The yet-to-be-released irons Sahith Theegala used to win at Fortinet
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The Fortinet Championship wasn’t just Sahith Theegala’s first victory on the PGA TOUR. It also was his first event with a new set of irons, clubs that have been slowly showing up in professionals’ bags but won’t be available to the public until early next year.
Theegala had Ping Blueprint S irons in the bag for the first time at Silverado Resort in Napa, California. He put the irons in the bag after testing them at home in Houston in his off weeks between the BMW Championship and Fortinet Championship.
The new Blueprint S irons have been spotted in several Ping staffers’ bags this summer. The Blueprint S prototypes are forged irons with a cavity-back construction.
TOUR player Austin Eckroat said earlier this year that the Blueprint S were “a nice mix” between the cavity-back Ping S55 irons and the Blueprint forged blades that came out in 2019.
“I played the S55 before, and then before that I was playing the Blueprint blades,” Eckroat told GolfWRX.com at the Wyndham Championship. “(The Blueprint S irons) are a nice mix between those – the look of the Blueprint, and then the feel and the flight and all of the spin numbers are exactly like my S55, or at least pretty close. It seemed like they were a little longer, but nothing inconsistent. Very consistent numbers.
“They’re a forged head, whereas the S55 is cast, so they’re a little softer off the face than the S55’s, but I actually prefer that. They’re the best-looking irons I’ve seen.”
Theegala had been using a combo set of Ping’s iBlade irons in his 4-7 irons and Ping Blueprint blades for his 8-iron through pitching wedge. At the Fortinet, he had Ping Blueprint S irons in his 4-iron through pitching wedge. He still had his trusty Ping i210 3-iron in the bag in Napa.
A Ping rep said the Blueprint S irons gave him similar launch and spin characteristics as his previous irons but the new clubs flew slightly straighter and loss less distance on mishits.
Theegala hit 53 of 72 greens in regulation at the Fortinet and ranked 18th in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green. His victory also was the third in the row for Ping staffers after Viktor Hovland claimed the BMW Championship and TOUR Championship en route to winning the FedExCup.