After Gary Woodland’s unique Cobra driver build

Gary Woodland’s Cobra OPTM Max LS-K driver it’s not just a gun off the tee, it’s also a fully armored tank!

Woodland got his Long-awaited fifth PGA Tour win on Sundayseven years after his US Open victory, and the driver was a big reason why.

The 41-year-old, who leads the PGA Tour in driving distance and club speed, called at Memorial Park on Sunday, leading the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee in the final round on his way to a five-stroke victory.

Woodland sports one of the more interesting driver setups on the PGA Tour, opting for the Cobra prototype OPTM Max LS-K driversomething Cobra Tour Rep Ben Schomin is described as a “working prototype” earlier this season. It’s essentially a lower-spin, slimmed-down version of Cobra’s retail Max K driver that was built specifically with Woodland in mind when he started playing Cobra’s DS-ADAPT Max-K driver last season.

“This is my 18th year on tour, and the drivers I’ve played when I’ve been driving the golf ball well have been back-weighted,” Woodland told GOLF in February, referring to the deeper CG of drivers designed for game-enhancing players. “Everybody wants the front weight to reduce spin and distance. But for some reason, I’m back with it and I started struggling with the spin last year. I went through all the drivers and got to their Max K driver last year, and for some reason it was low spin for me.”

With that deep CG, Woodland prefers a lower head, which is why its driver measures just 6.4 degrees of loft. He also pairs it with a telephone pole-like Ventus Black 8-X shaft.

When Max Homa briefly went over the prototype earlier this year, Schomin explained that because the LS-K is not a production model like the regular OPTM LS, X and Max-K, they can still make changes to it. The goal is to test design and performance concepts for potential use in future production models.

Compared to the production Max-K, the LSK has a similar shape, but a lower and deeper CG to reduce spin and produce a neutral fade bias, Schomin said.

Unlike OPTM’s line of retail drivers, which have glossy crowns, the LS-K has a matte finish because it’s easier for the company to roll it out on Tour. Woodland has been using the prototype since the PNC Championship in December.

He also pairs the prototype head with a lead-tube Fujikura Ventus Black 8-X with VeloCore+, a shaft that many players have in their 5/7 woods, but Woodland likes a heavy driver shaft in a shorter length to pair with his smoother swing.

Gary Woodland’s winning driver at the 2026 Texas Children’s Houston Open