Back at Phoenix Open, Cobra guys Rickie Fowler, Gary Woodland recall their cut-down clubs

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Rickie Fowler and Gary Woodland have quite a bit in common. They each have a WM Phoenix Open title on their resume. Each guy has played the PGA Tour stop at TPC Scottsdale more than any other event in their careers. They're both members of the Cobra family. And they both learned the game playing on cut-down clubs.

In Woodland's case, he can perfectly recall his first club.

"My first golf club, I still have," he said at a recent outing with fellow Cobra players Fowler, Drew Stoltz and Ben Schomin, Cobra's tour ops manager. "My dad cut down one of my mom’s 3-woods, a Palmer Lite. And I saw it not too long ago. That was my first golf club."

What about your first set?

"My first set of clubs were actually Cobra. If you can believe that, because I’m with Cobra now. They were Greg Norman Cobra junior clubs. I still have them," he said.

Fowler remembers his first club, too.

"My grandpa had cut down a bunch of stuff for me. He started playing golf, basically when he introduced me to it, and he just cut down some old stuff," he said. "I remember I had a little, old persimmon 5-wood that was basically my go-to."

Does he still have that relic?

"It's probably at my parent's house. That'd be my guess," he said confirming it wasn't sold in a long-ago garage sale. "No, no. There's plenty of stuff at my parent's house, old trophies and bags and clubs."

Woodland knows where his first club is, too.

"That first club? My dad kept it. The grip is completely deteriorated. I need to put a new grip on it but it’s cool to have because I have pictures of me hitting balls when I was 3 years old and it was that club. It’s really cool to have it still."

The Cobra duo are a mainstay at the WM Phoenix Open. Fowler first played TPC Scottsdale on a sponsor exemption in 2009.

"This is the event I’ve played more than any other. This is Year 17," Fowler said.

"I’ve played this tournament, I think, the most of any tournament I’ve played on the PGA Tour," Woodland added.

The coincidences go one step further, as they won it in consecutive years: Woodland in 2018, Fowler in 2019.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: WM Phoenix Open: Rickie Fowler, Gary Woodland talk about cut-down clubs