So most of those drivers, if you measured them, they came out at seven degrees.
“Most of them were around D3 to D4, right in that range,” he continued. “I mean, he wasn’t too picky, you know, if it was D3.5 versus D3 or D4, if he hit it right, he liked it. And again, that’s when the magic happened with the guy swinging the golf club.”
Although revolutionary for its time, the 975D driver does not have a much larger head than a modern 3-wood, and the shaft is also the same length. Not to mention that the shaft was the same 130g weight as his irons, as opposed to the 70g graphite shaft he plays with in his 3-wood today.
Launch monitor technology was still in its infancy in the 1990s, but Bobka estimated that even with that setup, Woods topped a ball speed of more than 200 mph.
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“I can only remember three people who ever actually made the sound he made when hitting a golf ball,” Bobka said. “When you work with Tiger, you start hearing it and you’re like, ‘Man, that’s the sound.’ I mean, it sounds like two cars crash every time he hits the golf ball.
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