The game-enhancing hybrid played by Cam Young? It is my weapon

When Cameron Young came out of the Titleist GT1 hybrid he used to win the Players Championship, one of the coolest stories I've seen on the PGA Tour this year lost his temper.

Still, that didn't make me curious to see if the club could help my game, and it turns out that this game-enhancing hybrid is a “7-wood” I've never had.

I entered the GT1 combine last month at the Titleist Performance Institute, and to my great surprise, the club made me a bag for my latest state qualifier, easily beating my previous competitor.

This is a part of the bag that I've struggled to find the right fit for years, but now I may have a solution and you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

What is Titleist's GT1 hybrid?

When it was released, the GT1 hybrid was not a club I would have ever expected to end up in my wallet, let alone a Tour professional's wallet. The “1” in Titleist's metalwood lineup has long been an ultra-lightweight and high-launching model, aimed at players who swing slower to get the ball higher.

But both the GT1 fairway wood and the hybrid have found their way into the bags of other players on the Titleist staff this season, including Young and Tom Kim. The hybrid features a larger profile that puts it between the size of a hybrid and a high-lofted fairway wood, with a sharp front edge that helps cut through the soil.

The size is unusual in the industry, with only the Callaway Apex UW fitting the same profile.

Young and Kim both added a hybrid to their portfolios at the Farmers Insurance Open to take advantage of that flexibility and gain more launch. Young even put a fairway wood shaft on him to get what JJ Van Wezenbeeck, Titleist's senior director of player promotions, called “a lot of flight” in the soft fairway shaft. The GT1 hybrid has the unique ability to accept both standard .370″ hybrid shafts and .335″ fairway wood shafts, although currently the only one available from Titleist is the Fujikura Air Speeder, the shaft included in the club.

With a standard weight shaft, the club plays with a standard swingweight.

When I looked at the club to switch from my small driver to my irons, I was immediately interested.

What I wanted

I ignored hybrids for a few years because I couldn't find one that didn't go left. Last year, I found one that was instantly better than anything else I had in the Ping G440 3-hybrid with a Nippon Modus GOST shaft.

I could hit it high in the air and fly it about 240 yards.

That shaft is a very heavy and stiff beast that produced the powerful flight I was looking for. At first, it also prevented the ball from going to the left.

But for whatever reason, this year, I struggled with the team and the left miss reared its ugly head again. Perhaps related, I noticed a slight decrease in spin, and the ball was traveling much longer.

Both of these problems cost me in my first qualifying of the season, where I needed hybrids many times on a short and tight course. What good is hitting a hybrid 280 yards if the fairway ends at 260?

Fortunately, I found a new shaft that partially solved the spin and left problems on the Fujikura Ventus Blue HB+. The new build is great, but because the old shaft was so heavy, the club feels light, so I may still have some work to do with it.

Enter the GT1 mixture

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During my installation at TPI with ace putter Louis Raynard, who once fitted me with my set of T-Series irons and SM11 wedges, we were comparing the new GT1 and GTS3 7-wood and 5-wood.

The reason the hybrid breaks better for me is that I tend to add more loft at impact. When I find a wood with a lot of loft, like a 7 wood, I tend to hit it straight into the air with a high spin. Hybrids have a much flatter flight for me, which means more control.

Louis gave me the GT1 first, and, frankly, didn't give anything else a chance. With the 20-degree GT1 “4-hybrid” lowered a degree and flattened a degree, I instantly gained 3 mph more ball speed than my gamer, 20 feet more loft and 300 rpm more spin. The club just cut through the turf like iron and launched with ease. Each shot was simply a top draw. Set to 19 degrees, the GT1 was the same loft and .25″ shorter than my player.

We got close with the GTS3 7-wood turned high in the 5-wood shaft, but the hybrid won with ease and consistency. It also seemed like I was timing the Ventus Blue HB.

This game-enhancing hybrid was the best “7-wood” I had that day.

GT1 on the go

I don't think I realized how important the GT1 hybrid was to me until I played with it on the course.

When I got the club, I initially thought I'd use it for the situation, knowing that my Ping hybrid was the middle ground between my GT1 and my 3-iron. I was calling GT1 when the course was really tight and I needed to hit the ball high to hit the green.

But then I realized that I can be flat, even in the air. Suddenly, this was a club I could hit without worrying about it going too far or ballooning up in the air and going nowhere.

What really sold me was the turf interaction on the deck. In the practice round for the tournament, I faced a shot 220 yards into the air and over the water on a green with little to help. The lie was narrow with little grass and I had trouble hitting my golfer's mix well.

Then I took the GT1 and dropped it into the heart of the green divot, clean and all, 15 feet from the hole.

Once I discovered how easy I could make the track, the GT1 became a game changer. I ended up hitting four of the five fairways with it the next day, including a tough par-5 shot that kept me up the night before. It led to the bird.

The Bottom Line

Titleist GT1 Custom Hybrid

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If a game development club can fit into the wallet of the world's best, why can't they work for you?

Even more surprising is that the GT1 comes standard in a rear-weight configuration – you can move the heavy weight forward at low flight – but I haven't touched it yet. I have no problem hitting the GT1 between 130 feet into the sky or 70 feet down. What do I need to try to gain weight?

If you are afraid of missing the left, you should also know that I actually moved the weight from the flat position back to the normal position because I had trouble turning it. Your results will vary, but for me, as a loser, so far so good.

In short, GT1 is worth your attention if you've overlooked it before, like I did.

The author welcomes your comments at [email protected].

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