Justin Thomas makes iron switch before U.S. Open

Justin Thomas, who’s been relatively quiet when it comes to equipment switches over the past few months, was front-and-center in the equipment news on Monday at the U.S. Open.

Thomas has used a combo set in his irons since 2019. He uses Titleist’s T100 tour cavity-back 4-iron to go along with a set of Titleist muscle-back blades. The more-forgiving T100 model allows Thomas to produce more speed, height, and forgiveness with his 4-iron.

After four years with the old T100 4-iron, however, Thomas is likely making an upgrade at the U.S. Open.

Titleist recently launched a new lineup of T-Series irons at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday, including a set of redesigned T100's. Although he is sticking with his custom Titleist 621 JT iron set, he’s upgrading into a new T100 4-iron equipped with a True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shaft.

“It looks basically the same (as the older T100 model), but I noticed the spin numbers are a little tighter,” Thomas said. “I don’t get the real low ones or the real high ones as much. It just seems like it’s more consistent, which is exactly what I want.”

Thomas also was spotted testing a Titleist U-505 driving iron with various shafts. The Los Angeles Country Club’s fast fairways, long par 3’s and stretched par 5’s make this a perfect venue to put such a club in the bag. Thomas isn’t the only player experimenting with different options off the tee. Should Thomas end up switching into the new U-505, it would replace his longtime Titleist 915Fd 5-wood for the week.

Thomas also is likely to switch into a festive red-white-and-blue SuperStroke Traxion putter grip on his Scotty Cameron X5 prototype putter, and he may also switch to a wedge with slightly more bounce to help offset the amount of sand in LACC’s bunkers.

“The bunkers have an obscene amount of sand in them, so I could see some guys screwing with different bounces,” Thomas said. “It’s just a lot of sand. I actually think (the USGA) should take some out.”

Week-to-week on the PGA TOUR, Thomas typically carries two lob wedge options depending on conditions: a low-bounce Titleist Vokey T-grind, and a higher-bounce Vokey K-grind. By the sounds of it, Thomas will opt for the higher-bounce K grind unless the bunker conditions change prior to Thursday’s first round.