Henrik Stenson - What's In The Bag | Golf Monthly

Right, we are here at the Live Golf UK event at JCB Golf Club with Henrik Stenson and we are going to do a quick what's in the bag

So I've taken all the head covers off and we're going to start from the very top. And I don't know whether this is going to be the world's most interesting what's in the bag or the world's most boring what's in the bag

Most boring. You've had the same stuff for so, so long. Talk me through that for a start. You're just not a big changer, not a big experiment with gear

No, I think once we've found stuff that we know works, then I tend to hang on to it

with the three-wood in particular, right? We'll get to that. Yeah, yeah, okay

So I'm not going to run away with it. We'll start from the top. So in the big stick, we've got the Callaway Epic Max LS

and that's in your familiar Graffaloid Blue X. Now, this is a shaft that was around when I was in my junior days

so we're talking 20-plus years, and this is just something you've always used and always been familiar with

Yeah, yeah. what once you know you kind of i like the feeling of it it's a stiff shaft and

it's uh it's done me a lot of good so uh why change it absolutely and we've got a couple

of contradictory settings here so we're down one in loft you certainly in the face a little bit but

we've got weight in the heel to encourage draw to you shape wise with this is it pretty neutral

are you looking at neutral it's pretty neutral i think uh over the years i've i mean i've i haven't

put a lot of curve on the golf ball in general. I'm very much hitting it straight with possibly a slight draw most of the time

So yeah, all the clubs hopefully go straight. And grips-wise, we've got an older grip here as well

So the golf ball is all right. To go with the old shaft. So you've got to coordinate all the age ranges, have you

Yeah. Okay, beautiful. And do you have any extra layers of tape? It feels pretty much straight on this

Yeah, no, we put half a one on the right hand. So just to take the taper out a little bit, similar with Ian

Exactly. Okay, well now the first bit I've been really excited about, the iconic 3Wid

So what iteration of the 3Wid is this? This is, I mean I've gone through a couple of heads, but this is the 2009 Diablo Octane

I think I got it tested out just before the, would have been the first, I guess, race to Dubai final in 2009 down in Dubai

And came in the bag and has been in the bag most of the week since

And do you still lean on this an awful lot off the tee Yeah I mean some courses we definitely have more drivers than three woods But yeah I mean it a trusty club

If you're standing there on the 72nd holes and you need a fairway finder

that has been, in general, the one that we go to, yeah. Are you a teeing up low guy or do you knock up a bit of turf

What do you do? A bit of both, depends on. Depending on the shot? Yeah, depends on. But I think I've hit it off the deck more than most

Okay, I bet you have. And do you know the specs on it in terms of length? or do you let other people get on with that i'd say it's probably about half an inch

longer yeah standard as soon as i put it down it felt to me i was thinking 43 and a half 43

three quarters maybe yeah yeah okay so then blending away from that iconic number again

we've got another very old what are we calling this forward what you call it forward yeah so

callaway x heart 17 degrees the x-hot pro same shaft throughout again the grapheloid grapheloid

blue tour x there so assuming this is just i mean we've got a lovely wear mark here you must

be proud of that one yeah we've hit a couple in the center i guess yeah every now and then it looks

like you've got a few there uh interviewing ian this morning with his what's in the bag um he's

artificially done his wear marks he's he's sharpied out the bits around it to create a centered strike

that's something you might want to bring up with it who is it trying to fool himself or the people

watching well yeah this is it remains to be seen so i guess from a yardage point of view this just

fills in the right gap for you yeah i mean the three wood is strong right it's about 12 degrees

So it's more of a two wood. So this is stated loft 13

Is it bent? No, it's not really bent. I think that head is just a little bit stronger

And then this one at 17 degrees. So it's just kind of bridged the gaps

and then down into the three iron, really. So I'm looking in your bag here

and we're getting into now the super iconic irons that have been in your bag for ages, the Callaway Legacy Blacks

Now, how many sets of these have we had? Ooh, I got a whole garage full of them

Really? They normally last a year, year and a half. These ones are very new, though

I just put these in a couple of months ago. I got one more brand new set at home

Then what? And then we're retiring. Then we're done? Yeah, then we're done. As soon as the clubs are done, we're done

Yeah. Okay, cool. Really interesting. We've got two three-irons here. Talk me through that. Yeah, so coming fresh off the open, this set doesn't come with a two-iron

So we took a three-iron head, bent it down and lengthened it, obviously

So that's my two-iron that's in for probably about four or five tournaments a year

then the forward goes out and this one this driving iron it in the bag instead Do we know what we going in this week we driving on or forward or have you not seen the course yet i haven seen the course yet i think are we doing two iron or forward this week lordy

okay so two iron is out two iron gone yeah flat out completely gone on that your man polter told

me to uh mention some stuff about the durability of your clubs he said heads tend to last quite a

on some of the shafts they don't last as long no they're pretty brittle these motors shelf yeah

okay yeah yeah they they normally need some assistance though okay that's interesting to

see and you'll say again without wanting to go too far off track he asked to mention the expensive

nature of the front panel of these golf bags yeah how much are they to replace and would you know

anything about that at all uh they're not as uh as durable as a steel plate snow okay yeah we'll

We'll move on from that straight away. Yeah, do that. So we've got essentially not two iron now

That's gone. Three iron down to pitch and wedge in the Legacy Black. So why have you stayed in these for so long

Again, it's just I'm assuming a case of you found something you like. What's going on

I really like the look of them. I mean, the big reason we came straight off the US Open at Marion that Justin won in 2013

And I was playing pretty good that week. But the irons I had, I think it was the Racer Tours or something like that

And I hit a number of flyers that cost me daily that weekend

We came to Munich and we asked the guys, like, what do we have that's not going to fly as much

And they came up with these ones. They got the multi-groove. So there's 19 grooves on the face of these

I don't know if you know that. So more grooves, more spin, less chance of flyer, I'm guessing. Yeah, exactly. That was the whole thing

So, I mean, we're not really catching many flyers, but they also, you know, they go short out of the first cut in particular

And I'm a high spinner of the golf ball. So there's always that give and take when we're playing into the wind

you hit a bit hard and with a high spin, then it's always a tendency to stall a bit

But on the other end, I've been known to be able to stop my mid to long irons on slightly firmer greens

than a lot of the other players. So it's always going to be a give and take somewhere

So just balancing that trade off all the time. Okay, that's brilliant. Now into wedges, so less wedges than some of the guys I've seen

So we've got kind of a three wedge set up if we including your pitching wedge We go 52 and 58 in the Callaway Jaws wedges here And I see on the 58 we got i not going to say a messy sole but it had some work done what specifically yeah we just

take off a little bit here on the heel when when you need to lay it open and especially

especially on firmer turfs then yeah it can it can bounce a little bit too much otherwise on the

heels so we shave a little bit off that and in terms of I've tried at times to to take take out

the three iron I strengthened the four iron a little bit and and try and work in four wedges

but I always felt like I was probably because of the two wood forward it was a big gap down that

end and that's always been a strong part of my game as well with the long iron so I felt like

I exposed myself a bit too much there and not gained enough on that so I've always kind of

bounce back to three wedges so if I would have had a fourth one that would have gone as well

Okay lovely and are you a guy who changes his wedges for the venue and the ground conditions

or you just have your setup and you adapt from there because you play a lot of different grasses

right? Yeah I tend to have the same ones. I tried a little bit last week at Troon and have one

one of the new Callaway wedges that had less bounce on it and it was a bit sharper but then

out of the bunker you feel like it's always always a bit of bit of give and take so um yeah i i tend

to stick with the same ones okay brilliant and then finally into the putter i've always been

intrigued by these grips you use on the part of the garson grips yeah so what got you in that so

for those who don't know we've got a ridge that sits all the way down the front of the grip here

you sort of guide your your wrists into a more yeah you kind of end up on on the outside of

of that reminder instead a little bit. So it's, yeah, I just, I tried them out

My, my putting coach, Phil Kenyon, he wanted my left hand to be a bit weaker

and then I kind of matched up well with that grip. And then I've tend to use this, this model

and in different finishes for, for quite some, quite a long time over those 10 years

So we've got the number seven here, stroke lab, big seven and some nice Swedish custom colors there for you. Yeah. Yeah

Really nice. And board wise? Oh, there's a little bit on the way. a bit of customization throughout the set there

So that's great. That's a really good look inside the back. Can you just tell me ball-wise what you play? I play the regular Pro V1, the 23 version

Okay, great. Well, thank you very much for your time. Really appreciate that and great luck this week

Thank you. Thanks