It’s moving season. Alongside all the new equipment launches, OEMs and players are announcing new partnerships or, instead, revealing break-ups.
Most recently, we covered a pretty unexpected announcement: Kevin Kisner—a Callaway staffer since 2015—announced that he would be partnering with Wilson Golf, and joining new team member Trey Mullinax.
While many, including myself, thought this signaled Wilson was looking to add some more individuals to its ranks, it indirectly signaled that another team member would be exiting.
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2019 U.S. Open winner Gary Woodland announced this morning that he would be joining Cobra Golf alongside Rickie Fowler, Bryson DeChambeau, Lexi Thompson, Kyle Berkshire, Andrew “Beef” Johnson, and many others.
The departure to Cobra isn’t too surprising considering that Woodland has an apparel partnership with PUMA, who has close ties with Cobra Golf. What is surprising, however, is that Woodland and Wilson decided to go separate ways. Moreover, Woodland was one of the first TOUR players spotted with the 2023 Cobra Aerojet Driver and fairway wood back in November, so perhaps everyone just missed the signs.
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Woodland, historically, has played a mixed bag of tools, including—in November 2022—a Cobra AeroJet driver, Cobra AeroJet 3 wood, PING G425 MAX 7 wood, Wilson Staff Model driving iron, blade irons, and 52° wedge, Titleist Vokey 60° wedge and a Scotty Cameron blade putter.
As a result, it will be interesting to see if Cobra is calling for a more comprehensive club deal than Wilson had with Woodland. What will be most interesting is how Woodland handles the switch and whether he can return to 2019 performance levels.
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Speaking of departures, we announced earlier this week that World No. 4 Patrick Cantlay would be discontinuing his partnerships with Titleist and Hugo Boss. The move was unexpected, as Cantlay seemed to fit well into Team Titleist.
But during the Drop Zone podcast earlier this week, Cantlay stated that the move is the result of his desire “to play the best equipment out there.” While Cantlay didn’t have anything bad to say about Titleist, his words sound very familiar to what Brooks Koepka communicated during his super hot 2018-19 4 Major run, when he was unsigned after Nike’s exit from the equipment space.
There’s no denying that there’s an advantage to having the freedom to play a completely mixed bag and switch clubs in and out week to week without fear of upsetting a sponsor. There certainly are downsides, like the lack of OEM support. It will certainly be very interesting to see if Cantlay can maintain the high level of performance we’ve seen from him recently.
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