Standing nearly 6-foot-9, Tommy Morrison is impossible to miss on the range, but his rapid ascent from college standout at the University of Texas to Korn Ferry Tour winner and newly minted PGA Tour cardholder is what commands real attention.
Building a setup for a player of Morrison’s stature is a specialized craft. Callaway’s Manager of Amateur & College Player Development, Matt Haneline, has worked closely with Morrison since he was 14 years old. So let’s jump in to what goes into fitting one of the tallest golfers out on the PGA Tour.
It’s not just about adding length
When fitting a player pushing seven feet tall, the initial assumption is that clubs need to be extreme in length. However, geometry tells another story.
“Usually taller players also have really long arms, so their arm-to-ground ratio is about the same as what a shorter player is,” Haneline explained. “It was really just trying to figure out the appropriate length to where he could feel like he could stand comfortably and swing the way that he wanted to swing. We landed on 1.5 inches long on the irons and wedge builds, and 1.0 inch long on the woods.”
The major technical challenge with extended shafts, paired with the larger grips needed for Morrison’s hand size, is avoiding an uncontrollable jump in overall swingweight.
“You just have to be cautious that the overall weight doesn’t get too heavy,” Haneline added. “So making sure that the swing weights are still within the range that he likes, that D4, D6 range.”
Neutralizing the “Texas Swing”
Morrison grew up battling the Texas wind, which initially encouraged a steeper, across-the-line move to drive ball flight down. Prior to college, Morrison linked up with swing instructor Jamie Mulligan and his team at Virginia Country Club to “take the Texas out of his swing” and build a more neutral delivery.
“He can work it in any direction that he likes, has tons of control with trajectory, but his kind of go-to stock shot that we try to target every time is something that’s starting pretty straight and falling right,” Haneline said.
Now it doesn’t mean that Morrison’s bag setup is maintained to exclusively move the ball from left-to-right. Haneline worked with Morrison to create a few options off the tee that help him when other shot shapes are needed.
“Depending on course setup, the utility iron might be designed to go really low, or he has a hybrid that he can draw pretty easily if he needs to,” Haneline added.
Morrison’s superpower setup
While spectators assume Morrison’s height yields overpowering ball speed, his real separator is his touch around the greens.
“I watched him play at the Southern Am during COVID, and he hit this incredible open-faced 60, low one-hop stop, about 20 yards to this nasty front pin,” Haneline recalled. “I turned to a PGA Tour coach standing next to me and said, ‘He has the best short game of any player that I’ve ever seen.’ At 15, he had the best short game in junior golf. In college, he had the best short game in college golf.”
Morrison plays Callaway Opus SP wedges (46-10S, 52-10S, 56-10S, and a 60-8C bent to 62°). While his gap and sand wedges feature standard grinds, his lob wedge is unique to him:
“His 60 is set up in a way where there’s a good amount of heel relief on the club so that he can lay that face wide open and still keeps the leading edge down to the ground,” Haneline said. And then there’s a decent amount of bounce still on that back trail edge for shots that he would hit where the face is straight.”
This setup allows him to manipulate loft purely through wrist release and face angle, executing anything from low checking spinners to towering flop shots.
Big switches since turning pro
Transitioning from college golf to the Korn Ferry Tour, Morrison made two major equipment transitions:
1. Switching to the Chrome Tour X
Morrison moved into the Chrome Tour X for a number of reasons. As a higher-spinning tour ball, the Chrome Tour X preserves greenside spin on off-speed touch shots, which, with Morrison’s short game, seemed like a perfect fit.
Haneline also noted that elite players find it far easier to pull spin off the ball or flight it down with technique than to artificially manufacture spin out of a low-spin ball, but wanted to keep Morrison in the higher-level spinning ball to offer him more options into greens.
“When he needs to hit the flat one, he can take spin off with his technique, but we really targeted with him, again, because of the strength of his short game, keeping him at that higher end of spin so that he has the maximum amount of shots available to him,” said Haneline.
The change in golf ball also gave Morrison immediate ball speed gains while also better control.
“It’s a very, very fast golf ball, and then he’s noticed some better flights, more consistent flights and crosswinds with that aerodynamic package, so it’s worked very well for him,” Haneline added.
2. The custom Odyssey TRTL putter
Morrison putter isn’t the length of a standard PGA Tour player, so transitioning into Odyssey’s high-MOI and newly launched TRTL mallet was a pretty simple process with the help of the four sole weights.
“His putter is just about the length of what a normal seven iron is for most of us,” Haneline said. “It allowed us to really dial in the weight for him for what he’s looking for.”
With the TRTL design, Morrison liked the option for a long sightline front to back to help his aim, and he uses just slightly over four degrees of loft so that the putter sits extremely square for him. His putter is different from the one at retail, but it’s just cosmetics.
“We showed him originally when he did the testing the standard one, which is green and black, and he liked that, but we had another one made where we basically sandblasted it and it was all silver, one color,” Haneline said. “And as soon as he set it down, he said, ‘This is the one, I’m taking this.”
Full WITB Specifications: Tommy Morrison
Driver: Callaway Quantum Triple Diamond (9 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 6 X
3-wood: Callaway Quantum Triple Diamond (15 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 8 X
Hybrid: Callaway Quantum Max (19 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus HB Blue 9 X
Irons: Callaway Apex Pro (4), Callaway Apex TCB (5-9)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100
Wedges: Callaway Opus SP (46-10S, 52-10S, 56-10S, 60-8C @62)
Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 (46-56), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 (60)
Putter: Odyssey TRTL Prototypes
Grips: Golf Pride MCC
Ball: Callaway Chrome Tour X
