So here’s a question: Which is the longest iron in Fred Couples’ bag? Now, unless you’re an avid golf fan, and have seen the former world number one’s interaction on social media at last week’s Pure Insurance Championship, it’s unlikely you have any inkling of what Couples’ reconfigured golf bag looks like.
The longest iron in Couples bag, is, believe-it-or-not, a seven-iron. Many of Couples’ peers on the Champions Tour have similar bag setups but this is ‘Boom Boom,’ we’re talking about: with that instantly-recognisable buttery-smooth golf swing that dispatches golf balls inordinately long distances, Couples is recognised as one of the finest iron players ever to swing a golf club.
Unfortunately, that unique swing—gorgeous and effortless as it looks—also generates a great deal of torque, most of which is transmitted to his lower spine. And Couples has been dealing with chronic back issues for most of his long career.
The inflection point came in April 2024, when Couples missed the cut at The Masters Tournament for the fifth time in six years.
In 2023, (then) 63-year-old Couples—easily one of the most popular players in the modern era—had become the oldest person to make the cut at the event with rounds of 71 and 74. This year though, his luck, or rather his back, ran out. “My back is shot…” he said. “I went around, every wood I hit was really, really solid, but it is howling,” he said. “But an iron, as soon as I hit one — on 7 I hit a 6-iron because I didn’t know what else to hit, and I carried it about 100 yards. No. 9, I hit a great drive and then had 125, and I had 50 yards left for my third. I can’t hit an iron. My body won’t let me do it,” he admitted. His struggle wasn’t lost on his fans who thought that Couples might contemplate retirement after shooting an 80—only for the second time in 39 career starts—at an event that he has always managed to bring his A game to. Couples laid those rumours to rest after assuring fans that he plans to be back at Augusta in 2025 and proceeded to take a break from pro golf.
It was at the Pure Insurance Championship—the first event he teed it up at after April—that fans got an indication of how Couples plans to extend his playing career.
“You have an old man’s bag,” says a Champions Tour social media worker to Couples after looking at his clubs in a video shared by the Tour on X. “I have six woods. A driver, 3-wood, 5-wood, 3-rescue, 4-rescue, 5-rescue, and 6-rescue. And I’m loving life. It’s going to get me through these three days,” Couples responds.
Playing with Jay Haas during the third round of the event, Couples is nonchalant about the shocked responses he’s been getting. “Everyone keeps talking about ‘em,” he says about his clubs. “I’m like, so I got my longest iron is a 7. Who cares?” He says with a shrug and asks for a six-rescue when his caddie gives him the yardage (177 yards).
A trademark silky swing caresses the ball to the green. Haas is impressed: “Six (iron)?” He asks, “Six-rescue,” replies Couples with a grin. “Better than the 5. You know, I couldn’t hit that with a 6-iron. I’m not strong enough anymore. I hate to say that…”
Couples’ fan appeal is all too easy to understand: here’s a man who was till not long back one of the longest hitters in golf, and who’s unabashedly moved to whichever clubs will get the job done while inflicting minimal damage to his body.
Is there a lesson there for the weekend golfer? Or for that matter, a golfer who’s not (yet) injured but is putting himself at risk by trying to nail long and mid-irons that are unsuitable for his level of play in any case? Absolutely. But we weekend warriors have always known that. And yet not many of us have
actually acted on that premise: most of us continue to carry mid- and long-irons we couldn’t hit to save our lives. But even those of us who do have that ability, could probably hit rescue clubs the same distance with higher trajectories and a fraction of the effort it takes to get a long-iron an equivalent height into the air.
Gary Player, the legendary South African had similar views about the physically demanding classic golf swing that was popular in his time. “At some point you can’t make this swing anymore…” he wrote in his popular instruction book for seniors —Golf begins at 50 — advocating an easier, less body-oriented ‘Walk Through Swing,’ with which he had great success in the latter part of his career. There were no utility clubs in Player’s time. The infamous ‘1-iron,’ used by some of his peers off the tee, has long disappeared into the annals of golf history.
And yet, a few of us, continue to carry long — and player’s irons.
Your columnist being a case in point, longest iron in his bag? A bladed 2-iron. What can I say… not all of us are as as self-assured as Fred Couples. Besides, some of us have a mental block against using those new-fangled rescue clubs. No club could rescue ourselves from ourselves.