Rory McIlroy Made a Last-Minute Equipment Tweak Thanks to This Local Golf Shop

The employees at the Memphis branch of Edwin Watts Golf Shop suddenly had an important task on their hands.

Rory McIlroy put a new putter in play at this week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship, and although it has been serving him well in competition, he realized on Friday evening that it needed a slight adjustment. 

McIlroy switched to the Scotty Cameron Phantom X 5.5 this week, and after playing with it for two rounds—and shooting 67 and 66—he felt as though it was just a touch longer than his old putter.

“Like half an inch. It’s funny, I didn’t really notice it in practice, and then once I got into competitive play, I always put my right hand on my putter first to go in and out. I just felt like where my right hand was at the top, it just felt a little too up. So I compared it to my Spider last night, it was like half an inch. It wasn’t like a huge difference,” he said. 

The four-time major champion’s issue would have been an easy fix if it were Tuesday or Wednesday of the tournament week. On those days, the PGA Tour equipment trucks are parked on course property. They’re there to assist players with any and all equipment-related needs. 

But it was Friday when McIlroy noticed his putter problem, and the trucks were long gone, so McIlroy’s caddie, Harry Diamond had to get creative. 

Diamond apparently took McIlroy’s new putter to a branch of Edwin Watts Golf Shop—a Southern golf retail chain—to make the adjustment. 

“Harry took it to Edwin Watts, I guess, and got someone to do it,” he said. “But then he got in touch with Paul from Scotty Cameron, and Paul was sort of like, it probably moved a swing weight or two, so just added a bit of weight to it this morning to try to balance it out. But felt better.”

The story is even better from the perspective of the staff at the local Edwin Watts branch.

Chris Oden was posted at the store’s front desk when Diamond walked in with two putters in his hand. 

“He said ‘I got two putters here. I need to get this one cut to the same length as this one.’ And he put them on the ground and I said, ‘They are the same length.’ He goes, ‘No, this one’s longer than that one.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but you’re talking about like an eighth of an inch. Nobody’s going to notice that. 

“He said, ‘Rory will.’ I said, ‘Oh yeah, he will,” Oden said. In that moment, Oden realized who he was speaking to.

Jim Hudson, the store’s manager and club repairer, apparently saw the conversation between Oden and Diamond—not yet knowing who Diamond was—and motioned to Oden that he couldn’t take on any more work before the shop closed for the night. 

“I just yelled back, ‘You’re gonna want to do this one,’” Oden said. 

Hudson willingly made the small tweak to McIlroy’s putter, and the two staffers sent Diamond on his way. 

“We got it done,” Oden said, “It was pretty cool. It was like an eighth of an inch. It’s just how good these guys are. Nobody in the world would ever notice the difference in those putter lengths, except a PGA Tour player, and sure enough.” 

McIlroy went on to shoot a 2-under 68 with the repaired putter and sits tied for sixth, five shots behind the solo leader, Lucas Glover.