Slip Under The Covers for a special episode!
Our first ever end of year Award Show. We dive into statitstic based awards like Best Driver, Best Woods, Best Irons. Who will win between Callaway, PING, Titleist, and Taylormade?
As well as some personal awards we wanted to highlight for the 2026 PGA Tour Season. Hard to choose between Scottie Scheffler's putter, Rory McIlroy's Driver, and Hideki Matsuyama's Wedges.
Thank you to everyone who has listened throughout the year. It was a fun first season of recording!
Chapters
- 00:00 Introduction to Clubbies Award Show
- 03:03 Shaft of the Year
- 10:53 Driver of the Year
- 13:06 Fairway Woods of the Year
- 16:46 Irons of the Year
- 20:01 Wedges of the Year
- 22:02 Putter of the Year
- 27:35 Specific Club of the Year
- 30:00 Clubby Awards and Winners
- 32:14 Dumbest Name of the Year
- 35:34 Best Looking Club of the Year
- 39:10 Biggest Disappointment
- 42:39 Most Improved Club of the Year
- 46:40 Favorite Moment with a Club
- 50:38 Unique Award Creation
Transcript
Dominic: Well, well, well, hello and welcome to a special edition of Under the Covers. We're looking dapper. We got our nice suits on. I hope you're watching. If you're listening, you're missing out. Let me introduce you to our first inaugural end of the year award show, The Clubbies. We will get into the details in a second. First, I would like to introduce our hosts. My name is Dominic. Matt, how are you doing today, sir?
Chief Wedge Officer: Dom, I am vibing. I got into a GTS2 this weekend and I am hitting bombs.
Dominic: Halacious seeds.
Chief Wedge Officer: That's right.
Kevin Spisak: Mm-hmm.
Dominic: Got rid of the good good and then you got into
Chief Wedge Officer: The good
Dominic: the good good.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, sure. Let's put it that way.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: It didn't really make sense in my head anyway. Doesn't matter. our next host, Kevin. What's going on, buddy?
Kevin Spisak: nothing much, Dom. I'm just enjoying this fine Blanc de Blanc that's been in my fridge for probably four years. And it is from one of those Christmas advent calendars and it was stuffed way back there. But we got some bubbly top off a little bit here. it's it's still good.
Dominic: We when you said Blanc de Blanc, I thought you were making up a name for never heard of that before. Is it pretty good?
Kevin Spisak: No, blanc blanc demi sec is what it says. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Chief Wedge Officer: Kevin, you're a man of taste and passion, if I ever known.
Kevin Spisak: Yes.
Dominic: I love it. Only the finest for the clubbies. Only
Kevin Spisak: Product of France.
Dominic: only the finest for the clubbies. And on that note, as we go through, we are going to be giving awards for certain manufacturers, and just kind of things that we are thinking about throughout the year So going through some of the awards, our we have two groups of awards. The first group of awards is going to be based on stats. So we've mentioned it a few times in our normal episodes, but we have a club tracker on our official website. So if you go to under the coversgolf.com and then on the top, there are some tabs. Just go to clubs. And it's a full club tracker. You can see all this data that we're sharing today. Go check it out. But going through some of these, so we're gonna give an award for the shaft of the year, driver of the year, wood, iron, wedge, and putter. and then after that, we're gonna give some more personal awards, kind of put our own spin on some things and and again, things that we kind of noticed throughout the year that we wanted to share. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce our first award, and that is gonna be the sh-
Chief Wedge Officer: Well Dom, quick quick aside, remember if a if you if you're a winner, if you're a lucky winner tonight, person or manufacturer, you can reach out to us at under the coversgolf at gmail.com and we will give you this beautiful looking trophy that Dom has.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: it's beautiful. I mean truly unbelievable. And we will even send you a free hat. From under the covers for your trophy case at at Titleist maybe or at Tailormade or maybe, you know, Cobra, if we throw that in there. but yeah, we will we'll you know, it's it's a prestigious award and I hope the manufacturers will treat it as such. Or
Dominic: Thank you, Matt.
Chief Wedge Officer: or players, if you know, if if if some of the ones come down to it towards the end on the on the more personal side.
Dominic: You never know. You never know. Like Matt said, under the covers golf at gmail.com. Hit us up if you are a winner. I appreciate you, Matt. So, on to our first award. And that is going to be for the shaft of the year. Again, these are based on stats that we have been keeping. So the the shaft of the year is a very popular shaft. A lot of the big names are using it. You all know it very well because we say it most of the weeks. And that is the Fujikura Ventus Black. There are some of the notable names. You got the Rory's of the world, Scotty Scheffler. this also includes the Velicor Plus. So it's gonna be Gary Woodland. Victor Hovlin uses the tour response Velicore Plus. A lot of big names using this this shaft. and a lot of drivers, a lot of clubs. Matt, what do you have to say about this shaft here?
Chief Wedge Officer: Man, the Ventus, what I like to tell people in Ventus we trust. that's kind of my my go to. it's just taken the world by storm over the last two or three years. It it it really it's come on tour. you see a lot of these shafts that people really like like bring on and and some really have staying power. a few that come to mind, like the Diamanas, they the whiteboards, they've they've been there a long time. And I think we're gonna see the Ventus lineup for the next ten fifteen years, kind of be in the mix of always the best shafts on tour. you kind of get the one in one one offs every once in a while, but there must be something to the shaft if if, you know, nearly every tour player has at least one Ventus in their bag. black, blue, or whatever, but black is is the most popular when the tour guys are swinging it that fast. So congrats to Fuji Kura. they're a great shaft manufacturer. And yeah, they're selling like hotcakes, at the stores, that's for sure. I I've I've bought a couple in my day.
Kevin Spisak: Well, you know what they say. Once you go Ventus, you never go back.
Chief Wedge Officer: Ha ha ha
Kevin Spisak: Nelly Nellie Korda even has, you know, all three different colors in her bag. And, you know, she's the best female golfer in the world. yeah, the the Ventus Black though is, you know, it's gonna stay on tour for a long time, like Matt said. I've got one in a five wood. I you know think I might need the blue personally, just not not quite as athletic as I once was in my younger years, getting old, stiff back, but but these tour pros really know how to crank the Ventus Black here.
Chief Wedge Officer: So that that
Dominic: Absolutely.
Chief Wedge Officer: shaft retails for three hundred and fifty dollars, Dom, essentially. if you buy a new driver, it's a two hundred dollar upgrade.
Dominic: Okay. Note it.
Kevin Spisak: here's here's a question for ya. both of you feel free to answer. Non Fuji Kura shafs, who do you think could challenge the Ventus Black for next year's clubbies?
Dominic: I feel like Hazardous has been making some pretty good like like waves. You know, like they added in the Titan yellow. So I mean maybe it's kinda hard to tell though. I mean, there's a couple of tensis out there. What do you think, Matt?
Chief Wedge Officer: Pe people are really liking that who makes the link power core?
Kevin Spisak: That's US T.
Chief Wedge Officer: That's UST. That one's gaining some traction, it sounds like. Honestly, I feel like I mean the Diamanas are always gonna be right there, right? Like the whiteboard shafts are always gonna be there. maybe, yeah, maybe UST with the power core if it kind of takes off in the same way. but I don't think anybody's gonna get close to to to Fujukura, to be honest.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Yeah.
Dominic: Do you have any thoughts? What do you think?
Kevin Spisak: Same thing as Matt. Yeah, I don't think it's gonna be close for a while. you know, Mitsubishi kind of has par their market split between several different lines, you know, so maybe if they consolidated and got more of their players into just like the d the Diamanas, then maybe they could challenge or or get close. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if the Titan takes off with Project X, you know, as the replacement to Hazardous. but as far as we know, like Windham's really the only one who's put that in the bag. you know, for for our winning club tracker, there's probably more people who've played it, but yeah, I I'd be very excited to try a Titan myself.
Dominic: So going through some of the stats, kind of mention it a little bit, but for the driver specifically, the Ventas Black Arch Club tracker tracks which clubs win a tournament. So for example, Wyndham with the Titan Yellow, the Titan Yellow won three tournaments. so with the Ventas Black, including the Velicor Pluses, the Ventas Black had eleven wins on tour this year. And that's just for drivers. And then if you make your way down to the fairway woods, there's eight in the fairway woods as well. The next best being three. So quite a bit of of winners are in that Ventus Black throughout the the T sheets.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, it's it's super popular. it's just so stable. I think that's the biggest thing that people like about it is it's it it feels very stable, which is what I like about
Dominic: Mm-hmm. So congratulations, V Fujikura Vent is black.
Kevin Spisak: next up in our our second Clubby Award, we've got the driver of the year. So this this was a hot race. We started off the year, I think, going in one direction. It seemed like we weren't going to come back. And then we pivoted and and went in a different direction and then stayed there. So we've got the titleist GT3 tied for the win with the Taylor-made QI4D. So In in the case of a tie, we have to have a tiebreaker. There can only be one winner. And due to the other clubs, the the other models, Titalus takes home the victory here, takes home the cluby. Congratulations, Titalus, for the GT3 and the other you know winners in the bag there for Titalus. So you've got the GT3, the GT2, GTS3, GTS2 all making appearances in our winning drivers. Congratulations Titalus for for maintaining being the premium driver on the PGA tour. You know, the at the beginning of the season we saw the QI four D come up a lot. even Scotty Scheffler made the switch here at the end of the year and and got a couple dubs with it. But you know, with the the whole body of work, we've got Titalus taking home the crown.
Dominic: Some notable names would be Cameron Young, Matt Fitzpatrick, JJ Spawn, Matt's boy Michael Brennan is a a known GT three user. honorable mention, I would say, I mean, GT two is somewhat similar, but Jackson Coyvin, up and comer, also in the GT series.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, unique.
Chief Wedge Officer: remember the the days when Titalus made crappy woods. and now we're now we're looking where we look where we've where we've climbed to. it's pretty amazing. There is back in like I think the nine fifteens, those were some pretty those are some pretty bleak years.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Also worth mentioning that the the winner here with the titles GT three is also played by one of our most avid listeners, Mark. If you're listening, shoot us a text, we'll send you a hat.
Dominic: We love you, Mark.
Chief Wedge Officer: so yeah, we we are moving on to Fairway Woods. Fairway Woods includes kind of the three wood, five wood, seven wood mini driver kind of world. we kind of grouped all those into into one big bucket. so we've talked about it all year long. The Tailormade Woods dominate. They dominate all wood categories. Tailormade has something special going on with their metal wood game. Not sure what. I'm not sure if it's kind of their Adams Golf, a little bit of their DNA that they bought, you know, maybe 15 years ago. I like the big
Kevin Spisak: That's a throwback. Nice.
Chief Wedge Officer: throwback. but yeah, the QI4D won eight times on tour this year. The Q QI 10, which is now a two-generation old wood, won seven times on tour this year. And then even the QI 35 had five wins. So and there's there's a couple 4D tours in there and and all that stuff. So It has been a great year for Taylor Maid, Taylor Maid Woods. They continue their trajectory. I remember the days of the Rocket Ball's three woods, and I feel like that was that
Kevin Spisak: Well.
Chief Wedge Officer: was the that was the the start of Taylor Maid's dominance in the wood category. those things were electric. I still remember that video of Dustin Johnson hitting a Rocket Ball's three wood like 330 yards on that T-box. But yeah, congratulations to Taylor Maid again. Email us. for a cluby. I to kind of go back in your question, if we see anybody coming and challenging Fuji Kura, I do not see anybody getting close to Tailormade Woods over the next I'm gonna say I'm gonna go out on a limb and say five years from now I still think they're gonna be dominant. They they know something that they're doing with the woods and they're doing it
Dominic: Especially with the how they're, you know, doing delayed releases now. They're not really gonna change too much in the next year or so, which will be nice.
Chief Wedge Officer: And and one of the craziest things, I was I was doing some shopping for woods this this week. I'm I've got myself into a QI thirty five now. but i it's amazing if you look at QI tens how much value they still hold. You you you can find
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: QI thirty fives for cheaper than you can find QI tens, which is crazy.
Dominic: I didn't know
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. So.
Dominic: Once again, congratulations to the tailor made QI four D.
Kevin Spisak: Mm-hmm. Matt, how much would a Callaway maverick with lead tape around the hazel go for?
Dominic: Bonded, if you're wondering.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: It would it would it would go for I would s I don't know if I'd even sell it. I kinda wanna use it as a desk club for my for my
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: shop down here. And I don't know if it's worth anything. I
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha ha.
Chief Wedge Officer: think second laugh at me.
Dominic: It probably would. It's like what are
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: you doing in here?
Kevin Spisak: Dominic hit the laugh track.
Dominic: I wish I had one on. All right. Time to move on. Our next award is going to be the Irons of the Year. So this iron, they kind of made a end of the year surge starting with Wyndham Clark. once again, Wyndham Clark won thrice. and then they kind of just kept going with the T one hundreds. Titleist T one hundreds is the winner of the clubbies for Iron of the Year. some other notable names. Russell Henley uses these, JT Poston, and Matt's boy Tom Kim. How do you feel about that, Matt?
Chief Wedge Officer: Shout out T K shout out TK baby. President's
Dominic: Yes sir, yes sir.
Chief Wedge Officer: called the superstar. I'm excited for him. I'm excited for him to show out. Tom King leader of men.
Kevin Spisak: Can't wait for him to play in T GL this year.
Chief Wedge Officer: He's a leader of men.
Dominic: Absolutely. He's gonna yell at Scotty again on the greens.
Chief Wedge Officer: Even though they play together in Dallas. I wonder if like the PJ Taurus is like, hey, you guys should get to some drama. That's beside the point. Yeah, no, Titalus is they've really improved their iron game. I don't know, I feel like irons are a little bit funky because they're they're definitely ones that the club contracts get them signed into. I wonder how many players would play like Mizuno Irons or something like that if they weren't. be interesting. That'd be my my big thought there. But T one hundreds have taken off and they seem to be really good.
Kevin Spisak: yeah, I I wonder, you know, we've got so far Titalus and Taylor Made. I wonder if these are the two biggest marketing budgets, you know, of of any golf manufacturers. Titless obviously owns the golf ball market. you know, but when it comes to clubs, you know, we still see a good number of commercials, golf magazine ads, you know, all that. And they're clearly willing to like pay for players where I don't think Mizuno necessarily wants to like pay for players. so yeah, I agree with Matt. It'd be interesting to see how many of them how many players would play, you know, Mizuno or Mayura or something like that.
Dominic: Yeah. The and there's a lot of titles out there as well, besides the T one hundreds. So total titleess manufacturer different models out there, there's eleven that won on tour this year. The next best is TailorMade at seven, and in third place was Ping with five different wins. So the the titles T one hundred had six of those eleven specifically. And then the next best was Titalus six twenties. There's four of those. So kind of taking up all the the titleist spots there. But once again, congratulations to titleist. Reach out. Come grab your trophy and hat.
Chief Wedge Officer: we are gonna get very familiar with titleists and tailor made on this podcast tonight, unfortunately. No, fortunately, those are the those are good manufacturers. so wedges. as your chief wedge officer speaking to you, the Vokey SM11s are King of the Hill, Top of the Crown, best of the best, as they always are. They have nineteen wins, the the title the title's wedges this year, which is crazy. but the wedge works, I we kind of split it out. The SM elevens, and then there's the custom wedge works, which is essentially custom Voge grinds.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: and you know, we've even had a couple SM eights and SM9s thrown in there for wins this year. Scotty, I still think plays the SM eight, so there.
Kevin Spisak: Yep, he's got one of each.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. and and some SM tens. So yeah, but I I will like I would like to shout out I think I think Titaless makes the best wedge out there. I think other people try to come up with new things. I'd like I would like to shout out the MG five. I think Taylor Made is making some real ground in the wedge category, and and quality of their wedges. kind of like Titalus is making grounds in the driver space. Taylor Made used to make some crappy wedges, but I feel like they've the MG fives have really taken off on tour, so I I could see that gap closing into the next year. But again, title list email us for now your third clubby award.
Dominic: Gonna look like Adele with her Emmys. Grammys?
Chief Wedge Officer: Michael Michael Phelps.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: Yeah. Always makes up which award goes with what. Congratulations on your clubby. It starts so slow. All right, Kevin,
Kevin Spisak: I think
Dominic: take us away.
Kevin Spisak: our last of the stats based awards is probably the most important, I would say. The club you use the most, everyone's, you know, sexiest item in their bag, it's always their putter. You know, me as someone who's just very obsessed with putters, I love to try them, I like to hold them, I like to cuddle with them sometimes. You know, we we get we get under the covers with our putters. And you know, this year. I I think people kinda know who's gonna win this award. But but I I got a very interesting phone call not too long ago and they begged me, dude just please don't give it to him. Don't give it to him. You you gotta give it to Ping. You you have to give the Ping Alley Blue onset has three victories. You know, you gotta give it to him. And I said I said, No, we we have to go with the data. And the data said that the Taylormade Spider Tour X is the putter of the year. Congratulations, Taylormade for another amazing season with the spider. You know, they're just the winds kept racking up all year. They started off hot. Got everyone on earth to consider having. If you're what if you're not watching the video, you have to watch right now. everyone who was a traditionalist blade user, you got you got in their head, they thought to themselves, I need to try a spider. That you've got people going with milled inserts, changing out, you know, different inserts, all these custom you know, club finishers online doing all sorts of different things all around the spider. Every manufacturer wants to copy them. You know, it's the whole, you know, men wanna be him, men wanna be with him, something like that. Everyone wants to be the spider. Dom's got one, Matt had one, I have one. I'm not currently playing it, but if there's a good chance I do, congratulations,
Dominic: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Spisak: Taylormade
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah,
Dominic: So going through the splits, there is a 26 to 7 split for mallet versus blade, which is hefty. with the manufacturer specifically. So Taylor Maid is leading the pack with 13 wins on tour. Next up is Scotty Cameron at nine, and then Our Love, because we're a big Ping podcast. Ping has six wins on tour currently. Obviously, three of those being Wyndham. And then Odyssey and Bettnarty each have two. And one for lab golf. Shout out JJ Spawn.
Chief Wedge Officer: I would like to if you're an avid listener, our our our scooter boy, he has officially ordered a spider. Not to actually use, just to just to hit mess around with, he said.
Dominic: Just to scare you for arachnophobia.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. I picked up a spider this weekend and I was got scared.
Kevin Spisak: You you wanna know how sick I am? I you know, love the ping alley blue onset so much and we've talked about it a lot. I went on a a Google rabbit hole search of trying to figure out if there has ever been like a spider that's been center shafted onset kinda like that, you know, and if there was I would have bought it. But if there was, they don't exist left handed anyways. So I'd have to do custom stuff, it would cost me way too much money. But
Dominic: Try to make one.
Kevin Spisak: that'd be fun. Should I should
Chief Wedge Officer: We could do that.
Kevin Spisak: I take a welding course?
Dominic: Yes, absolutely. That'd
Chief Wedge Officer: We could we could totally
Dominic: be incredible.
Chief Wedge Officer: yeah Tailor made man they're just taking taking the world by storm. I feel like every junior golfer I see out there has a spider. It's it's crazy. And I I just I don't know. I want to throw it out there like a spider costs let's just say it costs four hundred dollars. I think they're like they retail for what, $3.99? those things can't cost more than twenty five dollars to make. That's crazy.
Dominic: Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: That's crazy.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: It's insane. The amount yeah, the amount of money you have to spend on a putter now. It like Kevin says almost every week, it's worth it because it's the most important club in your bag. You use it the most. But like, man, golf clubs are getting expensive these days.
Chief Wedge Officer: But before this podcast, I went on to my spider and I truly feel like I could order any tour players almost exact version of their spider. which I've said it before on this podcast. I think that is awesome. I think that's so cool. Because again, going back to like the Scotty Cameron stuff, like you cannot order a tour use only like you can't order the you can't order as a ma as a regular The nine point five R without the chain link inserts. And like all the Tor pla none of the Tor players are using the chain the chain link insert insert. So I I I I I get Tailormade charges a bunch, they have to meet their margins, but I think it's really freaking cool that you can order the same basically the same exact putter that Rory's using. I think that's awesome.
Dominic: Yeah, that's pretty sweet.
Kevin Spisak: Yep, I totally agree.
Dominic: Alright, well that just about wraps up our clubbies for stat based awards. And that moves us to our more personal awards. And we'll be going one by one. so our first award is going to be your specific club of the year. And we'll each kind of say our own that we we think deserves the vote. So, Kevin, why don't you start us off for these your favorite specific club of the year awards?
Kevin Spisak: Yes. So this this goes back to the the last clubby that I awarded for putter of the year. This one I think anyone could see from a mile away. If you've heard me talk, if you've listened to the podcast more than once, maybe you heard the US Open episode or, you know, another what was the Houston, whichever one he won. Anyways, the ping Ping Alley Blue Onset from Wyndham Clark is my specific players club of the year. Congratulations, Wyndham Clark. Feel free to reach out to Thank you for the clap. Yes, yes. Pause. Pause.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, I I think
Kevin Spisak: Wait for the pause.
Dominic: Sorry, so sorry.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, I think Wyndham Wyndham's pretty good at using his DMs. I think I think he could probably figure out
Dominic: Yeah, he probably can.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Yeah, we we talk. He'll he'll know. He'll he'll know. We'll get him in a under the covers hat. And yeah, his his putter was electric. He he might make another appearance, maybe win another clubby. So Wyndham, if you're listening, stay tuned, shoot us a text, we'll send you a hat for each of your clubbies.
Dominic: Yeah, he led a few categories in putting this year. one putt percentage, I think it was just putting average, on the green. and then there's a couple other ones, but yeah, insane putting. You have to shout out the lead tape chronicles, how much he puts on there. what were you saying, Matt, the other week where his his main focus obviously is weight, but he also keeps it flat, right?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, how the putter soles on the green. He likes he he kinda built up lead tape to make it like basically sit on the ground better. one of the things that if you play really high level competitive golf and especially on Bermuda Greens, so Kevin and Dom, you guys wouldn't wouldn't really know a lot about Bermuda Greens, but Bermuda greens can get very slippery. and so it's very important how your putter soles on the ground. so sometimes like at Arnold Palmer or or some of those Florida events, they get you can get it to where almost where like your putter you can't hold your putter still on the ground. It's it's pretty wild. So you have to have a putter that soles really well. it's pretty it's it's a big thing here.
Dominic: Okay, nice. All right, shout out Ping. We love Ping. Matt, who are you who do you have for your specific club of the year?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, this one I thought long and hard about this one. I am going with the Fitz BB One Flo. I think he won a lot this year and I think his putter was hot. I think he made a lot of putts and it was one of those things where it was really cold last year, but it kind of came back and it came back so well that Bett Nardi has a has a you know released a replica of it that you can go by with a kind of yes. insert which I love that's a huge throwback. I think that's sweet. so yeah that's my club of the year the Fitz BB1 flow I think and shout out blades. love a good love a good blade and especially with a flow neck he's got a ton of toe hang so he he releases that thing.
Dominic: And then what was what was the soccer team that he has stamped on there? I can't remember.
Chief Wedge Officer: he's a Sheffield I think he's a Sheffield United man. if I'm not mistaken. They stink.
Dominic: Yeah. That's a sweet butter.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah.
Dominic: Alright, so my specific club of the year, I wasn't really sure which direction to go in. but I this this man is near and dear to my heart because he was one of my one and done winners. I'm going with Russell Henley's driver. He was the most accurate on tour. I know I I kind of wanted to give one that wasn't also titleist, but he he's rocking a titleist TSI 3 at a 10 degree with the Project S Hazardous Smoke Black. but he hit seventy two point five percent of fairways for the whole season. So out of one thousand thirty six total fairways that he could have been hitting with his driver, he had seven hundred and fifty of which is bonkers.
Kevin Spisak: Well.
Dominic: Let led the tour. it's hard to do that. He won Charles Schwaber, you have to be very accurate. so yeah, Russell Henley. Congrats on your clubby.
Chief Wedge Officer: No doubt.
Dominic: All right, that moves us to our next award. This one should be fun. This is going to be the dumbest name out of out of clubs that have come out this year. Matt, why don't you lead us off?
Chief Wedge Officer: Dom, I think we're I think we know where we're going with this one. The quantum. The quantum computing driver. I'll tell you what, there's not much power behind that driver. maybe they need to, you know, charge the AI factory a little bit more. unfortunately, tested it. That one seems to be all marketing. Callaway, feel free to reach out if you want your clubby for that one.
Dominic: I'm sure they love to. Kevin, what do you got?
Kevin Spisak: I I took this Clubby in a little bit of a different direction than Matt. I I hope it's okay with the fans. If it's not, please email us at under the coversgolf at gmail dot com. But the dumbest and the dumbest name of the year clubby from me goes to Bryson DeChambeau. Having a a really dumb having a really dumb name and just being a you know, obnoxious person year round. Just getting Getting penalized left and right. So if you're not watching the video, what are you what are you doing? You're really missing out. But you got a you got a dumb name.
Dominic: You're a big dumb idiot. Here's your war.
Kevin Spisak: It's dumb.
Chief Wedge Officer: You know what, Bryson, you're in Dallas. I'll hand deliver the award to you.
Kevin Spisak: You got a dumb first name, you got a dumb last name.
Chief Wedge Officer: Kevin, that's mean. Don't make fun of his last name.
Dominic: Couldn't even get through saying it.
Kevin Spisak: I I was keeping it together until you started laughing.
Dominic: So sorry, so sorry, listeners.
Kevin Spisak: Anyways, con Congratulations, Bryson, on your club.
Chief Wedge Officer: I think it's a bad pick, Kevin. I think the c I think the fans are gonna come after you for that. You're no better than good good.
Dominic: I think that's okay.
Kevin Spisak: What what Bryson gets a free hat?
Chief Wedge Officer: It's true. It's true.
Dominic: man, that's great. I'm crying a little bit. I'm so I'm so emotional. Okay. For my dumbest name. I actually chose incorrectly because this club came out last year. But I was gonna go with the Callaway Elite, but it's E L Y T E. but I don't think that actually qualifies for dumb name of the year. So I'm just gonna say anything with AI in the name wins a clubby. Cause what does that even mean for a golf club? The paradigm AI smoke.
Chief Wedge Officer: I like that. That's only Callaway then.
Dominic: Yeah, it's all basically Callaway. You're the winner for dumbest name. Anne Bryson, Anne Bryson. Here's your clubby. So that one that one got a bit deep. Let's go on a brighter note and let's talk through our our most favorite for best looking club of the year. Matt, once again, how about you start off? who do you think wins a clubby for best looking club?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, so I'm gonna give it I you know, just like I gave Callaway the dumbest name, I'm gonna give them the c the best looking. the
Kevin Spisak: Right.
Chief Wedge Officer: Callaway Apex MB Tor Raw Irons. Those things look freaking sick. simple Callaway logo MB and they came out raw. Nobody's releasing raw irons except in Japan. that is awesome. Huge fan. Shout out to Callaway for doing that. and they did a drop and they were they weren't even like crazy price. Like Mizuno releases special release irons and they're like three thousand dollars. They were fifteen hundred bucks, which is expensive, but about the same as what a regular set of irons costs you these days. See, I giveth and I taketh away. I'm very fair. Yeah.
Dominic: Yeah, I respect it.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. Yeah, those clubs are sweet. They have me really wanting to to try them and get my hands into blades. But again, broken record, they don't make them left handed at least yet. So we'll see.
Dominic: That is actually crazy. How little how little lefties get get love in the golf game. All right, Kevin, who do you got for for best looking clubs of the year?
Kevin Spisak: Best looking clubs. for me, it is someone who did not appear on our club tracker at all, unfortunately. we talked about them a little bit earlier, but we've got some new product entries here recently. But Mizuno's, Mizuno Pro Irons are gonna be my best looking of the year with the S1s, the S3s, not the new brand new S4s. The S4s look absolutely incredible. I Desperately need to try them. Nothing feels like a Mizuno. if you've ever played them, you definitely know that. but I I think they just they look so good. I love the cursive Mizuno Pro. you know, everything about them. Just the green flow forged. It's beautiful, beautiful.
Dominic: Yeah, that was gonna
Chief Wedge Officer: Those are
Dominic: be my vote as well, was the was the Mizuno Pro line.
Chief Wedge Officer: Ooh, doubling up. Two pubbies.
Dominic: Yeah, doubled up. Our first double. I did want to give an honorable mention to Matt McCarty's putter. I don't know if you've seen this. It's the it's a custom ping PLD. I don't know how to pronounce it, Tyne T Y N E.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: But it's got like the bat wings, center shafted, lefty, stamped It's just a sick looking putter. So that was gonna be my next one, but Wanted wanted to shout both of those out 'cause Mizuno just they're so sexy. I love those things. Can't wait to get some of my own. Congratulations to our clubbies for best looking club of the year. All right, and for our next award, we're going to give a clubby out to the biggest disappointment, which will be very interesting to go through. Matt, why don't you get us started on the biggest disappointment?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, I for people that know me, I love Titalist. they are a great company. they do a lot of great things, but I am gonna wide net this one. The biggest miss has been Scotty Cameron's chain mill link insert. that thing stinks. it when y when you see Tor Pros going away from a specific new chain link insert milling, and going into the regular milling pattern or a a you know, a flat face or whatever. you know it's usually not good. I've tried it. the amount of sand that gets in the little tiny grooves that you have to pick out with a T is so annoying. Scotty Cameron, please just admit defeat and go back to the regular milling pattern. It's worked for it's worked for thirty years. Why why go mess it up? But Let a AI AI chain link milling dragonfire you know Khaleesi do that stuff over at Odyssey. You you stick with what you know.
Dominic: That's gotta be horrible getting out with the T too. Like it's not, you know, with a wedge it's one swipe. That one you're sketching it yourself. That's crazy.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. Or
Dominic: Who do you got, Kevin?
Kevin Spisak: So for my my biggest disappointment of the year, this one hits pretty near and dear to my heart. My my clubby goes to every golf manufacturer that makes clubs ever for constantly screwing over left-handed golfers. You you do this every year, you make clubs that are so cool looking and just beautiful. And I just want to try them and hold them, you know, and just make them my best friend. And you won't let me. You know, Callaway did this. Scotty Cameron, you do this every year. Mizuno picks something every year. Toulon, you know, with the the Monaco is a pretty sweet design. Everyone does it. So every manufacturer, if you want to reach out and get your free hat, you've screwed me yet again. And you are all disappointments. So congratulations on your clubby.
Chief Wedge Officer: fantastic. so
Dominic: I purposely am not using the clapping sound because we don't need a clap for these.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: So for my biggest disappointment, I guess we didn't really have high hopes for it, but I would say the McLaren Irons was a pretty big disappointment.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. That that's
Chief Wedge Officer: I forgot about those.
Dominic: Yeah.
Kevin Spisak: a that's a good one.
Dominic: Exactly. So one, I I still I thought I would end up liking them more throughout the year, but I I just don't really like the design for one. And then two is obviously the performance out of Justin Rose. maybe he gets a little bit better and maybe get some tweaks in for the off season. so disappointed in the look, performance, and then the timing. Mid season is crazy. I don't really understand that move out of Justin, but Hey, he's getting his bag, I guess. So yeah, that's gonna be that's gonna be my clubby of the year is McLaren Irons. But then now we get to move on to the most improved. Matt, who do you have for your most improved club of the year?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. man, I I will say, hand up, I gave it to TaylorMade last year with the QI 35 driver. That thing stunk. Nobody played it. Rory tried to play it, missed a bunch of cuts, and he's like Mr. Taylor Maid. The QI4D driver seems to be good again. and seems to be hit at getting in the bag of Tor Pros. So shout out to Taylor Maid for kind of taking what she learned. Going kind back to its roots with the QI ten, which was a really good driver, and into the QI four D. so yeah, I mean, you know, I gotta again, I I I take it away, I give it. I'm very fair. I like to be as you know I'm not gonna just give everything to Titleist or Mizuno, which I could do, but I don't
Dominic: Good for you. Show restraint. How about you, Kevin?
Kevin Spisak: So my my most improved clubby of the year, you could go in a lot of different directions. I think we gotta stick with the most used club in the bag and go back to my go back to my specific players club of the year and go with Ping Putters. It is a an uphill battle, constantly fighting off, you know, Scotty Cameron's and now the Tailor made spider. You know, I I thought about giving this award to the Tailor Made Spider, but can't really be most improved when it was also killing it last year too. but the the Ping Scottsale Tech line you know, made a few appearances with Windham's bag. we had the Alley Blue H make an appearance. we saw PLDs make an appearance. Ryan Fox's ping putter for the answer two D winning the Open Championship made an appearance. So you know the putter game is tough. I think Ping makes a very quality putter and you know their most winning putter wasn't even one of their, you know, premium milled, you know, tour only type of putters. you know, and also shout out speaking of that, spe shout out Victor Hoblin's putter. but but yeah, my my clubby goes to Ping for for their putters.
Dominic: I like it, I like it. So for mine, I was I I'm going back and forth because I was gonna say ping wedges because they look sick. The ones that came out in January. But like I guess the looks didn't really improve that much. Like they're already pretty nice. They just don't come with them very often. So I w I think I might go with Project X shafts. I feel like they've been getting better and better every year. we mentioned it earlier, they came out with the Titan Yellow. and that won three times this year. Kevin has been rocking the the green, the Hulk green. I used to use it. And then it got shattered on a flight and I haven't gone back yet. But doesn't mean I dislike the shaft. So I feel like the the Project X line has been improving very well.
Chief Wedge Officer: Okay, I like that.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, we'll have to revisit but revisit this next year and see how the Titan does you
Dominic: Mm-hmm.
Kevin Spisak: know, in comparison.
Chief Wedge Officer: So shout out shout out to Project X, Tailor Maiden Payne for our clubby.
Dominic: Alright, so this next award I think will be pretty fun. we'll get to kind of put our own little spin on these things. So this is going to be our favorite moment. So whichever club it it was, whichever moment that you liked in during this year, Matt, what was your favorite moment with a club for the twenty twenty six PGA tour season?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah, so what I did was I went back and and thought about, man, what were the times that I was like, my goodness, can't believe that guy just hit that shot. those are kind of the ones that that that I try to stick out. And I feel like thinking really thinking hard, the one that I watched where I was like, my gosh, I can't believe he did that was Fitz's wedge shot out of the bunker on eighteen that he hit to like a f a f that spun like crazy. and then Alex ended up tapping it in from a foot to win the the Zerk by one. But that wedge shot was n filthy. Filthy
Dominic: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: filthy McNasty. that was awesome. That
Kevin Spisak: Ha ha ha.
Chief Wedge Officer: was sick wedge shot.
Dominic: Filthy McNasty. I love that one. That was on my list. That was on my list. Like
Kevin Spisak: That
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah.
Kevin Spisak: that that was going to be mine.
Dominic: Everything everything
Chief Wedge Officer: sorry.
Dominic: that went into that shot too, like not only winning the tournament and like, you know, getting the Zurich on the line, but like everything that came with Alex's playing future too. Insane.
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: And it was a Vokey SM ten that did it. So shout out Voke. But yeah, man, that that wife was freaking sick. I can't I still can't get over that bunker shot. It was unbelievable.
Dominic: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: It was like it was like the worst yardage. It's like it was like thirty yards or something. Like that's the hardest
Dominic: Yeah, I think it was it was thirty five to be exact.
Chief Wedge Officer: the hardest shot to hit.
Dominic: Unreal. So Kevin, you said that you were gonna use Mass Since Patrick as well. Did you have a backup?
Kevin Spisak: That I did have a backup. I I was prepared with a backup because I thought that may be someone else's big moment. That was huge for the year. my my next for the the favorite moment of the year Clubby goes to Sir Cameron Young with his big bombing drive at the players w with the with the new rollback conforming golf ball. what was it like over three hundred and sixty yards with his
Chief Wedge Officer: Recently.
Kevin Spisak: three seventy five with his titles GT three and Diamana Shaft yeah Cameron Young congratulations that driver has now made a couple appearances in the clubbies
Dominic: Heck yeah, man. Nice. boy. I was man. I'll just do it. Matt Fitzpatrick gets another clubby for this for this section. he hit that sick four iron using the ping S fifty fives and a KBS shaft. Hole eighteen. He was going against Scotty, right? I'm not remembering
Chief Wedge Officer: Mm-hmm.
Dominic: that wrong. Yeah, going at Scotty. wind was left to right. He hit it, one armed it, thinking it was horrible. And then put it what six feet past the hole, drain the putt for Birdie, and then hit the little WWE, I can't hear you, what's going on? Because everyone is chanting
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: USA. The stones on this man are incredible. And he didn't get he probably won't get player of the year, but he was in the running, but he sure is getting multiple clubbies. So congrats to Matt Fitzpatrick.
Chief Wedge Officer: He did the Some might say he did the Tom Kemp.
Dominic: Ooh.
Kevin Spisak: Mm-hmm.
Chief Wedge Officer: no, I th that is that three clubies for Fitzy?
Kevin Spisak: Yeah, got his putter. Zurich
Chief Wedge Officer: His putter, his wedge shot.
Kevin Spisak: in the RBC.
Dominic: Mm-hmm.
Chief Wedge Officer: So I feel like I mean, Matt Fitzpatrick will tag you but I think you gotta reach out.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: Absolutely. All right, Matt. So this last one's gonna be we kinda had it open. so essentially making our own award. So why don't you start us off? what is what is gonna be the award you're making this year?
Chief Wedge Officer: Yeah. really I I put a lot of time, a lot of effort into this. I'm calling this award the Chernobyl Award.
Dominic: Okay.
Chief Wedge Officer: this year this club created a lot of destruction. And I'm I'm not talking about good destruction, I'm talking about bad destruction. I mean ruined towns and greens. it's
Kevin Spisak: Mm-hmm.
Chief Wedge Officer: it's owned by an enemy of the state. someone not good, not nice. there's been a big government cover up by big golf media with this with this enemy, as well. And you know what? With the there this the version of this club has way too much lead on it. So the Chernobyl Award goes to Wyndham Clark's Potter.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: man. I did not know where you're going with that.
Chief Wedge Officer: Really?
Dominic: man, Wyndham is all over the clubbies
Chief Wedge Officer: Not at all. I feel like it's very obvious.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: this year.
Kevin Spisak: I saw that coming from a mile away.
Dominic: I love it. That's awesome. Kevin, why don't you take us through your your award for this year?
Kevin Spisak: Yeah. you know, as as always, you know, these awards very important, very close to my heart. my my open award you know, for this year's Clubbies, twenty twenty six clubbies goes to the equipment golf podcast of the year. And, you know, there's a lot of different options that could have won. you know Golf Diger or Golf Channel, they talk about some equipment. You've got Tej talks about some equipment. You know, you've got Made for the Range. All sorts of guys talk about equipment. But Under the Covers Golf is gonna win this Equipment Golf Podcast of the Year. So congratulations to Matt, Dominic, and Kevin. You you've won a clubby. Please reach out for your free hat.
Dominic: Massive. Congratulations, gentlemen. We did it. We got ourselves a clubby. I love it. That was fun. for for my award, I'm gonna call this the You Can't Do That award. And it can go to multiple people. Garrick Higgo showing up late to his tea time, blaming it on the caddy, agreeing to the rule, and then backtracking and saying that he wasn't that late. Can go to could go to Bryson for improving his lie. Could go to Windham for trenching. Or Wyndham for proving his lie. But
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: I am gonna give this to not actually a PGA tour player. This guy is on a failed separate league that shall not be named. Joaquin Neiman for throwing his ping S-159 about 50 yards at the US Open at Shinnikok Hills Golf Club this year and assessing a two-stroke penalty. Congratulations, Joaquin Neiman. You can't do that. Could also go to Sergio smashing his club at the Masters.
Chief Wedge Officer: yeah, that would have been a good
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Chief Wedge Officer: one. Yeah.
Kevin Spisak: Yeah.
Dominic: All right, and that just about wraps us up for our first clubbies. sponsored by Under the Covers Golf. This has been a very fun season. Our first year, perfect way to wrap it up. we'll be we'll still be covering some of the President's Cup and other things throughout the off season. but wanted to thank you listeners for sticking with us this long. If you agreed, disagreed, Have any thoughts or notes, throw it in the comments if you're on Spotify or YouTube. email us under the covers golf at gmail dot com. And once again, if you won your clubby, please reach out, let us know where to send. We have a trophy for you, a free hat. Come get your clubby. Boys, do have anything else to say?
Chief Wedge Officer: Shout out Rick Shields for being a creditor in the live golf bankruptcy. Get your money, brother. You got one point five million dollars
Dominic: It's your money.
Chief Wedge Officer: You got one point five million dollars coming your way for dude and virtually nothing. That's awesome. I'm proud of you.
Dominic: Get your check. Anything else to add, Kevin? What do you think? You look dapper this evening.
Kevin Spisak: thank you, thank you. No, congratulations to all the winners. It was hard fought. You know, it it takes a lot to win a clubby. Just not just anyone can get one. Some people won multiple. It was it was a great season. It was fun to, you know, record all this stuff. And yeah, anyone that has any feedback on awards you'd like to see in the future, definitely let us know.