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Sahith Theegala is so afraid of one common club that he erased the number from his bag – Australian Golf Digest

Sahith Theegala is so afraid of one common club that he erased the number from his bag – Australian Golf Digest

Every golfer has a favorite club in their bag. Same for PGA Tour players, of course, but how about their least favorite? There’s one stick that virtually every player has that Sahith Theegala refuses to carry.

A 7-iron.

There’s a story behind that, of course. While guesting on Friday with Golf Channel’s Smylie Kaufman during the second-round “Happy Hour” at The Sentry on Maui, Theegala went over the “very weird” bag setup he has. The Californian and one-time PGA Tour winner doesn’t carry a 3-wood, and depending on the course, he sometimes includes a 19-degree 5-wood, 24-degree 9-wood and a strong 2-hybrid he’s dubbed “Franken-hybred”—or “Frank” for short. Theegala, 27, admitted he’s now considering putting two drivers into play.

“Honestly, it all started off with, I just love to have fun with golf,” Theegala explained to Kaufman. “Me and my buddies are always brainstorming … how I can have more fun, but also have it be at least useful and efficient, and I can actually put something into my golf game.”

One other oddity: He has two irons marked with an “8,” Theegala said, because he has never felt comfortable using a standard 7-iron. “Least favorite club in my bag,” he said. “It’s been in my dome since I was a kid. I swear, I never hit it on the range and every time I had a 7-iron into a par-3, it was, ‘oh god, just find the green.’ Finally, I said screw it, I’m shaving down an 8-iron. And boom, it’s been great ever since.”

In an interview in the fall, Theegala recounted that he hit so many poor shots in a short stretch last year with the 7-iron that he asked his club maker, Ping, at the BMW Championship in the FedEx Cup Playoffs to scrape off the “7” on his club and put a different font of “8” on it. Ping then added lead tape to restore some balance.

Theegala, who shot 68 on Friday after opening The Sentry with a 76, calls it the 8 “plus” but says he needs to come up with a more catchy nickname.

“It’s so fun; I’m kind of a golf junkie at heart,” he said. “To have these assortment of clubs, it kind of makes me happy to look in my bag, in a weird way.”

Keep it up, Sahith, because we’re smiling, too.

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com