Welcome to the 2023 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Club & Lodge, home to one of the most difficult and historic golf courses on the yearly PGA Tour rotation.

Obviously, there’s a competitive golf tournament being played this week, but as much as this week is about the players, it’s also about celebrating the legacy of Arnold Palmer. On that front, GolfWRX got quite the treat, getting the opportunity to explore an exhibit full of Palmer’s old artifacts, trophies, photos, memorabilia, and game-used golf clubs. More on that below.

This week at Bay Hill, we also spoke to Xander Schauffele about his sneaky putter switch, Patrick Cantlay about his major shaft experiments, Sam Burns about his unique driver switch, and Rory McIlroy about his recent driver change, which involves Tiger Woods.

It was a packed week with big names making equipment switches, so let’s waste no more time on the intro. Here’s this week’s Tour Report from the 2023 Arnold Palmer Invitational.

1) Xander Schauffele goes incognito with a new red putter

 

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Schauffele has switched back into a red Odyssey putter at Bay Hill this week, but it’s the not the same one that he used from 2020-2022. It’s actually a hybrid design that combines his former Odyssey O-Works #7 CH Red putter, and his most recent Odyssey Toulon Design XS Proto silver putter.

His new Odyssey Toulon Design Las Vegas prototype has a #7 CH shape, a red-painted crown, 3 white alignment lines, a dual-colored and diamond-milled face, and a custom sole plate with custom red screws.

Check out our full report over on PGATOUR.com.

2) Sam Burns (finally) switches to a Paradym driver

 

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Ranked just 128th in driving accuracy on the PGA Tour so far in 2022-23, Burns was looking for greater forgiveness from his driver, and he finally made a switch this week at Bay Hill. The general consensus among tour players so far has been that the Paradym models offer tighter downrange dispersion than the previous Rogue ST lineup, and that’s exactly why Burns says he switched, too.

“One of the main reasons I switched was just the downrange dispersion is tighter,” Burns said Wednesday at Bay Hill. “That’s all we’re really looking for out here. I don’t think a lot of us are chasing distance, we’re just trying to get it tighter. For me I feel like this one is a little more consistent with the misses. The good ones are really good, but it’s just getting those bad ones to be closer. That’s how we landed on this. The S is just a smaller head. It’s more compact, which I like the look of. It’s kind of a deeper face and it sets up really nice.”

The Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond “S” 9+ degree head that Burns is using is a 420cc construction, and he puts a 12-gram weight in the front port, and a 14-gram weight in the back port. He also tipped his Fujikura Ventus 7TX shaft a half inch for a bit more stability.

Check out all of our photos of Burns’ driver here, or head over to PGATOUR.com for our full report.

3) Rory explains his surprising mid-event driver switch at the Genesis

This season, through the first round at the 2023 Genesis Invitational, McIlroy was still using the older TaylorMade Stealth Plus driver. After the first round, however, he conducted some testing on the range at Riviera and he decided to switch into the new Stealth 2 Plus driver for round two.

Why the mid-event switch-up? I asked him about it during his press conference on Wednesday at Bay Hill, and his answer was gold:

“I was sick of Tiger outdriving me (he said with a laugh). Partly to do with that. I played the (WM Phoenix Open) and noticed that my spin numbers on my driver were a little low. So then I went to L.A. and I put my driver up a click in loft. But I’m so particular about face angle when it comes to drivers that when I went up a click in loft, obviously I can see a little more face, it looks a little further left to me. And I didn’t hit one drive out of the middle of the face the first day at Riv. I needed to go and try something else.

4) GolfWRX goes inside a new Arnold Palmer exhibit

Last month at Pebble Beach, we got the pleasure of checking out Arnold Palmer’s 1960-61 Wilson irons that he used to win three majors, which are selling for $250K.

This week at Bay Hill, we got a fully immersive experience into the legacy of Arnold Palmer, which included a look at even more of his old personal golf clubs. The exhibit, which is located just off the 18th green at Bay Hill, was put on by Arnold & Winnie Palmer Foundation to launch its new “Sincerely, Arnold Palmer – The Latrobe Legacy Campaign.”

Below is a collection of some of the photos from the experience, but there’s also a 190-photo tour in our GolfWRX Forums for you to enjoy.

5) Custom Arnold Palmer merch

Speaking of Arnold Palmer, the modern companies on the PGA Tour turned it up as always to celebrate Arnie and Bay Hill this week. I’ve dropped a few photos in below, but make sure to browse all of our photos from Bay Hill to see more custom Arnie-inspired merch.

6) Patrick Cantlay goes deep on his recent shaft testing

I heard that Cantlay had been fiddling around with his shaft weights recently, and he’s an equipment free agent now. During his Wednesday press conference, I asked Cantlay how the equipment testing is going and if he’s made any changes.

Here was Cantlay’s answer (gearheads will especially enjoy this):

“Yeah, I’ve done a little testing. In general, I’m not a big tester. But if something’s better or potentially better, I’m now in a position where I can go out and put that in right away. That’s exciting. I really have only done some shaft changes this year. I experimented with some stuff in the off-season and then at the beginning of this year. I thought maybe going heavier in everything would help me hit it a little straighter. I have been swinging the golf club just a little bit faster lately, and that’s by design. I think it’s important to try and hit it farther these days. It’s just the simplest, fastest way to get a little better.

“So I noticed that the club, or the shaft, started to feel a little weak. So I went to try and find what the right nudge into stiffer was. I tried to go heavier with everything from DG 120s to X100s and then just 10 grams heavier in the same wood shafts. And the heavy change was really difficult for me to have similar feels. So what I ended up doing was going back to the old weights, same shaft, and then tipping the wood shafts and hard stepping the iron shafts. That’s made a big difference in kind of just straightening out the ball flight, feeling like I don’t have to guard against too big of a draw. It’s been easy, much easier than going heavier as far as the feels go.”

If there were GolfWRX “Gearhead” points to award, Cantlay just won them all for this week.

7) Is a new Callaway wedge on the way?

Unfortunately, we don’t yet have an answer for that question. Right now, all we have are photos of a Callaway prototype wedge with a bunch of lead tape covering any back stampings or logos.

But, what do you think about the design itself?

And, with that, we say goodbye to the 2023 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. We’ll see you next week as the Florida Swing takes us to The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. Don’t forget an extra sleeve of balls for the 17th hole.

Check out all of our photos from Bay Hill here.