Equipment Insider: Poulter's mixed bag; tight gaps in lofts

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Each week in the Equipment Insider, Adam Barr -- PGATOUR.COM's equipment columnist -- will provide breaking news, notes and analysis focused on PGA TOUR players. Adam will also appear in video segments for PGATOUR.COM.

Check out more of Adam Barr's equipment coverage at AdamBarrGolfGearGuide.com.

Video: In the Bag

What do players carry when they head out on TOUR? We take an inside look at the adjustments they make to their clubs ... and they show us other things (ball markers, training aids) that make their tools of the trade unique. Archive: In the Bag MORE IN THE BAGS Phil Mickelson Tim Clark Zach Johnson

THE COBRA STRIKES: It was a good Sunday for Cobra Golf, with Ian Poulter taking his first PGA TOUR win over Paul Casey at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship. In the third-place match, Cobra staffer Camilo Villegas beat Sergio Garcia, 5 and 4.

Cobra ZL

Poulter was using a Cobra ZL driver, which has three flight options based on the way the adjustable shaft is set: closed, neutral, or open. Not surprisingly, Poulter keeps his set at neutral, as many TOUR players do.

There are quite a few players, though, who favor an slightly open face -- Vijay Singh comes to mind -- because their oh-no mistake is left, and the slightly open face helps prevent that Mr. Snappy hook pros hate so much. The same technology, of course, works in reverse for us golf mortals, most of whom miss the other way more often.

But back to Poulter. One of the more remarkable things about Ian's bag is his willingness to mix and match. To complement the driver, he carries a 3-wood and 5-wood from sister company Titleist (909F2 on the 3-wood, 13.5 degrees of loft; 906F2 on the 5-wood, 18 degrees), plus a Titleist 909H hybrid with 19 degrees of loft.

Interestingly, that's just one degree higher than the 5-wood, which makes one think he hits down pretty hard on the hybrid, like an iron, rather than sweeping as he might do with a fairway wood.

Back to Cobra for the irons, starting with 4 (yes, 4 is his longest iron) through 7 Cobra Pro cavity backs for the extra forgiveness on longer shots, then moving to Cobra Pro muscle backs for 8-PW. It's all topped off, as it is for so many endorsers of the Acushnet family of companies, with two Bob Vokey wedges (54 and 60 degrees of loft). The golf ball was a Pro V1x; the putter was an Aruba model by Rife; it's due out this spring.

The mixing didn't stop with the clubheads. No fewer than four shaft companies had slots in Poulter's bag. Fujikura had the driver (6.0 Motore Speeder model) and 3-wood (Rombax 7X07); the X flex in the Motore weighs just 59 grams. Ten years ago, such a featherweight driver shaft was out of the question with high swing speeds; now, technology has caught up.

In the 5-wood, Poulter chose a Grafalloy Prolite 35, whose design promotes a lower flight. That could be a clue as to how the hybrid fits in: although it's just a degree more lofty than the 5-wood, Poulter's hybrid is at the end of an Aldila NV Hybrid 84-gram model, which generates a low-to-mid-level flight. The lesson for the rest of us: don't be afraid of a long-game setup that has tight gaps, if you can justify it with differing flight and/or landing characteristics that you get to use fairly often.

In the irons: the PGA TOUR standby, True Temper Sports Dynamic Golf 100s, X-flex. All in all, quite a stew, but the recipe works for Poulter.

MEANWHILE, DOWN MEXICO WAY... Four rounds in the 60s (65-68-69-67) vaulted Cameron Beckman to his third PGA TOUR win at Mayakoba. His bag was deep Callaway: FT Tour driver, an FT hybrid, X-Forged irons (3-PW) plus a Diablo forged 3-iron, the Tour i(s) golf ball, an Odyssey Tour Milled putter, and -- something you may not have heard often from Callaway -- the company's Bio-Kinetic Tour golf shoes.

Shoes are a high priority for Callaway on tour this year; more and more of the company's pros can be seen around the Callaway tour van early in tournament weeks to try on new pairs. One of the primary features: the nine-spike configuration is in a three-triangle pattern. The arrangement provides ample stability through the most muscular portions of the swing, Callaway says.