Recently, I recounted conversations with Dustin Johnson and Keith Sbarbaro (VP of tour relations at TaylorMade) regarding DJ’s switch into a TaylorMade P-790 long iron, DJ proto irons, and TaylorMade Hi-Toe wedges, including a 64-degree wedge.

At the time, TaylorMade’s M3 driver, which is currently in DJ’s bag, was off limits to write about. Given that TaylorMade has officially launched its new M3 and M4 products, however, I can now reveal some very interesting tidbits about DJ and his M3 driver.

As previously addressed, DJ does not like to change driver shafts and will likely continue to play a Fujikura Speeder 661 Evolution II Tour Spec for the remainder of his playing career — I joke, but he really might. So aside from the shaft, let’s get into 3 things I learned about DJ and his M3 driver based on discussions with Keith and DJ, and from a hitting clinic at The Kingdom last month in front of 50 or so media members.

1) Dustin’s thoughts on Twist Face

“Twist Face” is TaylorMade’s new design that makes the high-toe area of the face more open and more lofted, and the low heel portion more shut and lower lofted. The goal here is to reduce the slice off the low heel and reduce the hook off the high toe. For Dustin, he seemed most excited to get relief on his high-toe miss.

“Twist Face really helps my miss on the high toe that goes left,” Dustin told me. “So this will definitely help with that. It works, and it’s gonna help the consumer.”

You gotta love the world No. 1 golfer thinking about the consumer.

2) The Long Get Longer

In 2017, Dustin Johnson ranked 12th in ball speed on the PGA Tour, averaging 180.06 mph per drive, with his fastest recorded speed being 184.65 mph. If his early testing with the TaylorMade M3 is any indication, however, he may be picking up some speed this year.

Have a look at this Tweet from the driving clinic at the Kingdom. DJ says his ball speed is up 3 mph, and the 185.1 ball speed is higher than any of the drives he recorded in 2017.

.@DJohnsonPGA‘s Trackman numbers with an unreleased @TaylorMadeGolf driver (he says ball speed is up 3mph from his M1 ’17) ???? pic.twitter.com/H2erLRaoZK

— GolfWRX (@GolfWRX) December 14, 2017

That could partly be due to how DJ and his fitter Keith have the weights adjusted…

3) Do NOT touch DJ’s weight setup in his M3 driver

Since the clinic was put on by TaylorMade, of course the company wants to show how much influence the weights in the M3’s new Y-track have on trajectory. That’s a reasonable thing to expect from a company, especially with a new CG adjustable driver and arguably the world’s best driver of the golf ball to use as your experimenter.

As such, the speaking host of the clinic asked DJ’s fitter to adjust the weights in his M3 driver to showcase the different settings and how the golf ball would react.

DJ, however, did not want his weight settings to be touched. It seemed he was joking at first, but after he expressed his discomfort with adjusting his weight setup that had been dialed in based on testing, it was obvious he was dead serious.

I’m paraphrasing, but DJ said something to the effect of… “if you move the weights and then when we move em back and it’s not performing the same, I’m gonna be mad.”

So, in order for the show to go on and have DJ hit shots with different settings, the TaylorMade team had to fetch an entirely new driver to play around with. The M3 driver they used, however, didn’t even have his Fujikura Speeder shaft in it! While DJ didn’t mention anything about the wrong shaft, you know that hitting a different shaft probably didn’t sit well with him since he’s been “essentially playing the same shaft since coming out on Tour.”

Funny stuff, and lesson learned: Don’t touch Dustin’s adjustable weights, or you will have earned an enemy.

Related

• Dustin Johnson joins our 19th Hole podcast
• TaylorMade launches its new M3 and M4 drivers