Harris English’s win came after one under-the-radar gear shift

After his crew’s win at the Farmers Insurance Open this weekend, Ping Tour representative Kenton Oates called Harris English “a creature of habit and routine.”

“He loves the system of what it takes to be great in this game and it bleeds through in what you see in his bag,” Oates said.

If you look at the English golf bag, it is not difficult to see where Oates finds the “creature of habit”. It starts with his 14-year-old Ping Scottsdale Hohum putter and moves on to his G400 fairway wood, which came out in 2018. The current line model clubs Harris has in the bag are his set of Ping Blueprint T irons.

But if you look closely, English actually changed a piece of gear in his bag for the first time this week in San Diego.

English was the first player to switch to a full set of new MCC Align Max grips for Golf Pride. Golf Pride hasn’t released the Align Max yet so details are still sketchy, but Golf Pride’s US Competitions Manager Brett Zollman confirmed that the new design is based on the company’s popular grip technology, but with a new and improved reminder.

Golf Pride’s Align grip, like a regular ribbed grip, features a reminder ridge under the grip to help players stay aware of the angle of the face. But by alignment, instead of being inside the group, the ridge is outside the catch. Xander Schauffele won two majors last season with MCC Align, which came out in 2017.

Harris switched to the Align Max from the original Align on Monday, just two days before Wednesday’s start at Torrey Pines.

“What he liked about it especially in his glove hand, he felt like he had a little more reminder in that hand, and his forearm and his fingers,” Zollman told GOLF Sunday. “He is a player who feels and knows that it was a big thing for him to be able to raise awareness with his fingers.”

English was introduced to the new handle last fall, but Torrey Pines was the first to see the finished handle ready for installation.