Equipment Insider: Villegas keeps his driver, irons short

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Each week in the Equipment Insider, Adam Barr -- PGATOUR.COM's equipment columnist -- will provide breaking news, notes and analysis focused on PGA TOUR players. Adam will also appear in video segments for PGATOUR.COM.

Check out more of Adam Barr's equipment coverage at AdamBarrGolfGearGuide.com.

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Never mind the practice round. Camilo Villegas didn't have time to get used to the Champion Course at PGA National before The Honda Classic. Between his T8 finish in the Waste Management Phoenix Open and the starting bell in West Palm Beach for The Honda Classic, Villegas shot back to his native Colombia to open the Nationwide Tour event down there. Then he got off the plane, shot four rounds in the 60s, and collected the trophy. Nice week.

Villegas puts further luster on a good start to the year for Cobra Golf, another of whose major endorsers also has won this season (Ian Poulter at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship).

Scotty Cameron Circa '62 No. 6 putter

In Spiderman's bag for the win were:

• Cobra S9-1 Pro S driver (10.5 degrees with a Matrix Ozik TP7 shaft, XX flex)

• Cobra Speed LD FST 3- and 5-woods (True Temper Grafalloy ProLite shafts, X flex)

• Titleist 909H hybrid (24 degrees with True Temper XHC1 graphite shaft)

• Cobra Pro CB irons (5-PW with Project X Tour Flighted 7.0 shafts)

• Three Titleist Vokey Design Spin Milled wedges (54, 58 and 60 degrees, with Project X 7.0 wedge shafts)

• Scotty Cameron Circa '62 No. 6 putter

• The golf ball was a Titleist Pro V1

Clearly, all those muscles aren't just for show. Look at the shaft flexes: XX, X, 7.0. This guy hammers it. But there's more to Villegas' sticks than just resistance to the incredible force he puts them through. At 5' 9", Camilo is hardly what you'd call short, but he also isn't a big tall guy. So shaft length is important in keeping his contact pure. Villegas prefers his overall driver length at 44 inches, which is considered an inch shorter than standard, Cobra says. His fairway woods are a half inch short, and his irons are a quarter inch under.

As a lot of us know from experience, contact gets a whole lot easier when the clubs are the right length, removing the repeating fat or thin shot. But the fitting lesson is this: Although Villegas may need to trim his lengths, another 5' 9" player may not, or may even want his clubs longer. We all come at it in our own unique way, from angle of attack to speed to face angle at impact. So what works for one highly talented, incredibly popular South American pro may not be the exact formula for... well, you get the idea.

• Villegas' win was a Monday topic on the range at TPC Blue Monster, but the louder buzz followed these words, often said through smiling lips: "Pater did what?" Up and down the tee line, his old colleagues were pleasantly surprised that Steve Pate won the Pacific Rubiales Bogota Open presented by Samsung, the event Villegas flew home to open. Pate, who is about 14 months shy of Champions Tour age, has been playing where he can to hone his game for the Champions Tour. The Colombia win, in a two-hole playoff over Aaron Watkins, might be a signal that he's ready. In his run to oldest-winner-in-Natiowide-Tour-history status, Pate relied on a TaylorMade R9 460 driver (8.5 degrees with a Fujikura Speeder 665 shaft), plus a complete TaylorMade bag including a fairway wood, hybrid and 3-PW in the irons.

• Over on the Champions Tour, Fred Couples, who is only a couple years older than Pate, notched his second Champions Tour win in as many starts at the Toshiba Classic. That made Bridgestone happy; Couples played their J38 Dual Pocket Cavity irons and the B330 golf ball.