Adrian Rietveld works closely with TaylorMade’s players to get them ready week in week out at PGA Tour events. But how is it different for Augusta, and what’s it like having Tiger Woods on the team? We’ll let him explain…
To prepare for the Masters is actually easier because you’re not taking a gamble on certain things. Augusta National is such a controlled environment and it has been played there for so long the golf course is so managed and manicured that they can prepare for any weather condition.
So the predictability of what you can expect is very high, you know what you are going to get. You know what the greens are going to be like, you know what the bunkers are going to be like, you know how they mow the fairways, all these things are so predictable.
Tthe more you play it, the more you understand and the more you know what you need. So you can actually prepare so well for that major versus any other major.
There is so much going on behind the scenes. It’s constantly ongoing and its not only with the equipment. We have in-house people that do deep analytics work with specific players on all areas of their game, talking about what does it take to win the Masters from a putting standpoint, from a short-game standpoint. All these different areas of the game and the equipment clearly is part of the answer.
We did a photo shoot with Rory McIlroy in November. You may have seen the video of him with the hybrid? That was a huge moment. Rory was like, ‘I’ve never hit a hybrid but look at this.’ He’s loving hitting this club and he turns and looks at Keith, who is our head of PGA Tour operations and my boss out here, and goes, ‘Augusta?’ All of a sudden he’s thinking of shots around the course where this is going to really help him, where he needs to go high and land soft. So these guys really do prepare for Augusta so much more than any other tournament. It’s strange.
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