Professional golfers are notoriously picky when it comes to their equipment – it is their livelihood, after all, – and most won’t put something in the bag unless they’re absolutely sure it’s the right fit.
And for a pressure-filled week like Q-School, where their entire next season is literally on the line, making sweeping changes is even less common, but that’s exactly what Eddie Pepperell did and the risk paid off as he finished tied for 12th, birdieing his final four holes to stage a late charge and earn a return to the DP World Tour of 2026.
On The Chipping Forecast podcast where Pepperell appears alongside the BBC’s Andrew Cotter and Iain Carter, the likeable Englishman was giving a brief rundown on his activities since returning home after the gruelling week when he divulged that the clubs that served him well on the week weren’t those that had been in his bag for most of the season.
“What have I been doing? I’ve been quite tired, maybe as to be expected, I suppose,” he replied to Cotter’s question about his recent doings. “So, not been up to much. Did pop into Srixon to get my irons fixed and sorted this morning, which was helpful. and discovered something which I thought may have been the case.
“I don’t know that I mentioned this,” he added. “I took an old set of clubs away to Q-School with me. I just put a different set entirely, a combination set, actually. So clubs that I actually hadn’t hit for years in some cases.”
He finished the week on 19-under after six gruelling rounds, so the clubs served him well, but there could’ve been disastrous consequences, as unwittingly, he’d taken a club that was set differently to the rest.
“My gap wedge was two degrees upright, and I thought something was wrong with it because it kept going left,” he said. ”And so today I asked them, I said, ‘look, can you tell me if this gap-wedge is upright or whether it’s just me, because I’ve hit it left a lot and it nearly cost me at second stage’, and he said, ‘no, it is two degrees upright’.
“So yeah, good job I went.
“I did want to get it sorted at final stage, but the machine that was on site there was so old that none of the younger tour staff knew how to use it and I couldn’t get hold of the professional.
“I mean, Jamie [Herbert – a PGA Professional and Pepperell’s caddie for the week] could have possibly done it, but we didn’t know for sure if it was upright or not.
“I just thought it was because it kept going left, and it was funny because Derek sent me a video from one of the days where I hit it left in the water and I looked at the swing and I thought, ‘that doesn’t look like it should have gone left to me’. And it did.
“And so, yeah, I’m glad that I was it was confirmed. It was two degrees upright. It wasn’t me. I mean, it’s never me, obviously,” he added with a laugh.
